Final Project: Life360 & Find My Friends

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Sports Connections

I am currently watching the pacers and knicks game on espn and I find myself yelling at the tv whenever the pacers do something dumb or the knicks do something good, likewise I cheer when the opposites of those happen. I talk like I actually personally know who the pacers superstar Paul George is because I watch a lot of pacers games and I consider him to be my favorite player in the NBA. I have a parasocial relationship with Paul George and the rest of the pacer in that I feel like I know quite a bit about them, however none of them now who I am at all. It doesn’t really bother me as I know many other people have the same issue and I do not understand why I get so angry or happy during the sports games because whenever I yell at the tv its not like it will change the outcome of the game but I feel like it is my duty as a fan if I wasn’t so intense during the game. I justify my actions by saying that whenever I really get into the game, the pacers win the game, or if I don’t get into the game, they lose.

I never use twitter

When you here pop culture one of the first things you think of is twitter. I used to have a twitter and used it pretty frequently, until about a month ago. The only tweets I liked were the nonserious ones. I felt that too many people used twitter to naively state their opinions on big social issues without actually knowing what was going on. This was especially true during the election. I hated even thinking about all the dumb tweets that people sent out like “Obama is bad” or “Mitt Romney hates poor people” just because they knew their parents were either republicans or democrats. Another big topic on twitter was the Kony 2012 thing. People kept tweeting about it thinking they were actually making a difference in the world just because they recognized that something should be done about it. I do find it humorous though when famous people compose tweets that they are later embarrassed about and delete them for example. Amanda Bynes. I completely forgot about Amanda Bynes until she became a hit on twitter with her tweets like “‪@AmandaBynes: You get turned on but what you are not by what you're not” like what does that even mean? Actor Jason Biggs later responded to this Bynes tweet by asking if she had a stroke, to which Bynes replied you’re so ugly so I wont talk to you. Now that’s some quality entertainment if you ask me. Twitter is a big thing and just about everyone but me likes it, but I am glad I got rid of mine. 

Athletes/Actors and Soldiers

I played many sports growing up, but until we watched the video in class Monday I never realized how closely people related them to war. I always just thought of them as a game and it was fun to play, but especially after seeing Kellen Winslow's reaction where he said he was a soldier and that the game was war, I find it completely idiotic. How can someone who gets paid millions of dollars to catch a ball and run compare himself to a man or woman, who is completely underpaid in my opinion, that may be put in a hostile situation in a foreign country with terrible living conditions and no idea if they are going to survive or not. I know that sometimes after a big game your emotions can take over and you say things that you don't always mean, but Kellen Winslow's interview made me think he had one of the most idiotic rants in sports history.
This prompted me to look up other athletes and actors who have compared themselves to soldiers. While I did not find anything like Winslow's rant, I found some interesting stuff. In December 2010 after his team struggled against the Jacksonville Jaguars, then New York Giants safety Antrel Rolle responded to his team being booed by the harsh New York fans by saying "when soldiers come home from Iraq you don't boo them". How embarrassing for him. Famous actor Mark Wahlberg basically sums up all my thoughts when he was asked about actors comparing themselves to soldiers "For actors to sit there and talk about ‘oh I went to SEAL training’? I don’t give a f--k what you did. You don’t do what these guys did. For somebody to sit there and say my job was as difficult as being in the military? How f--king dare you, while you sit in a makeup chair for two hours". I couldn't of said it better myself, Mark.

Geeks

As we talked about today in class, geeks don’t necessarily always fit the stereotype of comic book lovers or cosplayers, even though there is nothing wrong with people who enjoy comic books and cosplaying. I thought Caleb brought up a good point when he mentioned people who play fantasy sports are sports geeks. I do not believe that the word geek should have a negative connotation and instead should be looked upon as a positive because geeks get a great amount of enjoyment out of whatever it is they are geeks for. I personally play fantasy football and am a huge geek about it. I always look into who I should start, check what teams are playing each other, and strategize what lineups will give me the best results. I believe that “nerds” are just geeks for academia, which is why I am confused as to why Dirk Manning believes that the nerd culture can only be men. I was never into comic books, video games, cosplaying, or anything like that, but I always assumed that the “nerd” culture was one of the most accepting of anyone. I do not see why girls and guys can’t like the same things without girls being scrutinized. If anything, I would of thought that girls would be gladly welcomed amongst the nerd community. However, I realize that Dirk Manning can not speak for all the nerds but I think his meme was way out of line and he should be embarrassed of his words.

Video Games and Reality

Today in class we watched a video featuring Jane McGonigal and her ideas about how gamers can change the world with the skills they develop from playing video games. Saying that games like World of Warcraft can give people the proper knowledge and abilities to make a large difference in the world, in my opinion, is like saying just because you're good at Madden means you could be a star in the NFL or if you're good at Call Of Duty you will instantly be a good soldier and know exactly what to do in a real life war situation. It relates back to the virtual soldier topic we discussed earlier this year. As a video gamer myself, I understand that some games can have influences on people but I do not believe you can relate playing an MMORPG type game like World Of Warcraft to reality.