I found the media that was assigned for viewing, Second Skin, to be both alarming and informative. I never really watch documentaries all so it was interesting to see how this particular game of World of Warcraft can potentially damage a person's life as well as the lives of their families. It is hard to understand why and how people become so addicted to this online game but at the same time I guess it is not. The reason I say this is because the one guy who was in the documentary, the one whose wife gave birth to twins later on, argued how him spending time playing World of Warcraft is the same as someone who chooses to spend his or her time in the garage working on a car, or drinking seven or eight beers at the bar, and so on. I think he makes a good point by saying that but at the same time I don't think he realizes that the way he is spending his time, by playing this game, is beginning to consume his life and ruin his relationships with his family. It was sad to see some of the people in the documentary put the online game first and their family members second.
It was shocking to see how easily a person can fall into this addiction of online gaming. For instance how the nephew of the one guy named Daniel Bustard became addicted to World of Warcraft as soon as Daniel B. stopped playing the game and started getting his life back together. It was nice to see him come out of his addiction and get a job but disturbing to see hear his nephew say that he was playing the game for about 18 hours a day.
During Second Skin one of the guys explained how he liked playing the game so much because in it he claimed that didn't have to worry about not having the nice car, or the nice house, etc. I think this relates well to one of the themes discussed in Culture Jam of how people are kind of being sucked into this false idea of what success or happiness really is. It is sad how companies are advertising their products in a way that makes potential consumers believe that their so-called product is what they need to purchase in order to be happy. There is this passage in the book where the author Lasn writes, "Cars are identifiers. They complete us, they renew us, they reinvent us. Which explains why so many of us dutifully walk into a car showroom every few years for a rejuvenating boost" (Lasn 81). It is wild how outrageous and ridiculous some advertisements can be and yet we do not realize sometimes how much they change the way we see ourselves and gauge success based on material things. Again this ties into why the gamer in the documentary says he feels he needs to escape all these expectations by playing an online game where it does not matter how much one has and how everyone starts out equally.
This car commercial is an just one example of how irrelavant a car commercial can be to the actual car to try and make consumers feel like they need the specific car.
Sunday, January 30, 2011
Monday, January 24, 2011
blog 1
Hello. My name is Angel. Some of my interests/hobbies include photography, music, snowboarding, and traveling. My major is biology and I am currently trying to find out what I want to have a minor in. I signed up for this class because I was interested in seeing what books were going to be chosen for us to read. I think it can be kind of fun sometimes to be required to read certain books that you wouldn't read normally because it really broadens your view on things by opening up a new subject area to you. The last book I read was called The Undomestic Goddess. I am really interested in music and its many different aspects. For example, I like everything from just learning how to play different instruments to simply listening to some of my favorite artists. I also really enjoy watching movies because they have a way of letting you escape everything else for some time. As far as literature goes, I used to read a lot when I was little but as I have gotten older I have not read as many books as I would have liked to. Literature in my opinion is any type of written/printed material with an endless number of topic areas.
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