New Media Cultures

I see the negative and the positive in social networking websites popping up all over the World Wide Web. People find it easier to speak to someone when they aren’t directly face-to-face. It is easier to face rejection when you don’t actually hear the person saying, “LEAVE ME ALONE”. Than again it is still a sad moment when they do say that but there are plenty of fish in the sea. The networking sites make sure you see that with the number of friends you keep, and who they are friends with and how many people are logged on, or how many are currently with the site. All of these trackers are silent reminders. That is why you can put videos, photos, and sometimes voice recordings on the pages. These are all things that could have been edited but feels more intimate than one lonely photo and a message. People relate to each other more, the more information they receive. These are things people could do at a café or outing. The plus side is that you do meet people and sometimes you get the face-to-face meeting. Most of the time the photos are hacked from another person and nothing that is on the page is true about the person. The liars that make up almost half of the website cause it to be nothing more than a mere computer fling. While the shy people force that tally up even more. At the end of the day it seems more like the social networking website was a good idea and it seems to be corrupt right now. After spending so much time trying to weed out the bad ones, who has time to sit down and chat once they meet the good ones? The social is not ending but these things seem to put a dent in the original scheme of how to meet new people.

Second life is the fantasy-fantasy virtual reality. Not only do you get to pretend you live in a big fancy house and you can do anything and go anywhere. NOW, you can look like whoever and whatever you want to. It is all there at your fingertips online or on your game system. People want to get away sometimes but I don’t see the point of having a brothel in a virtual reality game. These things go a bit too far each time and than they stop. Pushing our limit further and further, what will they do next? I wouldn’t be surprised if the characters could film their own movie or even porn for that matter. This is one more thing to take physical interaction out of the world. Making strange standards for humans by using these digital characters. It is a bit sick and twisted in a way. I haven’t seen how Second life works but I used to play the Sims. I was never entertained for long, it was boring living someone else’s life that was supposed to be mine even though it didn’t speak English and didn’t look like me. I rather live my own life in my own shoes. Living is much more exciting than using a digital character to act out what is none other than a digitalized doll house version of my own life. Playing a digital version of my life as opposed to actually living it was dreadful after an hour. The games can be fun for sometimes but people don’t know when to stop because they’ve forgotten how to actually interact with other human beings!

Convergence is presented to be something that will bring everyone together. I think it is a way to make us one big mess! Everyday someone fights to be what is considered “different” and everyday we become more and more the same around the world. What a mess these huge corporations have made of culture. Culture does not hold the same power it once did. It doesn’t hold in advertisements unless it can be bottled up and sold. Fast food, restaurant chains, clothing stores, music…. all of these things are sold. McDonalds is EVERYWHERE! It is a blessing and a curse for this monster to be all over the globe. The food is killing people and has just about no nutritional value on most of the menu. Yet this is what Americans show other countries, the food we eat is “our” culture and most of what we transport of it is CRAP. We force this onto other cultures and people to make it part of their culture. We all have something that is the same now. Than their goes a few Burger Kings here and there, KFC here and there. There are countries besides America that share. Sometimes it is not destructive but it still makes us more similar. Instead of us going to see how different people are and them actually being different, we secretly wish that not too much will change once crossing the pond. Afraid of change and the unknown frightens some so much that they wish to change everything to be almost the same. Convergence could be wonderful, when sharing healthy and productive cultures we have.

They are EVERYWHERE!!!

Convergences are even happening with technologies such as video game systems, computers, and cell phones. We all end up with the same cell phones, although some countries get them before others.

People are being watched constantly! Half of the time we do not even know or realize that we are being watched. A career has been made of people stalking famous people it is called paparazzi! Digital cameras and voyeur websites, video cameras, surveillance cameras inside of elevators, convenient stores, shopping malls, apartment and office buildings. Phones are tapped as well as emails and Internet history logs. There is no such thing as personal space when you are in the “public”. The government owns just about every inch and space and if they don’t own it you are in a space owned by someone else. Cell phones are there to be convenient but they are also like instant tracking devices. If you are lost or kidnapped than that is wonderful. It isn’t so wonderful for those trying to get lost or the cheating spouse that is being tracked by a private investigator. Basically, as long as you have an electronic device in your home, you are not in private all of the time. Television shows like Bones, CSI, Crime and Law and all of the other crime investigative drama’s show us what the brains running the show do to find people. No matter how well you think you’ve hidden, your work will be blow to dust with all of the technology working against you, even your own. This is splendid when you are evil and should be caught but it isn’t cool when you just want to enjoy your weekend without being sued for doing something you didn’t know was illegal. Life can begin to get pretty difficult. . We let these technologies into our homes without thinking twice how they also invade our personal space. I remember having a walkie – talkie and being able to pick up my neighbors conversation. If battery operated Toys-R-Us purchased $10.00 walkie-talkie’s can do that…. WHOA!! Every conversation I have had on my cell phone in the past month was probably scanned or something... What about text messages?! They all have to be sent through the phone company. CREEPY!!!

I am from the United States and I studied in the UK for the semester. The UK students know how to party and with parties there comes music. Music, people can relate to and move and groove to. There were music artists that I had never heard before coming across the speakers at clubs and parties I attended. A large majority of the music played was by American artists so I was familiar with most songs. There were times when I knew the songs but I had no idea the origin of the artist or even the artists’ name. It just showed me first hand that the saying “music is universal” is very much true. I like to believe I am well rounded in my music listening choices. I listen to many different genres of music. I don’t listen to ALL music so I won’t say I am a music know all. I played the piano for three years starting at the age of 10 and stopping before I turned 13 years old. I have played the violin for 11 years. I do not play often like I did for the Beginning 6 years. I was in the school orchestra and so I practiced and played for 45 minutes Monday through Friday. It was a steady hobby. Once graduating I had to return my violin and now I play when I have the chance. I do remember how to play and so I count these years that my memory has not run away from me. I also sang in the school choir and had a “ girl group” that consisted of myself and three other friends. This all girls singing group lasted about three years. So I have a musical background but when my Tutor Mark played songs in lecture I had not heard of a few of them. He played a song from a David Bowie album. I know who David Bowie is but I had never heard one of his songs. I had heard him on the Rocky Horror Picture Show but that was it. I was embarrassed that I had never heard or heard of the song that was being played. I don’t know why I have never heard one of his songs but it made me feel a bit musically challenged, lol! I still listened to the music and it became more and more overwhelming as the years progressed. The more recent the music became the more chaos drenched the chords and melodies became. Than DJ Spooky came on and watching his performance turned my brain upside down. I literally felt as though I should be intoxicated just to enjoy what he was doing. Dj Spooky was scratching and mixing on turn tables as a violinist played and another person put on the visual aspect of he performance. There was so much going on that is just seemed insane to me. I am sure others enjoyed the performance, because there was a crowd cheering once the three stopped performing. I just know that I could not handle the full clip of the performance. Music has evolved so much over time and now DJ’s are almost as famous as actual music artist. It is a different type of fame though, because they don’t deal with the crazy paparazzi. It is a more of a heightened local fame that well known DJ’s have.

Video games are like another form of virtual reality to me. You sit in front of a screen and pop in a disk that has different characters and their lives are set up. The player sits in front of the screen and takes over that characters persona. It is not as intense as virtual reality but it does influence others. Some times I don’t even think the adults should be allowed to play. People are influenced no matter what age they are. The movie Existenz was really deep on the level of video gamers becoming so engaged with the game system and not being able to separate the game from reality. I was impressed with the game system and how it actually had to be installed into a human and you plugged in your game pod. I would never want that to be the way we play games but the idea was pretty crazy.

Electronics keep getting smaller and smaller and do more things than before. The year 2000 was supposed to be the “future” but it isn’t the way that people envisioned it or made it out to be in television and films. At-least, it isn’t that way as of yet. Art is becoming more influenced by computers. There is an art gallery that has an interactive exhibit. You lay in one bed in one place or country where the exhibit is. There is another person somewhere in the world at a similar exhibit and they lay in a bed. A projector shines the image of each person on to the other to make it seem as though they are in the bed with each other. I don’t find it comforting at all. It is like the step above digital cameras’ and using Skype or Ichat. I just find it creepy. I think of what future this may hold with people. When instant messengers we being used, people spoke to people they knew and now they can begin conversations with strangers. Will people be laying in bed with strangers now? It keeps me out that this is a possibility. Digital art is being used in movies, magazines, science labratories, advertisements and digital artist are needed at jobs everywhere. It is a field open to possibilities. Architecture is evolving and buildings are being built that do not even look like they can be occupied. Some buildings just look so odd and amusing that you can barely get past looking at the outside.

This changed a lot of things. You believe what you see in photos but when they are so well digitally altered, what is real anymore? In magazine and billboard adverts. It is still an art for someone to be able to digitally alter a photo so well that you can no longer tell that it is fake. I have seen an ad where the person was not actually a person. This was because every feature was from a different person digitally placed onto another persons head. A shape that was probably created just for this purpose. This was all done in order to create what media makes us believe is the "perfect" or a "perfect" person. It saddens me and interests me. It is interesting and cool to see some of the things that can be achieved and created. It is sad that this is used to brainwash people into thinking we can create a "perfect" person at times.

After watching Robert Spottiswoode’s film “The Sixth Day” I was freaked out! I never liked the idea of cloning. It is true that we need organs to help people in hospitals but there is no telling how far the cloning will go. I don’t understand why an entire animal as to be cloned. I would think that just the organ needed would be cloned instead. There are a lot of weird things going on with the U.S government as far as food goes so I don’t put it past them and what they would do with cloning and humans. I was discussing with a mate how it is disgusting what fast-food places do to produce their food. I don’t approve of the injections of hormones and steroids and everything else that is pumped into animals. The cloning scares me like in "The 6th day" in the scene where Arnolds character watches the repet infomercial…

That is just wrong!!! How do you just clone your deceased pet!?!? What is next? Cloning grandma and grandpa after they pass on?? NOOOOO, you don’t do those things!!! Part of the life cycle is dying. We can’t all stay on the planet forever. I was glad for the ending but I pray that this NEVER, EVER ,EVER happens!

We have technologies that help "improve" life. Technologies are convenient and change our day-to-day lives. Orlan the French artist uses technology to alter her appearance. She claims that she is doing this to show people that her body can be her art and that plastic surgery does not have to always have to have the same end result. She wants to show that she can make herself look different while using plastic surgery. This is all part of her experimental performance along with her paintings using her own blood. That is something I still don’t understand as to why she wanted to do. It creeps me out A LOT! Orlan is not the first person to get plastic surgery that was not in the traditional sense. There is Jocelyn Wildenstein who is referred to as the cat lady. She has had about 2 million pounds worth of surgery done on her face to look more feline. She should have stopped after the first few batches of surgery. She looks like this…
Technology is making it easier to do these things to a person and next thing you know people are going to want their Bluetooth headset implanted in there head or something. These surgeries are making more and more people look alike, which was not the plan. If we were all supposed to look exactly a like than that is how we would have been made. It is sad to watch the effects of pop culture take a horrible toll on a persons’ self esteem. Technology is supposed to improve our lifestyles, I guess that swapping faces and living on your cell phone is the lifestyle of today... I am guilty of over using my cell phone but I think I will keep the face I was born with. I’m not ready for that kind of change. Or “advancement” in technology.

I watched this movie in class called "Videodrome" by David Cronenburg made in 1982. It was interesting, very interesting. It was a twisted way of depicting the control that television and sex has on society. It pushed the envelope of what may become acceptable to show on television and to actually do in reality. It is true that virtual and reality become intertwined in our daily lives. It does not have to necessarily occur in ones own actual life. It could be something that someone has witnessed during the day or week. There could be a news segment on about sexual and violent video games that children play and what happens after they play them. People sometimes live through what they see on television and in magazines about celebrities. When people can’t afford living just like them they try and do the next best thing. It becomes an obsession, trying to find where these people live, eat, and buy clothes and/ or where they buy groceries. The roles that actors play on television are looked at as new life molds. Where teens and adults find out what they should consider right and wrong or just acceptable. Sex is the high focal point in most teen shows, at least in the popular ones. Although Videodrome was made in 1982, it is almost like a much, much more dramatic look into what the future; would hold. Television holds a large place in homes and I think it has changed the morals and values in households because of the entertainment industry trying to push limits and gain ratings and money.