Final Project: Social Effects of Tinder

On "13 and Pregnant"

In the unit that we discussed how shows such as 13 and Pregnant are dangerous for young girls to watch I commented that my step-sister watches shows like that for fun, even though my step-mom is a sociology professor and discusses the show in her classes. She allows her daughter to engage in the princess culture while watching her to see what she will do. It is interesting actually. My step-sister watches those shows not because she idolizes them, but for the reason many people watch the Jersey Shore, the pure entertainment value. I say this because it is easy to just demonize these shows, but the real thing that people should focus on is how the messages are received. If an individual knows what they are seeing is unrealistic, the damage is not that bad. Media literacy, its what's the word.

Fantasy Football/Dungeons and Dragons

If there are two things that most people would agree on it is that Sports fans and Nerds are on totally opposite ends of a spectrum of interests. But is that true, or are these two seemingly opposing cultures more alike than most would think? (Warning, Generalizations abound, not all members of a certain culture fall under what I am discussing)

Lets take a look at the sports culture first. Many sports fans know a great deal about the nuances of the particular sport that they have interest in. Just by watching a play they know who the key players are, what positions they play, what formation was used and, if they play fantasy (sports name here) how many points their player got them if they were involved. 

Compare that to the Nerd culture. A lot of nerds know a great deal about things such as Dungeons and Dragons, by watching a battle they can tell who the characters are, what class they are, what formations the monsters used, what tactics the main characters used to combat it, and how many experience points the characters got.

Seeing a resemblance yet? It is easier to digest this if we used the in-class definition of what a Nerd is, a person who has great interest and knowledge in a specific subject. Those who are into the sports culture generally have a specific sport that they have great interest in, you don't see people who go to football games in body paint at the horse track cheering on their favorite stallion. This interest leads them to have greater knowledge in that subject than the average individual. 

It is due to this that the feel that you have to safeguard your interest. Instead, letting people into what you are interested into would allow people to break the perceived barrier between interest groups.

The commercial "Geek"

Geek:  : 

1. a carnival performer often billed as a wild man whose act usually includes biting the head off a live chicken or snake
2.  a person often of an intellectual bent who is disliked
3. an enthusiast or expert especially in a technological field or activity <computer geek>
4. 
   

The definition of what is a geek has been in flux since the 1900's when it was used to describe carnival performers who performed morbid acts, called geeks as a derivative of the German word Geck or fool. As time went on it began to be used for intellectuals because of their apparent lack of social skills. Now we have gotten to the point that "geek" is used to describe "ermagerd I am soooooo a geek, look at my glasses"

Because all of these people look like
 they would love some chicken heads

Geek has become a fashion trend, from legend of zelda t-shirts to 8 bit tyes. But what is it about the geek culture that makes it marketable? As we learned in class earlier, the mainstream culture loves and feeds from counter culture, such as tattoos once being only for "dangerous" individuals have become well...

I didn't choose the thug life,
the thug life chose Scorpion

It should come as no surprise then that the geek counterculture has become melded into the mainstream culture. That begs the question, what about nerds?

NEEEEEEEEEEERDS!!!

While the geek culture has become one with mainstream culture, it is perceived that Nerds are still the outcasts, not complying with what it means to be "hip". But are nerds not just the new geeks?

Sound familiar? This Merriam Webster definition is the combination of the second and third definition of geek. So has anything really changed, or is it all just...

Words Words Words

Fight Club and our consumer society

This weekend I watched fight club for the I don't even know how many time.  This time however I watched it through the lens of this class.  Observing the movie as rhetoric through the dramatistic perspective. 

As I was examining the motifs I saw again for the first time just how well this movie argues against corporate branding. It is like the 30 rock making fun of branding while still having it to pay for the show. I watched as they broke into a computer store with an Apple logo prominently displayed and priceded to fire bomb the display. 

Fight Club goes into detail on how people buy to feel connected, trying to make their life better by buying things we dont need.

Take, for instance, the scene where our protagonist walks through his condo with an overlay of a magazine catalog. He states that we work jobs in don't like to buy things we think we need but in reality the things we own end up owning us.

I wish we could watch this in class because how well it illustrates topics discussed in class but alas some of the content makes it kind of NSFW and would probably end up with McCaulif getting into hot water.

Fantasy Football and the Parasocial Relationship Theory

      When I got back to my apartment Thursday evening after a choir rehearsal I was greeted with my roommate in the living room with the football game on and a question.

     "Hey do you think I should play rg3 or blahblah"

      I say blah blah because frankly I had no idea what he was talking about. You see, my roommate is a big fantasy football player and I....don't follow sports. After an extended weather delay where my roommate became increasingly distressed the game started. 

     Apparently he was "playing"Torrey Smith. When the ball was never thrown to him my roommate started to yell at the tv telling the quarterback to throw it to Torrey already. 

     This got me to thinking of the relationship between people playing Fantasy Football and the Parasocial Relationship theory. As we learned in class the Parasocial Relationship Theory describes one-sided relationships where one party knows a great deal about the other party, but the other does not. Fantasy football players are great examples of people who are in these relationships. They look up stats about the players in their fantasy team and seem to know incredibly detailed information about them. Meanwhile the players do not know anything about the people who have them in their team.

    One game down...only a lot more to go. The parasocial relationship continues!

    What is your opinion on fantasy football and the parasocial relationship theory? Do you play fantasy football? If so post a comment below about your relationship with your players.