Second Life

For my second free write, I would like to take a closer look at the "Sex Lives in Second Life" article.  I want especially focus on the trend towards homogenous sexual identity that arises in game. In doing this, I hope to gain a slightly different understanding of the attitudes towards gender and sexual orientation in American society.

                Second Life gives a person the ability to be digitally liberated from any physical binds. An unattractive person could have the means to look like a Ken doll; a woman could, if willing, choose to appear as a man. A person's avatar need not reflect their reality. It is because of this that playing Second Life has the potential to offer quality escapism and sexual liberation for those who need it. Unfortunately, judging from the article, Second Life really offers more of the same for people who want to explore alternative sexualities. In game, standard heterosexual relationships are seen as the "norm" and most choose not to play as a sex that contradicts their reality. While the latter seems sensible enough for most, the former may be the unfortunate product of a few different factors. There is little incentive for players of Second Life to show tolerance for people with different sexual orientations. In real American society, acceptance is, from my experiences, seen as being a positive thing. Those who discriminate are often seen as bad people, and bigotry is rarely allowed in the public sector. However, when people are able to hide behind their avatars, they can lose the incentive to behave in a civil manner. Thus, bigots are able to discriminate freely without consequence.

                Is it so that bigotry is widespread within Second Life? The fact that there are fewer consequences for discrimination does not mean that discrimination will happen. In this instance, it seems that bigotry does indeed prevail. This is especially true when speaking about the discrimination against the game's "furry" population. Furries in Second Life constantly are harassed by people who call them "furfag" and attempt to interrupt their various activities. It even got to the point where a furry death camp was create as a demonstration against furry avatars.

                Normal lesbians and gays fare much better than furries, however. While there is a significant amount of segregation within the Second Life world, gay and lesbian communities are largely left on their own.  There are certain mechanisms within the game that do degrade these identities, but this seems to be more of an exception.

                So what conclusions can be made about the relationship between Second Life and reality? In both cases, there is discrimination, but also some tolerance. Overall, there do not seem to be that many differences in regards to sexual orientation between the two realities. If anything, gays and lesbians are slightly better off in Second Life. There is a lot more choice on their part, and they can more or less do as they please without repercussion.

Zombie Blog

For my first free write blog post, I would like to talk about the prevalence of zombies in modern technological culture. To do this, I intend to first examine the history of zombies and their rise in popularity in various electric media. After this, I will discuss the immense popularity that zombies have been enjoying across various media.

                The premise behind zombies seems to have originated in African, and later Haitian,  Vodou religions. In the these tradition, it was believed that a sorcerer could bring a dead person back to life to do their bidding. Fortunately, it was believed that giving salt to one of these living dead people would cause them to return to the grave.

                Western folk researchers were the first to introduce the idea of zombies to the outside world. Some of the initial interest in this idea was due to the fact that some scientists thought it was medically relevant. If, after all, the claims of the Vodou sorcerers were to be found true, it would be a significant discovery. Sadly, the alleged zombies that were presented to the scientists appeared to be normal people in drugged state.

                It wasn't long after the discovery of this idea that zombies began to appear in their first medium: books. These initial zombie books date back to the early 20th century. In 1932, the zombie phenomenon spread to the film industry with the release of White Zombie. However, the sub-genre of zombie horror did not become popular until George A. Romero's Night of the Living Dead in 1968. The 1960's also contained a band whose name referenced zombies: The Zombies. It was not until the 1980's that a few zombie-centric video games began to appear.

                With this history, it is easy to see why zombies have such an influence on modern technological culture. Zombies are now in a wide range of movies and video games. However, our conception of the zombie has changed over time. Originally, they were seen as magical beings. Then, as reflected in Romero's Night of the Living Dead they became slightly more scientific. The modern zombie is perhaps even more scientific, and usually the result of some sort of disease. Due to the fact that they are not really dead, their agility is much greater than that of the Romero zombie archetype. This increased speed is important for the modern movie and game consumers. In both instances, the hasty zombies create more intense scenarios. The fact that zombies have generally become more quick seems like a logical enough progression. In the case of games, they have become much more advanced. While slow zombies may have been acceptable in the 8-bit days, they simply do not add the excitement needed to appease the typical game consumer. The same could be said of modern film views. They do not want to see brave survivors be slowly overwhelmed due to lack of supplies. They would much rather see chase scenes and random explosions.

Technology and Social Interaction

It is difficult for me to say how the spread of technology has affected my "every day face to face interaction," due to the fact that I almost have trouble remembering the alternative. If I absolutely had to say whether or not it did, I would say that it has, but in a positive way. With the plethora of communication technologies available to us, we are able to be more connected with our friends than ever before.Having said that, I cannot deny that the depth of the connection is rather shallow. In fact, text and Facebook messages are just about the most shallow forms of communication possible. These mediums of speech almost completely eliminate nonverbal communication, which is more important than one would think.

It is for this reason that I am wary of people using online sources to meet one another. Not only does it make the introduction incredibly shallow, but due to the anonymous nature of the web, one can never be sure to whom they are really speaking. I suppose that introductions aren't exactly the most deep and meaningful aspects of meeting a new person, so part of my concern may be unjust.

While I have some issues with the meeting of new people over the internet, I am much more sympathetic to those who maintain relationships over the web medium. In these instances, one already knows the person to whom they are talking, so the anonymity becomes less of an issue. It still is not a very deep way to keep connected with people, and it really should not be one's sole means of doing such.

Society ought to work harder to restore to some extent real person to person relationships. For me at least, they offer much more satisfaction than staring at a wall of text that your friend has sent you. 

Social Networking and Privacy

My top two most consistent habits are eating at least two meals and drinking enough liquid to be hydrated. After these comes my checking of Facebook several times a day.

I admit, that was a slight hyperbole, but I cannot deny that Facebook and text messages have become a very important part of my life. On average, I probably only spend about 10 minutes on Facebook per visit, but I check it many times a day, especially when I am expecting an important message. After confessing to all of this, it would make sense if I were the type to embrace the flood of connectivity that has come to define our generation. However, this is not necessarily the case.

The advantages of social networking media are difficult to deny. They not only help friends coordinate and interact on a more regular basis, but, as I have seen in the past, they have the potential to reunite lost family members and other such important things. These sorts of advantages make the use of social networking media an important part of living a social life, yet I believe it is important to acknowledge the disadvantages of its use. While this may not be apparent to some, in using social networking media, one is essentially voluntarily making their private information into public domain. Even with the increasingly better privacy settings of websites such as Facebook, there are still ways that one can have their private information taken from them while using these media. I am referring to the sale of one's preferences to advertisers. This does not adversely affect the average person on a normal day, but I cannot help but feel a little uneasy about the potential such information could have. That fear of mine is intangible at this point, so I cannot say that it really effects my views of social media. There is one thing, however, that does.

As a cyclist, I am able to see a lot of our campus quickly. One thing I have noticed in particular is the large amount of time that people seem to be using their phones to send text messages. Our generation seems to be intent on constantly checking our phones, updating our Facebook statuses, et cetera. It is not our fault. We have been socialized into acting this way. But I cannot help but feel that we have become like zombies, wandering from place to place, not enjoying our surroundings or appreciating our lives. Instead, we are too busy waiting to see when we will get our next message.

Perhaps I am overreacting. It is very possible that my limited observation skills are not giving me an accurate portrait of my peers. Yet I cannot help but wonder, are we becoming more separated from our surroundings by diving into a digital world? I do not the answer, but perhaps it is best that way. I may not be satisfied with the reality.

My Media Diet

I began my self-examination of my media diet on a Saturday, so as to include both the weekend and the days of the week. The differences in media consumption between these two times was much different than I initially anticipated.

Over the weekend, I found, not surprisingly, that I consumed more media than I did on school days. In general, I would check my phone every hour or so for text messages or new e-mails. If I found myself away from home, this would increase in frequency to me checking it every 10-20 minutes. In regards to checking Facebook, I would only do that every two hours. On the weekends, I prefer to watch movies instead of television programs. My preferred method of watching movies is streaming them onto my television via my Nintendo Wii (which finally found a use) and Netflix's instant watch feature. All of this makes my life seem far too recreational, so I will also mention that each day, I would do anywhere from one to two hours of homework (depending on my planned daily workload) and an hour of class readings. These two factors remained consistent when the new week began.

My media consumption over the week is drastically shaped by my two long breaks I have on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. The first of these breaks is an hour and thirty minutes; the second is two hours and thirty minutes. It would be foolish of me to not utilize most of this time for class readings and homework. Often though, I am able to use some of that time to take advantage of the various features of my phone. If my time is limited in these cases, I usually just read a few articles on the BBC World News. If, however, I find myself finished with the daily news and still unoccupied, I will watch a television episode on my phone. When I get home, my first priority is to finish the day's work, if there is any left. After that, I spend anywhere from one to four hours on either Facebook or watching television episodes on Netflix or Hulu.

Relative to others my age, I don't feel that my media diet is too heavy. I feel the most interest aspect of it is that it truly demonstrates technological convergence. In the last week, I only watched one normal television program, and I only did that because this particular program takes a week to post new episodes on Hulu. I do still find the television useful for streaming the Netflix instant watch feature, but it isn't anything that I can't do on my computer. I also don't have a land line, so almost all of my media consumption is through two devices: my cell phone and my computer. If I were to make any changes to my media diet, it would be to perhaps put a bit more priority on reading current news.