Group Project: Social Media Addiction

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Or08vsMy5gg&feature=youtu.be

War Games

“It’s like war. I’m a f****ing soldier!”

With all due respect to the player who said this, football is not like war. And frankly, this comparison is dangerous as it not only diminishes the reality of war, but pushes people further toward desensitization.

Seeing war as a sport or some sort of national spectacle certainly makes it easier to swallow. But we need to stop coating medicine with sugar to make it go down. Although this is quickly becoming an escapist nation with such popular refuges as Facebook, harsh reality can no longer be ignored.

We use sports as a means of vicariously experiencing combat or as a safer form of such. However, players and spectators alike may no longer be able to get all their aggression out on the field. That’s obvious in clips like the one from “Not Just a Game” in which a football player angrily, desperately declares himself a soldier. Perhaps it’s time like these that we start seeing this sport as “just a game."

The line between popcorn spectacles and social commentary has never been thinner. The media can no longer separate sports from politics as it seems they both serve the same function — to entertain. Sure, it’s good that we can have our popcorn and eat it, too. But there is a line between escapism and reality. And that line is getting a bit too blurry for comfort. Thankfully, there are films like “Not Just a Game” to help clear things up a bit.  

Scratching the Surface of Identity

Stereotypes are insidious little beasts. Although we try to subvert them, they still manage to slip into our thinking. And they reared their ugly heads in our recent class discussion regarding homosexuality.  

Although I understood where they were coming from, I was disturbed by the frequency of comments like, “My friend is a lesbian and she dates beautiful girls!” This statement — always tinged with a note of pleasant surprise — is telling in two ways. First, it reinforces the stereotype that noticeably, attractively feminine or “lipstick lesbians” are rare to come by and therefore surprising. Secondly, it suggests that homosexuals are more accepted or acceptable if they are what society deems attractive. That was certainly true for Matthew Shepard — a young gay man who was easily embraced based largely on his soft features and generally innocent appearance. But it’s true for everyone, regardless of gender or orientation. Just open an issue of In Touch magazine and you will see how our image obsession is growing.

Of all the classes about different forms of rhetoric, this homosexuality discussion was the most potent example of visual persuasion — and the most stark reminder that people can be judged even before they speak.

Today’s world is not unlike Jimmy Stewart’s in “Rear Window.” Like him, we’re all voyeurs, largely dependent on visual impressions. While he watches — and analyzes — his neighbors through his little window, we judge behind the comfort of our laptops.

We rely on images to judge people because the media shoves them in our faces. Maybe it’s time they tone down the visual rhetoric and employ a different form of attention-grabbing. Like stereotypes, visuals only scratch the surface when it comes to describing and understanding people.

Outside the Screens and Over the Rainbow

Personal and cultural memory does not reside in a photograph or film image so much as it is produced by it. Although Marita Sturken wrote this in an essay regarding Oliver Stone’s films, it can be applied to video games as well. 

                                                                          

With games like “Call of Duty” and “Medal of Honor” recreating historical events and weaving new patterns with our cultural narrative thread, Jane McGonigal’s idea of using games to make new history is not too far of a stretch.

                                                                        

However, the responsibility of securing the future may be a bit too much to bear. After all, the primary appeal of video games is the fact that they enable people to engage in adventure without encountering any actual risk. Do gamers really want to play a game in which the health of the world is actually at stake?                                                                                        

Making games “progressive” seems to dismiss their inherently escapist nature. As a fellow classmate said, most people play games in an effort to take refuge from reality. Therefore, basing the goals of games on real-world issues neglects players’ desires.

                                

Ultimately, if games can inspire youngsters to use violence in real life — as many parents suspect — I suppose they can inspire them to lend a hand to notable causes as well. But they need to do so in the real world. We live in a world in which people are almost more active in cyberspace than in physical reality. That’s just…not good, folks. Therefore, the idea of using gaming to secure the future seems, well, lazy. The real problems of the world exist outside the screens to which we are glued. That’s where work needs to be done.

Solace in Sensationalism

While most news stories — like that of Matthew Shepard’s death — aim to stand out and unsettle us, they ultimately end up creating a sense of comfort. Rather than revealing the unfortunate truth that evil can lie next door, they paint wrongdoers as distant aliens, or people with whom we do not associate ourselves. In turn, we take comfort in the fact that people like Shepard’s killers are exceptions to the so-called norm. 

                                     

Another example is the coverage of Columbine, which created the illusion that school shootings could be prevented by giving us clear warning signs and examples of the kinds of students that warrant suspicion. In other words, the media suggested that only “strange students” are capable of such a heinous crime.

But just as the Matthew Shepard case only led to more hate crimes, the coverage of Columbine failed to prevent school shootings. This happens because the media keeps recycling the notion that these are unusual occurrences. Therefore, rather than living in constant fear and anticipation of what is disturbingly common violence, we remain largely oblivious until such violence occurs again.

More disturbingly, the media’s focus on killers indirectly…justifies their crimes, for lack of a better word. Whether it is intentional or not, sensationalism’s function, it seems, is to romanticize the unspeakable. What we fear the most is what we don’t understand. That fear is essential to our survival. That fear keeps us on edge and alert. And the media is stripping us of it by making the unspeakable all too understandable.