I’m not a big gamer, mostly dabbling in the NHL, FIFA, MLB, and Madden realms of the gaming world and even to that extent I am not very good or into it at all. I had no idea that people actually live streamed their screens while gaming and could make up to $300,000 a year. If I ever reach that type of income I’ll probably be living on a private yacht somewhere in the Caribbean.

Twitch on the other hand might be a good career path if this whole accounting thing doesn’t work out. The game streaming business is a crazy concept to me that people will pay to watch someone else play a video-game. The article by Tanya Depass in Paste Magazine brought numbers up that seemed out of this world: $300,000 annual salary, 16 billion minutes watched per month and 11 million videos broadcast per month. The gaming community is obviously much bigger than I had ever known. However, with this many players broadcasting, and this many viewers, why is there such a lack of diversity in the gaming community? That blew my mind a little bit because let’s face it, who doesn’t love video-games?

I agree with some of the article in that perhaps many players of color do not identify themselves as so in their Twitch or Twitter handle, but there has to be more to it than that. How can it be that in a virtual community there is still such disparity and assumptions made about people that can’t even be seen through the game. Tanya Depass states, “there is a false assumption that white male stars attract the best audiences…non-white people are still not considered beautiful or appealing by societal standard.” This is horrible. Even in a world that is seen on screen, with no view of the gamer themselves, there is a “societal standard” that exists in attempt to attract a broader audience.

We have covered a lot of topics this year from new media to gender and race roles, but I don’t know if any have been as shocking as this topic for me. We covered it in our group project about podcasting and the differences amongst podcasts and I am curious if there is a Twitch handle that is owned by the TWiB team. I felt as though they covered the most relevant topics, and had a way of bringing people of all gender roles and races together. Tanya mentions that more people of color need to share and promote other streamers of color to try and level the playing field and that “diversity can’t be put as an afterthought but should be part of the core mission and values of the organization.”

I agree with her in this aspect, and I also hope that someone, similar to Elon James White and his development of the TWiB platform, can create a system that will strengthen the Twitch community by eliminating this societal standards and bring gamers together with the one thing they love most: gaming.

The future of television is a topic that could be taken in a million different directions. I never thought that growing up with my grandparents still owning a television with a knob to change the channel would develop into a conversation about whether televisions will live on or become a thing of the past. I was born in 1994 and grew up on Nickelodeon and Disney Channel, the classic Disney Channel movies and shows such as Rocket Power, Hey Arnold and Spongebob of course. To think that I would wait every night until 7:30 to watch an episode of Rocket Power before bed is crazy considering that I could pull up any show in the world while simultaneously writing this blog post. The advances in technology in just my 22 years of life are mind blowing. I can log into Netflix, HBO Go, Amazon Prime or Hulu and essentially have every television show at my fingertips. I can google a movie title and have it streaming from my laptop or even my phone in a matter of minutes. I can even stream these things on YouTube, which was always used for sports highlights or music videos; never did I imagine it being an outlet for movies and television shows.

So, where does it go next? Will the television become obsolete? Will family gatherings on Sunday afternoons to watch the Patriots turn into everyone tuning in on their own virtual reality headset and standing on the sidelines for the game? I sure hope not. This is of course an exaggeration, but with recent advancements in technology and articles I have read about the future of the NFL and holographic images brought to the living room, I’m not so sure it’s out of the question. There is already a crazy announcement in the NFL with Twitter recently winning the bid for the right to stream Thursday Night Football games in the fall of 2016. Anyone with a Twitter account can log in and watch the games on your smartphone, laptop or even television if it is a smart TV or has an HDMI connection. Twitter won the rights over CBS, ESPN and the NFL Network. How? Because the future of television is evolving, even in the world of sports which I always thought would keep the television set a permanent fixture in sport fanatics households. That being said, if I can watch sports via my Twitter account, why am I paying Comcast $100 or more a month for everything that I can receive on the internet? Well, a large part of that is because Comcast is also my source for internet access and it is the package that becomes worth it with the high cost of internet. But, if there is an alternative source in the future for internet access, cable companies will become obsolete, the internet will become crucial and the television may evolve into a giant computer with Twitter applications to stream your favorite television shows, movies, news and sporting events.

I guess for me I never realized just how much I rely on technology and new media in my everyday life. My phone is glued to my hand, my computer always in my backpack, the internet is attached to me at nearly every hour of the day. Now that we are talking about YouTube, Google and new media such as Twitter and Facebook I’m realizing how advanced the world has become just in my 21 years. I use the internet and this new media for everything every day. Sitting at the bus stop I’m scrolling through Twitter or Instagram seeing what current events are going on and which friends decided to share their opinion in 140 characters or less. Instead of doing my homework I sit on Facebook and scroll through three days worth of people sharing pictures, videos, buzzfeed articles and whatever else that black hole holds for me. Our friends joke around about being bored and that we’ve already “read the internet” today.

I actually spent a semester in the fall of 2014 in London and one of the coolest things about those four months was that I did not have a cell phone. An international plan was far too expensive and I was far too lazy to walk around the corner and buy a flip phone for $20. That being said, the four months with no Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, constant texting and staring at my phone all day was the most relaxing time ever. I find myself at school, whether bored in class, walking through campus or just sitting on my couch at home, having my phone in my hand reading the same thing I read two hours before. It’s a waste of time. Four months with no phone or connectivity to anyone other than FaceTime on my computer or emails that I would exchange with my family was amazing. It opens your eyes and makes you realize there’s a lot more out there than what sits on the 5 inch screen in your pocket.

Now that I’m back in Amherst, graduating with a job in the information technology sector, I know that I’ll never have that disconnectivity ever again, but God did I enjoy it. At the same time, I missed my Netflix while riding a bike at the gym, or scrolling through Amazon or Groupon looking at things that I can’t afford even at the discounts that they offer. I guess it’s good to be back.

Personally, I am not an avid YouTube user. I had never even made an account until the first assignment of the semester for this class and it was actually pretty tough. I tried to look up some songs that I knew I liked but then I didn’t want to just have music videos so it turned into sports and videos about the GOAT (greatest of all time), Tom Brady. I had some fun with the YouTube exercise yet I still don’t think I’ve been on Youtube since. It just isn’t for everyone, which is why I don’t think that Youtube is the future of television. I can’t imagine going to Youtube for a series the way I do for HBO Go or Netflix. I think that Netflix, at the moment, is the leader in eliminating cable television.

Just about everyone uses Netflix whether they pay for it or have the password to another account, we’re all on it. The biggest thing about Netflix is that their marketing strategies are simply word of mouth. People are constantly using social media to reflect their opinions on certain shows that Netflix has, usually just in their Netflix Original’s. I have never seen so many tweets, or been involved in as many conversations about a show as I was with Netflix’s Making a Murderer. The show had the world up in arms and whether you were watching and discussing with friends, there were also those who refused to watch but were still sharing opinions and giving publicity to the show and the Netflix platform. Right now House of Cards has just been released for season four and the buzz is all over Facebook and Twitter.

I don’t see it being Youtube or Netflix alone, but the culmination of Hulu, Amazon, HBO, Netflix and YouTube together is going to put an end to cable television; probably a good thing considering the monopoly that Comcast holds throughout the country. I can stream a live sports game online whenever I need to and have been vying to eliminate cable in my house off campus for two years now. While my roommates aren’t buying it, I think things will be much different in a couple of years. Our biggest issue is not being able to watch the Patriots or Bruins live, which is basically the only benefit to cable anymore. There are offers from leagues such as the NFL Game Pass or NHL Center Ice Package which allows you to watch any games you want, accept for the team in your area. So, as awesome as $100 for the year to watch your team sounds, sometimes, like a Patriots fan in Amherst, this doesn’t benefit you. I am fairly confident that in not too long this type of package will come along and the cable companies will really be screwed with one of their final strangleholds on consumers being eliminated. I can only hope that this is the case because I can justify splitting $400 per year to watch the Patriots, Bruins, Red Sox and Celtics between four roommates, but the cable bill has just got to go.

For me, YouTube is very rarely used source for entertainment. If I am using YouTube it is probably to look up a highlight reel goal or a game highlight that I may have missed from the night before. I am not an avid YouTube user by any means, however, I was able to pretty easily put together a playlist that I can relate to, and actually enjoyed doing it. I have never uploaded a video to YouTube or even made a playlist before today so I had fun creating My Top 15. In no specific order, and with a little help from friends, I was able to combine sports, comedy and music into a playlist that reflects a bit of who I am.

I began the playlist with a soccer video that was on the YouTube homepage as a recommended watch and I was immediately intrigued as I really enjoyed the Dude Perfect NHL video that they did with the Dallas Stars. The soccer video also attracted me because I am a fan of the Arsenal Football Club who is featured in the video and has a Champions League game coming up against Barcelona which is why I added the hype video to my playlist.

From the recommended Dude Perfect video I moved into some music to share. I am into country music and have seen Kenny Chesney, Eric Church, Billy Currington and Zac Brown Band in concert, so I wanted to share some of my favorite songs from them. I also added two songs; The State of Massachusetts and The Whip because they were the warm up songs for us last spring in the NCRHA National Championship tournament in which we finished second in the country. I was able to find one of our games against Kansas State in the round robin beginning stage of the tournament that we won 9-1. This year we are currently ranked number one in the nation and hoping to get back to the National Championship to change the outcome of last year’s game.

I think I have watched more Brian Regan on YouTube than anything else so I had to put his standup “I Walked on the Moon” on My Top 15, especially because I watched several clips of him just last night. Lastly, I am born and raised a die hard New England Patriots fan and couldn’t help but to add the final drive of Super Bowl 36 where John Madden is very willing to disagree with the Patriots game plan in the final two minutes. Tom Brady leads us down the field with a couple of great throws and Adam Vinatieri goes on to kick the game winning field goal with time expiring. The most recent Patriots Super Bowl win last year in Super Bowl 49 is one of the greatest games in NFL history so I had to add it and of course, the greatest player of all time needed his spot reserved on my playlist with a video I could watch 100 times a day.

I had fun with creating this playlist and I think it gives a good idea about my interests in sports, music and comedy. Although I am not the biggest YouTube user, I definitely take it for granted that at any given moment I can find just about any video I could ever imagine in a matter of seconds. YouTube for me is not an intricate part of my life, but it is something that I use more than I even realized before creating My Top 15.