The Last Blog: the revelation

Over the course of the semester, we covered various topics in class. Our eyes were opened to the pure ignorance and sometimes capacity for evil our fellow mankind could fester. In Culture jam, Lasn opened the door to controlling corporation, and the concept of Plenitude. There are so many things I didn’t even know about the United States of America, but from what we’ve been reading and thinking critically about, it seems that it isn’t united on the right terms anymore. This country has become a materialistic-zombified nation, becoming so numb to even the most gruesome movies such as Saw, or Human Centipede.  

The documentaries we watched revealed the new and vast cyber frontier that is quickly unfolding before us. This course has challenged us to think critically about the messages encrypted within the timeless novels we have read. Bradbury and Vonnegut both had a critical eye about how our government and society was operating. Their books were written over 30 years ago, and they still hit the nail on the head to this day. We were informed of the Banned list of novels in the USA.

 The material covered seems to reveal how much our freedom, may not really be there at all. Our privacy, our freedoms of press, all have their own limits. Are we becoming hypocrites of what our ancestors originally set out to prove? Is this really the home of the free and the brave? Or is it now, the Home of the unsatisfied, and greedy.

The American Idol Games

The first season of American Idol debuted on June 11, 2002. It took the entire nation by storm. This was the beginning of the end of any sort of good television. This show helped mark the distinct beginning of reality TV. American Idle has so many eerie similarities to The Hunger Games.

People have this strange fascination on betting on the success of a singer, with no regards to if they lose. It’s all about winning on this show. Another connection I noticed is the “Sponsorships” and the extreme makeovers the contestants in both shows undergo. In American Idol, People are told that by texting to vote a certain name, this will help the contestant in their chance of winning. This struck me as similar to the Sponsorships sent to Katniss and the other tributes. It seems to me that the illusion is meant to be seen as the people being in control, and not anyone else.

Both groups undergo an extensive makeover according to their genre of music. They go from normal people that blended in, to someone with Brand name everything, right down to their socks. I think maybe that’s also why people have found some appeal in these shows. They are normal people, not these seemingly untouchable celebs. I think that when Suzanne Collins wrote the Hunger Games, She had this intention of how we watch these cruel things on TV, these ridiculous things that never used to be appealing, for reasons unknown to ourselves. We somehow feed into the drama that these shows are literally drenched in. Half the time, they’re all staged anyways. But this also goes back way longer then Reality TV. Remember the Romans and the gladiator games? Things like these have been around for a long long time, and since we aren’t learning from our past, they are bound to show up in our future.

Keeping up with the Kardashians

For the TV assignment, I decided to watch a re-run of Keeping up with the Kardashians. Although this was painful and I’m sure I lost a good dozen brain-cells, there were many things I picked out this time around. In this episode, Kim gets an offer to pose for playboy. Literally, and I mean literally, the whole episode is centered around the pros and cons of posing, the parental reaction from Kim’s mother and step-father, and her other two sisters.

Now this made me think. These are the problems that this family deals with day to day? Not hunger, not alcoholism, not drug issues, not money problems, not domestic violence, but choosing to pose for playboy or not. That is what causes them the little wrinkles that get botoxed away for the next episode. There aren’t any other problems? I wonder. I see none, but there is always a guarantee for a catty sister to sister or mom to daughter fight over something ridiculous.

 Now it may drive me crazy, but this addicts people. This draws them in, because it makes them feel like having problems is normal and okay. If the kardashians have problems, they can forget about theirs and judge Kim for hers. The lavish scenery makes people want to live in a big McMansion as the Kardashians do. Reality TV makes people believe in the false reality that these stars seem to live in. When will this actually stop? Or more importantly, how the heck did it even begin?

One Nation Under CCTV

In 1984, Big Brother is the main so-called “government” in Oceania. Winston describes a life of desolate, dull existence where no one has any rights to freedom of speech, or even thoughts.  There are televisions referred to as “telescreens” that can never be turned off. People are always being watched. In a way big brother already does exist in today’s world. There are always news stories about companies and the government possibly caught for listening in to civilian’s private conversations. In England, an artist by the name of Banksy, spray-painted a painting mocking CCTV, a monitoring system in England meant for security. Banksy went completely unnoticed while spray-painting his artwork on the side of a building under surveillance. He definitely proves that CCTV may not exactly be used for security like it’s claimed to be. I tend to link the advancement of technology with our loss of privacy. The more gadgets we use, the more of an open opportunity we are leaving for people to have a front row view into our private lives. It’s rumored that our telephone calls can be screened and listened to.  And I’m sure that our use of the Internet and business on our computers can be monitored as well. Is this bad? Well, it can be but there are reasons as to why they might feel the need to “monitor” the people of America. If we let it get to a ridiculous amount of monitoring, will we end up living in an Oceania of our own?  

The feed of our future

            Given the choice that we can elaborate on class discussions, I wish to write more about Feed and its clear forewarnings for our future.  We discussed Feed for the whole class time today. It was really weird to read this book and consider that that’s where this generation is headed. The slang is completely different from today's slang. The generation in this book gets lazy, and uses sentences like “what is doing” instead of “what are you doing”. They also have the knowledge of the world inside their minds. This gives them every reason not to retain and use information that’s actually really useful. This ties into a previous class discussion on the importance of learning things that don’t tie into our future careers. I think this book makes a perfect example of how beneficial it is to have a general knowledge of history, science, math, art, and other subjects. By having the feed, no person really learns about what history has to offer. When Titus goes to school, he mentions only learning about using the feed. I couldn’t imagine not learning about some of the genuinely interesting things that I do learn every day in class. The elimination of practical knowledge leaves room for things like trends, and fashion. Characters Kalista, Loga, and Quendy spend their time worrying about “lesions” or how to wear their hair. This so called “feed” is completely increasing Narcissism. Not to mention the synthetic world described in the book. They live in the air, and travel by air tubes. Every single thing natural is owned, including the Sun and Clouds. In one part of the book, Titus and Violet take a trip to “Meat country”. These farms are actually growing pieces of meat, by attaching tubes that bring blood and nutrients to the meat. There are no cows, chickens, or pigs. They condense all these processes for the cheapest, quickest way to make profit.  This book provides excellent scenery for what the ultimate control of today’s corporations would look like.

The dumbest Generation? Not even close.

Reading both articles the other day based off of Mark Bauerlein's book The Dumbest Generation proved to be both beneficial and insightful. It was interesting to see the different opinions of two people over 30 who could supposedly be “trusted”, according to Bauerlein. I have to agree more with the article written by Sharon Begley. She makes some good contradicting points by informing the audience that maybe it’s our generations ignorance, not lack of intelligence, that makes us seem indifferent to history. I don’t believe that our generation is “dumber” but our culture is evolving and adapting to different things and technology that wasn’t useful to our parent’s generation. Sharon states, “He is a little late to this party of course. The old have been wringing their hands about the young’s cultural wastelands and ignorance of history…” She’s right in every aspect. Since the beginning of time, our society has gone through a vicious cycle of criticizing the new ideas formed by the newer generations. A girl in class yesterday made a good point that Seniors in high school despise the freshman but can’t even pull a good explanation as to why. Our generation isn’t becoming more stupid; we’re simply changing. According to studies, any country that uses an IQ test, including America, has had increasing scores since the 1930’s. Our thinking capacity is still hard at work, and helps us everyday in thinking logically but we are simply becoming more interested in the social aspects that technology has to offer, instead of studying ancient history. But we shouldn’t let our ignorance get the best of us. Although we see no point to certain classes, a point was made yesterday, that we may never know when we will use information learned in High school or college. It could, in fact come in handy some day. But again, does this really make us stupid? Or does it mean we just need a priority check?

Meet me half-way

After watching the video shown in class, and reading the excerpts from Culture jam, I was exposed to a different world I had never really even knew existed.  This world was far different from my life here on earth. This world took place in different worlds, different times, with Dragons, villages, and renaissance themed clothing. People became wizards, goblins, and faeries. This, was the world of MMO Gamers. People sat idly at computer screens, absorbed into a different dimension, not even moving sometimes to use the restroom. Now, as someone who is incredibly social, and active, this type of behavior is mind-boggling to me. I could never sit in front of a computer screen for 6-7 hours a day. But, I also am not shy, and fit in easily at school. These people, these “gamers” come from the other side of the playing field. They use this different world, as an escape from whatever holds them down in reality. In these games, they recreate themselves without all the traits that before, had disabled them from fitting into our society. Many of the people interviewed in the video mentioned this. They appreciated the choice to make their own identity, the choice they don’t have in real life. Now, as much as I disagree with the idea of a “New virtual frontier”, I have to keep these people in mind. To them it’s real, fun, enjoyable; something they choose, and like to do. While we don’t value these identities, other people do and will continue to.  

 In the documentary, they introduce a man named Dan. Unlike these other people we hear about, that are freed by gaming, Dan’s story takes an unfortunate turn for the worse. He became obsessed, and addicted to World of Warcraft. This leads to depression, the loss of his job, distance from his friends, a foreclosure on his house, weight gain, and suicidal thoughts. He made his gaming experience his first priority, and tried to become the character he was playing on his game.  This is the type of thing that worries me, when people talk about the “new virtual frontier”. Although, most people don’t develop such an excessive addiction, it still happens and will linger into the future. I think that instead of, in Lasn’s words, “meeting machine halfway’; we need to meet each other half way. Our society needs to be more acceptable and less judgmental. This would greatly reduce the need for these people to escape the harassing and constant judgment of being different from what’s “acceptable”. The truth is, every single person on this earth is different, and should be entitled to live any way they want.