The Cult of the Mac

            I enjoyed reading “The Cult of Macintosh” because I was able to relate to many of the ideas and rituals associated with consumption culture.  This article cited Boorstin’s description of so-called consumption communities: “in consumption communities, Americans’ sense of unity and commonality is increasingly more likely to be based on common consumption patterns than daily interaction due to living in geographic proximity to one another.”  I agree with this statement, because I think that many people associate with each other based on what they buy.  For example, my Dad is a big runner, and he buys a specific type of running shoe.  When he sees other runners with the same shoe at a race, he will strike up a conversation with them, and the shoe brand serves as the platform for this type of consumption community. 

            I really liked reading about the different brands that are considered “cult brands”.  It got me thinking about what brands I treat as “cult brands” and why I place a higher value on certain types of entertainment or brands and not others.  Although I have a MacBook Pro laptop and an iPod Classic, I wouldn’t call myself a member of the cult of Mac.  I know people who are obsessed with Apple products, and I am not one of them.  Even though I really like my computer and iPod, I am perfectly satisfied with these gadgets and I don’t see a need to constantly update my iPod every time a “better” model comes out.  A lot of my friends have iPhones, and they update their iPhone with each new model.  I just can’t see myself doing that because I’m not a member of the cult of Mac.  I don’t have unquestioning faith in Apple products, even though I am perfectly satisfied with the Apple products that I own.

            This essay made me realize that the Mac and its dedicated users constitute the equivalent of religion.  I find it fascinating that basically all aspects of religion are covered by the true believers of Mac products.  I also found it slightly funny that the distaste of Mac users for non-Mac products was referred to as “the existence of one or more Satanic opponents.”  I understand how exaggerated that sounds to someone who isn’t familiar with Mac fanatics, but I completely understand how “Satanic opponents” could be used to describe other technology companies in the eyes of the members of the Cult of the Mac.

Goldfarming

            After Wednesday’s lecture I decided to investigate the phenomenon of goldfarming, because I am very intrigued by the subject.  Before this class I had no idea that such positions exist in the world, but now that I do know my eyes have been opened to the extreme significance that video games have for certain people.  This class, and this lecture in particular, taught me that playing videogames such as “World of Warcraft” serve as a social platform.  Now that I know that these online games act like a sort of “advanced form of a pen pal” it makes much more sense to me that people would place such significance and put so much time and effort into these games.  I understand the appeal of that online social experience, and I also understand how people would be attracted to online video games because of the issue of anonymity.  Facebook and Twitter are somewhat anonymous, but I think that most of the time, a majority of people on these websites interact with their actual friends and acquaintances, so its not like you can just say anything on Facebook and get away with it.  However, online games are unique because a person can take on any identity they choose, and if they are not playing with their actual friends, they can say or act in anyway without repercussions.  

            Knowing this background information makes me realize that there is a lucrative market for goldfarming, because people place so much importance on the friendships and identities of their online gaming personas.  I just wonder if people realize the conditions of goldfarms, and the significance of their actions.  If people stopped supporting goldfarms by buying already earned in-game currency, then people would stop taking advantage of economic inequalities.  I learned that in the 90s, goldfarming was someone undercover and unknown, but now the sale of in-game currency has become increasingly more commercialized.  I also learned that this year, “The Guardian” reported that prisoners in Chinese labor camps were forced to engage in gold farming for the benefit of prison authorities.  This shocks me, because this displays how goldfarming permeates underprivileged people in China.  However, the thing that shocks me the most is that the sweatshop-like conditions of goldfarming ultimately appeal to people in poor areas because people earn $3 a day…which looks like a good and sturdy income to these people compared to other available jobs.

            

"A Generation Serves Notice: It's a Moving Target"

            I read Tom Zeller’s article, “A Generation Serves Notice: It’s a Moving Target” without looking at the date it was published, and I was both surprised and not surprised by the fact that it was published in 2006.  I was surprised because I feel like many of the concerns and issues expressed in this article are still around today. Marketing to young audiences and using the Internet as a platform for television and advertising is a common topic of debate today, but this article made me realize that this topic has been around for many years, and that advertising has come a long way since 2006.  Thinking back to 2006, I can’t remember any commercials on Youtube, or even the existence of websites like Hulu or Netflix.  If they were around at the time, I didn’t utilize them to watch new television or catch up with old television.  However, Hulu and Netflix now play prominent roles in my life.  I use Hulu because I don’t have cable in my apartment.  Hulu allows me to enjoy the money I am saving by not paying for cable because I can still catch up with shows after they initially air.  Netflix provides a wide array of choices of television and movies, and it’s convenient because I have a Wii, which can stream Netflix onto my television.  Although I still rent movies from an actual movie rental store from time to time, I mainly watch movies via Netflix.  I was not surprised by the fact that this article was published in 2006, because many of the main points seem relatively outdated, and there are many things that I would have included in this article that aren’t even mentioned, probably because they didn’t exist in 2006.  That just goes to show how rapidly technology and marketing adapts to the needs of consumers.  This class has opened my eyes to the importance of young consumers especially.  It seems like most companies gear their marketing campaigns toward young people, while older people are included as an afterthought.  It makes me wonder how successful these advertising campaigns are on me!  I feel like I could be “unplugged” from my phone or the Internet for an extended amount of time, but that just might be the way that my personality operates.  I think I’ll find out how important the Internet, television, and my phone are to me during Winter Break, when I’ll have extended amounts of free time.  

The Blame Game

          I found Monday's reading, New Content: Messages for the Masses, intriguing and informative.  I have always had a vague idea of bias in news media, but have never been able to point out specific biases or political leanings in newspapers or news broadcasts.  The Daily Show has pointed out some of these political leanings, but I am also aware that even a satirical news broadcast has its own biases and leanings.  I don’t think that biases in the media are necessarily bad, because I know that any content generated by humans will be prone to biases no matter how hard a person tries to remain neutral.  This reading reminds me of a class I’m taking right now called Native Americans in Illinois.  Much of what I study in this class relates to the biases held by historians and archeologists when it comes to the study of Native Americans.  Although many try their best to avoid their personal ideologies  when it comes to the formation of a thesis or argument, it’s inevitable that some form of bias will exist in their work.  It’s common that the bias doesn’t show itself until years later, when certain ideologies of eras come to light.  Much like forming a historical argument, news media cannot avoid bias.  Because I acknowledge that bias is unavoidable, I think news media has to make up for this lack of neutrality with respectability, awareness, and validity.

            I think it’s interesting that people are quick to blame others for being biases but are reluctant or even incapable of pointing out biases in their own thoughts or actions.  The reading pointed out this blame game: “In general, opinion research shows that perceptions of media bias correspond to one's own political bias: People in the middle see the media as generally neutral, while those on the left complain that the news is too conservative, and those on the right think the news has a left-leaning bias”.  I know that I experience this phenomena often.  For example, I am quick to point out levels of procrastination of my friends when they complain about bad grades, but when I receive a bad grade, I forget about my procrastination and instead blame the difficulty of a certain test or assignment.  This blame game enters all aspects of human relations, and it’s up to us to take a step back from what we are inspecting and try to remain as rational and neutral as possible.

Hollywood and the Holocaust

A question during Wednesday’s discussion was posted Robert’s power-point presentation:  Can reenacting history offer us a viable historical insight?  Surely, there are many different perspectives to atrocities.  We learned of a specific example in class with excerpts from the novel, “The End: Hamburg 1943” by Hans Erich Nossack.  This novel offers an interesting and relatively unexplored area of the Holocaust, but I think that it is definitely worth exploring.  Discovering what the Holocaust was like for Germans who were trying to live their everyday lives made me realize that not all Germans contributed to the Holocaust, and there were surely Germans who did not want to be apart of the Nazi movement.  Although I somehow always knew this to be true, it was nice to have a concrete example of a German man’s experiences living in the constant shadow of World War II.

I think that reenacting history offers us multiple viable historical insights.  For example, many different media processes explore the Holocaust., each with its own personal insight into the atrocity.  The film “Life Is Beautiful” offers a poignant perspective of the Holocaust, with the main character fabricating a story that compares life in his concentration camp to a game so his young son does not realize the terrors of camp life.  Although some might think that this plot is disrespectful to the actual horrors of concentration camps, I think that it is an effective and memorable way to discuss family life and coping mechanisms of Jews during the Holocaust.  Many people agree with the film’s unique perspective, because it won three Academy Awards.  On the other hand, a dramatic film about the Holocaust could offer just as much insight as a film like “Life is Beautiful”, instead utilizing different methods and telling different stories.  Films like “Schindler’s List”,  “The Pianist”, “Sophie’s Choice”, and “The Boy in the Striped Pajamas” tell stories of the Holocaust from more dramatic perspectives.  Although all of these films are considered dramas, they all offer different insights, because they rely on unique experiences and methods of story-telling.  The films allow audiences to become attached to figures in the stories, and serve as important tools for learning about heart-wrenching aspects of World War II. 

I think that these films are often more effective than reading a history textbook  or researching the Holocaust online, because audiences form attachments to stories and characters.  For example, the first time I watched “Life is Beautiful” the reality of concentration camps really dawned on me.  I felt such sorrow and discomfort when the characters I grew to love were made victims of the Holocaust, and these associations led me to carry these emotions over to the actual historical event. 

Reforming Hollywood

            I attended the Reforming Hollywood lecture given by Dr. William Romanowski, and I’m really glad I went.  I learned many interesting and surprising issues raised by censorship in film.  The majority of his lecture focused on the role that religion plays in the formation of censorship laws.  When there was no ratings system, anyone could walk into any movie, regardless of content.  Parents were worried that their children might see  nudity or violence on-screen, but there were no preventative measures to restrict members of the audiences.  However, movies had to make a profit, and it was unfair to ask them to cut certain scenes just to protect moral standards of parents and members of different churches.

            I have always found studio-era Hollywood fascinating, and this lecture touched on the corrupt nature of the first Hollywood studios.  The “Big Three”; Metro-Goldwyn, Famous Players-Lasky, and First National founded the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America.  This organization was led by William Hays, who also happened to be a Presbyterian deacon.   Hays ran into trouble in this position, especially after the “Big Three” were accused as acting as a trust, with Hays as a spokesperson.  However, the MPPDA conducted the “Hays code”, a system of film censorship from 1930 to 1968.

            The debate about movie censorship has always had tensions between social awareness and levels of artistic freedom.  An interesting portion of this lecture had to do with the censorship of two movies.  “The Pawnbroker” was praised and approved by the Board of Film Censors (BFC) because it had religious undertones and it described the human condition.  On the other hand, “The Greatest Story Ever Told”, a film about the life of Jesus, was not approved by the BFC because it was deemed too superficial to be appropriate for the story of Christ.  Most of the founding members of the BFC were Protestant.

            Jack Valenti, a Catholic Texan,  because the president of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA).  He created the MPAA film rating system as a replacement for the Hays Code.  The Hays code was extremely out of date and no longer appropriate for the current film and culture environment.  The new systems of rating served as a safeguard for artistic freedom and also informed parents and viewers of suitability.  This is the ratings code that is still in use today.

            This lecture made me realize the diminishing scope of religious authority in the United States. Film censorship is now largely a matter of what is considered appropriate because of a ratings system, not because of religious authority.  It was a great lecture and I am curious to learn more about film censorship!

The Pros and Cons of New Media

I really enjoyed today's presentation, and I've been thinking about the conveniences of new media throughout the day today.  I've come to the conclusion that the Internet is a little too convenient for my taste at times.  For example, I can spend endless hours on Pinterest, a website that basically serves as a Google image search...but is more pretty.  I know that I should have more self-control at times, like instead of searching for pictures of celebrities hanging out together for my Pinterest boards, I could maybe do something like, I don't know, my homework?  As much as I should practice self-control and time management skills, sometimes it's difficult because websites like Pinterest, Facebook, and Twitter do their best to draw people in and make them stay there.  They carefully calculate their users' interests and basically shove these interests down their throats, coercing people to spend as much time as possible surfing their sites.  What I'm trying to get at is that sometimes this seemingly useful feature of the Internet can really get on my nerves.  I am straining to remember a time on Youtube when advertisements didn't pop up when I was watching a video, or when I could watch an episode of a T.V. show I missed on the Internet without enduring the same exact commercial every six minutes.  I know these issues are trivial, but I wish I could just use the Internet in peace, without pop-ups, commercials, or weird advertisements for things I would never even consider buying.

On the other hand, sometimes I am grateful for the convenience of new media.  Today when I logged on my Twitter account, I saw new tweets from my friends at home that gave the sad news that a child from my neighborhood who has fought cancer for many years passed away today.  I don't want to say that I would have never heard about this news without Twitter, but I am saying that I'm glad I found out when I did so I can contact my friends and family and offer my condolences at this time.

So I guess my annoyance with the Internet depends on the information I am searching for or not searching for, and while some aspects of the Internet seems pointless to me, at other times the Internet seems essential.  I guess I'll just have to take the good with the bad, and try not to get too annoyed when I get spam.