Election Night 2012- Media Mayhem

Link to video.

The FIFA Factor

Earlier this year Roger Bennett of ESPN wrote a story in mid September on how FIFA, the popular EA Sports video game title, is changing the popularity of soccer in the United States.

Here’s the link if you’re interested:

http://soccernet.espn.go.com/blog/_/name/relegationzone/id/291?cc=5901

Anyways, I simply couldn’t pass up the opportunity to combine both sports and video games in one blog post--how the consumption of video games as a media is shaping the real world arounds us, specifically how FIFA has created a nation of soccer loving fans practically overnight.  Besides, I absolutely love European football, err soccer—the result of watching too much of the 2010 world cup and becoming instantly hooked. 

And apparently I’m not the only one.

In his article, Bennett points out that among males aged 18 to 24 soccer is the second most popular sport, behind only NFL Football.  And he thinks FIFA is to blame. 

The long running EA sports title isn’t quite the well-kept secret it used to be.  It outsold Madden 13 in the United States this year to a fine tune of 7 million copies.  But it’s popularity is pulling a love for the beautiful game along with it.   In many ways it’s astonishing to think that a video game advanced in popularity in the United States before the actual sport did. 

Fear not though, soccer is quickly catching up in popularity to it’s digital counterpart, and this media consumption could have a drastic impact with global consequences. 

While Bennett hints at it, I’ll be more than happy to come out and say it.  If FIFA creates such dedication to the sport as Madden has in young ages past, the US could quickly find itself among the national soccer powers.  

I have friends who quit playing when they were 12, play FIFA, see a trick in the game, and somehow get the urge to go buy a soccer ball and start learning how to do.  Just for the sake of it. 

If the game is able to keep younger ages enthralled about soccer—reversing stereotypes revolving around soccer moms and being a sissy sport, the result could be massive.  New generations learning to play while playing FIFA as well in a culture that now embraces soccer as a major sport—see the huge growth of the MLS over the past few years.  This generation will be given encouragement, fans and a national passion for the sport. 

And it’s because of an overly fun video game that somehow changed our conceptions about the sport, and testaments are abound.  If you flip through the comments on Bennett’s article, it’s full of lamenting individuals wishing they’d picked up soccer or stuck with it after playing FIFA, or stories about how FIFA made them a fan of the sport.

So in the end it’s more than just a game about a game.  It’s becoming the game.  And it’s shaping the world around us. 

Don Draper. The Mad Men’s Man’s Man.

It’s happening again.  I’m blogging about Mad Men.  I apologize.  I don’t mean it.  But I do apologize.  

You see, Don Draper, everyone’s favorite creative director has successfully done something that the rest of his generation never could.  He became cool in the eyes of Generation Y. 

Almost over night, Draper and Mad Men became a pop culture hit, but something else happened in the midst of that myriad of wows and 50’s cocktails parties.  Don Draper became the blue print for masculinity for young males. 

Some how, this rye drinking, cigarette smoking, womanizing, leader of men suddenly found himself plastered to dorm room walls and throw into a popculture Canton of male icons alongside Ray Lewis, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Brad Pitt. 

From the outside Draper stands for the man's man.  He’s good looking, is successful at work, wealthy, drinks like a fish and the epitome of the ladies man.  On the outside he’s decisive, emotionless and determined.  Simply put, he’s better at being the “man” than Jeff Bridges was “the dude.”  So much so that he was named Askmen.com’s most influential man of 2009 ahead of real men like President Obama and George Clooney. 

But Don has a different side to him.  The infamous Dick Whitman.  When dealing with his past, or the side of his life that knows him as Dick Whitman, we see a different side of the infamous Don. 

The Don on the inside, let’s call him Dick, is emotionally distraught, upset over the collapse of his previous marriage and the death of Anna Draper.  He cares for his children and in some ways regrets not being around them more and carries with him enormous emotional baggage.    He keeps trying to relate to the world around him that seems to change daily, unsure what his role is or will be as time goes on.  

It’s a side that you normally don’t see on TV—a man who is deeply troubled and distraught by the world around him.  But Don does the same thing most men do, bottles it up inside and only reveals he problems or shows his true self to an incredibly select few. 

So yes, Don Draper is a man’s man, fitting the profile of masculinity—but he also illustrates the struggle of men to find a place in this world and to define who they truly are.  And perhaps to hide that struggle men do throw on such thick cloaks of masculinity or sink into woman-chasing-clench-jawed shows of power. 

The world is wear of men in some ways.  As jobs get less and less manual labor centric men are having to evolve into new roles to justify ourselves.  It was the only thing that men truly, and scientifically, can be considered as having an advantage of women in.  Lifting things. 

But men don’t do much lifting anymore.  So what does it mean to be a man in the modern world? Don certainly doesn’t know.  And neither do I.  

The Universe is Indifferent. Don Draper on Counterculture.

In the process of getting a vast majority of my-self complexes shattered today amidst a discussion on counterculture, current culture and the absolute lack of any relationship in-between them, I had a rare moment of clarity in which a resounding answer came to me.  Perhaps it was inspired by Mad Men being brought up, or perhaps I drew it from somewhere deeper—but I found the answer to counterculture and current culture.  Better yet, it’s expressed with one of my favorite Mad Men quotes of all time from episode eight, season one: The Hobo Code.  Not only is it a cool expression of the  concepts of counterculture and mainstream going head to head; Don Draper delivers a line that, in my opinion, is as close to perfect as you can get.  Here goes:

The situation: In Draper’s mistress Midge’s apartment. Don, ad man extraordinaire, is surrounded by a group of counterculture loving hippies.

Midge’s Friend:  Dig.  Ad man’s got a heart.

Midge:  The grown-ups are talking.

Midge’s Friend:  Don’t defend him.  [to Don] Toothpaste doesn’t solve anything.  Dacron sure as hell won’t bring back those ten dead kids in Biloxi. 

Don:  Neither will buying some Tokaj wine and leaning up against a wall in Grand Central pretending you’re a vagrant. 

Midge’s Friend:  You know what it’s like to watch all you ants go into your hive?  I wipe my ass with the Wall Street Journal.  Look at you.  Satisfied, dreaming up jingles for soap flakes and spot remover, telling yourself you’re free.

Don: Oh, my god. Stop talking and make something of yourself.

Midge’s Friend: Like you? You make the lie.  You invent want.  You’re for them. .. Not us.

Don: Well, I hate to break it to you, but there is no big lie.  There is no system.  The universe is indifferent.

That’s emphasis.  The home run.  The big idea.  There is no system.  The universe is indifferent.  Gladwell’s article, The Conquest of Cool, establishes that there isn’t a definable relationship between counterculture and cool.  That mix is reinforced by Draper’s quote, but let’s take it a step further.  I’ll say it’s near impossible to define a sustainable counterculture on a large scale or even an individual one—because there’s always another layer.  There’s always a smaller group or a smaller thought that does something different, that is then developed and then becomes dominate.   We can’t draw a line and say what is counterculture and what’s just current/mainstream culture.

On a large scale, take the entire college population over the last few years.  Who was the brave individual, that courageous PBR consuming person, who dug out their father’s Coke-bottle sunglasses and became the first hipster?  We don’t know.  But somehow it caught on.  The point though is that individual existed within a pre-existing culture.  He/she didn’t create a culture—they changed an already existing one.  Let’s be conservative and say that out of 20,000 college aged people there are 500 hipsters.  1 in 40.  Pretty scary stuff.  But I digress.  Those 500 people didn’t spontaneously become hipsters overnight.  They assimilated bits and pieces from their brave comrade and put their own spin on it, eventually creating what we call hipster.  But this isn’t a self-sustained model in an isolated environment.  New ideas come in, old ideas leave.  Mainstream culture even plays into it.  Imagine what a disappointment  to hipster nation it would be if the Vespa scooter had never been invented by mainstream culture.  And imagine how horrible it must have been when four years ago frat boys started wearing argyle prints too. 

The illustration between the first hipster and the hipster group is the same as between the hipster group and mainstream culture.  We simply can’t distinguish which is which and how the mix is shared.  Not to draw too extreme of a comparison, but think of a bowl of soup.  Yes there are noodles in it. And peas. And carrots.  And you can tell where one ends and another begins.  But when you take a random ladle full of soup out the bowl you’ll still have those noodles, peas and carrots in it.  And ifyou strain all the chunks out of the soup and just drink the broth, you can still taste the peas and the carrots.  They’ve been assimilated into the flavor. 

This goes with culture too.  We can pick out individuals, or even groups.  But we can’t tell where the cultural influences begin and end.  It’s impossible.  They all pick up bits of “flavor” from each other.  So to say that the counterculture goes in opposition of mainstream culture is impossible because it contributes to what is mainstream culture.  And we can’t distinguish which is which, because there isn’t a logical way to do it.  There are too many variables. 

This is even expressed within myself:

I don’t want to stick it to the man.  I want to be the man.  But by wanting to be the man, aren’t I sticking it to the group that wants to stick it to the man?  And if so, I’m still sticking it to the man.  I’m in a counterculture to counterculture by trying to be the symbol of mainstream.  So by being mainstream we’re countering the counterculture which is countering mainstream life.  What a mess, but there’s a point in this.  We can’t really counter something that we’re continuously influencing and is influencing us.    We can’t distinguish what makes us think that way or this way, or identify the bits and pieces that play into that perspective. It’s circular and anyway you think about it it’s a myriad of muck and thoughts that leaves us unable to draw the dividing line. 

The best part?  That cultural machine keeps going.

There is no system.  The universe is indifferent. 

Six months without the big FB

Six Months.  Sounds like a long time to go without Facebook huh?  Oh the dread of not knowing what’s going on or missing out on the social loop of who’s doing what or visa-versa. 

Well not really.  It’s actually been incredibly refreshing.  But that’s a point for later.  First it’s important to establish why I got rid of Facebook.  Why a fairly loyal user of seven years (nearly a third of my life) just up and quit the biggest social network site in the world sixth months ago.  That’s the question.

The truth is I’m not an overly active producer of social content.  Even in my prime Facebook days I didn’t post hundreds of photos.  In fact, besides my phone, I don’t even own a digital camera.  I don’t like to take photos of what I’m doing or the people I’m with.  I’d much rather just interact with them.  So really, there wasn’t even a single picture of me on my page that I’d taken. 

I wasn’t a big “post-er” either.  Sure I’d throw in a comment every so often, but I wasn’t one to throw countless lines of content into Facebook cyberspace.  And there’s a danger in that.

We form social identities for everyone we meet.  We form concepts of who they are just a few seconds after meeting them.  Or after spending a few seconds on their Facebook profile.  Yes these concepts change overtime but first impressions do mean a lot.

Here’s how this all played into my decision to get rid of Facebook.  In high school I interacted with most of my Facebook friends on a regular basis.  This provided them with the opportunity to form social concepts of who I was based on more than just my Facebook profile. 

When I left for college that changed.  Not only do I not see my prior Facebook friends but the new ones I was accumulating were dispersed over a greater space, population and, to be honest, I interacted with them on a much less frequent basis.  Thus to fill that absence my Facebook profile stepped forward.  It became more predominate in other’s people’s roles of determining who I was. 

Now because of this, and my lack of my own content posting, I slowly came to realizing that I was letting other people form other people’s concepts of who I am.  That’s absolutely terrifying—especially as I enter the professional world. 

So I had to do a bit of analysis.  In the end I just didn’t care about Facebook enough to expend the effort to justify keeping it.  It was a habit.  Not something I looked forward to, or something that I felt obliged to do.  It was just a simple habit— a habit that could be broken. 

So I did it. And the results have been pretty interesting.   I certainly don’t miss it.  That’s for sure.  But I find myself reaching out in the real world more often.  Instead of thinking, I wonder how so-and-so is doing I’d better go check Facebook, I find myself just calling or texting them instead.  It feels far more rewarding, and I believe it helps the relationship grow more than simply exercising the low commitment of a “like this” click. 

I stop and talk to people as a I pass them more, after all it’s the only way I have to learn about how they’re doing.  Maybe some relationships have run by the wayside.  Some of my acquaintances from high school probably think I’m dead.  And I doubt I’m keeping those relationships up as much as people with Facebook. But that’s the way things like this work.  Life moves on.  And it was time for Facebook to do the same.  

Now I’m the only source of other people’s perception of who I am.  No one tags me in anything.  I’m who I am.  And that’s pretty cool.  

Parasocial Peyton

Indiana recently had its heart wrenched out.  We understood why a change had to be made.  We understood the plan and the purpose.  But that doesn't mean it didn't hurt. 

Let’s face it.  No, let’s embrace it.  Indianapolis and Indiana love Peyton Manning.  He led our beloved Colts to eleven straight playoff appearances and two Super Bowls.  We embraced his family, memorized his stats, and bawled like Jim Irsay at his departure press conference. 

For me, Peyton illuminated something.  Fandom.  The act of being a fan of a sports team or sports figure is one of the most powerful and prevalent forms of parasocial relationships in the world.

Some of you will be arguing, "well I’m just a sports fan, I don’t have a relationship like these parasocial weirdos and their Bieber-fever."  Well.  If that’s the case, then you must not wear jerseys with athletes' names on them.  You must not cheer with glee with they score a touchdown.  And you certainly don’t draft them in fantasy football leagues and name your teams after them.  No you certainly don’t do any of that. 

The truth is that we love our athletes on our teams.  We embrace them and learn all we can about them.  It’s a powerful thing.  And we do it all the time without thinking about it.  Think of names on the Colts that you’ve embraced over the years.  (Or if you’re a fan of another team come up with your own list.)  Edgerrin James, Marvin Harrison, Dallas Clark, Bob Sanders, Jeff Saturday, Marlin Jackson and Joseph Addai.  Most Colts fans can tell you more than you ever wanted to know about these players.  And that’s pretty cool.  That’s what being a fan is all about.  But it’s not just about being a fan of a team, an non-person entity, it’s about the individuals that play for that team and our parasocial relationship with them, especially when that relationship is so powerful it overpowers our “team” fandom. 

Peyton illuminated that being a fan transcends just rooting for a team.  The number of people who support the Denver Broncos in Indiana skyrocketed in the period of two weeks.  Why? Because of Peyton.  Because of the emotional bond that we feel towards Peyton Manning, the loyalty we feel we owe his as part of our fidelity driven relationship. 

It’s the embracement of a figure who knows nothing of us.  He has no idea what the names of his countless fans are.  But we know everything about him.  His twins, his rookie season passing record that we cursed Cam Newton for breaking, and we can pick his voice out of a crowd.  We love Peyton Manning.

“But Peyton loves us too!” You argue. 

That’s what your parasocial dedication is driving you to say.  Sure Peyton Manning probably does care for Indiana, but not you.  Someone he doesn’t even know exists.  That's not to be callus, that’s just the parasocial truth of it all. 

So without further deliberation.  Go Colts.  And go Peyton.