Final Reflection

Disclaimer: Please read my posts from the very first one to now. Which means read this post last. It is more understandable that way.

After reading the rest of my posts, especially the larger ones, I am sure you have gotten a reoccurring theme of gaming as a topic I liked to write on. Unfortunately, to your dismay, I am not a gamer. I have never played a computer game and I do not own any game systems. I am however dating a full (nerd and all) gamer. I actually am engaged to him. Going into this series of blog posts and considering the overall theme of radical romance, I decided that my focus would be on new digital media as a radical form of romance. Personally, I also wanted to use it as my attempt of understanding my fiancé’s obsession with gaming. Within this post I will identify my personal reflections and I will discuss new trends to digital media in relation to radical romance.

            As I had mentioned before, gaming has become it’s own culture complete with it’s own unique language and a new way to date. I referred to a web show, The Guild, which highlighted the distinctiveness of the gaming culture. My fiancé came across that show on his XBox and wanted me to watch it with him. Although I had never played and had no interest to play the fatal game, World of Warcraft, I found the show to be hilarious. My fiancé was laughing because he could understand and relate to the show and I was laughing because it made fun of those obsessed people. Don’t get me wrong, I really enjoyed the show, I just find it a bit silly to sit in front of a computer with one hand on a mouse and the other on the letters W A S D and attack someone with some wicked weapon to collect loot and win a dungeon.

I suppose that the reason I am focusing my blog posts on this theme is because of that fact, that I don’t like gaming and my fiancé does. It most definitely has shown in our relationship how opposite our opinion is on this subject. Just last week, his brother was trying to plan a Halo party, where a bunch of people get together with their XBoxes and the game and all play throughout the house. I think it is called a lan party. Unfortunately, when he came to let me know about this fantastic event, he spoke to me in all the wrong ways. Essentially, the conversation was “I want to spend twelve hours playing a video game and I know you don’t like it but you can find something else to do.” I am paraphrasing, of course, because going into detail of that lovely argument would just take too long. I just want to understand what is so amazing about video games.

So as I looked deeper into the content of gaming and thought seriously about its implications, I still don’t fully grasp the wonder of this hobby. However, I do have an understanding that it is a unique way to find relationships. When I talked to my fiancé about gaming and dating, he was telling me that avatars do date in the game. There are even shops in the game that sell engagement rings and there are functions that allow an avatar to bend to one knee and propose. Individuals can even have a full wedding ceremony to wed the two avatars. It is a bit strange but if that is how they want to get married then go for it.

Digital media in general has opened up so many doors to relationships. Not only in the gaming world but also through the dating websites. I remember when admitting you were on a dating website was considered lame. If you were on a website to help you find a soul mate, you were thought of as a loner, someone who cant find someone by meeting them face to face. Now there are so many people on dating websites, it’s as if meeting an individual in person is taboo. Although I know of some cases where dating websites work, I believe that overall, dating websites is a joke. I think that judging a person based on the websites definition of compatibility and their profile picture is not an accurate way to meet a person.

My fiancé’s brother is on a dating website and before he even considers a girl to date, he judges her based on her looks. Is she cute? Is she fat? If she is slightly larger, she is thrown out without a second thought. Then he sees how compatible she is. Does she game? Is she funny? And if that poor girl made it that far, he will consider contacting her and maybe going on a day date. Eventually, he will find something superficial to tear her down on and he doesn’t call her again. It is horrible how he treats others thinking he’s the shit. BTW he is not that cute (I would say not at all… that’s why I am marrying his brother). And he thinks he is so cool and so experience because he has gone on so many dates he can’t even count them all. It’s the best when he goes to my fiancé and gives him dating advice. Haha you know you’re not a good dater if you haven’t been on a second date. In the end I suppose it is about whether you have the right intentions by signing up on a dating website. My fiancé’s brother is an extreme case of someone who does not have the right intentions.

I have, on the other hand, known people who have meet their significant other on a dating website and has since married them. However, the few cases of individuals meeting someone they eventually married does not out weigh the many others who just want an easy way to find someone they might like. It’s like actually going out in public is so hard to meet someone. I feel like the more people use these websites for dating the less social they will be. They will not know how to meet someone and try to impress them in person.

I believe in the old fashion (how sad is that meeting someone in person is considered old fashioned) way to finding relationships. I can respect a guy so much more for having the guts to address me in person. It is hard and scary, but it is so much more worth it than judging a website profile or talking to them through texts. I think that my fiancé’s brother would be way less cocky if he realized that real girls are not interested in a self-centered guy. But that is the way this culture is heading. Soon everything will be taken care of online, shopping, social networking, and dating will all be done without leaving your home.

Social Networks

I remember America Online Instant Messenger (AIM); it was all the rage creating a funky screen name and chatting with friends online. As the Internet has involved so has social networking. It is no longer about simply chatting with someone, now there is websites that make conversing with friends more interactive. You can chat with them, send them messages, and comment on their pictures. You basically have your own personal webpage, so you can customize it however you want. When I was taking a speech class we had to do a persuasive speech on any topic and take a stand on it. I chose to do mine on Social Networking sites and how people spend too much time on them. Individuals have even coined the term “MySpace or Facebook stalking”. I have even found on select occasions surfing from one page to another interested about what kind of pictures a person has or how they are commenting to other people’s status’. However, when you are on social networking sites so much that you are posting every time you watch a movie, or go on an errand, or go to the bathroom you know your abusing the website. I stressed that there is more to socializing than obsessing over someone’s status. Even just now as I was typing this fantastic blog post, my sister was telling her friend that she messaged her a part of her school project to her Facebook. What happened to working together on a project while in the same room? Or having a conversation with a person on the phone? When you choose to post on your mother’s Facebook where you are instead of calling them, you know something is wrong.

Television

It’s remarkable to think about how much television has changed throughout the last decade. I honestly can’t remember television shows before reality TV and raunchy teenybopper shows. If you consider what we watch nowadays, it is so much dirtier than before. I remember television shows where it was unheard of to cuss or even allude to sex. Not to mention alluding to characters being gay. Now with shows like Glee and Secret Life of an American Teenager discussions of sex and gays are prominent. Even same sex kissing has become a normal occurrence of television shows. Socially, these shows set a very clear example of what is expected in today’s society. We feel that we are encouraged to explore our sexuality and follow it wherever it may lead. What happened to shows that taught ethical and moral values? It makes me scared to have children knowing these are the influences that will teach them wrong morals.

On the other hand, every major television channel isn’t complete without it’s fair share of reality shows. There is a reality show for every genre imaginable. Dating shows like The Bachelor give desperate women a chance to win a guy’s heart. Even MTV has their take on dating where the individuals in the show are given obscure nicknames and use any (and I mean ANY) means necessary to interest the guy. And the competition shows like Survivor and So You Think You Can Dance give individuals a chance to win loads of money. I mean there are so many shows on every channel that I can’t even name them all. Reality television has become so prevalent that it is a bit ridiculous. But somehow society is absorbed in watching other people do silly things. It’s intoxicating, I even found myself having to pick and choose my reality shows so they don’t overlap in airings. Oh, but now with recordable TV, our show choice is almost endless. We can watch one show while we are recording another and watch that one later. And we can fast forward through those pesky commercials that find there way right in the middle of a juicy part of the show. So what do we do with all the television has to offer? 

Seinfeld

Can I say sigh of relief. I can honestly say I was nervous going into this project. I had very little time for extra projects and I had never seen Seinfeld before. Fortunately the other members of the group did a fantastic job communicating via email making sure everyone was informed as to what was going on. I have never been in a group project where all the members communicated so well online (since that was the easiest way to send out information). We had started communicating weeks before the project was due, setting up times to meet to have a group watch of the show. Sadly, I was unable to meet because my work schedule was right in the middle of everyone’s free time. So I watched as much as I could find online (which was no easy task, its as if they don’t want to let you watch the show). We all spent time researching into the deeper meaning of the episodes as well as dig deeper into the theory of the Barker book. We split the topics amongst the group to better lead our discussion in class. Sandy, Jackie and Patriccia did an outstanding job typing up our information and organizing it for everyone. Like I said earlier, this group did a wonderful job communicating and staying on task. I think the presentation went beautifully.

In class we discussed several episodes and their relevance to radical romance. Honestly, all the episodes in all the seasons were oozing with radical romance. It was difficult narrowing it down to just a few. I feel the episode “The Deal” was a great one to present because it dealt with two individuals who created a deal so they could have friendship and sex without effects. In no way does that depict ‘normal’ romance. And then we discussed whether Seinfeld was the “norm” or the “other”. I feel like they are both. At the time when the show aired, I think it would have been perceived as the “other”. The topics of the episodes were so radical that it was the first time sex was brought up in a television series. Seinfeld paved the way for other shows to discuss these new topics. That is why I feel that now the show would be perceived as the “norm”. Our society has become so numb to these topics that we think of it as normal everyday life. It is so interesting how television and mass media has influenced our way of thinking. Just a few years ago, talking about gay people on television was unheard of let along same gender kissing. Now its hard to find a show that doesn’t have individuals portraying themselves as being homosexual.

Materialism and Pop Culture

Materialism is what makes culture, pop-culture. Materialism according to Susan Bordo is simply that we are not satisfied with ourselves. Bordo quotes "...we can 'choose' our own bodies." Either by diet and exercise or by surgical alterations, we can make ourselves into whatever we like. But how does that happen? How do we have such a disgust of ourselves? Culture. The life we live and the things we surround ourselves with tell us how we should be. Television, magazines, movies, and our peers all influence what is perceived as "beautiful." An interesting comment was brought up in class, the student inserted that when perms were all the rage, it seemed as if all the girls with straight hair wanted to perm it so it would be curly and all the girls with curly hair would spend hours straightening it. And it was so true. When I was little, I wanted to perm my hair curly because I thought it was so cool to have curly hair. I didn't end up doing it, and I am so thankful. The culture was telling me that that was what I should do. The American culture has ingrained in us the idea that we need to be dissatisfied with what we have. It has also told us that even if we are dissatisfied with what we have, it's ok because we can buy our way to happiness. It's sad, but it's the truth.

Response Paper - Do You Want to Date My Avatar?

My response paper consists of this post and the proceeding two posts. I can’t figure out how to link more than one video into a post so I had to post them separately. And for the record, I don’t game… my fiancé is the gamer and I fully blame him for knowledge I do have for this absolutely confusing area of his life. The things I am discussing are from the perspective of the outsider looking in.

            Consider your childhood. Chances are you or someone you know was fixated on the anomaly called “gaming.” Although back then the fad was game consoles with simple graphics, now, since the rise of the Internet, the growing popularity is the MMO. An MMO is a mass multiplayer online game such as World of Warcraft. This game specifically has become a widely known entity with its unique storyline and the ability for each player to customize their avatar to whatever they want. The web series, The Guild, comedically represents six individuals that play this game in a group which is a guild and the trials each of them have in relations to this game. The main character Codex starts off each episode with a brief webcam video wrapping up her thoughts on the previous episode. Throughout the seasons the characters put forth a unique identity. Codex is trying to learn how to mend her gaming life and her real life together while Zaboo, who has no masculine appeal, is love struck by Codex. Vork, the guild leader, is constantly trying to find ways to money gouge. Tink is the one in the group who loves to game, but doesn’t advertise it to the real world. Clara is a mother who would rather play her games than to care for her children or her husband. Finally Bladezz is a cocky boy who thinks far too much of himself. In this paper, I am going to argue that gaming has become it’s own culture and is the essence of radical romance.

            By watching the first few episodes, it will become blatantly clear that gamers have created a culture all their own. According to Chris Barker, “[M]eanings are generated not by individuals alone but by collectives. Thus the idea of culture refers to shared meanings” (42). Everyone who plays the video game has a shared understanding of the games concepts. Even the language used in the gaming world is unique with its own syntax. Gamers use lingo to abbreviate their sentences so they can type faster while in-game. A gamer might type, "Dood, I got totally owned while AFK. Need REZ to pown those newbs" which simply means that individual died while away from the keyboard and needs to be resurrected to get back at the new players who killed him. Theorist Raymond Williams believed the “...meaning of lived culture are to be explored within the context of their conditions of production. In this sense culture is understood as ‘a whole way of life’” (Barker 46). Gaming for some individuals is more than just a game. It has become their life. When the majority of their time is spent in game, it becomes their “way of life.” Since gaming is its own culture, we can also see their interpretations of what is masculine and feminine.

Masculinity and femininity - The Guild

This clip represents the essence of masculine and feminine ideals of gaming. Codex had just ended the last episode by throwing up on a really cute neighbor and the other girls of the guild are encouraging her to pursue him.

            Traditionally, we view romance in the sense that the man is the strong and powerful type while the girl is the item to be won. In this web series, we see that the women of the gaming culture are strong and confident while the men are a little awkward and yearn for the women. As Tink said in this clip, “Women have all the power in sex” (Blow out). It doesn’t matter what happened in the past, all a women has to do is flash some skin and they can get almost anything they want. Barker explained his view on masculinity in this way, "[T]raditional masculinity has encompassed the values of strength, power, stoicism, action, control, independence, self-sufficiency, male camaraderie/mateship and work, amongst others” (302). It seems as if Barker's explanation of masculinity describes some of the female roles in the web series. As you can see in the conversation between Tink and Bladezz, Bladezz is so despirite to be with Tink that Bladezz has taken on her projects as well as buying her things (Blow out). Tink has the power over Bladezz, just as Codex has the power over Zaboo. Also gaming in general has become a radical place for romance.

Radical Romance - The Guild

This next clip is a music video that the members of the web series created to advertise the idea that people that play these games often times get involved in online relationships.

            Gaming is the essence of radical romance. Traditional romance according to McDonald in his book Romantic Comedy elaborates on the “boy meets girl” theme (McDonald 10). In this case, the boy meets girl scenario occurs in cyber space. The music video gave an understanding that if you wanted to date another person’s avatar its “better than reality” (Do you). You can see another’s avatar as long as you wanted to and when you're done you can just log off and the relationship could be over. It makes relationships and romance so simple and easy plus you don’t even have to see the real person who is playing that avatar. In the second episode of the first season of the web series, we understand that Zaboo left his mom’s house to live with Codex, who Zaboo thinks has a crush on him. It is clear that while in-game their behavior was comfortable, in real life Zaboo was an awkward person to be around and has no real understanding how to show affection appropriately. Also romance in its most radical form can be seen through in game weddings. There have been several individuals who would have an in game ceremony to wed two avatars. The last episode of season 4 ended with Zaboo’s mother and Vork about to be married in game. Since it is a brand new episode, they don’t have it on youtube yet so here is the link to The Guild website to watch that episode.

http://www.watchtheguild.com/the-guild/the-guild-season-4-episode-12-guild-hall/

All the members of the guild gathered at Clara’s house so they can all be on their computers for the wedding. This is the way the gaming culture views relationships.

            In conclusion, the gaming world is its own culture full of unique language speech patterns, common understanding, and way of life. This is the essence of radical romance, in the sense that gaming portrays the masculine and feminine roles as well as the relationships in-game. They are so unique than anything that could be seen in real life. If you or someone you know has been fixated on gaming then watch the rest of the seasons. You will LOL (another gaming term).

Works Cited

Barker, Chris.  Cultural Studies: Theory and Practice.  Los Angeles: Sage, 2008.

McDonald, Tamar Jeffers. Romantic Comedy: Boy Meets Girl Meets Genre. London: Wallflower Press, 2007.

“Do you want to date my avatar?” The Guild. Music video. <www.watchtheguild.com>

“Season 1. Episode 2: Zaboo’d.” The Guild. Web Series. <www.watchtheguild.com>

“Season 2. Episode 6: Blow Out.” The Guild. Web series. <www.watchtheguild.com>

“Season 4. Episode 12: Guild Hall.” The Guild. Web series. <www.watchtheguild.com>

Radical Romance to the Extreme

After watching the movie “10” I had a profound enjoyment of it. I have never watched a movie and disliked it so much and then at some point had a paradigm shift and created a whole knew feeling for it. Well that is exactly what happened when I watched this movie. Throughout the whole first half of the movie George Webber disgusted me. I already don’t like nudity in movies, but having a main character like George who came off as a dirty old man didn’t make it any better. However after trudging through the movie and then reflecting on it with the theories developed in my pop culture class helped me develop a respect for the movie and its portrayal of “romance”. My focus on this blog post is by defining the three main characters and then relating it back to radical romance.

The main character, George Webber, represents the typical man going through a mid life crisis in that he is not satisfied with the women of his same age. He is, instead, focused on a younger woman that represents a number 10 on the 1 to 10 scale. He decides to separate from his long time girlfriend, Sam, to pursue Jenny who has just gotten married and is now on her honeymoon. George’s therapist said that his desire is for a younger girl… a virgin. George desires women in the radical sense of romance that he is an older man desiring a younger woman. However, as the movie progressed he realized what he wanted wasn’t what he truly wanted.

Sam Taylor represents the woman that George is with and is not satisfied with. She is comfortable with her self and what she wants in a relationship. Sam follows romance in the typical sense that she has gong through her trials to get her where she is and she is content and happy to settle down.

Jenny, on the other hand, as we find out later in the film represents romance and culture in a new way. She is the essence of radical. She married her husband with no thought of true “love”. She views relationships as being open, that she can be married and still sleep with whomever she wants and her husband can do the same. Not only does age not bother her with the individual she sleeps with, but she is somewhat radical in how she likes to have sex. For example, she likes to scratch his back, insists on doing it to certain music, or having a particular position she enjoys. By no means is she traditional in the area of romance.

So in summary, George wants Jenny, Sam wants George and when George realizes Jenny doesn’t want anything serious, he wants Sam back. It was a accumulation of a couple things. First, it is as if his pursuit of the younger girl who is married was not as exciting when he found out that she was okay with having an open relationship with other men while still being married. Second, when she reveals that she doesn’t anything serious and is particular to how she has sex, it is almost as if George changed from the typical masculine role to the feminine role because Jenny was being the masculine character. It was that point that I thought of the movie as not being as bad as I had thought. Each of the characters portrayed beautifully the characteristics of radical romance.

Femininity and Raunch Culture

My focus on feminism is not in the sense that its all about woman’s rights and their power over the male/masculine culture. Instead it’s about the search for the definition of what it means to be masculine and feminine. Pulling on the idea that race is more focused on gender and the role of that gender than the look at the individual from where their heritage is. In our culture, we categorize jobs, behaviors and eating habits at masculine or feminine. Even in the constitution of marriage, the women is supposed to take on the man’s last name as a way of dominance that his name is more important of a legacy to uphold. However, recently trends have been changing on the last name situation. Some women choose to keep their last name and ignore their husband’s last name. Others hyphenate their last name and some make their husbands take on the female’s last name. I was having a discussion about this topic with several women that have recently been married. One of the individuals I talked to said that she was proud to take on his last name. It was a way to show how much she loved him. Another lady I talked to didn’t know whether she wanted to give up her last name. She had told me that she really likes her last name and she has to force herself to getting used to the idea of writing everything with a new last name. On a more emotional stance, my sister-in-law has insisted on keeping her maiden name instead of taking on my brother’s name. She is going through a hard time in her life in which she had a baby and got married really early in her life and she wasn’t ready for the big changes. She hasn’t quite grasped her identity yet and isn’t ready to take on a new name. In time, I hope she will be ready to take on her new life and her new last name with my brother. This whole last name issue has been something that I myself have been thinking about. I just recently got engaged and I love my last name. I feel like my name sounds so much better as it is and would sound really funny with my new last name. I have been thinking about hyphenating it because I already have four names (my first name, two middle names and a last name) and I think it would be awesome to have five names (outside of being Hispanic). However, I know that my fiancé wants me to drop my maiden name and take on his so we are going to have a lot of discussion before anything is final.

Also within the idea of feminism comes the idea of raunch culture in that media has embraced the promiscuous women as being a stronger more self reliant woman. When we discussed this in my pop culture class and re-read the section in Barker’s “Cultural Studies” book, I immediately thought of the show Desperate Housewives. I really don’t watch it, but the few episodes I have come across is all about this wife having an affair with her neighbors husband and all the other wives seeking out other lovers. In essence, it’s a neighborhood of drama. Either way that is the essence of raunch culture, those women are not afraid to show off their sexuality and be naughty. In a way it shows that women can be confident and strong in whom they are and realize they are beautiful women. In other senses, it can be seen as a bit too promiscuous and that it is borderline soft-core pornography. What do you think about raunch culture?

Ethnography

            I love that the art of people watching has become a research method for cultural studies. As I looked deeper into the ideas of culture and ideology through Chris Barker’s book, Cultural Studies, and personal experiences, I realized that watching the way people live around me defines the culture in which we live. When I thought about where I wanted to do my research so that it would exemplify “radical romance”, I figured that I would observe in a setting that I was familiar with, at a restaurant. My fiancé and I have been going on weekly dates ever since we first started dating. It was just a way to spend personal time together without interruption from friends and family. We happened to have free meal certificates to Souplantation so I decided to observe there. Since I had never been there before, I didn’t know what to expect for my observation. After analyzing what I saw, I was surprised to see that “radical romance” was portrayed in a different way.

Observation

            We (my fiancé and I) arrived at Souplantation at around 7:00pm on Friday. Walking through the double doors we were greeted with a huge salad bar that had every topping imaginable for a salad. At the end of the salad bar was the register to pay for your meal. There were lines on each side that took up the entire length of bar. While I was waiting in line and creating my salad, I saw several families and not that many couples. Since the dining area was pretty full a hostess woman took our group number to find us a table. After we got seated, I began looking at the tables surrounding me.

            A table next to me had two teenage girls sitting on one side of the booth and two older women sitting on the other side. The girls were looking at their cell phones while the women were facing each other talking. After about ten minutes, they left and a new couple took their table. It looked as if it was a mother and a daughter. I noticed that the older women was wearing a black T-shirt, gaucho pants and was not wearing makeup. Throughout their meal the older woman kept looking at her phone and periodically picked it up like she was texting. The daughter was just sitting there eating.

            Around a half an hour after we sat down, a family of four was seated behind me. The mother was a larger woman wearing a teal v-neck shirt, jeans and had a sweatshirt wrapped around her waist. Her hair was in a messy bun and she was not wearing any makeup. The dad was also on the bigger side was wearing a black polo and had long wavy dirty blonde hair that was pulled back in a low ponytail. The younger son was wearing a sports jersey and was also a bigger for his young age. The older son was tall and was wearing a skater hat and had headphones sticking out of the collar of his black T-shirt. Periodically one or two of the family members would get up and leave to get food. Across the way from me was another family that looked like grandparents taking their grandson out to eat. By this time, the rush of families had passed and the dining area was less than half the amount earlier. Finally the last family I observed was an Asian looking family. The dad was wearing a gray T-shirt and a black hat that read “Titleist”. The mom looked pregnant and was wearing a pink tank top with a gray shawl vest and had her hair pulled back in a messy bun. And their son was young, could be around 5 or 6 years old.

Analysis

            When I think of a date, I imagine going to a nice restaurant to share in a special meal. That was the extent of my expectations going to Souplantation. I quickly realized that this restaurant was just a glorified buffet. Although the restaurant itself was very well put together with artwork and flowers lining the walls and an extremely clean dining area, the individuals that came to the restaurant was hardly on the typical “date”. Barker explains my belief system through ideology that my understandings of the culture and norms that I live in are based off of my own perceptions and what was taught to me (pp. 61-64). This restaurant does not follow in the same patterns of other restaurants. It creates an atmosphere of “its just a place to eat.”

The families I watched all had a similarity about them. Typically, when I go out to a restaurant, I am there about an hour. Within the hour of my observation, there were several families to come and go from the same table. They just came to each with little socialization and then leave. Also the families all seemed like they wanted to opt out of making a home made meal and came to Souplantation in the comfy clothes they were in.

My experience at the restaurant does have “radical romance” in the sense that there was a lack of romance. None of the families came to the restaurant with social intentions. They were not dressed to impress. The families were also radical in that they were not fitting into the traditional family mold where families have meals together in the home. But then again, our culture has turned going out to eat into a regular part of society. Barker explains that culture is not created by individuals alone, but by the society in which they live (p. 43). Our society makes restaurants the new “home made meal”. It lets people believe that taking your family out to each regularly is normal part of society.

Works Cited

Barker, Chris.  Cultural Studies: Theory and Practice.  Los Angeles: Sage, 2008.

Identity...

When we finished talking about “Identity and Subjectivity” in my Pop Culture class, I immediately thought of this web show that I just saw. Watch the following three episodes then read the rest of my post.

The Guild - Episode 2: Zaboo'd

I don't know why it has Spanish subtitles.

The Guild - Episode 3: The Macro Problem

So for those of you who had no idea what was going on, this is a web series about a group of six individuals that play an MMO (massive multiplayer online game) just like World of Warcraft. I have never played the game nor do I intend on playing the game, but my knowledge of the game (because my fiancé used to play… a lot) is that people log into the game as an avatar they created and go on raids or quests to gain levels. The higher your level, the better your skill and the more loot you have. When individuals get together and form a group, called a Guild, it helps them level their character faster. Most of the language they were using in the show came directly from the game. For example, AFK means “away from keyboard.” Essentially the only social interaction the players have with other players is through a microphone attached to their head and the keyboard in chat rooms.

Thinking about identity these individuals have created a pretend creature in this game that represents something they want to portray to the rest of the game. Most of the time it shows a more confident, well-distinguished individual. Unfortunately, the people that play this game will end up playing an insane amount of time, identifying themselves more with their avatar than their real self. They will end up talking “leet”, the language they use in-game as well as obsess over treasures they can get in the game.

I found the show funny and so true. When “Codex” suggested having a guild meeting in person, the rest of the guild was nervous as if they didn’t want to reveal their true self. As “Tink” said, “I like you guys the way you are. Cartoon characters who let me feel a sense of achievement in an imaginary world.” With any kind of online social network, people create an image of someone else by whatever they can find within the confines of the computer screen. So if you think about it, how can you truly know someone’s identity online? You can’t, really. They create an identity that seems real, but is not. It’s the same in real life. We put ourselves in certain social groups that create an identity, but switching to a different social genre can easily change our identity. In my pop culture class, we received this quote “Cogito ergo sum” meaning, “I think therefore I am”. We are what we make it.

What is Culture?

What is culture? I feel culture is what society makes it to be. Culture is the way we live. Take this picture of example. What do you think about when you see it? What does this picture tell us about the lifestyles and values that is associated with this image? 

In my popular culture class, we discussed these same questions about this image. At first glance, I saw the typical hamburger, something I would get on my way to work because I don’t have time to go home. I thought of the fast paced society that we live in where fast food restaurants have become an essential food group. There is a good chance that anyone who reads this probably has fast food at least once a week. But if you investigate the image more you can think about what went into making the burger. Just imagine all the people that were involved in making the bun or growing the cows and produce for the cheese, patty, lettuce, and tomato. This simple burger gave many people jobs and a way of living.What do you think?

What is love?

Wow, I was in my pop culture English class and was not that shocked to hear everyone's interpretation of the word. One of my favorite definitions was "friendship." I think that love is one of those things that has its own special meaning for each person. I was reading Steven Covey's book "7 Habits of Highly Effective People" and came across an interesting comment on the topic of love. Covey has counseled many couples that complain that they have lost their love for the other person. The feeling was simply not there. His response was, "love her." He continues on by saying that love is a verb. "Love--the feeling-- is a fruit of love, the verb. So love her. Serve her. Sacrifice. Listen to her. Empathize. Appreciate. Affirm her." In the chapter in which he discusses this topic he is defining two kinds of people: the reactive person, who responds to the situation through feeling, and the proactive person, who plans ahead of time to prevent it from happening. He explains the proactive people make love a verb. That love is something you do: the sacrifice you make and the giving of self. When we need to learn how to love, we should look to those who sacrifice the most for us. The fact that for most love is a feeling but for others love is an action. It is something that you actively work on every day. For me, love changes depending on what is receiving my love. Like the love I have for Disney movies is way different than the love I have for my fiance or my family. I would sacrifice more for my family than I would for the material things. There are many different interpretation to love but I invite anyone who wants to throw out their ideas. Thanks.