Video gaming to solve world problems?

            Jane McGonigal makes the claim that video gaming can change the world.  I found the article “Wii Shall Overcome,” an interesting one without a doubt. But then hearing Jane do a TED talk over this idea had me come out with more questions than more answers.

            I commend Jane McGonigal for coming up with such a bold statement, although I do not necessarily agree with everything she had to say, I do think that this was an approach no one has attempted to make and she made some very valid points.  Video games has been taking over our culture for many years now.  With our generation and the upcoming generations being scolded for spending too much time playing video games, rather than playing and being active outside.  I myself am not a gamer, so my view on this may be a little bias, but listening to Jane in class gave me another perspective.  I think that the overall thought to bring another culture/environment of gamers to help solve world problems has the right idea in mind, in the sense that these people spend ample amount of hours playing video games.  With that being said, why not use that time to shift towards something more productive such as solving a serious issue.  But, I think the reality is that people play video games to escape from reality, separating themselves from the real world and the gaming world, in order to play an alternate persona in an alternate world.  I think that gamers would not be able to separate real life and virtual life.  I think that we would be wasting even more time and more money by attempting to do something like this.

            Ultimately, Jane had an original idea with the best intentions, but I think that at the end of the day it is unrealistic to try and mesh the gaming world with real life, in order to solve major problems. 

Food And Social Media

Through our articles last week we talked about how social media is changing the way we eat, diet, and potentially try new things.  Today instagram, twitter, facebook, and pinterest are blowing up with pictures of meals.  Whether it be a new recipe they just tried, something like looks too delicious not to share, something they spent hours slaving over after they found out a new recipe via social networks, or just showing off their super healthy meal that goes along with their super healthy lifestyle.  In the article “How the Web is changing the way we eat” it discusses how social media sharing our experience and how we react to food.

            Is this a good or bad thing?  Personally, I would like to say I have not jumped on this bandwagon.  I find people who are constantly intragramming their meals, for whatever reason, to be extremely annoying and it becoming unnecessary posting.  Maybe social media hasn’t changed the way I view my food because I am not going to post, tweet, or instagram my microwaveable meals. 

            Has instagram and twitter just become another way to show people a certain “persona.”  Is this just another way of “acting” through social media, to portray a certain image of yourself.  Do people want to show others that they know how to cook delicious looking food, or to show people that they are on a strict diet regimen and therefore only instagram their daily morning green all natural smoothie?  I think that the web is changing the way we eat, but I think we are not changing the way we eat for ourselves, but rather for whoever is willing to look at our instagram photos. 

Twitter Activism?

In light of recent events, I recalled an article we read at the beginning of the semester we read the Biz Stone article of Twitter and Activism.  Recently a number of YouTube videos went viral of Rutgers head basketball coach shoving players, throwing basketballs at point blank range, kicking them, shoving them, as well as calling his players offensive slurs.  Apparently, videos of this were first shown to the Athletic Director from a former staff member of the basketball team, where he showed them to the AD all the way back in December.  The Athletic Director suspended the coach for 3 games, but did not inform the public as to why.  In a public statement he said it was because a violation of the universities code. 

Because minimal action was taken, the former member of the Rutgers basketball staff then took the video to ESPN and put it on YouTube.  After the story was put on ESPN’s broadcast 3 days ago, social media, Twitter specifically, blew up.  People everywhere, including professional athletes such as Lebron James tweeted about how the Rutgers coach should indefinitely be fired from this.  After viewers and readers of the story tweeted their outrage, and the story received so much media coverage, the Athletic Director decided to fire head coach Mike Rice.

 Just like the Biz Stone article, more and more people had a “fever” to participate in the action.  Through twitter people had a voice, which they wouldn’t have otherwise had without the use of social media.  Originally when the video hadn’t gone viral in December the AD chose to suspend the coach.  After it blew up on social media, he was essentially forced to fire the coach if he did not want to face public scrutiny.  Twitter and social media gave the rest of the general public a voice in this decision, without it, I think the decision to fire the head coach would have played out much differently. 

Food Inc.

I have never been the type of person to really look into the things I eat.  Out of my 4 siblings, 3 of them are vegetarian.  To an extent, I understood why, but I chose not to look into the things that I eat under that sort of microscope.  I figured I love meat/dairy etc. too much to let those things go, so why would I put myself through the misery of researching this topic, when I knew what awful things I would find.  

After watching Food Inc. today, not only did I feel guilty, but I also felt sick to my stomach.  I never knew the extent to which how awful and unnatural these animals are treated.  In my opinion, I think most of our society is pretty uninformed on what is really happening.  I don't think that is because we are being naive, I just think it is a matter of taking initiate to find out what we are putting into our bodies and being proactive at doing the appropriate research to find out how exactly it is done.  If more people were to watch this film, and maybe dig a little deeper into this subject, I believe a lot more people would be changing their mind the next time they ordered a hamburger.  

Another aspect of the film that sparked my interest was the mother who had lost her young child because of E. Coli.  This story was incredibly heartbreaking.  To not only hear about what had happened, but also to the extent that she has gone to pass "Kevin's Bill" and that not much has changed over six years. 

I think the government needs to be much more proactive in making sure situations such as these do not happen by taking action against the meat company’s. 

Misgendering Culture

We live in a culture where being a female athlete and being feminine do not coexist in the eyes of society.  As a female athlete myself I find this extremely disrespectful and demeaning.  Like any other female athlete, I have gotten my fair share of people trying to get into my head by making personal attacks at you, or other people say rude things for no reason.  I was reminded of these emotions after reading the Caster Semenya article.  After blowing out her competition, and having “masculine” features, questions were raised about her gender.  I find this absolutely awful that the media treated her as an object to be tested and talked about, rather than the stellar female athlete she was.  It made me angry for many reasons; one being this is not the first time the media has done this to a female athlete.  On top of that, you never hear the media discussing a male athlete who did not do well, and accuse them of being a girl?  It does not seem fair.  Another incident that pertains to current events is the NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament. Brittney Griner is a phenomenal basketball player at Baylor.  She is 6’8, can dunk, and has been noted for her “androgynous” looks and happens to have a deep voice.  For the past couple of years, she has received a lot of media attention for this and it is absolutely terrible.  Not only do I feel bad for this girl and the amount of awful things being said about her, but also it draws attention to how we as a society sexualize female athletes.  And we are continuously pressuring female athletes to somehow find be able to be sexy and feminine, but also successful and athletic.  And we look down upon flaunting any sort of “masculinity.”  I think that slowly the times are changing, but calling media attention to things like these examples are not only unnecessary but also deflating to these girls’ self esteem.