Gaming March 28, 2007

I will be honest right off, I do not know anything about gaming.  I play Texas hold’em on the PS3 but that’s about the extent any sort of game playing I do.  My son has delved into the gaming somewhat although he tends to just play the PS3 as well.  My boyfriend has been playing online games for years though so I asked him what the big deal was with it all.  I have always thought online gaming to be somewhat anti social to a certain degree, however, after reading the article by Jacobsson and Taylor I was able to see what some of the fuss is about.  Online communities become very important to people as they come to stratagize and form a sense of team spirit about them.  People from all over the world come together to accomplish the same goals and to interact on, yes, a social level.  from what I understand, there are very strong feelings of comadary and friendship that form as the groups “go to war together”.  Apparently, it is difficult to just join a group online and be accepted, you must build a reputation and even have connections to others in the group.  There is a certain resposibility to others in the group as the game progresses and there must even exist a level of trust between players in order to get the most out of the game.  The bonds created in these online communitites can be long lasting and true.  People actually meet eachother outside of the game and become life long friends, I thought that was only possible on dating sites.  Even though gaming seems on the surface to be more of a short term gratification, it in fact becomes something that people cherish because they feel they are a part of something that is bigger than themselves, I wonder if Durkheim would view gaming as ‘collective effervesence’?  It is defeinately a constructed social action, so I think it could follow Durheimian theory.  Any form of productive social cohesion is positive, thus “what is at least formally meant as simply a mechanism for experience gain in practia, becomes a social space in which people weave not only gameplay but offline elements” (Jacobsson andf Taylor).  

Gender and Sexuality March 21, 2007

The portrayal of women on television as a topic is seriously becoming tiresome.  In today’s society we, as women, are far better off in the whole scheme of things than the generations before us.  Men no longer have the ‘legal right’ to beat their wives (although some think they do), and yet women continue to put themselves in that subordinate position.  They do this because the gender ideology has become so embedded in every society that the roles of women don’t really change even though we would like to think they do.  Women are to be pretty, petite and quiet.  Men are to be strong, intelligent, breadwinners.  This has come to vary over time yet it is still what both men and women see as what is necessary to full-fill their roles.  This is an ideology that has passed from generation to generation and has seeped into every aspect of our lives.  Through the media especially, which dictates how we should live, we can ask how it can be so hard to swallow that women are being used as “sexual objects?”  We allow ourselves to be, we willingly pose for pictures in porn magazines, we get paid to promote the idea that being skinny and beautiful is the way to “catch” a man.  We submit to this for profit and then complain about the inequality and stereotyping.  Every woman follows the “rules”, we all spend money on clothes and makeup and hair products that will make us more physically attractive.  We downplay our intelligence to a certain degree in order to obtain what we want, we can be just as manipulative as men by using the exact qualities that we express disgust over being exploited.  “Women are often represented as not being so intelligent as men, and having to rely on them.  A woman is either intelligent or beautiful; but rarely both (Ingham).”  Do you really think that Cameron Diaz is as dumb as she makes people think?  It’s all about gender roles and the fact that women accept what has been thrown at them for all time.  I am very glad that there have been advancements (thank you to the feminist movements) and I am all for equality in relationships and families, the fact remains though, that even when women are not depicted in the most ’modern’ light on TV and in ads there is a stigma attached that we all buy into.  Women realize this stigma and that it labels us as objectively ignorant, this is what makes us so brilliant!  We know that we know what we should not accept, yet we do.  The constant complaining about it is unnecessary because we have proven we are in charge just by going along with it.

         

Advertising March 14, 2007

  The interesting thing about advertising is that there is no way to escape it.  This type of propaganda is so engrained in our daily lives that we have no choice but to succumb to it.  Every corner we turn, every store we pass, every time we turn on the radio or the television, it’s there.  I almost see it as an attack on my conscience because it actually seeps into my subconscious, I dream about things that have been advertised to me as things that I desire and want more than anything else.  It amazes me that advertising can have such a powerful grip on my everyday life, yet that is the crux of consumerism and capitalism.  We in fact pay for the advertisements that are thrust upon us on average 3000 times per day, we pay for them when we buy the products being advertised!  I can’t decide whether that’s brilliant or deceptive, maybe a little of both.  Advertising is so embedded in our lives that children are main targets because they are now being brought up in a society where the more material items you have, the more successful and wonderful you are.  Vivian mentions the Advertising Standards of Canada and whether or not they are always followed in ads.  This is where I find some conflict.  We have ads that pertain to the standards of protecting our children in that “products cannot be shown encouraging use that may be dangerous.”  OK, so the use of dangerous products cannot be encouraged but the purchase of dangerous products can be and is encouraged (ie. alcohol, guns etc.), where is the logic here?  Advertising really only benefits the capitalists because we are no longer even in a position to enjoy what we have, they just make us want more.

   

Music March 7, 2007

This week will be my favorite class by far.  I love music, well I love MY music.  Music is a personal issue, and yes I mean an issue because by MY music I mean that I feel it is the only ‘good’ music.  I will defend my choice in music to anyone and will not be happy until I have convinced someone who cringes at the mention of country music that it is so far from the stereotype it is given.  Society tries to dictate to us what we should listen to and therefore pop music and its ‘icons’ are shoved down our throats.  This is so wrong.  There are messages in everything and I am not about to say that music is not a form of art and expression, I just refuse to give in to the media frenzy that surrounds some of these ”artists”. 

In our chapter on Music, I was very upset to find that Vivian did not even mention country music as one of the most popular forms and he deduced the great Shania Twain to that of a “pop music star”.  Vivian leads people to believe that country music stems from “hillbilly” music, which has a negative label in itself.  This is the problem, country music is seen as just being about people singing about the woes of life along to some fiddle playing.  It is absolutely a false judgement and what causes me to defend it so passionately.  This is where lyrics play a key role in determining what great music is.  Country music always tells a story to which Ican relate some life experience (plus, cowboys are so hot).  The spiritual uplifting that comes along with country music is enough to get anyone hooked on it.  I wish people would just listen with their hearts, not even just to country but to any type of music that moves them.  I really believe that we listen to music in order to escape from the monotony that is our lives, this escape gives us things to dream about and hope for because someone is telling us that there is something better out there for us.  While I am all for freedom of speech and expressing oneself I do think there should be some boundariesin relation to subject matter in songs.  I have a hard time believing that people listen to offensive rap, (and yes it is offensive, there is no way to defend it) as a way of rationalizing their mundane existence.  Yet they attempt to because that is what the media tells us to do.  I say fight against this, we need to have some ray of hope that life is not all bad and if that comes out in a song then all the power to those ‘real’ artists.  I know I continually go on about the woes of our capitalist society and our need to reform to a socialist utopia but it is so true, especially when I sit back and look at what is out there in terms of music as a tool in deciding how we see things in the world.   Music has the power to make things better, but it also has the power to make people who they are not, we have to be careful and choose wisely what we allow to influence us.