In Conclusion....

When I first walked into this class, I thought that it was going to just be one of those classes where you read a bunch of books and talk about them and move on.  I was very wrong.  This class has actually revamped my desire to read.  It taught me to look for the "deeper meaning"  inside of works of literatue.  Previously I would read just for the story, which always left me with the thought "what is the point of reading, its just a story right?  I've come to the conclusion that this is wrong.  Inside of literature there is an amazing amount of information that can be incorporated in everyday life. 
     Just like in "Feed," the story was about this technological network that a majority of people were connected to constantly through the installation of a chip on a person's brain at a young age.  The story itself was pretty good but when we talked about it in class, I realized that the book is trying to teach us that an overindulgence in technology, can be extremely detremental to ourselves as part of society.  The people couldn't think for themselves, the corporations ruled the country, and the ideas of consumerism flourished.  The people accepted everything at face value and throughout thr book you could see how minipulative the government was to its people.  This book was a good transition from "Culture Jam"  where we learned about how our generation is becoming "dumb" because of the over use of technology (even though I didn't agree with much of it). 
     Another theme we spent a good portion of the class talking about is "reality" TV, even though there is nothing real about it.  The book "Hunger Games" did a very good job of further explaining this topic.  The book was very well written and I found myself engaged in page after page of text, I couldn't stop reading.  It shows how reality TV is influenced by the audience.  The more money they donated to certain competetors, the more supplies those competitors got.  So the competition wasn't fair, it was based on popularity in which the most popular competitor was given the biggest advantage. 
    All in all I really enjoyed this class, even though I had far less than a positive mind set coming into it.  The enjoyment of reading that I used to get when I was younger has been re-instated and I find myself with a book in my hands far more often than I have in the previous 5 years in my life.  The class gave me a look at the way the world is, and what could potentially happen if we let things get out of control or if we become too lazy.  Plus group 6 is awesome it has been fun working with all of you and goodluck on all your finals and your remaining time in Ship! 

censor-"SHIP"

A world without books?  It seems like a very grim world to live in.  A life without books is like a life without music, a life lacking creativity and unique thought.  "A life without knowledge is death in disguise"- Talib Kweli & Mos Def, Blackstar. Works of literature are not just written for the sake of the consumer, but has a much deeper form of self expression for the writer.  Books are a good way to understand the ideas and concepts that are unique to another individual.  A world without this form of self expression would be very uniform and there would be a serious lack of individuality.  Another big problem without books is that everything is done from memory and this would cause confusion because stories would be different and over time would get mistranslated, or misinterpreted and the meaning would change as the years went on.  Books are like a time capsule for someones thoughts, creativity, or self expression, once words are put inside it they will remain there until it is open (just like a time capsule)  As TV is being more integrated into everyones lives, it is almost as if we were sitting there just burning pages.  Page after page is being lost as show after show is being watched, and why might this be a problem?  A lot of television shows today provide zero knowledge and are made just to appeal to the masses for higher ratings and more money (look at Jersey Shore, I feel like my IQ is cut in half after every episode).  As the days go on you can see more and more people getting lost in the realm of television.  I have tons of friends who will lay around and watch TV on a beautiful day and not think twice about it, it's sad.  All in all I hope that we are never forced to live in a world without books.

What the audience wants the audience gets

The hunger games does a good job supporting the themes that we have been learning about in class. It shows how reality shows are not "real" because they get manipulated to improve ratings.  This also ties into the themes of consumerism because the more of these shows that we "consume" the more money they make. What the audience wants the audience gets.  This causes the reality aspect of these shows to disappear and makes them just as much a work of fiction as spider man.   Hunger Games shows us what could potentially happen if a capitalistic driven government has complete and unquestionable power over its people.  All they were concerned about was making money even if it involved innocent children being forced to kill each other.  One thing is for sure. I never want to live in a society like that, and I feel like if we start to neglect our own freedoms, we could very easily end up in a similar situation.

Blog #7

So I just finished watching cops, the episode consisted of a high-speed chase, a man being caught with crack, a fight in a trailer park, and a domestic violence dispute .  A pretty satisfying episode if I do say so myself.  Cops is one of the very few reality television shows that I can bear to watch, and I only watch because I’m a criminal justice major so I can learn a lot just from watching the way police officers handle different situations.  So my reasoning for watching this reality TV show isn’t because I’m trying view the other side of the glass, it is for me to gain knowledge about my major.  In this example of reality TV the situations aren’t scripted or pre-planned; they are 100% real which seems to set itself apart from other shows in this same category.  Shows like Jersey Shore and Survivor, contain small aspects of reality but are also thoroughly planned.  I have noticed that they tend to pick what I would consider to be “good-looking” officers, I have encountered cops who are far less than what you would call “good-looking.”  This leads me to believe that the producers of cops strategically pick which officers have camera crews placed with them.  Other than that small thing, Cops is a pretty realistic show.  As viewers we basically control what happens in reality TV in most cases.  The people in charge of a reality television show knows what’s “in” or cool to the majority of people and their goal is to appeal to as many people as possible.  They do this so they can get the maximum number of viewers which equals the maximum amount of profit available.  So the interests of people can sway the events that take place in a reality TV shows. 

It is very difficult to find examples of Big Brother in our modern day society.  I mean there are many people who consider it common knowledge that the government decieves us, even though most the time these people don't know for sure, and have never seen actual e idence that these things take place.  That is the biggest connection I can see between "Big brother" and modern American society.  The government does not want you to know that there are any injustices taking place, because if you don't know you wont complain. 

If you asked a majority of people if they would give up freedoms for security they would be more than willing without realizing what that really means.  Without our freedoms our society would eventually hit a point where we would be in a society similar to the one in 1984, where the government controls everything and manipulates the people to serve their own interests. 

Privacy still exists today just not absolutely everywhere.  People seem to feel like their privacy is being infringed on more and more, however, I feel like it is due to the increase in areas where these privacies can be infringed on.  If you want complete privacy, I suggest that you don't use the internet because there is zero privacy there and everything gets recorded. 

Blog #5

For this blog I chose to make up my own character who didn’t have the feed and this characters name is Ralph.

Once Ralph was born, his parents couldn’t afford to have a child so he was put into an orphanage.  Orphans were only able to get the feed if they were adopted before they were too old to have the feed installed.  Unfortunately with the increases in modern technology most people were creating their own children in labs, and there was virtually no couples that were willing to adopt.  So like statistics proved he was never adopted.  This may seem sad, but Ralph was an Optimistic kid with a twinkle in his eye and a pep in his step. 

One of his favorite things to do is go to public places like the mall and people watch.  He sits down at a bench and watches all of the people wawlk past each other without even noticing anyone walking around them.  Even the people they are with they don’t physically talk to each other they all just m-chat.  So many people run into each other because they are so bombarded with advertisements they don’t even watch where they are walking.  Ralphs favorite thing was sitting and thinking about how different of a place the mall was to people who had the feed.  He wondered about this a lot.  Would he enjoy his life more if he had the feed, if he was more like everybody else?  As he was thinking about these questions, he noticed that he had begun walking out of the mall. 

He thought about this while he was walking.  He wondered if his life would be better if he could have any piece of information he wanted when he wanted it.  Would he be happier if he was attached to everyone 24 hours a day?  He wondered if life would be easier if he had the feed.  Is he better off being farther away from the consumerist ideals of everyone else with the feed, or is his lack of the feed keeping him from being an average member of society?

He continued to walk until he ended up at his favorite spot.  It was a beautiful spot up on top of a giant rock.  It overlooked the last bit of land on the east coast that appeared to be untouched by man.  As he sat down at the very top of the rock, he closed his eyes for a split second.  Everything was silent, he felt the wind blow through hair, the cool breeze felt good.  He opened his eyes every tree in the entire valley waved back and forth as if the forest was breathing.  A bird flew in circles dipping and diving as if it was just enjoying the beautiful day.  The world, for brief second appeared to be at peace.  Then all of a sudden an up-car flew right over top of him and scared the birds away.  At that moment, he knew the answers to his questions.