Video clips trend

 For those folks who haven’t seen it and live in a cave, the talk of the Kingdom is the catchy music video clip Al Bortougala, popularly known as the Orange Song. It’s based on Iraqi folklore and provides eye candy of women dancing in an unusual style with their long dark hair trailing behind them.

The video is in heavy rotation. It’s gossiped about at the office water cooler and men fight over the TV remote at the local café. The din of the local coffee house dies down noticeably as everyone stares at the plump and round women moving seductively on the screen.

“Where ever I go, people talk and talk about Al Bortougala,” said Ali a young fan of the video. “My collogues gossip about it in the office. Young men wait for it in the cafes.”

Viewers holding remote controls, shifting from one channel to the other looking for the video clip. They are sending SMS to music channels requesting to see it again and again. It is the most popular ring tone for mobiles. Men and women obtain the video clip from the Internet on their own; they share them through Bluetooth, new technology for mobiles.

In the West where more provocative images of Jennifer Lopez, and Brittney Spears hardly raise an eyebrow and the curves and blonde tresses of Lebanese pop stars, in which every Saudi woman is apparently unfairly judged by, the Orange Song is relatively tame.

But in Saudi Arabia it has created somewhat of a moral debate, if not a crisis. What kind of impact does music videos have on Saudi youths? The answer may be that we may never know.

Music has always been a hot-button issue. Think of African-American jazz in the 1920s; swing music in the 1940s; Elvis and Rock ‘n Roll in the’50s; the Beatles in the’60s. Each era, at least according to the adult world, spelled doom for society’s youth.

Now Saudi adults have joined the doom club. “I enjoy watching these video clips and they are fine,” said 15-year-old Mohaned, a student. “I often download them from the websites on my cellular phone. I share them with my friends. And I prefer to watch the Western songs and listen to Rock songs not the Arabic ones. Boys like to wear the same style as pop stars do. They look for these fashions all the time in shops and they like to wear them.”

Abadi, 17, a high school student, said the videos are great for dancing. “Video clips are great,” Abadi said. “We like them, we get them recorded and play them to do the same dancing as funky and the others. We wear the same style as pop stars even it is silly. To us it’s no problem (to) wear it. We like to make our hair in a fashionable manner. If someone is twisting his hair or just leave it in crazy style, we do it. We enjoy that.”

Raghadaa , 23,  now at the university studying medicine, said that watching video clips makes one aware of the way teenagers are  thinking.

“I watch video clips and movies during the vacation when I am bored want to just have fun and give silly remarks about them,” Raghdaa said. “I don’t know all the singers because every week there is someone new. Now, they have Western names like Maria or Sofia.”

Raghdaa said she doesn’t copy their manner of dress or hairstyle or make-up.

“Teenagers may do so but not me,” said Raghdaa. “But some of my relatives imitate the way the stars or singers dress up, they even buy the same dresses.”
Watching TV and movies may change the way people act, think, and feel. Whether these changes are good or bad has become a subject of intense debate.
Many adults feel that since they freely watched television when they were young and don't think that they were negatively affected, television doesn't have a significant impact on their children. The difference, though, lies in the nature of the programs that were prevalent in previous generations compared to now.
Those video clips are not just entertainment and they really have serious effects, some child experts say.

Children see people on TV and they imitate them as role models. Dr. Nehal Mohammed Arfan, a consultant and psychologist on teenagers, said that video clips are “not our culture and principles of what our kids watch. They are against us and they teach teenagers bad things. They are a waste of time.”

“Kids are confused,” Arfan said. “They watch these video clips to belong to their friends who watch them.  Some parents just let their kids see these video clips without any direction or supervision and this is unhealthy. Other parents do not forbid their kids. They rather let them watch them and they give their opinion about them. This is the best way to go through this. (Something) forbidden is desired. It’s not good to prohibit them because they will try to see them. If it’s not allowed in the house, then at their friends’ houses.”

Arfan said that with children having so much exposure to the media, the messages that come across are important and shape how a child sees the world. A lot of the messages related to violence and sexuality can negatively impact a child, she said

Arfan said video clips are dangerous because they can affect the behavior, morals and the way of thinking of a young person.

“Teenagers adopt the ideas of having a girl or a boyfriend, which is against our religion,” Arfan said. “Video clips play stations and advertisement as well run so quick and they are colored.  It’s the mood of the generation. Kids are impatient. They want everything fast unlike their parents. They don’t think about the outcome of their actions they just do things without thinking in an appropriate  way.”

And that doesn’t even address the sexual aspect of the videos.

“Boys see them and there is no way to express their feeling and emotions,” Arfan said. “So, they just go to malls and create problems with girls. Kids complain about that. They are under pressure of their parents, society and morals.  Girls are complaining that they want to be pretty and coquettish just like stars. They are ready to do stupid thing to be so. They are getting shameless.”
While Saudi society puts pressure on teens and young adults to publicly renounce such behavior as depicted on music videos, it is – as Arfan noted – a forbidden fruit that one enjoys.

Young Saudis are brought up in a manner to hide their feelings and not to tell offer their opinions about what they enjoy of life. They are confused about what they want and what the society and their parents want them to be or do. They never say the truth about what they want for themselves.

And adults can be equally confused. They don’t know whether to watch video clips or not. But in many cases, like their children, they enjoy watch them in their living rooms or bedrooms.

 “Our customers start from the age of 10 to 35,” said a salesman in a shop that sells ring tons and video clips for mobiles. “Our customers are so many, they come asking about the newest video clips to download them on their cellular phones. They pay SR5 for the ring tones and SR10 for the video clips. They buy the cable and a CD for SR150. Our best season is summer, Ramadan and Hajj because people spend their vacation in the Kingdom. They come from Riyadh, Taif and Al-Shargyia. People with a religious attitude prefer to download the Qur'an or Azan, it’s their choice not ours.”  
Video clips affect people daily life. At weddings, women and girls wear similar clothes to pop stars they see in video clips.
Not surprisingly, orange colors dominate the parties just to copy the dancers in Al bortougala video clip. Low waist pants are fashionable for dancing, just like the clips.
In shops, salesmen exposed the fashions like the one in the clips because everyone, including young men, want to see the styles.

 

Girls make their hair the same as the stars.
There are many other clips that are so popular, such as Nancy, a Lebanon singer. Girls buy the same Jalabyai, a traditional and expensive Egyptian dress and headscarf. Roby, an Egyptian singer, had a hit song and it was replayed again and again by music channels.

 
Teacher and social expert on teens, Alia`a Al-Shanhabi, said video clips play a negative role in Saudi society.
 “Parents should be aware of  what their kids watch because the average child between 2 and 11 years old watches over 27 hours of poorly supervised television per week,” Shanhabi said.”(And) because the only thing that kids do more than watch television is sleep, and most parents are unaware of the indecent modern media take with our children, someone must say to parents. Your attention please.”

 Shanhabi said that children fall into the trap. They imitate the singers, wear silly fashion with images of them on shirts with words written on them. They may not understand their meanings. They cut their hair in crazy manners.

“Some of them (boys) put make up on,” she said. “They do not look like men. It’s parents' responsibility to take care about what their kids see,” she added. “They should not prohibit them from watching TV or satellite. They rather must talk and listen to their problems. They must tell their opinion about this strange phenomenon that is invading our society. They must set good examples for their kids.”  
Leena is 24 years old and is studying marketing. She has two younger sisters that she protects.

“When you watch a video clip it looks just like a vulgar movie,” she said. “Words are meaningless, and the rhythm is awful, many girls dance in a bad way, too. I don’t allow my younger sister to see some of them. They are getting worse. TV is not safe. The video clips are not decent. They depend on showing almost naked girls. We have our principles and morals.”

 

 

 

 For those folks who haven’t seen it and
live in a cave, the talk of the Kingdom is the catchy music video clip Al
Bortougala, popularly known as the Orange Song. It’s based on Iraqi folklore
and provides eye candy of women dancing in an unusual style with their long
dark hair trailing behind them.

The video is in heavy rotation. It’s gossiped about at the office water cooler and men fight over the TV remote at the local café. The din of the local coffee house dies down noticeably as everyone stares at the plump and round women moving seductively on the screen.

“Where ever I go, people talk and talk about Al Bortougala,” said Ali a young fan of the video. “My collogues gossip about it in the office. Young men wait for it in the cafes.”

Viewers holding remote controls, shifting from one channel to the other looking for the video clip. They are sending SMS to music channels requesting to see it again and again. It is the most popular ring tone for mobiles. Men and women obtain the video clip from the Internet on their own; they share them through Bluetooth, new technology for mobiles.

In the West where more provocative images of Jennifer Lopez, and Brittney Spears hardly raise an eyebrow and the curves and blonde tresses of Lebanese pop stars, in which every Saudi woman is apparently unfairly judged by, the Orange Song is relatively tame.

But in Saudi Arabia it has created somewhat of a moral debate, if not a crisis. What kind of impact does music videos have on Saudi youths? The answer may be that we may never know.

Music has always been a hot-button issue. Think of African-American jazz in the 1920s; swing music in the 1940s; Elvis and Rock ‘n Roll in the’50s; the Beatles in the’60s. Each era, at least according to the adult world, spelled doom for society’s youth.

Now Saudi adults have joined the doom club. “I enjoy watching these video clips and they are fine,” said 15-year-old Mohaned, a student. “I often download them from the websites on my cellular phone. I share them with my friends. And I prefer to watch the Western songs and listen to Rock songs not the Arabic ones. Boys like to wear the same style as pop stars do. They look for these fashions all the time in shops and they like to wear them.”

Abadi, 17, a high school student, said the videos are great for dancing. “Video clips are great,” Abadi said. “We like them, we get them recorded and play them to do the same dancing as funky and the others. We wear the same style as pop stars even it is silly. To us it’s no problem (to) wear it. We like to make our hair in a fashionable manner. If someone is twisting his hair or just leave it in crazy style, we do it. We enjoy that.”

Raghadaa , 23,  now at the university studying medicine, said that watching video clips makes one aware of the way teenagers are  thinking.

“I watch video clips and movies during the vacation when I am bored want to just have fun and give silly remarks about them,” Raghdaa said. “I don’t know all the singers because every week there is someone new. Now, they have Western names like Maria or Sofia.”

Raghdaa said she doesn’t copy their manner of dress or hairstyle or make-up.

“Teenagers may do so but not me,” said Raghdaa. “But some of my relatives imitate the way the stars or singers dress up, they even buy the same dresses.”
Watching TV and movies may change the way people act, think, and feel. Whether these changes are good or bad has become a subject of intense debate.
Many adults feel that since they freely watched television when they were young and don't think that they were negatively affected, television doesn't have a significant impact on their children. The difference, though, lies in the nature of the programs that were prevalent in previous generations compared to now.
Those video clips are not just entertainment and they really have serious effects, some child experts say.

Children see people on TV and they imitate them as role models. Dr. Nehal Mohammed Arfan, a consultant and psychologist on teenagers, said that video clips are “not our culture and principles of what our kids watch. They are against us and they teach teenagers bad things. They are a waste of time.”

“Kids are confused,” Arfan said. “They watch these video clips to belong to their friends who watch them.  Some parents just let their kids see these video clips without any direction or supervision and this is unhealthy. Other parents do not forbid their kids. They rather let them watch them and they give their opinion about them. This is the best way to go through this. (Something) forbidden is desired. It’s not good to prohibit them because they will try to see them. If it’s not allowed in the house, then at their friends’ houses.”

Arfan said that with children having so much exposure to the media, the messages that come across are important and shape how a child sees the world. A lot of the messages related to violence and sexuality can negatively impact a child, she said

Arfan said video clips are dangerous because they can affect the behavior, morals and the way of thinking of a young person.

“Teenagers adopt the ideas of having a girl or a boyfriend, which is against our religion,” Arfan said. “Video clips play stations and advertisement as well run so quick and they are colored.  It’s the mood of the generation. Kids are impatient. They want everything fast unlike their parents. They don’t think about the outcome of their actions they just do things without thinking in an appropriate  way.”

And that doesn’t even address the sexual aspect of the videos.

“Boys see them and there is no way to express their feeling and emotions,” Arfan said. “So, they just go to malls and create problems with girls. Kids complain about that. They are under pressure of their parents, society and morals.  Girls are complaining that they want to be pretty and coquettish just like stars. They are ready to do stupid thing to be so. They are getting shameless.”
While Saudi society puts pressure on teens and young adults to publicly renounce such behavior as depicted on music videos, it is – as Arfan noted – a forbidden fruit that one enjoys.

Young Saudis are brought up in a manner to hide their feelings and not to tell offer their opinions about what they enjoy of life. They are confused about what they want and what the society and their parents want them to be or do. They never say the truth about what they want for themselves.

And adults can be equally confused. They don’t know whether to watch video clips or not. But in many cases, like their children, they enjoy watch them in their living rooms or bedrooms.

 “Our customers start from the age of 10 to 35,” said a salesman in a shop that sells ring tons and video clips for mobiles. “Our customers are so many, they come asking about the newest video clips to download them on their cellular phones. They pay SR5 for the ring tones and SR10 for the video clips. They buy the cable and a CD for SR150. Our best season is summer, Ramadan and Hajj because people spend their vacation in the Kingdom. They come from Riyadh, Taif and Al-Shargyia. People with a religious attitude prefer to download the Qur'an or Azan, it’s their choice not ours.”  
Video clips affect people daily life. At weddings, women and girls wear similar clothes to pop stars they see in video clips.
Not surprisingly, orange colors dominate the parties just to copy the dancers in Al bortougala video clip. Low waist pants are fashionable for dancing, just like the clips.
In shops, salesmen exposed the fashions like the one in the clips because everyone, including young men, want to see the styles.

 

Girls make their hair the same as the stars.
There are many other clips that are so popular, such as Nancy, a Lebanon singer. Girls buy the same Jalabyai, a traditional and expensive Egyptian dress and headscarf. Roby, an Egyptian singer, had a hit song and it was replayed again and again by music channels.

 
Teacher and social expert on teens, Alia`a Al-Shanhabi, said video clips play a negative role in Saudi society.
 “Parents should be aware of  what their kids watch because the average child between 2 and 11 years old watches over 27 hours of poorly supervised television per week,” Shanhabi said.”(And) because the only thing that kids do more than watch television is sleep, and most parents are unaware of the indecent modern media take with our children, someone must say to parents. Your attention please.”

 Shanhabi said that children fall into the trap. They imitate the singers, wear silly fashion with images of them on shirts with words written on them. They may not understand their meanings. They cut their hair in crazy manners.

“Some of them (boys) put make up on,” she said. “They do not look like men. It’s parents' responsibility to take care about what their kids see,” she added. “They should not prohibit them from watching TV or satellite. They rather must talk and listen to their problems. They must tell their opinion about this strange phenomenon that is invading our society. They must set good examples for their kids.”  
Leena is 24 years old and is studying marketing. She has two younger sisters that she protects.

“When you watch a video clip it looks just like a vulgar movie,” she said. “Words are meaningless, and the rhythm is awful, many girls dance in a bad way, too. I don’t allow my younger sister to see some of them. They are getting worse. TV is not safe. The video clips are not decent. They depend on showing almost naked girls. We have our principles and morals.”