Author Archives: jndavis

The Concept of a Star

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The article that caught my attention most during this weeks readings was the article “Tweeting @feliciaday: Online Social Media, Convergence, and Subcultural Stardom” written by Elizabeth Ellcessor . The article deals with the key concept of understanding what makes a star, and why stars are who they are. Ellcessor brings up the idea that the star is something that inherently only exists inside the mind of the consumer. The idea of the star is constructed between social media accounts, various medias reporting on the subject of said star. For example the existence of the paparazzi, combined with the social media of said artist or star allows the general public to create a ‘personality’ for this star. Thus, the star is simply something that is created within the mind of the consumer. The exploration of this concept through the Internet star Felicia Day is incredibly interesting, as she is someone who created her own stardom through the use of various social media and online tools. This foundation of an online presence through the creation of things such as “The Guild” combined with her incredible social media presence created a celebrity who interacted more closely with her consumers, thus creating a star founded on communication. Various people across the internet, in YouTube comments and forums, degrade her as a person who has no real merit, and has only been built up due to a massive social media presence. While most seem to be angry misogynists who refuse to grow up and respect a woman who has built an entire empire surrounding a comedic look at geek culture. Felicia Day stands as an integral example of how the Internet is a key player in new media, standing as person whose stardom is completely created inside the confines of social media such as Facebook, Twitter and others, creating a presence through the computer rather than through paparazzi photos and celebrity lifestyle.

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Above: A key part of Felicia Day’s success online is the web-series “The Guild” which is widely available online for free.

Where is my Character?

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One of the major problems prevalent to the gaming community as a whole is the image of the gamer, or it’s identity. A lingering question throughout the articles (specifically the article by Adrienne Shaw) is the idea of who the media views as gamers, and who gamers actually are today. Ultimately bringing light to the fact that there is a clear disconnect between the stereotype of a gamer, and who gamers actually are. The distinct lack of representation, as well as the aggressive, cult like following that video games have, leads many fans of the format to be afraid to identify themselves gamers. Video game marketers are distinctly lacking in the racial and sexual diversity in the ‘hardcore’ games that people are really interested in. Compared to the culture that the marketers are presenting to society at large creates a clear disconnect and isolation of a large group of people that are gamers. This problem was something that I noticed in the past and realized, especially during games such as Bioshock Infinite, as much as I love that game. The character of Daisy Fitzroy in the overall plot of the game was hailing her as a woman of color, leading a revolution that would change Columbia for the better. For a while I was hopeful that she would be a fantastic image of a woman character of color becoming an incredible leader in an important revolution. Then the game pulled a complete 180 degrees and painted her as a villain. This is just one example of the exclusion of various races in video games. The problem is so prevalent and current in today’s society. Reading these articles as well as working on my project for diversity in video games has brought to my attention the absurdly large lack of representation of different identities as well as race.

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Target Marketing

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A target market is a group of customers which a business has decided to aim its marketing attempts and ultimately its merchandise (video games in this case). A well-defined and focused target market is the first and most important element to a marketing plan.

Marketers are beginning to notice that transgender, lesbian, gay, and bisexual people are wanting to have better representation within video games. As well as women and different races wanting inclusion in video games as there is a distinct lack of various identities as central video game characters. The idea of target marketing is the idea that a video game company appeals to its chosen target of the companies marketing campaigns.

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A prevalent problem within the gaming community currently is the image of the stereotypical gamer, which is non-inclusive to other races and identities. The stereotype of the hardcore gamer compared to the casual gamer is an important difference, as while companies should be focusing on both, they focus only on the hardcore gamers. Thus isolating a huge crowd of people from their games.

Platforms; Essential and Horrifying

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Platforms exist in a fantastic way in our society. As a way of being an essential form in our society, but terrifyingly influential in the way our country works. Through the readings I came across several questions for how platforms work, and mainly my curiosity was struck with the idea that platforms could cause controversy with how powerful they are. The big four platforms especially having so much control of the market,

 

While platforms provide essential services to us in terms of how practical and simple they are to use. Imagining my life without Google docs or Gmail at this point is a simply horrifying idea. I can’t imagine going back to the days of AOL and AIM, they we’re simply too complicated and bulky compared to the streamlined and unified subsets of Google. Google has such power over our current society, as it is such a unified construct, which allows more people to collaborate and work together on various projects. This simple factor of having a completely unified system that is accessible anywhere there’s Internet access.

 

The main focus of my interest however lied within the idea of Amazon. The discussions on Amazon in class, as well as the various examples of Amazon during our readings raised questions about how useful. I came to the conclusion that Amazon, as a platform in our culture is crucial at this point. For various reasons it’s so important, including the fact that it offers cheap access to content, with quick and affordable shipping. Especially with Amazon Prime, as by offering a cheaper alternative for students with the aspect of Amazon Prime they offer students an alternative and altogether cheaper way to get textbooks, entertainment, even food! At cheaper prices, and with free shipping, to be honest my experience with it has been stellar. It has saved me money and has made my life so much easier in terms of finances. Knowing the pluses of the platform first hands lends my opinions to lean towards the fact that platforms are an important aspect of our evolving society.

 

With Google’s simplistic, welcoming and unified system the ability for us to collaborate and integrate more people through a virtual space is a critically important aspect to today’s online presence. While Amazon offers access to cheap, and accessible products, especially with Amazon Student, offering cheaper access to textbooks, textbook rentals, and entertainment, all with fast shipping. Platforms have been involved with multiple scandals, however they always seem to be problems with them trying to make more content available to consumers. For example Amazon’s Kindle service provided books at a cheaper price compared to their print counterparts. While this puts the publishing industry in danger there is no downside to us as consumers, as it provides the same exact content for a much cheaper price. Platforms can be problematic, especially with the danger they present as being incredibly close to being monopolies. These facts considered, the benefits of platform far outweigh the negatives, and while they should be monitored, they are an integral part of our society, as they make our lives easier.

 

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Also Amazon Drones.

Youtube: Community and Art

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[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXYIEEq-v0VC5HYoezYiWdQRYEiJXj2zx[/youtube]

Youtube for me has always been about community and art. It has often worked for me as a way to discover different forms of cinema, rather than what I was just finding during television advertisements. By delving into Youtube I was able to explore different parts of both movie making, and the general entertainment factor of watching movies as I could look at what trailers I wanted to watch, rather than what the different channels wanted me to watch during designated advertisement slots.

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By watching things like “[the films of] David Fincher” and “Quentin Tarantino – The Works” I was able to better understand what made these director’s films so good. Youtube has allowed me to join a community of like minded movie buffs and fanatics, as well as acting as a learning tool for what makes cinema aesthetically pleasing, beautiful, and great. This was expanded by channels such as “Every Frame A Painting” which is dedicated to the analysis of film form, which allowed a great way of understanding how film works as an art form. Access to director’s commentaries and interviews has granted me the possibility to better understand my favorite director’s art styles, and some of the more intricate details of my favorite movies. Youtube has become equivalent with understanding and exploring film as an art form, and truly allowed my experience with movies to truly blossom.  Another part of Youtube that increased my love with film was the discovery that short movies could be uploaded to Youtube, increasing the platform’s ability to host artistic content related to cinema. The discovery of short film’s such as “I’m Here” and “In a City” on Youtube led to the discovery of boundless cinematic content. With the ability to freely upload any creative content at any point has created a door through which artists can stick their foot and force their art through.  The discovery of these various takes on cinema as an art form created a community I could silently be a part of, while also expanding my knowledge and appreciation of film.

However the other side of Youtube for me, lies in the small hobby of fingerboarding. Starting in early middle school I discovered a small toy that emulated a skateboard, known as a Tech Deck otherwise known as a fingerboard. The hobby surrounds the recreation of skateboard tricks with the use of a small skateboard and fingers. While at first seemingly a dumb plastic toy it soon gets a lot more detailed. Without Youtube, I would have never discovered the massive group of people that follow and are dedicated to fingerboarding. After watching a bunch of videos from so called ‘pro riders’ I got an actual wooden fingerboard, bearing wheels, and actual metal trucks, all parts required of a real skateboard on a miniature scale. The fingerboard community relies on youtube to share full length fingerboard parts or ‘minis’ which are short videos of fingerboarding sessions. The discovery of this community through Youtube led me to make a bunch of new friends, and discover a talent I didn’t know I had. While insignificant and kind of childish, fingerboarding is truly a community that would not exist without Youtube, to advertise for upcoming meet ups, montage videos, and other things of the sort. Just as with skateboarding it has a community of riders that like to session together, however with a much smaller community, which is where Youtube played such a vital role. With the ability for riders to upload videos they’re able to receive feedback on how to improve their tricks and technique, thus allowing for the betterment of the community as a whole. Fingerboarding would hardly have the community it has today if not for Youtube.

Youtube is truly a website that has inspired within me a sense of community and artistic expression, as I have been able to find a community of people that share interests in things such as film and fingerboarding. With these specific examples showing how a small toy can evolve into a full scale community, and how an artistic form can be accessed, critiqued, and practiced, by millions for free.

 

 

 

Fifth Estate

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The Fifth Estate refers to a nonphysical entity composed of  bloggers, journalists, and media outlets that operate outside the mainstream media. Operating outside of what is referred to as the Fourth Estate which is the mainstream media, most commonly referring to the news media (especially print journalism). The Fifth Estate may also include political groups, corporations, or other groups outside of the mainstream in their views and function in society.

The platforms that the Fifth Estate is built on are based around algorithms that are typically unseen by the greater fraction of users, unless said user has a background in I.T. or computers. This calls into question how much we as users really know about the technology we’re using.

The Fifth Estate however is also very liberating, as users through social media we have a collective ability to share information, create communities, and to organize social movements.

Memes to Mashups and Back Again

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One of the most interesting things that happened to me in the opening weeks of this course, is learning what a meme actually is, rather than the poorly made image macro that I usually associate with the term. When I heard ‘meme’ before I came to the course I thought of grumpy cat, “Sure Jan”, and various other internet fads.

However after reading Kelli S. Burn’s “From Memes to Mashups; Creating Content from Content”, I gained a greater understanding of what a meme actually is, being defined as “…a unit of cultural information that replicates while still remaining whole” in Burn’s article, while more simply it can be explained as something that can be copied over and over with the meaning remaining the same. At least in my interpretation. This idea really resonated with me as I searched for examples to make sense of what a meme really was, as I struggled to grasp the concept in class. This is where Burn’s article was a real treat for me, by also tackling the ideas of mashups she easily explains what both items are individually while still relating them to each other.

The idea of a meme really clicked for me when we were in class and watching Susan Blackmore’s TED talk on memes. That’s when I truly understood that a meme was not simply an image shared on facebook but was actually the replication of an idea throughout society. The example that made it click for me totally was a comparison my friend made of memes and there relationship to fashion. We used flannel as a specific example; flannel could have originally started as let’s say a lumberjack’s preferred work shirt, as it keeps him warm and is heavy duty. Over time the flannel shirt is replicated for the same purpose over and over, until someone took it and decided to wear it in L.A. with a pair of short shorts. Thus bringing flannel to a different scene completely, yet keeping the same idea as a warm, heavy duty shirt.

However, let’s say that the flannel shirt is changed. The original form is taken and edited by some girl on Etsy. She cut’s out the back and puts in a gigantic lace cut out. By taking the original content and adding her own interpretation to the idea she has successfully created her very first mashup! While Burn’s article mostly focuses on the music aspect of mashups, she does touch on trailer mashups as well. The idea of a mashup is incredibly freeing to me, the ability to take any type of digital media and putting it together to create something altogether different is astounding to me. The practice of mashups almost parodies the idea of original content as it takes that content as a starting point for creation rather than starting with a completely blank canvas. Discussing the idea of mashups in class really made me question how mashups could fit into the world of film, music, and art. As it could lead to incredible new avenues in creative expression as well as storytelling. Which is what Burn’s makes it out to be with her descriptions of “Thru-you”, “The Grey Album”, “Brokeback to the Future”, and other famous mashups but due to the laws surrounding the original pieces of media the mashup is often hunted down. The legal aspect of the mashup was the most troubling aspect of the article for me, as most of the people mentioned in the article as DJs and video editors were not in the job of making mashups for money, but just for fun. But, by getting the legal side of things involved I personally think that they made the mashup famous and immortal. As by bringing so much media attention to it, and the backlash it was facing, it has now become something that can be explored as a more contraband form of expression, or a dangerous art form. By getting involved legally with something perfectly harmless media conglomerates have created their own worst enemy.

As an aside to this post here are two of my very favorite mashups:

Madeon’s “Pop Culture” is a mashup of 39 different songs (check the description for a full list):

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lTx3G6h2xyA[/youtube]

Kees Van Dijkhuizen Jr. is a 21 year old film student who created a project known as ‘Cinema’ to mashup clips from all (almost) the movies released in a year to show how far cinema has progressed and changed. He did this up until 2012, he also is famous for his ‘[The films of]’ series which highlights the filmographies of famous directors into concise videos to show off there various styles and techniques. The video I’m using here is from 2012, the year I hosted a film festival for my high school senior project and used this as the opener.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1r1tS464jE&list=PL570A2BCEC0545299&index=2[/youtube]