The History of Games
Games have improved so much since the 1950’s because of the advanced technology. Our games now are fully rendered three dimensional with high definition screens and we can play them on our television, computer, or any handheld systems. Games are a major part in our culture but it’s not always a positive thing. Without games, many people’s lifestyles would not have been the same.
The first electronic game was invented in 1958 by a physicist Willy Higginbotham at the Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, New York. Higginbotham’s game was a table tennis-like game that was played on an oscilloscope, an electronic device that is able to produce visual displays corresponding to electronic signals. Three years later, Steve Russell, a student at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), created another game called “Space War”, the first interactive computer game.
During 1983, the Japanese introduced the gaming company known as Nintendo with its first gaming system being Famicom. Nintendo did not plan to market the product in the U.S. because Atari controls such a large percentage of the market. So instead they offered Atari rights to distribute the Famicom Gaming System. Nintendo’s gaming system did not appear in the U.S. market until 1985, under the name Nintendo Entertainment System. The following year the Nintendo Entertainment System was released in the U.S. after being test-marketed in New York. The same year both Atari and Sega introduced their own gaming system to compete in the market.
In 1989, Nintendo came up with the handheld Game boy that was sold for $109 USD. Since games are becoming more and more popular with the public the competition is fierce and many game companies are constantly creating new games, some even containing violence. The games that involve violence became popular because of Senator Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut and Senator Herbert Kohl of Wisconsin. They launched a Senate investigation with the goal to ban all the games with violent content.
A year after the major Senate investigation, 1994, the Entertainment Software Rating Board was created. The Entertainment Software Rating Board rates the video games and then makes sure that the rating symbol is marked on every game’s packaging. That way it can help alert the buyers about the contents in the game, it’s definitely a good way for parents to make sure if they are buying a game that is suitable for their children.
By 1997, Sony’s PlayStation was at the top because it was considered one of the most popular game consoles with 20 million units sold. It was incomparable with any other gaming system. Around the same time, Tiger introduced their “multipurpose” handheld called, “Game.com” to compete with Nintendo’s Game Boy, Tiger’s Game.com also features a calculator, address book, and also a stylus for the built –in touch screen. Hoping to win over fans, another special feature was that the Game.com can have access to e-mails by connection to a PC.
In 1998, Wal-Mart decided to ban more than 50 video games that are inappropriate for underage minors. Right after the Columbine High School Shooting, in Littleton, Colorado, Sega announced that the company will not be releasing a light gun game for the Dreamcast console in the U.S. Also in addition the guns, that were originally planned to be imported to America, which is compatible with the American Consoles, were instantly banned. This results in the Americans playing the popular House of the Dead 2 with standard controllers. Everyone was afraid that more shooting incidents might occur because of the influence of violent games.
Sony’s PlayStation finally launched their PlayStation 2 in the U.S. in 2000. It was sold for $ 299.99, more expensive than any other console sold from before. But it was a big hit, selling out quickly the day it came out. The demand was so high that it was really difficult to buy a PlayStation 2 during the first shipment because there were only 500,000 units available during that time. During the same year The Sims was released and quickly became one of the biggest hits.
While other gaming companies concentrated on releasing the same old gaming systems or handheld system, Nintendo aimed for a more different and unique design for their gaming system. In 2006, Nintendo released their Wii, a gaming console where the controller was made for the purpose where the gamers actually need to move around to play the games. For example the gamers need to swing the controller like a tennis racket or just use it however depending on the games they are playing. This really appeals to a wider range of audiences, especially the older generations due to the increase in health concerns.
Nintendo’s Wii became really popular and many good games were created specifically for their game console like the widely popular game Super Mario Galaxy. In 2008 Wii officially launched Wii Fit which is a game where people can exercise indoors in front of the television. Wii Fit is a great way to get people moving and it’s a great way to get gamers of all ages to stay fit. As of 2009, Nintendo’s Wii is currently one of the most popular gaming systems and Nintendo’s Wii Sports became one of the best-selling video games.
Games have played such an important and huge role in our culture. Games are a great way to relieve stress and also to have fun. Now with the Wii, one can even exercise!
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
late in the game, but fun and useful
http://www.sca.org/ca/
help me define our magazine, btw. you'll see.
help me define our magazine, btw. you'll see.
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
HOT/NOT ... IN/OUT
Know how tabloid magazines have "What's Hot & What's Not" ? As a group, lets collect some. I'll design a little box and drop it in somewhere. Think about our theme; switching time periods might be funny/ironic if mixed in.
HOT
Bowler Hats
Snail Mail
NOT
Skinny Jeans
Social Networking
etc.
HOT
Bowler Hats
Snail Mail
NOT
Skinny Jeans
Social Networking
etc.
NOTES from Week 9
Layouts - Develop your article on a two page layout. I recommend looking at other magazines to choose quotes to pull-out and make larger, drop caps, titling. If you can't fit your article on your spread, there is a page for overflow text in the back. You will have a "Contiuned on page..." at the end.
Please bring your layout on a disk next week to give to me. I will take them and work them slightly to make the whole project congruent.
Art - We need ART! Block space with at least a sketch of what you are putting in. It has to be filled by Week 11! Sending to print at the convenience of the printer, before the holiday weekend. Best if all is original, but if there is something you found that applies to our subject and is high resolution, hand it over. We'll give credit. If you mention something in your article like a game console or animation or abigail williams :"), find a picture. Most importantly, I don't want a single page without playful type design, color, art or photography.
Fonts - By the end of class, you will have the font. Hoefler Type Foundry. Set at 10 pt regular for the body. Swash for drop caps. Consider titling and pop quotes.
Printing - The layout I have now is 5 tabloid sheets printed front and back (20 pages from cover to cover). I got quotes, and trust SoCal Graphics in Glendale to get this done on time, correctly and on our budget. The quoted $3 a sheet printed front/back for the inside and cover at $3.75 (thicker paper). I have to get samples of the matte and glossy. They'll do test prints no problem. They said they'd do all the cutting, stapling, and folding for $15 for 20 copies. Maybe we will end up printing less. Each of us need a copy, Rosetta, I thought it would be nice to have copies for each of the other class members to hold, and possibly if you'd like more than one copy. By the time we print, let me know how many you would like. With extra cost for the wrap band, estimated printing is $20 per copy. There are 9 of us in the group to split the cost. Group cost is estimated at $45 each.
You can write a check directly to SoCal graphics, I believe. I can ask.
PRESENTATION - Now to be on Week 13, December 2nd (No Class Wednesday Nov.25th, the day before Thanksgiving) Yipeeeee!!!
Please bring your layout on a disk next week to give to me. I will take them and work them slightly to make the whole project congruent.
Art - We need ART! Block space with at least a sketch of what you are putting in. It has to be filled by Week 11! Sending to print at the convenience of the printer, before the holiday weekend. Best if all is original, but if there is something you found that applies to our subject and is high resolution, hand it over. We'll give credit. If you mention something in your article like a game console or animation or abigail williams :"), find a picture. Most importantly, I don't want a single page without playful type design, color, art or photography.
Fonts - By the end of class, you will have the font. Hoefler Type Foundry. Set at 10 pt regular for the body. Swash for drop caps. Consider titling and pop quotes.
Printing - The layout I have now is 5 tabloid sheets printed front and back (20 pages from cover to cover). I got quotes, and trust SoCal Graphics in Glendale to get this done on time, correctly and on our budget. The quoted $3 a sheet printed front/back for the inside and cover at $3.75 (thicker paper). I have to get samples of the matte and glossy. They'll do test prints no problem. They said they'd do all the cutting, stapling, and folding for $15 for 20 copies. Maybe we will end up printing less. Each of us need a copy, Rosetta, I thought it would be nice to have copies for each of the other class members to hold, and possibly if you'd like more than one copy. By the time we print, let me know how many you would like. With extra cost for the wrap band, estimated printing is $20 per copy. There are 9 of us in the group to split the cost. Group cost is estimated at $45 each.
You can write a check directly to SoCal graphics, I believe. I can ask.
PRESENTATION - Now to be on Week 13, December 2nd (No Class Wednesday Nov.25th, the day before Thanksgiving) Yipeeeee!!!
Newest Draft (Robert Wilkins)
There are people who exist in this day and age who are opposed to the times. Are these people frightened by the prospect of exponential, technological progression? Are they, perhaps, codependent on what they grew up on back in the good ol’ days? I thought all of those people died out in the 90’s once everyone got an email account and carried a cell phone around in their pocket. I for one am glad that video killed the radio star, I’d much rather watch than simply listen most of the time, wouldn’t you?
To me it parallels the old saying… “Make new friends, but keep the old, one is silver, the other gold”. While I can concede a certain amount of caution, even aversion to new technologies (at first) in communication and networking can be healthy, how do people expect to get on in the world. Can they not see the benefits that Facebook, YouTube, the iPhone, and others to come will bring us?
What if, in the past, we voted “nay” to the radio, with only the theatre and symphony should rule supreme. What if we nixed the idea of the printing press and mass literature? I wonder… what would these very conservatives sound like in ancient times? Well, let’s find out as we join our faithful, Cro-Magnon columnist Oog, as he communicates his latest column in the Caveman Chronicle through the lost arts of gestures and grunting:
Big mighty news now! Don't know yet? That’s okay... I, mighty Oog, will swing hairy arms and stomp mighty legs to learn you of momentous news...
Strange noises have been heard, it not monster, it not spirits, either. Strange noises come from human mouth. I swear on the lives of my wives.
These new noise are magic. I swear on the life of all my wives. Nosies come from human mouths, and carry power of understanding! Where this come from, you want know? Some homos made it up, yes, homosapiens from the plain lands created it. Although it have no name in grunt or gesture, those who use it have been calling it "talk". And talk is powerful, I, Oog, witnessed one homo make magic mouth noise, while a second - across the field – hear it, and understand. NO MOVING AT ALL, OOG SWEAR IT BE TRUTH!
In a way it make Oog proud of homos everywhere. I lay awake at night and wonder about the greatness that will be future generations. But, Oog stop and think also, even though it hurt head when Oog do. Imagine many moons from now… will homos all use this invisible mouth-magic, all the time? What will happen to the good old days when Oog sit around fire with his many wives and friends and pass down the most important things? Will grunts and gestures be speared by mouth-magic's arrowhead?
Oog is simple caveman just like many of you. Oog make baby with one wife at one time and make candles with one piece of ear wax at one time. And likewise, if Oog need to communicate, then Oog get up, go over, and move Oog's body to explain like any normal homo do in our civilized time.
Oog have memory of Oog Sr. when he pass down art of charade to Oog. I, Oog, very proud of my skill. But what happen in many moon? Oog abhor the day I have to talk to get annoying children away. Oog think it more fun to backhand annoying children, agree?
Oog notice more homos not communicate with gesture anymore. Homos everywhere no need now get up to explain. Now just sit in cave and yell at wives for saber-leg and baby making. Homos now lazy, forget the teachings of ancestors, and now high cholesterol. What next, Oog think... tool to talk to far off village?
This is why I, Oog, tell you that new is bad thing. Cavemen need to forget new technology, it only distract in the end. New is never the answer if our goal is survival! Stay with old way, the old way never change.
Abigail Williams has sent you a friend request.
Hi, This is another version of my article. I'm taking this one to the writing lab and will have the finished draft posted asap. Let me know what you think. I think it may be the worst thing you will ever read. Actually, that's a promise.
Gabe
In his 1964 structuralist opus, Understanding Media, Marshall McLuhan writes that that “Mental breakdown of varying degrees is the very common result of uprooting and inundation with new information and endless new patterns of information.”McLuhan is writing to us from the sixties, so its often striking how much his talk on new media technology sounds like the internet. And if ‘mental breakdown’ is the result of information overload, then we’re screwed. In the same article, he describes the past as a time when “many actions could be taken without too much concern…” but how “today the action and the reaction occur almost at the same time.” Despite the density of his words, this much of the message is clear: New Media Technology has had, and will continue to have far reaching implications on the fundamental components of human life. Even our understanding of space and time is affected, or “we continue to think in the old fragmented space and time patterns of the pre-electric age.”
The tone of McLuhan’s passionate rant is fairly matter of fact but with an occasional glimmer of doom and urgency. Whatever the outcome of the changing world, McLuhan makes it clear that the difference between fascists and the new media is that “the threat of Hitler was external” while the “electric technology is within the gates and we are numb, deaf, blind…” This sounds very bad, but he reminds the reader that “today, when we want to get our bearing in our own culture and have need to stand aside from the bias and pressure exerted by any technical form of human expression, we have only to visit a society where that particular form has not been felt, or historical period in which it was unknown. It is with McLuhan’s recommendation that I delve into the following question. Social Networking Sites, the glamorous companion to internet technology of the last two decades, has wrought itself onto our lives and there are many questions about the ways in which it has changed us. Or has it changed us, really? Looking to the past to loosely understand the present, I ask myself what famous moments in history could have really benefitted from 24 hour internet access and a facebook, blogspot, or youtube? Since it is the harvest season with witches and ghouls and the brutalities of winter never far behind, the bizarre occurences in Salem Massachusetts feel ripe for an high-speed internet connection.
As the story goes, Salem was an incident in the not so distant past when fear, jealousy, and possibly halucenegenic contamination of grain stocks made for a couple of very wild weekends. Between 1692 and 1693, roughly 25 people died on the east coast as a result of imprisonment or hanging because they had been accused and convicted of witchcraft. The bulk of the drama occurred in Salem M.A. and since then, the story has served as an allegory for dangers that await all persons involved with or subjected to unchecked superstition, religious extremism and faulty judicial systems. Condensed nicely into a few weeks, Arthur Miller penned the version of the story which we are most familiar with, a tail of overworked girls forever being seen and never heard, and otherwise bored witless by the puritanicall moral code stacked against them and everyone else resideing in Salem at that time. The real life 12 year old Abigail Williams, the main instigator of the witchcraft accusations, became a buxom temptress in the play, and the popular mythology of the Salem trials being the games of dewy young girls on the verge of sexual fruition could easily have garnered all the internet headlines of the day.
Now, to make things interesting…lets endow Abigail Williams with some new vindictive implements. With her new age and sexuality, compliments of Arthur miller, we have the perfect MySpacer posting sexy photos of her self in freshly pressed aprons and scandalously hemmed work skirts. If you’re her friend, you get to look at the photos of her without her bonnet. Being the age group and roughly the socioeconomic ranks that patron MySpace more than any other group, Abigail, like present day farm girls in fiercely Christian hamlets all over the country would have found solace and the means of self expression in the sometimes tawdry realm downloadable layout designs. She would have opted for the yellow background with heart and star clip art wall- paper that had the twinkling and rotating affect. It wouldn’t matter that her friends computers would crash whenever they logged into her site, for she knew that as the head of the roost, they would persist until they could read her highly anticipated blog entry of the day.
On July 6th, 1692, Abbybabby16 wrote:
Tituba is a total bitch. You guys can’t hang out with her anymore. She was seriously trying to make me feel bad for not having done that Equinox thing with her, like I care. I hate her. Goody Parris was telling my mom that she’s even been slacking off on the housework and it’s probably because she’s so heart broken about us not being friends anymore.
The big news is that fat ass Sara Osbitch is threatening to tell Father about Proctor, who, for the record, is just as into me as I’m sort of into him, so I never wanted to be that person that Parris talks about at services. Still, I never thought I would be hanging out with Tituba either. Lol. Go figure. Anyway, I know I can trust you guys to not tell anyone because you know I’ll switch to your ugly little faces. One more thing, Biznitches, looks like we’re doing a midnight hike this Wednesday. Betty is bringing cider. It is there, that I, the uber sexy Abigail Williams, will unveil my master plan of destruction for the hoary hags of Salem that keep giving me shit.
The Sara Osbitch Abigail refers to is actually Sarah Osborn, one of the first three people to be accused of witchcraft by Abigail and her hysterical friends. Dorothy Good was one of the later victims of the accusations that spread like wildfire. Each of the accused could be cast in a restaging of the crucible by any member of the PTA from any street and from any network of adults that ever came into contact with the libidinous mayhem of teenagers. And what would have happened had the Abigail gang been granted access to social networking technologies of today. The question, however amusing it is to ponder, is admittedly ridiculous because the presence of internet technology assumes so many vast changes in the world that extremism, superstition and weak due-process probably wouldn’t have been as big a factor. At least one would assume so, because if McClurin’s assertion that the content of new media technology is never as impactful as the technology itself, then every fundamental fibre of 17th century Salem would have been radically different. Still, the inconquerable bad behavior of people everywhere never fails to rear its ugly head, and like porn and religion, pettiness finds vibrant new avenues of expansion with each new technological flourish.
As recently as 2006, conspiracy, intrigue, and the indominatable heart of human pettiness sent a friend request to Megan Meier, a 16- year- old girl living in O’fallon Missouri. The result was violent death for a girl who fell in love with an imaginary boy who’s MySpace profile had been created by the wrathful mother of one of Megan Meier’s classmates. As this story goes, the mother, a woman named Lori Drew, had heard that Miss Meier was spreading gossip about her daughter. Lori Drew flew into a rage and sought to punish the 16-year-old girl that had perpetrated slanderous rumors against her daughter. So, with her jilted daughter and several of the daughters friends, a fake MySpace profile was created in the form of a 16 year old boy named Josh. The only thing missing was a secret midnight meeting in the wilderness, complete with campfire. The creation of the fake profile, in light of its tragic outcome, takes on the quality of an evil conjuration by a literal suburban hag who’s behavior resulted in charges for three counts of accessing protected computers without authorization to obtain information, to inflict emotional distress and one count of criminal conspiracy. It was admitted in court that LoriDrew intended to use Meier’s e-mails with Josh to get information about her and later humiliate her. What ended up happening was Megan Meier fell in love with the imaginary Josh. Seeing an opportunity, Lorie and her conspirators lured Megan into a fake love trap and then finally slammed the coffin lid. The once affectionate ‘Josh’ became suddenly cruel and his final message to Megan read, “the world would be a better place without you.” With that, Megan Meier hung herself with a pink scarf in her bedroom closet. A few blocks away, paper mache witches hung in store windows for Halloween caught an updraft from the opening of bell chimed doors.
The event of Megan Meiers death, while hardly a parallel to the events in Salem, is more of a testament to the fundamental fibers of human cruelty and vindictiveness that do not change, no matter how massive the change of internet technology may be. But an interesting question posed by the Megan Meier events is the question of whether or not the simulated anonymity of social networking sites permitted Megan’s torment in a way that could only have been possible previously in a social environment as backwards as…say, Salem? But then, McLurin himself says “as electrically contracted, the globe is no more than a village.”
Along the lines of similar sentiment, McLurin also describes how despite the deterioration of tribal patterns of behavior in the face of technological advancement, it is that same advancement/ “speed up, such as occurs with electricity” that might “Serve to restore a tribal pattern of intense involvement…” If this restoration of tribal patterns can be associated with the rowdy behavior associated with tribal states of society, then maybe the circumstances that permitted a middle aged soccer mom to wreak havock on a 16 year old girl via the internet will appear again and again. Or maybe this is just a blip, or growing pain of a radically knew way of life. While this is not a guaranteed trend or outcome, the possibility of such disasters are never so far beneath the surface that we forget about them completely. For whenever we accept person a facebook friend request, we accept the possibility that we can be unfriended, stalked, publically humiliated, all with a click of a button. Lets pretend for a moment that the internet realm of today is sort of a continuation of a curse muttered by one of the convicted witches in 17th century Salem, and that this global village we click into regularly is capable of becoming the village in which everyone is feeling invisible enough that they will gladly cast stones.
Gabe
In his 1964 structuralist opus, Understanding Media, Marshall McLuhan writes that that “Mental breakdown of varying degrees is the very common result of uprooting and inundation with new information and endless new patterns of information.”McLuhan is writing to us from the sixties, so its often striking how much his talk on new media technology sounds like the internet. And if ‘mental breakdown’ is the result of information overload, then we’re screwed. In the same article, he describes the past as a time when “many actions could be taken without too much concern…” but how “today the action and the reaction occur almost at the same time.” Despite the density of his words, this much of the message is clear: New Media Technology has had, and will continue to have far reaching implications on the fundamental components of human life. Even our understanding of space and time is affected, or “we continue to think in the old fragmented space and time patterns of the pre-electric age.”
The tone of McLuhan’s passionate rant is fairly matter of fact but with an occasional glimmer of doom and urgency. Whatever the outcome of the changing world, McLuhan makes it clear that the difference between fascists and the new media is that “the threat of Hitler was external” while the “electric technology is within the gates and we are numb, deaf, blind…” This sounds very bad, but he reminds the reader that “today, when we want to get our bearing in our own culture and have need to stand aside from the bias and pressure exerted by any technical form of human expression, we have only to visit a society where that particular form has not been felt, or historical period in which it was unknown. It is with McLuhan’s recommendation that I delve into the following question. Social Networking Sites, the glamorous companion to internet technology of the last two decades, has wrought itself onto our lives and there are many questions about the ways in which it has changed us. Or has it changed us, really? Looking to the past to loosely understand the present, I ask myself what famous moments in history could have really benefitted from 24 hour internet access and a facebook, blogspot, or youtube? Since it is the harvest season with witches and ghouls and the brutalities of winter never far behind, the bizarre occurences in Salem Massachusetts feel ripe for an high-speed internet connection.
As the story goes, Salem was an incident in the not so distant past when fear, jealousy, and possibly halucenegenic contamination of grain stocks made for a couple of very wild weekends. Between 1692 and 1693, roughly 25 people died on the east coast as a result of imprisonment or hanging because they had been accused and convicted of witchcraft. The bulk of the drama occurred in Salem M.A. and since then, the story has served as an allegory for dangers that await all persons involved with or subjected to unchecked superstition, religious extremism and faulty judicial systems. Condensed nicely into a few weeks, Arthur Miller penned the version of the story which we are most familiar with, a tail of overworked girls forever being seen and never heard, and otherwise bored witless by the puritanicall moral code stacked against them and everyone else resideing in Salem at that time. The real life 12 year old Abigail Williams, the main instigator of the witchcraft accusations, became a buxom temptress in the play, and the popular mythology of the Salem trials being the games of dewy young girls on the verge of sexual fruition could easily have garnered all the internet headlines of the day.
Now, to make things interesting…lets endow Abigail Williams with some new vindictive implements. With her new age and sexuality, compliments of Arthur miller, we have the perfect MySpacer posting sexy photos of her self in freshly pressed aprons and scandalously hemmed work skirts. If you’re her friend, you get to look at the photos of her without her bonnet. Being the age group and roughly the socioeconomic ranks that patron MySpace more than any other group, Abigail, like present day farm girls in fiercely Christian hamlets all over the country would have found solace and the means of self expression in the sometimes tawdry realm downloadable layout designs. She would have opted for the yellow background with heart and star clip art wall- paper that had the twinkling and rotating affect. It wouldn’t matter that her friends computers would crash whenever they logged into her site, for she knew that as the head of the roost, they would persist until they could read her highly anticipated blog entry of the day.
On July 6th, 1692, Abbybabby16 wrote:
Tituba is a total bitch. You guys can’t hang out with her anymore. She was seriously trying to make me feel bad for not having done that Equinox thing with her, like I care. I hate her. Goody Parris was telling my mom that she’s even been slacking off on the housework and it’s probably because she’s so heart broken about us not being friends anymore.
The big news is that fat ass Sara Osbitch is threatening to tell Father about Proctor, who, for the record, is just as into me as I’m sort of into him, so I never wanted to be that person that Parris talks about at services. Still, I never thought I would be hanging out with Tituba either. Lol. Go figure. Anyway, I know I can trust you guys to not tell anyone because you know I’ll switch to your ugly little faces. One more thing, Biznitches, looks like we’re doing a midnight hike this Wednesday. Betty is bringing cider. It is there, that I, the uber sexy Abigail Williams, will unveil my master plan of destruction for the hoary hags of Salem that keep giving me shit.
The Sara Osbitch Abigail refers to is actually Sarah Osborn, one of the first three people to be accused of witchcraft by Abigail and her hysterical friends. Dorothy Good was one of the later victims of the accusations that spread like wildfire. Each of the accused could be cast in a restaging of the crucible by any member of the PTA from any street and from any network of adults that ever came into contact with the libidinous mayhem of teenagers. And what would have happened had the Abigail gang been granted access to social networking technologies of today. The question, however amusing it is to ponder, is admittedly ridiculous because the presence of internet technology assumes so many vast changes in the world that extremism, superstition and weak due-process probably wouldn’t have been as big a factor. At least one would assume so, because if McClurin’s assertion that the content of new media technology is never as impactful as the technology itself, then every fundamental fibre of 17th century Salem would have been radically different. Still, the inconquerable bad behavior of people everywhere never fails to rear its ugly head, and like porn and religion, pettiness finds vibrant new avenues of expansion with each new technological flourish.
As recently as 2006, conspiracy, intrigue, and the indominatable heart of human pettiness sent a friend request to Megan Meier, a 16- year- old girl living in O’fallon Missouri. The result was violent death for a girl who fell in love with an imaginary boy who’s MySpace profile had been created by the wrathful mother of one of Megan Meier’s classmates. As this story goes, the mother, a woman named Lori Drew, had heard that Miss Meier was spreading gossip about her daughter. Lori Drew flew into a rage and sought to punish the 16-year-old girl that had perpetrated slanderous rumors against her daughter. So, with her jilted daughter and several of the daughters friends, a fake MySpace profile was created in the form of a 16 year old boy named Josh. The only thing missing was a secret midnight meeting in the wilderness, complete with campfire. The creation of the fake profile, in light of its tragic outcome, takes on the quality of an evil conjuration by a literal suburban hag who’s behavior resulted in charges for three counts of accessing protected computers without authorization to obtain information, to inflict emotional distress and one count of criminal conspiracy. It was admitted in court that LoriDrew intended to use Meier’s e-mails with Josh to get information about her and later humiliate her. What ended up happening was Megan Meier fell in love with the imaginary Josh. Seeing an opportunity, Lorie and her conspirators lured Megan into a fake love trap and then finally slammed the coffin lid. The once affectionate ‘Josh’ became suddenly cruel and his final message to Megan read, “the world would be a better place without you.” With that, Megan Meier hung herself with a pink scarf in her bedroom closet. A few blocks away, paper mache witches hung in store windows for Halloween caught an updraft from the opening of bell chimed doors.
The event of Megan Meiers death, while hardly a parallel to the events in Salem, is more of a testament to the fundamental fibers of human cruelty and vindictiveness that do not change, no matter how massive the change of internet technology may be. But an interesting question posed by the Megan Meier events is the question of whether or not the simulated anonymity of social networking sites permitted Megan’s torment in a way that could only have been possible previously in a social environment as backwards as…say, Salem? But then, McLurin himself says “as electrically contracted, the globe is no more than a village.”
Along the lines of similar sentiment, McLurin also describes how despite the deterioration of tribal patterns of behavior in the face of technological advancement, it is that same advancement/ “speed up, such as occurs with electricity” that might “Serve to restore a tribal pattern of intense involvement…” If this restoration of tribal patterns can be associated with the rowdy behavior associated with tribal states of society, then maybe the circumstances that permitted a middle aged soccer mom to wreak havock on a 16 year old girl via the internet will appear again and again. Or maybe this is just a blip, or growing pain of a radically knew way of life. While this is not a guaranteed trend or outcome, the possibility of such disasters are never so far beneath the surface that we forget about them completely. For whenever we accept person a facebook friend request, we accept the possibility that we can be unfriended, stalked, publically humiliated, all with a click of a button. Lets pretend for a moment that the internet realm of today is sort of a continuation of a curse muttered by one of the convicted witches in 17th century Salem, and that this global village we click into regularly is capable of becoming the village in which everyone is feeling invisible enough that they will gladly cast stones.
Alejandro - illustration roughs
Hey Team.
I finished some illustration concepts to share in class today.
For the benefit of anyone who doesn't show up (including yours truly, haha) here they are in advance:
Just a quick idea for the cover (if not the official cover, it could be a sub-cover or "Coming Attractions" cover, etc.)
These three are specifically for my article. (I still need to give that essay its final tweaks, argh.)
Talk back soon.
I finished some illustration concepts to share in class today.
For the benefit of anyone who doesn't show up (including yours truly, haha) here they are in advance:
Just a quick idea for the cover (if not the official cover, it could be a sub-cover or "Coming Attractions" cover, etc.)
These three are specifically for my article. (I still need to give that essay its final tweaks, argh.)
Talk back soon.
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