Author: defrancisci

Reflective Post

This class has changed my perspective on the world around me. Because of this class, I am now often filled with questions as I experience media. How does the TV I watch reinforce negative stereotypes? How does the music I listen to exclude certain groups? Why is it that I don’t relate to certain genres of different media? These are all questions I have started considering because this class has exposed me to the many inequalities present in our society.

Thinking about how media both reflects upon and has the power to change society began with our first unit. In talking about video games, a type of media I am very unfamiliar with, I began to think about how the same themes we were discussing were present in the music I listened to. I’ve always noticed that different types of music were made by specific groups of people. Some examples are indie rock is predominately white, metal is almost exclusively white males, and blues is predominately black males. Now, I’ve been begin to question how different cultures and other factors lend themselves to these divisions in music.

During this class, I have also become educated on the unseen labor present in my everyday life. One example of this is learning about the terrible working conditions of the people responsible for assembling our mobile devices. The preventative measures Foxconn took to stop the workers from attempting suicide really stuck out to me. How tough are working conditions and how hard is that company being pushed that such a measure is necessary? We learned about the terrible conditions there; that was easy to view in pictures and videos. However, we hardly touched on the greater social problem that a company’s easiest option is to treat their workers so poorly. Learning about these conditions has caused me to think more carefully about the implications of my purchases on society.

In the third unit, we discussed Twitter, which I think will always cause me some confusion. I have learned how Twitter has allowed many issues to be brought to the world’s attention. One of the most notable examples of this was the Ferguson hashtag. When this hashtag trended, people everywhere were able to see the events and hear the stories occurring in Ferguson. As a result, a discussion was started across the United States on the conditions faced by people of color in this country.

However, I still struggle to understand the culture of Twitter feminism and its purpose. It seems to me that the purpose is to raise awareness of issues that are happening. What about solutions? Wouldn’t it be useful for people to discuss how to solve problems, or live in spite of opposition? It seems to me that a lot of the focus of Twitter feminism is on pointing out where feminists went wrong, instead of pointing out how they are causing change. All of this is made worse by the lack of respect people have for other opinions. While Twitter may be useful in that it gives everyone a voice, I question whether it actually helps different people understand each other better, or if it only divides people along their views.

In the final unit, we discussed how technology affects different groups of people. This has made me think a lot about design, and how products might be hard for certain people to use. One of the classic examples of this is airbags in cars, and how an airbag deploying can kill people who are small than the designers originally planned for. What other things in my life do I use easily that might exclude other types of users? How could things be designed better, so they are more accessible to more people? On the other hand, when can it be useful to exclude certain groups? One example of this is child safety locks, which prevent unsupervised children from coming into contact with dangerous things.

For me, the overall theme of this class was taking a closer look at the world. Because of this class, I have begun to question many parts of my life that I had never considered before.

Final Project: Bubble People

bubble-person

image from: sarahhalliwell.blogspot.com

Have you ever walked down the street and felt like everyone you saw was in their own little bubble? With earbuds in, staring down at their phone, everyone seemed to be trying to ignore the world? What if people could be physically separated from those around them?

Imagine a literal personal bubble. Think of it as a way of taking your home with you as you go out. It could keep you insulated from outside weather. This bubble could be air conditioned or heated, and could certainly be water proof. The bubble could also be equipped with the many functions of today’s mobile devices: it could play music, watch Netflix, play games, and search the web. What if this bubble drove itself? If it had GPS technology and was able to sense the things around it, the bubble could be a vehicle for traveling down sidewalks and other places where cars aren’t permitted. You could drive downtown, park your car, get in your bubble, and float to your final destination. On the way there, you’d have access to movies, television, books, and other media to occupy your attention.

If this bubble drove itself and had unlimited entertainment technology, would there be a window? Would the people using the bubble see the outside world? Would they want to? When people watch movies and television, they want to be absorbed into the story, and forget about the outside world. In that sense, a bubble with a window would be like a movie theater with a window. As a result, the bubble would be an isolated container in order to allow its users to become engrossed in the media presented to them.

Any tech company involved with entertainment would be interested in this technology, as it allows people to experience media in new settings. Today, you can’t walk down the street reading or watching television. As you stare down, you would likely run into objects or other people. This already often happens with texting, which does not require the user to be watching the screen as actively as other forms of entertainment. The solution is to then have a more comprehensive device that will take you to your destination, allowing you to be entertained during your journey.

Like every new technology, this bubble has social implications beyond what its creators intended. Being in the bubble, you are safely unaware of the world around you. The bubble creates a secluded space in a public setting. Today, it is only possible to try and ignore the world as you walk down the street. While you may be distracted by your devices, you are still aware of the people and space around you. However, inside of the bubble, you are removed from the world.

One possible advantage of the bubble is that it could protect the user from street harassment. The bubbles would make you anonymous as you walked down the street. As a result of not seeing knowing what you look like, no one will be approaching you. This may make some people feel safer as they go out in public. Anonymity in public could also provide protection for women in countries where it is unsafe for them to go out alone. However, the bubble does not solve the greater problem of mistreatment of women throughout the world.

The bubble could have great potential for another group of people. If this bubble could remove the need to walk, it could make the world more accessible to people with physical impairments or disabilities. No longer would these people have to worry about the pain and inconvenience of foot travel. Now, they can get in their bubbles and be carried to their destination. Using the bubbles as a means of transportation, people with disabilities could travel more freely. Imagine if you were blind, and you could get in your bubble and trust it would safely take you to your destination?

A potential problem is that this bubble could become a barrier between different classes. Especially if those who can afford the bubble feel they need it for “protection” from the people on the street, this could reinforce negative stereotypes about cities. Because those in the bubble are unaware of the world around them, they would never see any evidence that could disprove their preconceptions. The people in the bubble would become reliant on the media to inform them about their surroundings, instead of stepping outside of the bubble and drawing their own conclusions.

The bubble could also affect the way people interact. How would life be different if every time you went outside, you felt you needed the comfort of your bubble to transport you to your destination? Would people no longer walk with each other? The bubble presents another method of entertainment that removes the user from those around them.

Event Response: Infinite Ulysses

Infinite Ulysses is a website to read and discuss the text Ulysses. This website contains the entire text of Ulysses, and users can add annotations to the text. The point of the website is to allow people of all backgrounds to have a new, more interactive, experience reading the text with the added perspectives of many others. Comments could be sorted into categories with tags. These categories can be for dedicated scholars, such as history and intertextuality. Conversely, these can be considerable lighter comments made by more casual readers, expressing their opinions about a particular scene. Or, the comments could be in the middle, discussing the story itself. Educational comments to explain the context of the story to the casual reader fall under several of the possible categories, such as definition, translation, or questions. The creator of this project wanted the site to be useful for as many people as possible, which is why the wide variety of tags is allowed. To assist readers in navigating all of the comments, they can filter certain tags, so they only see the comments that they feel are appropriate to them, and are not overwhelmed by a massive amount of comments. In the future, the creator of this project is hoping to have open source code, so this type of edition can be applied to texts by people with little programming experience.

I think this idea gives interesting thought about the definition of a text and its editions. For me, I would love to see textbooks have this sort of annotation. Many times while reading a textbook chapter, it would have assisted me greatly to have something rephrased. Also, having an annotation with a more detailed “Why?” section could help me better understand certain concepts. Additionally, comments on “When am I ever going to use this?” could help make material more interesting and relevant to me.

This project connects to our class because it allows new voices to be heard. Editions of classical texts have always exclusively included annotations by scholars. While some editions may include more scholarly information and some may attempt to decipher the text for less informed readers, the voices of the highly educated have dominated text annotations. With this website, the platform is opened to all who have internet connection. This allows for casual readers to post questions and respond to each other in a way that was not possible before. Through this platform, new insights will be added to Ulysses, allowing for more people to relate to the text and participate in the discussion surrounding it.

Hacking the Label

The article “Hacking the Label” was an interview with two hacktivists of different generations: Carmin Karasic and Micha Cárdenas, conducted by Leonie Maria Tanczer. It was published on Ada, a feminist journal associated with the University of Oregon. As a result, this article will mostly reach feminists who are seeking or have obtained higher education.

This article didn’t have a thesis, as it was a transcription of a conversation between the author and two hactivists. They each discussed their opinions on several topics related to hacking, equality, and political activism.

The conversation began by discussing how the interviewees were involved in Electronic Disturbance Theater, a group that hosts virtual sit-ins and protests used to slow down chosen websites as a method of civil disobedience. Cárdenas also participated in the creation of the Transborder Immigrant Tool, which was used to help immigrants find water stations placed in the desert.

The transition the turned towards the meaning and purpose of hacking. Cárdenas said she had always founding hacking innately political. For her, changing someone else’s code was political because it meant taking the power away from someone else. Karasic thought that was interesting, as she had felt that hacking in itself was neutral until it was applied to something particular.

Karasic said that she found hacking liberating in that she was no longer being judged for her gender and race. In the IT world, she had often experienced sexism and racism. However, she found that prejudice was, for the most part, less evident in the hactivism world.

Cárdenas found some resistance to her projects based on her gender identity and sexual orientation. Additionally, she found that some hackers believed hacking was about advancing technology, not making political change. Both Cárdenas and Karasic agreed that most of the resistance came from governments who found their actions as threatening as terrorist threats. Cárdenas found her work was most slowed down when her actions were being investigated by the government.

The next focus of the conversation was the purpose of hacktivism. Karasic believed that hacktivism was useful because it was another platform for people to express their political views and attempt to enact change. Cárdenas stated that hacktivism had the most effect when used to interfere with infrastructure, affecting the networking systems of certain companies. Additionally, Cárdenas liked how, with hacktivism, people could create a space for themselves out of nothing, instead of protesting at existing spaces in the physical world.

Cárdenas and Karasic also discussed the nature of feminism and hacking. Karasic found herself reluctant to identify as a feminist because of the history of racism and discrimination in feminist movements. Instead, she views her work as a creation for all people. Cárdenas is interested in creating for a new type of feminism, focused on transgender women. She explains that this is necessary because many previous feminist works have expressed fear of transgender people.

Cárdenas and Karasic then discuss how social categories such as race and gender play into hacktivism. Cárdenas is regretful that the internet focuses more on identity than it did twenty years ago, when a person could go online completely anonymously. They then discuss how black transgender women face more violence than transgender women of other races. This leads into the next point about hacker groups focused on women and people of color. Karasic discusses that it can be difficult to come up with examples of these groups because most hacker groups try to avoid gathering a lot of attention. The article concludes with Cárdenas talking about how people of color don’t need to be “included” in hacktivism and technology. Instead, they must break away from the white ideas of technology and create in a way that is unique to them.

The purpose of the article to start a discussion on hactivism, the image of hackers, and the racial and gender inequalities of hackers/hactivists. I appreciated the discussion on how feminism has changed throughout its history and must work to become more inclusive towards transgender women and women of color. I also found it very interesting that Karasic said her work was not about accomplishing feminist goals, she was trying to better the world for all people.

What I struggle to understand is morality of hacktivism. If you disagree with someone, does that give you the right to tear down their creations? While this is not necessarily what Karasic and Cárdenas were doing, they did discuss other hackers who felt that the work they did was not destructive enough. I think the concept of the “sit-in” hacktivism is a good balance of peacefully expressing displeasure and frustration.

How Identity is Reflected Through Advertisements

Identity can be expressed through many mediums and based upon various aspects of the self. Race, gender, and class are common bases for identity. However, people also use other aspects of life to help define who they are. Identity can even be based off of commercial products. Take, for example, the way people dress. Most people choose their clothes to fit within their perceptions of themselves. As a result, when people shop, they buy products that reflect their identities. For our research project, we decided to look at how the products we shop for online are representative of our identities. How do the products we consume represent who we are? How do online retailers, like Amazon, learn about our identities through what we buy, and how do they use that information to appeal to us via advertising? What are the implications of seeing personally tailored ads online when we consider those ads as an interpretation of one’s identity?

To answer these questions, we researched the topics of identity through commerce and conducted a personal experiment. We began our research by examining the link between consumption and identity. We then focused on the specific examples of the Deadhead fans of the Grateful Dead and Nike products in Honduras. We also considered scholarship on how advertisers use knowledge about consumers’ identities to sell their products. For our experiment, we looked specifically at Amazon, the most popular online shopping site and a major advertiser on the Internet. We investigated whether ads shown by Amazon accurately reflect identity and how those ads could impact the viewer. Our analysis of our experiment’s findings draws on our research to consider how the Internet and the algorithms that track our spending habits affect the interactions between consumption and identity. Our analysis tries to illustrate what the link between consumption and identity looks like in the Internet age.

Our research on the interaction between consumption and identity included various articles that were all built on the assumption that the products we buy have meaning. Commodities have meanings attached to them. These meanings can be obvious – for example, the way that a Baltimore Ravens jersey means that the wearer is a football fan – or more subtle. As consumers, we use the meanings attached to products to reflect and strengthen our beliefs about ourselves, infer things about others, and identify ourselves as belonging to certain social groups. One way that consumers use commodities to define themselves and belong to a group is through consuming music.

Music, as a good produced by an industry, falls under the category of processed and profitable sources of identity. Many people use the music they listen to as an expression of who they are. In this way, music can form communities, strengthening that identity as the listener becomes not only a fan of an artist but a member of a larger group. This is because certain types of music are often associated with certain views and standards. As a result, many avid fans of a band are likely to share not only their musical interest, but their opinions on larger topics as well.

One prominent example where people connected through music was the “Deadhead” community of Grateful Dead fans. Politically charged lyrics combined with a sound appealing to people with those views and as a result followers of the Grateful Dead were like-minded people. The band formed such a popular touring act because of their very dedicated fan base. In turn, the fans felt that going to shows and being a Deadhead was an integral part of who they were. Here, commercial products, albums and concert tickets, are being purchased by people in order to realize their identity as fans. However, identity based on possessions and experiences created by other people may not be able to endure. When band member Jerry Garcia died, this community was in upheaval. How could these people go on living their lives as Deadheads without the band? Some members remained active in the Deadhead community, supporting the remaining members’ subsequent projects in order to hold on to this part of themselves. However, there were also people who left the community, who removed this part of themselves.

In the same way that consuming Grateful Dead music identified Deadheads with certain political views, our research about consumption and identity found that some products have complex political meanings attached to them. For example, the Garifuna, a community of black Hondurans, identify Nike brand products with similarly complex political meanings. Beginning in the 1980s, Nike advertisements associated Nike products with African American athletes and an image of masculinity linked with a kind of “inner city authenticity” (Tsing 165). Nike’s interpretation of black masculinity resonated with the Garifuna, who use Nike’s logo and products as a symbol for empowerment and economic success. Anthropologist Mark Anderson writes that ‘‘Among Garifuna in Honduras, the Nike swoosh circulated as a polyphonic icon of youth resistance, racial blackness, economic status and corporate power’’ (Tsing 165). The power of the Nike swoosh as a symbol can be seen in its use in varied contexts: Garifuna painted the symbol on the sides of taxis, houses, and even on rocks, and some tattooed it on to their bodies or shaved it into their hair. The Garifuna’s use of Nike products to represent a part of their identities is an example of how the goods we consume reflect and reinforce the ways we see ourselves.

The Deadheads and Garifuna might be considered what Sarah Banet-Weiser calls “consumer citizens” in her book Authentic TM. Consumer citizenship means expressing ideas about politics and identity through consumption. Banet-Weiser’s scholarship on consumption and identity points out an important component of the interaction between the two: the fact that brands and businesses are aware of consumers’ use of their products to express their identities and use that knowledge for profit. Brands sometimes choose to appeal to consumers’ identities and political views by using social activism as a means to advertise. An advertising campaign that uses social activism to sell products is called “commodity activism” (Banet-Weiser 16). A prominent example of commodity activism is Dove’s Campaign for Real Beauty, which uses ideas from the feminist and body positive movements to sell Dove products. When we shop online, we interact with more than just advertising campaigns like these that may or may not be tailored to our viewpoints. We also see content generated by algorithms whose job it is to show us products that appeal to us. These algorithms’ ability to personally tailor our experience with advertisements means that brands and advertisers could use the interplay consumption and identity for profit more powerfully than ever before.

During our personal experiment part of the research process, we looked into how online shopping, particularly on Amazon, influences the ads shown to you on the Internet. We wanted to know how these ads reflected the identity of the user. We hypothesized that at the end of the experiment, the ads would form a fairly complete picture of the other user. For our experiment, we would trade computers for ten minutes every day for three days. During that time, we would search for products we found related to us. Then, in our daily Internet usage, we would screenshot any Amazon ads we saw. It was easy to ensure that no one else would be disturbed by our experiment; we would be the only ones to see the advertisements.

While we had expected the ads to show us many different items related to the items we had viewed, we found that Amazon almost exclusively showed us ads of the exact products we had previously clicked on. This has led us to conclude that Amazon does not try to assume what we would and would not like, it simply regurgitates our shopping history back to us. It was also interesting how quickly the new periods of searching changed the ads we were shown. After each period of searching, the ads of products the other person had just searched for replaced the ads of products from the search before. The result of this was that we not shown anything near a generalization of the things the other person was interested in. We saw nothing more than their most recent searches.

Our experiment found that Amazon’s algorithms are not sophisticated enough to make judgments about a user’s identity through the goods they consume, at least not to the point that Amazon can recommend new products to the user that appeal to their sense of self. We proved Amazon searches are not a definitive picture of someone’s identity, despite attempts by advertisers to gather information this way. But even though Amazon’s advertising capabilities have not yet progressed to that level, the ads Amazon shows us are still very relevant to our identities. When we went online and the ads tried to sell us products that we had already expressed interest in by clicking on them in Amazon, that was an algorithm used to determine who we were and what we might purchase. These ads show us the same products over and over again because it has been concluded that if you already viewed those products, you are more likely to buy them. Being shown the same ads repeatedly reinforces an online consumer’s identity. The idea that seeing advertisements for the same products strengthens our view of ourselves is similar to Eli Pariser’s concept of filter bubbles that we discussed in this class. We are being shown identical products over and over instead of a representation of all of the products on Amazon. This means that Internet ads are repeatedly reinforcing a constructed interpretation of the user’s identity. As time goes on and the user is bombarded with these types of ads, they may come to believe in that identity.

All in all, our project sought to understand how the Internet and algorithms that track consumer behavior might strengthen the relationship between consumption and identity. From the limited findings of our personal experiment with Amazon advertisements, we believe that Internet algorithms have not yet progressed to a point where they are able to get a clear picture of a consumer’s identity and tailor the individual consumer’s online experience accordingly. However, a broader experiment might find that Amazon’s algorithms are more sophisticated than they have been in our experience. Whether through advertising filter bubbles or through more complexly constructed advertisements geared towards an individual’s identity, the Internet is causing the relationship between consumption and identity to evolve.

 

SCREENSHOTS

Screen Shot 2015-03-08 at 5.11.24 PMThe search history on the left shows Chris’ searches for laundry detergent and fabric softener. On the right, Amazon showed Emma an ad through Facebook for the exact fabric softener that Chris had searched for.

Screen Shot 2015-03-06 at 6.19.14 PMScreen Shot 2015-03-07 at 4.01.18 PM

Emma’s browsing history on the left contains all three of the items pictured above in an ad on AZ Lyrics.

 

Works Cited

Banet-Weiser, Sarah. Authentic ™: The Politics of Ambivalence in a Brand Culture. NYU Press, 2012. Print.

Duffett, Mark. Popular Music Fandom: Identities, Roles and Practices. New York: Routledge, 2014. Print.

Pariser, Eli. Beware Online “Filter Bubbles.” TED. Mar. 2011. Web. http://www.ted.com/talks/eli_pariser_beware_online_filter_bubbles?language=en

Tsing, Anna. Supply Chains and the Human Condition. Rethinking Marxism: A Journal of  Economics, Culture & Society. London: Routledge, 2013. Print.

Zimmerman, Ian. We Are What We Consume. Psychology Today. New York: Sussex Publishers, LLC, 2013. Web.

“I Liked Everything…” Reading Response

Honan intended this article  for Facebook users who are also interested in the science behind their news feeds. Because it is on the website Wired, this article is meant to appeal to people who are interested in the other aspects of the website: technology, business, gaming, and design.

In this article, Honan discusses how algorithms used by Facebook affects what appears in the news feed. He conducted a personal experiment where he liked everything that appeared on his news feed. Rather quickly, his new feed became filled with posts from brands, posts from people left out. When it came to news sites, Honan noticed a trend. The posts were brief, two sentences explaining an event, followed by a query, inviting the reader to like the post. Additionally, as he went on liking things, the news related posts became more extreme. He could only continue this trend for two days before he got sick of all of the nonsense appearing before him.

Honan finds many aspects of the Facebook algorithms troubling. Instead of delivering anything close to unbiased news, Facebook delivers the news it believes we will agree with, or more importantly, click on. Other than news, the posts from sites like Buzzfeed became more and more ridiculous. In writing about this, Honan wants to inform Facebook users about how and why information is presented to them. It may be his hope that with this information, we can make the conscious choice to ignore the garbage and eventually it will no longer show up on our news feeds.

Before this article, I had noticed the very gimmicky nature of many Facebook posts are phrased. This is something that I find disgusting and annoying, and I was glad Honan mentioned it. I found this article fascinating, and it has changed the way I scroll through my Facebook feed. I find it interesting that the majority of updates on my news feed are from bands, since those are the posts I like and click on more. This article made me think about the reason I have a Facebook. The most important part of it is keeping up with the lives of those I don’t speak to on a regular basis. Although I may not “like” everything people post, I’m certainly interested in reading it. However, I also use Facebook to stay updated on bands. When a band posts a new song or a link to a tour, that is something I generally click on. As a result, my news feed becomes more and more filled up with bands. On the other hand, I’m wondering if a part of this is due to the fact that most of my friends do not post very much on Facebook, leading to their absence from my news feed.

 

Twine game

http://philome.la/ChrisFromDCC106/a-day-of-songs/play

The premise of my twine game is that you are a high school student and every choice you make is a song lyric. When I made this game, I had hoped that the player would find some humor in seeing some of these lyrics taken completely out of context. In this aspect, I do not think I succeeded. In class, I realized that I had forgotten to mention that the game was based on song lyrics. Additionally, it may be harder to identify the origins of the lyrics in this setting. I added information about the premise of the game to the first passage, in the hopes of clarifying the game. The “plot” of the game is that you wake up on a Friday morning and you have to decide what to do with your day. The only thing you have to do to “win” is keep clicking; all of the end results portray the main character as content.

In making this game, I tried very hard to avoid assigning genders to any of the characters. The player is only ever referred to as “you” and the people you interact with are “friends”. I did this to avoid any assumptions the player might make about how people of different or same gender are expected to interact. I do not think I was very successful in this aspect either. Perhaps because my classmates knew the game was created by me, or perhaps because I am a male and I wrote the game, my classmates assumed the the lead character was also a male.

However, I think I succeeded in removing assumptions about the relationships the character has with others based on gender. While dating and sex are a source of many of the problems in the life of a high school student, I did not want that to be a part of the game. I tried to avoid to the topics of dating and sex because I wanted all of the possible endings to be positive, and it would be very unrealistic to have every choice on relationships turn out well. The game is not about interacting with other people as much as it is about determining the personality of the character.

List of songs:
“Sleeping In” – The Postal Service
“Road to Joy” – Bright Eyes
“I Like You So Much Better When You’re Naked” – Ida Maria
“All Black” – Good Charlotte
“Blue Jeans” – Lana Del Rey
“Daylight” – Matt & Kim
“Chardonnay Summer” – Leggy
“Plans” – The One AM Radio
“The Perfect Kiss” – New Order
“Stay Useless” – Cloud Nothings
“A Different City” – Modest Mouse
“Skeletons” – The Front Bottoms
“Temptation” – New Order
“A Sentence of Sorts in Kongsvinger” – Of Montreal
“A Pair of Matching Taxi Rides” – Into It. Over It.
“At Last” – Etta James
“Shoulder Pads” – Gleemer
“Nine” – La Dispute
“Sunlight” – The One AM Radio
“I Wish” – Stevie Wonder
“Therapy” – Relient K
“The Great Escape” – Boys Like Girls
“shmuck in the room” – frankie cosmos
“Anna Sun” – Walk the Moon
“Next in Line” – Walk the Moon
“All Star” – Smash Mouth
“Take a Walk” – Passion Pit
“Streetcorner Symphony” – Rob Thomas
“Enjoy the Silence” – Depeche Mode
“Tonight I’m gonna party like it’s 1999” – Prince
“This Charming Man” – The Smiths
“A Thousand Miles” – Vanessa Carlton
“Fast Car” – Tracy Chapman

I’m not that creepy guy from the internet

Arthur Chu writes to gamers who are supporters of #GamerGate. He wants to inform those gamers that he knows where they’re coming from, but that their violent reactions are unnecessary and cruel. Chu hopes that gamers will be able to create a more open and accepting community.

Chu describes Gamergate as a movement meant to make gamers feel entitled, as if they own gaming and someone on the outside is trying to take it away from them. However, he says he understands what has led them to feel that way.

Growing up, Chu was antisocial and intelligent, made few friends, and retreated into video games. They were his escape from many of the tough moments of his life.

Chu became a fan of Felicia Day, who created an web series of World of Warcraft parodies. The web series showed how “creepy” gamers felt vulnerable, and that there was someone who could manage to forgive them for their intrusive behavior.

When Chu got the change to see Day do a small improv show in L.A., he took it. There, he felt incredibly awkward in the audience of Day’s friends and family. Then, Day approached him and asked him to go to dinner with her and her friends. Chu was impressed that she took the chance with him, that she invited a random fan/potential stalker out to eat.

Someone trusted Chu to not cross boundaries, and that trust led him to never cross into stalker and obsessive territory. This was five years ago, when the gaming community was strong and trusting. Now, Day has said that when she sees gamers out on the street, she avoids them. Now, people who try interact with fans face death threats and stalking, causing them to not interact with their fans, leading to angry fans.

I was saddened to hear that a once strong community was now falling apart. Chu mentioned how he was able to get a group of people together to help him propose to his wife because they were all gamers. Now, death threats are sent and received for inconsequential happenings, such as bad reviews for a game.

 

Introduction

Hello! My name is Chris and I am majoring in Electrical Engineering. You can find me on twitter @ChrisFromDCC106. I do very little other than play guitar and write songs and do homework.

http://www.elephantjournal.com/2014/04/gender-flipping-bondi-hipsters-take-the-pss-out-of-miranda-kerrs-gq-photoshoot-nudity-video/

I liked this picture because it really shows the differences society views men and women.

As far as parts of the course go, I’m very interested in all of the topics because I don’t spend a whole of time thinking about these topics.