COMM 322 - Social Media Responsibility - Alex Sprague, Michael Estridge, Zackery Kiley, Michael Martinez, Jamison Turner, Zach Brown

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=566xgHSgbms&feature=youtu.be

Twitter

Not Edited
In this blog I’m going to briefly discuss what it’s been like acclimating to the life of a Twitter user. People were often surprised when I would tell them that I didn’t have a Twitter.  It was to the point that I often felt it was taboo to not have a Twitter by the way people acted. Often indirectly I would feel left out of situations. I would be with friends who would often start discussing something they saw through social media, or talk about something related to a post and I would be left out of the conversation.

            Going into Twitter I had a basic understanding of Twitter and it’s aspects. Hashtags, tagging people, retweets, and favoriting are all things that you can often hear in daily conversation due to Twitter becoming so engrained in our society. Now that I have had my Twitter for a little over a week though I am starting to understand it’s appeal and how it works on a deeper level. I may not be as big into as a lot of the people I know but I am starting to become a more comfortable user.

            The first thing I noticed was that it’s quite interesting to see people interact with each other a lot more than on Facebook and than I expected though. I also see peoples interests more often through what they share and post. For the first time in awhile this seems to be the first social media I’ve used that I will take the time to scroll through the wall and see what people are actually talking about.

Acceptance

Not Edited

                I took the time in my last blog to discuss a South Park episode, and I am doing it for this blog as well, as I believe it is one of the best mediums for controversial discussion that we currently have in television right now. The episode I am going to be referring to is “The Death Camp of Tolerance” episode, which if you haven’t seen is entirely about intolerance. On some points I may be playing Devil’s advocate, as I often do, and others I will agree with the majority of society’s view. While nearly the entire episode is filled with stereotypes, racist innuendos, and what could be considered harmful portrayals of minorities and other people, it does not fail at bringing up numerous informative and thoughtful points as to the good and bad of these when thought about.

When the children are taken to the Museum of Tolerance in the episode, they are shown all kinds of negative and positive stereotypes and how such beliefs can cause harmful prejudices in people. It’s interesting to see that at the same time these things are usually negative things are being shown, they are being constantly skewed to be funny and enjoyable for the audience to watch. This brings me to one of two points I want to make. The first is that I see so many people up in arms against media when a certain religion, gender, culture is picked on through humor and I don’t find this fair. What gives any idea the right to be above being degraded in some way. By pointing out for example a minority and saying we should not be allowed to make jokes of it, are we not just patronizing that minority and in a way, ourselves, saying that said minority is flawed and should be lifted up through the exemption of being ill-treated at the hands of comedians, that they should be treated better than so-called ‘normal’. This idea just does not seem right to me. I will accommodate the other side of this argument, by agreeing that crude and unreasonable treatment and bashing of cultures, races, sexes, (etc.) for no other reason than to put them down is wrong, truly wrong and should not be conducted as it can reinforce hurtful beliefs among unknowing people. That being said, I do not believe that we should solely look to our sources of media expecting them to solely produce media that is in no way controversial and entirely acceptable by all people as it is not likely to happen ever. I honestly find this as a lazy and wasteful idea when it is taken to the extreme that absolutely all media should be acceptable. Is it not more reasonable to focus on educating ourselves of the truths behind the minorities we see on TV? Should we not take the time to understand what they truly are through exploration of the world the actually live in and the study of cultures that we do not understand? As a people we should be more open minded and understanding of the fact that what is displayed to us through TV is not often the entire truth and we should not base our views solely off such ideas.

This directly leads to my next point that the feeling that everything needs to be acceptable and ok. It’s not always a bad thing to see the fault in something. A monologue in the episode states, acceptance isn’t what we should strive for as total acceptance of everything is not something we will ever achieve. We should strive for tolerance. As a character in the episode phrases it, “You tolerate a crying child sitting next to you on an airplane, or you tolerate a bad cold. It can still piss you off.” There should be a point when we stop simply trying to accept everything and tolerate it as a part of the world we live in and be willing to coexist with it.

South Park's View On Social Media

Not Edited

                I’d like to take a moment in this blog to discuss the South Park episode “You Have 0 Friends”, as well as South Park as a whole. South Park will often bluntly skew hot topics and put in the spotlight things we often don’t take the time to focus on. This episode in specific is of interest to me as it deals with the overuse of social media and how engrained it has become in all of our lives. I only just got a Twitter as of recently which is why I can associate with the pressure Stan feels as his friends and family become absorbed into the virtual world. The episode opens with the boys bragging about how many friends they have on Facebook, which is funny to me as I can remember a time when I was younger in school and would witness the same conversation among many of my friends.

                South Park is in no way new at stabbing at popular trends, and while these are normally on a much larger scale, it is amusing and interesting to see the show pick on a topic that is such an intimate and small part of our daily lives, yet connects nearly everyone in a big way. The show does amazing at displaying how social media affect our lives in a multitude of ways. For instance, Stan is shown leaving a comic book store when his girlfriend confronts incorrectly about a status on his wall, that actually meant nothing, but through assumptions she is outraged and yells at him. I personally see this as a great example of how using social media as our main source of connection. By ignoring important face-to-face interaction, we can miss the important aspects of their lives that we are truly interested in, and by missing these we are reduced to only knowing the few sentences that they are portrayed by through a status update. This can pull us back from seeing what a person really is, not allowing us to full understand them.

                At the end of the episode Stan’s profile has become so powerful through its large accumulation of friends that it, literally, sucks him into Facebook and challenges him to a life and death match of Yahtzee. The humorous aspects of this situation aside, Stan makes an interesting point that “friends should not be a commodity” in response to his profiles statement that it has more friends than he ever will in real life. I feel that this really speaks to how much more important we should treat our friendship and relationships we have with the people we associate with, and our virtual relationships should not be the primary source of our connections.

War!

               The bright light of a muzzle flash on a T.V. screen. The scream of jets flying overheard through loud speakers. The rumble of a controller in your hands as a grenade goes off near your character in a video game. These impressions have become a mainstay throughout all facets of media, long ago integrated into much of our popular culture. But what causes our fascination with war, violence, and death? Why do we glorify massacre? So willingly display devastation? I'm not writing to debate whether this is good or bad, as everyone is entitled to their own opinion. These games do not simply exist for no reason though There is obviously something in us or something we see that makes them so appealing to us.
               War and violence is present in every culture, more prominent in some, but nearly always there in some fashion. Specifically though, since their growth, video games and movies have become the most prominent forms of distribution for this fashion of entertainment. They also gain the largest amount of attention from critics, good and bad. Movies have been an incredibly influential part of our culture since their birth and growth in the 19th and 20th century. Today we see movies as a part of a billion dollar industry that attracts over 100 million people. With action movies being an ever popular staple of Hollywood films, and some of the most profitable in the industry, they don't appear to be going away anytime soon. Games mirror this, as first-person military shooters are also some of the biggest most popular games in the industry, some making upwards of a billion dollars in their first day.
               To preface this, I am not against media that showcases war. I own a number of war themed games, and movies, and love them for the beautiful stories they can tell, the artful way they can portray those who have experienced the worst of battle, and how mindlessly entertaining they can be. I have to admit though that it seems more and more, our society has become desensitized to the killing and violence that comes with some of the big budget games and movies we see today. But why do we so eagerly welcome this?
               Today I watched the Steven Spielberg movie “Saving Private Ryan”, one of my favorite military films, and realized how the story of this movie connected me so emotionally with the characters, and the deep amount of respect it instilled in me for the men who have valiantly fought and died for their country. When one of the characters died, it wasn’t just another average scene in the movie. It felt like a hero, someone I could believe in, was losing everything they had lived for, and yet valiantly gave their life for something so much bigger than them. This seems to be a great example of how and why war has become so appealing to us. Showing these men in such a glorified way has in a way become an art form for this genre. We often look at these soldiers, and what they have done, as a source of inspiration and see how they have achieved the unimaginable.
               It goes without saying that I will most likely never experience the thrill of blowing up a tank during heavy combat, parachute behind enemy lines, or courageously storm a beach head and fight against a seemingly overwhelming enemy. These experiences I can, however, take part in safely from behind a controller. It is an escape to a world in which I can be a hero, a world in which I can obtain a sense of valor and dignity for the unimaginable feats I have accomplished through dedication and sacrifice. Reality will remind one of the seeming meaninglessness of such efforts, when the realization sets in that it is nothing more than a simulation on a screen. In the moment, however, if accepted by the player, it can mean so much more. While here in this world I may be nothing more than a measly, unimportant writer that couldn't even decide what to eat for breakfast, that will in all likelihood never save the world from utter destruction and tyranny. In a game though, I can be the savior this world so desperately needs. The interactivity of games, and the personal feeling they give one is exactly what sets them apart from most other mediums.
               While not as overtly obvious as it was during past times, specifically those of world war, propaganda coming straight from our military will often go out of the way to portray a vision of grandeur and prestige that is bestowed upon those who sacrifice everything and fight for their country. While in many instances the portrayal of the soldier may be in ways misleading, this doesn't necessarily mean it is wrong. In the opening act of the movie “Captain America”, an unassuming Steve Rogers is seen hoping to pursue the illustrious and venerable path that war can bring to someone. In one scene in particular, Rogers is seen looking at a recruitment poster, seeing his reflection where the face of a soldier's would be, standing honorably and saluting. This pretty perfectly portrays the image that is sold to us by the majority of media sources, whether in a macho over-powered super soldier, or a likeable hero in a movie, and it is this image that many believe in. However much we often disagree with the act of pursuing seemingly senseless wars, the image of the soldier is nearly always perceived as an individual of endless dedication and valor. They are someone that will continuously pursue, and fight, to secure the idea of a better world that the enemy would seek to destroy.
               While there are numerous people that believe that such displays are unnecessary and unwarranted, the presentation of a glorified war hurtful to the minds of the masses, the majority of our society welcomes this genre with open arms. These sentiments seem prevail in nearly all scenarios, and personally I love getting behind a controller and blasting away at some baddies. What do you guys think? Why do you enjoy the genres that you do?

Zombies!

Not Edited
There has been an unstoppable force, a horde if you will, staggering through all forms of entertainment in recent years. This epidemic has bitten, clawed, and mauled into movies, TV, video games, books, and nearly every other source of media. What I’m referring of course to the incredible way that zombies have become such a huge part of society. It’s been interesting to watch how they’ve saturated the entertainment industry and yet are still eagerly looked forward to every year as they come up in what we indulge. I wonder why exactly we are so fascinated with the idea of the dead reanimating and so violently munching on our bodies. The fact that it has become such a prevalent source of entertainment shows that there must be a reason for our undying interest in this genre.
                I hold my own interest in this genre as I have always enjoyed it from a young age when I saw the first “Night of the Living Dead” by George A. Romero, and so I have my own beliefs of why I and others find the undead so enticing to watch. George A. Romero is quoted as saying “I also have always liked the monster within idea. I like the zombies being us. Zombies are the blue-collar monsters.” This is by far one of my favorite explanations the captures what truly make zombies terrifying and unendingly interesting at the same time. You can be scared of spiders, the dark, or monsters, but zombies are frightening in a way that these things cannot be. They are us. They are a twisted and dark version of us and in a way very intimate. A complete stranger, someone you have no association can rob you and scare you, but the idea of your closest friend or family member reaching for you with the soul intent of turning you into their personal chew toy is something that can shake us. They are unsophisticated, simple instinct driven killers with no true goal other than to kill.

There is more to the appeal of a zombie apocalypse however. Through the utter devastation and terror of the situation, it has a strange way of feeling controllable. Movies have taught us that any average guy can survive a zombie attack and save the people he loves. It portrays a sense of invincibility that is easy to believe. Whereas the living can be unpredictable you can always count on the undead to do the same thing. They may be tough, but they are nearly always portrayed as destroyable objects that can be escaped or dispatched and faced with this challenge it is not uncommon to see apocalypse of the undead kind not only survivable, but an entertaining way to fight against the end. The desensitizing effect this flooding of the genre has had has engrained us with these ideas of being a cool macho zombie slayer an actual possibility. It seems to be comparable to the perceptions that games such as “Call of Duty” present, have lead youths to believe war is nothing more than a cool scene from a movie, when the reality is often something entirely different. Could we make it through such an event? Is it possible to avoid such a gruesome death at the hungry teeth of a corpse reanimated? It is impossible to know but these ideas continue to flourish throughout our entertainment.