God, Please Save These Troubled States

Excuse my tardiness yet again, but it was a busy Friday for me, since I just got back from tour. And since tomorrow is Sunday, I thought it was time to complete our Moz love with a lyric from his solo career. Your photo assignment this week: "Every day is like Sunday. Every day is silent and gray." Have fun!

Full instructions for this week's photo assignment inside...

Today's Get To Know feature another of our fave international Buzznet peeps, xxMJScenexx. Living in London and attending secondary school (that's the British equivalent to high school) has given this Trashed Teens tastemaker a lot of creative inspiration, which she's been channeling into a budding photography career.  —Mark Oshiro, Community Manager, panasonicyouth



Your first photos on Buzznet were submissions for Trashed Teens. What inspired you to join the group and post?
Sofiat: Well, it was back around the time I joined Buzznet. I started looking at people’s photography and I noticed some of it was for this group called “Trashed Teens.” Out of curiosity, I joined and was amazed at the quality of people’s photos. I was taken aback by the amount of amazing photographers in the group. I tried it out one week and found it really fun. So I continued.

Have you found that your photography skills have improved since you started?
So much! I started out with a camera phone and as my interest in photography grew, I started using digital cameras. I was really influenced by the photos here, so I started trying pictures of different objects and places.

You have an ongoing group of fan fiction series posted on Buzznet. Why did you start writing fanfic? Has it helped your writing in any way?
It has helped a lot. My early fan fictions were pretty badly written! After getting used to writing them, I think I grew and learned a lot of different techniques and styles. Recently, I just finished a story about someone suffering from schizophrenia, which is something I would have never had the knowledge and creativity to do before fanfiction. I’ve always been really interested in English and literature in general. I started writing at a pretty young age. The first fanfic I read here was “Because This Road Is All You’ll Ever Have” by Jess (JessLovesPanic) and I guess that opened up the world of fanfic to me. Thanks, Jess!



Even when you post photos, a lot of them still have words in them. How important is written expression to you?
Written expression is pretty much the only expression I can use. I’m awful at expressing things into spoken words. I find it a lot easier to write things in a thoughtful way. I really think the pen is mightier than the spoken word. In a lot of my photos, the things written down are questions or just random ponders. Many things I would not be able to say.

How has Buzznet changed you? What do you hope to do more of in the future on the site?
Buzznet has changed me a lot. It has helped my photography, my writing and me in general. I’ve met so many amazing people on Buzznet that are so genuine to talk to. Having people comment on my work and call me talented has boosted my self esteem plenty. Knowing that people enjoy what I do is an amazing feeling. I’m a lot happier than I was a year ago, thanks to Buzznet. I’ve become a lot more outgoing and creative and, thanks to the picspams in many QOTD topics, I’m also a lot more humoured. (Haha!) The future? I just hope to get better and better at writing and photography!

We've Had Enough, and we sure did show it this week. Our Alkaline Trio-inspired photo assignment garnered 58 impressive submissions.

Beatrixkiddo79



Carcajou


Dazedandconfused



Prinsezha


Sayyoumeanit


Annabelevelyn


Cewegokil24


Tangerinegreen


Make sure to check the tag page to see all of the entries.

This week's Get To Know features our favorite thunder from down under, JessLovesPanic. Although she's only 14, the girl has accomplished a million-and-a-half things, thanks to the Buzznet community and her trusty Finepix S8100 FujiFilm camera. Read on to see where the creator of Trashed Teens gets her creative inspiration. —Mark Oshiro, Community Manager, panasonicyouthFind out what makes Jess so special....

So I figured I'd throw this up before I left tomorrow to join the Taste of Chaos tour. I'll be staying on Four Year Strong's bus the whole time, but we get to all the venues pretty early. I'll have plenty of time to hang out and take photos!

Here's my tentative schedule. (I say tentative because I'm totally going to subversively suggest to Bree that she should let me take her leg so I can hang out with OunceOfWentz. Totally.)

LEG #1:
February 22 - Denver/Englewood, Colorado
February 23 - Day Off/Iowa City
February 24 - Milwaukee, Wisconsin
February 25 - Cincinnati, Ohio
February 26 - More Cincinnati/Go Home

LEG #2:
March 26 - Boise, Idaho
March 27 - Portland, Oregon
March 28 - Seattle, Washington
March 29 - Spokane, Washington
March 30 - Spokane/Come Home

If you're going to any of these shows (and Thursday is worth the price of admission alone) please leave a comment here and let me know. I'd love to meet a ton of you while I have the chance!!

Basically, in a few words: OMGWTF EXCITED.

I was inspired a couple days ago by this photo that Shiona posted of her finally getting a picture of herself with Matt Skiba of Alkaline Trio. We haven't had a Photo Assignment honoring one of the most awesome bands in punk rock, so it's time. Your lyric: "That said, we've had enough. Please turn that f---king radio off." Get to it!

Full instructions for this week's Alkaline Trio-themed photo assignment inside...

This was, without a doubt, the most successful Photo Assignment we've ever had: over 110 submissions in less than 5 days! Either you all really love The Cure or this past weekend's Valentines holiday inspired you to pull out your cameras to create some pretty spectacular pieces of photographic art.

You have to check out the results from this week's Cure-inspired photo assignment...

For this edition of Get To Know, I talked with AlyHeartsCandy, a photography student at the Brooks Institute of Photography up in Santa Barbara, California. (It’s about 100 miles north of Los Angeles, in case you were wondering.) In the year that she’s been on Buzznet, she’s won our hearts and our respect for her sharp, colorful photos; however, we were left wanting to know more about why she decided to pursue this line of education and what she desired to do with her life. Here’s what she had to say. —Mark Oshiro, Community Manager, panasonicyouth


Find out more about Aly in this week's Get To Know...

Drawing on the best chapters of their musical history, Thursday’s Common Existence is the record that the band have been trying to make their entire career. It’s an edgy, emotional, and raw album that finds the band’s disparate parts coming together to create a haunting and engaging statement about our common inner lives.

Find out how Thursday's new record sounds...

With only a few short weeks to go until the much-hyped Zack Snyder adaptation of Watchmen debuts around the world,  Buzznet can't help but put on a happy face. We've got an official group for fans of the comic (and those anticipating a movie version), as well as a whole slew of news posted by Buzznet members!

Find out who else is watching the Watchmen...

You shouldn't have expected anything else. It's time to share our admiration of The Cure through photographic creativity! Your inspiration will come from the title of one of my favorite songs: "Friday I'm In Love." Use this Valentines day to get creative.

Full instructions for this weeks Cure-inspired photo assignment inside...

In honor of tomorrow’s holiday of hearts, love, and joy, this week’s Get To Know features one of the more prominent couples on Buzznet, JayV and NessaLH. They now live together in Bristol, Pennsylvania and actually met on Buzznet. Through this website and their mutual respect and admiration for each other’s artwork, they were able to find love and happiness.  –Mark Oshiro, Community Manager, panasonicyouth

Find out more about Jay and Vanessa inside...

Buzznet pulled out their dancing shoes to respond to this week's Photo Assignment, inspired by one of the best songs Refused ever wrote. Come see what your peers came up when presented with, "We Dance To All The Wrong Songs."

Full results from this week's Refused-inspired photo assignment inside...

Ever wanted to peer a little deeper into the souls of your fellow writers, artists, dreamers and thinkers here on Buzznet? So have we. That’s why we’re letting our curiosity off the leash (down boy!) and building a new feature, Get to Know, in which we sniff out the most intriguing community members we can find and shake them until we figure out what makes them tick.

See who our first choice for Get To Know is....

I don't know how it's taken me thirty Photo Assignments to finally use a lyric from Refused. Blame it on this week's Daily Music Dose. Taken from "New Noise," arguably the most notorious song by these Swedish hardcore giants, your theme for this week is, "We Dance To All The Wrong Songs." Get on it!

Full instructions for this week's Refused-inspired assignment inside...

Way back in October, I ran a (sort of) risky Photo Assignment that asked our resident photographers to pull inspiration from any lyric on Rise Against's newest record, Appeal To Reason. I was overwhelmed by the creative response we got from our community and now I can say that the band themselves were just as overwhelmed as I was!

Watch Rise Against's video to Buzznet inside....

Johnny Marr and Morrissey bless you for your contributions to this week's Smiths-inspired photo assignment. And I have to say that this week gave birth to the most varied submissions. From expressions of dismay and disappointment to whimsical shots of family pets, it's great to see so many different interpretations!

Full results of this week's photo assignment inside...

Just a quick announcement to quell some rumors. This profile of Hunter Burgan is, indeed, the man himself. People have been messaging me, asking me to verify that it isn't a fake. Yes, the man typing all of those things and uploading those photos and asking questions about the merits of Horses versus Fugazi is Hunter from AFI.

Whoa, Hunter is really on Buzznet?...