Rhetoric Behind Fun

Video Games are good

This article that I've just read is actually very very good! I really like it a lot. Ian Bogost (A GEORGIA TECH KID) wrote this article called The Rhetoric of Video Games. This guy actually analyzes many video games. He comes up with the conclusion that we learn a lot from vide games. One example that I really liked was the one about the games Bully. Like he says, critics think that the games is a "celebration of schoolyard harassment", when there is actually much more to it. This shows the insanely true and ever-present social politics of high school. It's really a problem I suppose. It's like South Park (and Shakespeare I suppose) the way it's so satirical. 

These negativities are there and true. It shows that there is more to this video game. Obviously there are better examples where you actually learn things that can help you. In all of the SimCity games, you control a city. But you really learn how to manage money and manage something of a large business. The goal of the game is to make profit and expand, just as any business would. There's more to the video game. There's more to all of these video games. 

A Change in TV Shows

We compared tv shows in class

The two shows in question were Friday Night Lights and Glee. I think everyone knows the show Glee. It's become a cultural and social norm to discuss it and love it, really. But still, there are plenty of people that don't like it. I for one, don't really care for it. Friday Night Lights on the other hand is a very serious high school drama show that stopped airing a while back. Nobody really knows why, because people did watch it. 

Glee is happy. FNL is drama. Glee is superficial (like society nowadays truthfully). FNL is so real. Glee won. I suppose because of the happiness. The question was raised of which show I would rather watch. Honestly, neither. I'm okay with my South Park and Spongebob. 

Is Convincing Deception?

does it have to be deception?

I mean, really, no one can tell if people are genuine. Or companies... Or anything really. I mean, I was at this company presentation because I wanted to learn about the company. Essentially, they were making the presentation to try and convince students to apply for a job there. 

They started the presentation very colorfully, showing employees having a lot of fun. And then of course they moved onto some business stuff. 

I mean, were they being honest about the fun? Is it really fun to work there? I think so. But it did seem pretty intense. They have company parties and something like a field day. But really, because they are trying to make us like them we can't be sure. 

It's not a lie. It's not deception.

It's just selectively showing positives. It's not fake though. It is real. It's just that we see a different part of it. That's just like the sentence that I said earlier about me going to the presentation to learn. I was interested but I also was there for free food. I didn't lie though.

What do we think of Realness?

we have yet to touch a lot on realness

But still, we made a presentation about what we think about realness. It's so interesting to me that we've already got an assignment like this. I suppose that our thoughts on realness are real. It's not that realness has any concrete definition. Realness already is something that society has defined, and because we are society, we will always define it. 

Anyways, here's a link to our presentation. It's very interesting (at least I thought so). 

http://prezi.com/wvs0vvbcsk_i/what-is-real/?kw=view-wvs0vvbcsk_i&rc=ref-17156225

It's better presented then just seen, because we all did a lot of explaining. But I still hope that this will be enough to get the points across that we are trying to show. 

The Medium is the Message

WE READ AN INTERESTING EXCERPT FOR CLASS

Marshall McLuhan wrote a very interesting work about how the medium that a work is written in substantially effects how it is perceived. This really makes sense to me, because I, right in front of me see how different mediums are good for different things. Honestly, the most interesting thing about McLuhan's work was that it was written a long time ago. Mediums now are a little different, especially with the internet. Even though, his main concepts still hold true. 

What he says is that a video of news has more of an effect to the people. A video about that same violence could be watched over a family dinner. It's not saying a story about crime, but showing that the public is able to bear with these crimes. They are able to live with them. This got me thinking about how mediums have different effects to people. A news story printed about deaths could be regarded as "sad" or "disappointing", but a video about the same thing, actually seeing some parts of the story (not the violence, maybe evidence of it) may have a far greater effect. This could be true even if the script was exactly the same. 

It's pretty crazy. All of these things he says are really true. It's far more then the effect of video games on violence.

Due Dates

SO MANY DISTRACTIONS...

The anniversary of the September 11th attacks was yesterday. People can remember it happening so clearly. The memories feel so real. But honestly, it was a while ago. No one reminded me of the day. It's in the past now.

Kind of like Pearl Harbor. But its still a pride-filled day where people get all emotional and patriotic. 

Anyways, our presentation went pretty well. I think that I could talk about realness for over an hour; we were stressed on time with only 10 minutes to present. I look forward to upcoming video projects.

On a personal note, I need to keep better track of my assignments. I missed a due date earlier this week and forgot to do 
something else.
I guess school right now isn't feeling very real. I guess I expected more people, or more intense classes. I don't feel that involved at this point. College is fun, but I feel like it should be more.

What is Realness? - Project 1

So what is realness? 

Well to me its what is real. I guess it's really hard to answer this question. After a some decent brainstorming, I realized that reality is what we believe to be real. This is regardless of what kind of realness: being belief, perception, or the state of being. Well what are these things anyways?

• Belief: Like religion and things along those lines. Superstition and things like "soul mates". There is no hard evidence but there are people that believe it, and therefore it is real to them. This is the basis to every single thing involving what is real.

• Perception: This is really just how we see different things. It is not a matter of  how something really is, but how we perceive it that determines if we believe it is real. 

• State of being: Who, what, where, are we? What do we think about ourselves and do we believe that we are real?

This project though... Ultimately it is a collection of us students brainstorming about realness. Excruciatingly vague, we have the most freedom in what we are doing. For the presentation of this project, we are supposed to use www.prezi.com. Prezi's are arranged like a brainstorming map, so its easy to arrange our vague ideas into this. The presentation aspect allows us to really connect our ideas and make more sense out of them not only for us, but also for everyone else. 
We worked a decent amount of this and made it well. I'm confident that we will be able to impress our professor with this. In essence, the presentation is based on the three bullet points with a good amount of analyzation and other things also. It's good.