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final assignment

Capitalism in the entertainment industry feeds on pop culture trends. With recent advances in technology, this has come to occupy digital spaces as well; video games, tv shows, movies, and even user-generated content such as vlogs have become major sources of profit. In a climate of rapidly fluctuating trends, corporations work tirelessly to keep afloat. Often times, it’s niche markets that gradually work their way to the top. Such an example would be the recently discovered platform of microtransactions, in the form of mobile video games or more specifically, “gacha games”. As defined from urbandictionary.com, the term ‘gacha’  (or gachapon) is a monetisation technique used in many successful Japanese free-to-play games. Originally a term used for Japanese Toy machines, this is used to describe games that pull a selection of data, characters, etc. from a large pool at random. The games are free to download and play, but in-game purchases are offered (thus creating revenue for their respective companies.) Unfortunately, good things never come without a price, and for the rise of this new industry, the lifestyles and emotional wellbeing of individuals at risk for gambling addictions are at stake.

Since the introduction of the smartphone and mobile applications, a new platform for video games was created. Although major game companies such as Nintendo and Sony have amassed a large cult-following of loyal customers for their consoles, this age of tight schedules and emphasized convenience has left the majority of the population with no time for tv-display consoles or even handheld devices. Also, the dexterity need to use certain controllers for console games is eliminated by the use of a mobile platform, which more people have experience with.That, combined with the ease-of-access offered by smartphones has increased the target audience for many mobile game developers. These factors have led to the success of companies such as Delightworks and Cygames, the creators of Fate/Grand Order and Granblue Fantasy respectively.

Fate/Grand Order is a fantasy/sci-fi turn-based strategy RPG that first launched in 2016. The premise of the game is based on Kinoko Nasu’s Fate/ series.   The plot revolves around the player as a magus who summons the spirits of renowned historical/mythological figures to time travel and “restore” the history of humanity. The hyperreality created within this context of simulated realities within a simulated reality creates an immersive experience for its audience. It’s an interesting form of pastiche that markets itself rather well among, not only among youth but even middle-aged players. It’s popularity has amassed a whopping 12 million downloads worldwide. The most notable aspect of the game comes from the summoning of servants, which use ‘saint quartz’ (in-game currency.) It costs 3 saint quartz for a single summon, and 30 saint quartz for a 10 summon. The system is based on a rng, with rates of 1% for a 5 star servant (the strongest in the game) 3% for 4 stars, and 40% for 3 star servants. 1 and 2 star servants are also in the game but are generally used as exp fodder for leveling up characters because they are too weak. Saint quartz costs 99 cents for 1, $3.99 for 5, $11.99 for 16, $23.99 for 36, $39.99 for 65, and $79.99 for 140. The game’s daily revenue estimate comes out to roughly $1,298,593, and about 9,567 daily downloads. It currently boasts about 12M downloads worldwide.

Granblue Fantasy, a similar mobile game,  has recently topped Fate/Grand Order at 20M+ players. The premise features a fantasy world built around magic and floating islands. The main character/player insert features as the captain of an airship bound for the Island of the Astrals in search of their missing father. It’s admittedly more time-consuming & difficult than FGO, having a notoriously large amount of in-game materials required to upgrade weapons & such. For example, the process of unlocking an Eternals character (the most powerful in the game) can take up to months, even for the most dedicated players. The “eternal grind” as referred to by granblue players, requires up to thousands of items all for the sake of upgrading one weapon Players form “crews,” or teams to compete in monthly “Guild Wars,” where teams compete against each other for first place and for in-game rewards. Perhaps to make up for its difficulty, Granblue appeals to gacha addicts by giving out occasional free daily rolls and promotional rewards in-game.   

So who is the target audience for these games, and what kind of people are they, that would cause the mobile game market to boom so tremendously? The answer would lie in the target audience of these mobile games: the “nerds,” “geeks” and other social outcasts of society. The Japanese have a specific term for this population: NEETs (not in education, employment, or training). They are often young adults with anxiety or other social  impediments who, with nowhere else to turn, seek solace within online communities and in video games. They tend to isolate themselves and become shut-ins, rarely having any form of face-to-face interaction with others. This is unfortunate, as in-person communication is crucial when it comes to conveying social information nonverbally. The ability to read vocal and visual cues from gestures such as facial expression, posture, etc. is an important part of knowing how to modify one’s behavior in response to the reactions of others . This is a sort of experience that cannot be gained from reading digital text on a screen, as tone is difficult to convey with written words alone. The shut-ins who spend most of their lives online are unable to develop the social experience to interact with peers or find social fulfillment in regular society. They begin to depend on in-game accomplishments to validate themselves and seek a sense of self worth based on their performance. When it comes to gacha games, those with a weakness to gambling addictions tend to become victims of rng. A prominent example within the FGO community is a 31 year old Japanese man named Daigo, who spent a whopping seventy thousand dollars on the game. He claims not to regret any of his purchases because it was a source of emotional fulfillment for him. Often times, the case with these players are that they become so fully immersed in fiction that they only pursue the instant gratification offered by the fictitious media they consume to distract themselves from the dissatisfaction they fin with their lives in reality.

So what could this mean for a socioeconomic future? In regards to industry, companies such as Nintendo are expanding their mediums to include mobile apps, with surprising success. This could signal a mass shifting of video game companies away from original consoles and towards mobile games and microtransactions. Socially, the whole culture of “gamers” has been fetishized and reinterpreted through rose-colored glasses by pop media. For example, a popular online artist by the name of OMOCAT released a line of shirts bearing the title ‘ひきこもり’ (romanized as hikkikomori) as pictured below:

The term is Japanese slang that refers to shut-ins who neglect all responsibilities and social relations often to indulge in video games or consumption of other media. It’s a culture-bound social syndrome that has afflicted many Japanese youth, and has been proposed as a psychiatric disorder by practicing clinicians in Japan (Tateno, Park, Kato, Umene-Nakano, & Saito, 2012). The normalization of this impairment has led to cases such as Daigo; social recluses too caught up in the imaginary lives they’ve created for themselves in this digital medium to comprehend the weight of the consequences behind their actions. In order to avert any more cases such as his, interventions followed by behavioral therapy are necessary for such individuals prone to addictive behaviors & unhealthy coping mechanisms such as gacha games.

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final paper proposal

Capitalism feeds on  technological advancement, sometimes through unexpected methods. Such a case would be the recently discovered platform of microtransactions, in the form of mobile video games or more specifically, “gacha games”. As defined from urbandictionary.com, the term ‘gacha’  (or gachapon) is a monetisation technique used in many successful Japanese free-to-play games. Originally a term used for Japanese Toy machines, this is used to describe games that pull a selection of data, characters, etc. from a large pool at random. The games are free to download and play, but in-game purchases are offered (thus creating revenue for their respective companies.)

It might be difficult to accept, or even believe that such a market where players would be willing to spend such extravagant amounts of money on a digital image of a cartoon character, but the truth is out: According to Wall Street Journal’s interview with Michitaka Suzuki, a 37-year-old computer engineer who is a fan of “Fate/Grand Order,” said he knew friends who had spent as much on the game as they would to buy a new car.  A Japanese turn-based combat RPG, Fate Grand Order was released by Delightworks Games Inc., and Aniplex in 2016. The plot revolves around the player as a magus who summons the spirits of renowned historical/mythological figures to time travel and “restore” the history of humanity. The hyperreality created within this context of simulated realities within a simulated reality creates an immersive experience for its audience. It’s an interesting form of pastiche that markets itself rather well among, not only among youth but even middle-aged players. It’s popularity has amassed a whopping 12 million downloads worldwide.

A similar fantasy-based rpg, Granblue Fantasy has recently topped FGO at 18M+ players. It’s admittedly more time-consuming & difficult, having a notoriously large amount of in-game materials required to upgrade weapons & such. For example, the process of unlocking an Eternals character (the most powerful in the game) can take up to months, even for the most dedicated players. The “eternal grind” as referred to by granblue players, requires up to thousands of items all for the sake of upgrading one weapon.

Now, the question that remains is: why do they do it? What incentive do people have for going through with such a time-consuming and arduous task? There are several facets that I plan to explore in this paper, including some of the following: One is the circumstances that first created ‘internet culture’ as we know it today and how the romanticization of the original group of people who first used it actively as a place for community has led to a distinct microculture that has bled into the mainstream pop culture of our modern day society. The second is how that culture has redefined some tiers of our ‘needs pyramid,’ substitutes for what many regular internet users cannot obtain from their day-to-day lives. Finally, the impact of how the culture in question has had on mainstream society and what it might mean for a socioeconomic future.

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assignment 8

baudrillard claims that if someone were to simulate illness (not feign it) there would be no telling whether the illness was real or perceived. ok so that's total bs considering if it was a real sickness placebos wouldn't work and if it was just delusions/hypochondriac stuff placebos would work lgbt/mentally ill people are ‘simulating’ according to baudrillard iconoclasts & the image of god stages of simulation reflecting reality distorting the image masking the absence of reality becoming a simulation disneyland achieves this by using numbers to direct the masses loneliness of the car in the parking garage vs the multitudes of structures within the park it’s meant to make the rest of the world seem more “real”

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assignment 7

In The Matrix (1999), Morpheus states the following to Neo as they walk through a simulation of the Matrix as part of his training:

"The Matrix is a system, Neo. That system is our enemy. But when you're inside, you look around, what do you see? Businessmen, teachers, lawyers, carpenters. The very minds of the people we are trying to save. But until we do, these people are still a part of that system and that makes them our enemy. You have to understand, most of these people are not ready to be unplugged. And many of them are so inert, so hopelessly dependent on the system that they will fight to protect it."

The term “system” serves as an allegory for for the similar economic structure that exists within our society. The people who benefit from that “system” are usually people of high income/political standing, etc. (such as the people Morpheus named: businessmen,lawyers, gov’t workers, etc) and are more inclined to defend it as the system gives them a sense of belonging. This gives perspective in regards to our protagonists, highlighting the postmodern anarchist/anti-establishment themes carried throughout the film. The Nebuchadnezzar crew works to save the “last human city” in a dystopic future, by bringing down “the establishment” so to speak.

Cypher was an excellent example of this. He wanted the sense of security and power offered by the simulated reality of the Matrix because it was easier and more comfortable for him than the “reality” he had to face aboard the Nebuchadnezzar. The reason behind his motives made Cypher interesting despite his overall character personality being a bit lacking. The one-sided attraction/predatory behavior towards Trinity and the meaningless murders of the other crew members were likely put in (not only as a plot device) to keep viewers from sympathizing too much with his stance on the Matrix and “reality.”

Aside from environmental concerns/technological advancements, the perceived general goal of every human is live their best life in pursuit of their interests. In Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, physiological fulfillment makes up the base of the pyramid. We work towards financial security because it guarantees our survival. After that, we turn towards a sense of purpose/enjoyment. We want to feel accomplished.

In the “reality” aboard the Nebuchadnezzar, Cypher had his physiological needs fulfilled, but not his sense of purpose/enjoyment. He is burnt out from doing something he does not enjoy and having no one to interact with besides the same 7-8 people (for an unknown amount of time) in the same environment. In a way, he has proven himself more “human” than any other character in the movie.

The “battery towers” of people combined with the fact that the agents can shift into the bodies of any person plugged into the Matrix reinforce the idea that they are a part of the “system” and thus the enemy of our protagonists. Yet, upon further scrutinization, the only real reason for the “resistance” of humans trying to conquer the machines is that they want to gain ‘control.’ The limits of the world within the Matrix are digitally-defined and more easily manipulated than the physical laws of the ‘real world.’ Humans can die and be hurt in both ‘worlds.’ The perceptions are nearly the same. In fact, for those with abilities like Neo, the Matrix offers more power over their surroundings than what they have in ‘reality.’ However, the altruism he shows in dedicating himself to the greater good rather than exploring the limits of his control over the Matrix after awakening his powers. This goes to show that the general moral belief of self-sacrifice and the ‘truth’ comes before all else.    

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assignment 6

Some of the main topics/themes addressed by Fight Club include anti-consumerism, anti-establishment, and a very strong anarchist/postmodernist message. By juxtaposing the snarky, nihilistic, narrator with the brash, charismatic, Tyler, two sides of the same coin are created. Even before it was revealed that Tyler was an alter ego fabricated by the main character’s insomnia-induced hallucinations, he’d expressed a passive-aggressive stance towards the idea of consumerism and authority that can be found within his daily monologues.

For example, he collects a wide variety of Ikea furniture in his condo, most of which he claims to not need, but buys anyway just to have the whole “set.” He attempts to fill the void in his life (lack of human interaction or hobbies or a purpose) with material items. The catharsis he receives from going to support groups allow him to break from his subconsciously repressed sadness and allows for the fulfillment of emotional (and physical, in the case of the testicular cancer survivor group) intimacy/affection the narrator has been so deprived of before.

He did not seem to be aware of what he lacked, only continuing to sign up for more and more groups because he saw it as a way to cure his insomnia. The reason why he despised Marla was because “her lie reflected [his] lie.” The narrator saw too much of himself in her and his subconscious self hatred was projected onto her because he did not want to face that part of himself (cue the symbolism behind finding Marla inside his “cave” instead of his spiritual animal and divvying up the group therapy days so they did not conflict). Her drug-addict habits and less-than-upstanding lifestyle could’ve also contributed to Tyler’s creation. It could even be argued that the narrator’s meeting with Marla allowed Tyler to manifest as a seemingly tangible being in his eyes.

However, further clues from his conversation with the doctor: “What about narcolepsy? [Nodding] off…[waking] up in strange places…[he has] no idea how [he] got there.” reveals insomnia is not his only problem, but that “Tyler” was taking control at random times, leaving the narrator confused when he suddenly regains control of his body. This takes place before he discovers the therapy groups, and even before he meets Marla. The doctor’s blatant dismissal of the narrator’s symptoms could also reflect the criticism against the institutional lack of empathy (caring more for the corporation rather than the people they serve) as well as the lack of mental health awareness back then.

As “Tyler” finally comes to life (manifests as a tangible form for the narrator), he mirrors the exact same resentments the narrator has (against institutions, pop culture, authority, etc) but simply acts out on his resentments in the form of destructive change. There is a sort of narcissism here, in that not only is the narrator establishing a set of ideals through conversation with himself, he begins to project this newfound “philosophy” on others around him, creating his own cult, in a sense. Tyler represents that part of the narrator, the pent-up aggression and disillusionment that dreams big without fear of consequence and throws itself blindly against the world.

Despite the initial differences of the narrator as appearing immature/closed off (“a 30 year old boy”) while Tyler appears as the more “mature” of the pair (smoking, drinking, hooking up with Marla), the opposite may be true in their thought processes. Tyler is more impulsive, less empathetic,  caring less about consequence and more about spreading an ideal while the narrator represents the more rational side, from grieving for Bob after he’d been killed to frantically attempting to stop Tyler’s Project Mayhem.

The film adaptation deviated from the original novel in several ways:

In the novel, the narrator believes Marla and Tyler to be the same person, as he has never see the two of them in one place. In the film, this was a little more subtle in the scene where Tyler is in the basement while Marla is at the top of the stairs, with the narrator blocking her view, but it was never implied that he thought they were the same person.

In the novel, it’s Marla who reveals to the narrator that he and Tyler are the same person, while in the film, Tyler reveals this to the narrator himself.

In the novel, Marla’s appearance was what caused Tyler to disappear because in the narrator’s mind, he believed that they could not appear at the same time in one place. In the film, the narrator shoots himself in the cheek to trick Tyler into thinking he killed himself as a result.

The novel ends with the narrator in the mental hospital while the film simply ends with the narrator and Marla holding hands while the credit card buildings explode around them.

The novel offers a darker sense of closure, implying that Project Mayhem would continue with or without the narrator’s interference as several hospital workers are also revealed as Fight Club members, while the film ends on a vague but positive note (buildings blowing up implying the ‘return to zero’ and destruction of Tyler’s legacy)

The context of this film given the time of its creation (along with the work it’s derived from) applies very much to Generation X and the era of consumerism that led them into a sense of disillusionment and feeling unfulfilled despite the overall economic stability (“Our Great War is a spiritual war. Our Great Depression is our lives”) and they are often referred to as the “middle children” of American generations. The resulting nihilism and desire for destructive change ultimately manifested itself in the form of literary/cinematographic works such as Fight Club.   

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assignment 5

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0MT8SwNa_U

The video starts out with a girl riding her bike along a suburban street. She has visible wounds across her face and her lip is split open. She stops at a house and knocks the door, which is opened by another girl who greets her with a hug. A young man in a Hawaiian shirt walks up to them and playfully tussles her hair, implying a friendly, sibling-like relationship. He is presumed to be the boyfriend of the girl who opened the door Interestingly enough, his face is cropped out and out of focus despite this being his first appearance in the video. The scene cuts to the female friend and her boyfriend smoking cigarettes in the kitchen. The female friend playfully blows cigarette smoke in the face of the main girl before allowing her to take a drag from the cigarette she is holding. The main girl gazes at her seductively while doing so. She then glances back towards the boyfriend before looking back to the female friend with a thoughtful expression. The scene cuts again to the female friend dancing in an empty field while the main girl watches her, the boyfriend playing baseball in the background. There is a moment where the camera pans over the empty beer bottles on the ground beside him, a dark implication of possible substance abuse/dependency. The scene cuts again to the 2 girls changing in a bedroom. The main girl watches the female friend through the reflection of the mirror in an almost voyeuristic fashion before the two of them exchange a glance and smile again. The scene cuts to the two of them in a pool, where the main girl playfully spits water at the female friend before the two of them are interrupted by the boyfriend jumping into the water next to them. Multiple shorter cuts of the 3 sunbathing are shown, and the boyfriend takes another swig from a beer bottle before stumbling inside the ouse, knocking over a pile of empty beer cans along the way. His girlfriend watches him leave with concern. The scene cuts again to the 2 girls painting each other’s nails and putting on lipgloss. The female friend is shown to be developing an attraction to the main girl, staring for longer than necessary at her lips and looking away bashfully when she stares back at her. The scene cuts to an informal house party, with an abundance of alcohol and cigarettes. The boyfriend (most likely inebriated) roughly pulls the female friend towards him and attempts to force himself on her. She looks back towards the main girl and shakes him off. He then storms off and goes back to drinking. The main girl walks down a hall and past the sleeping boyfriend before heading outside, where the female friend sits by the edge of the pool. They lean in and are about to share a kiss before the boyfriend suddenly pulls the main girl away by her hair and bashing her head against some rocks. He is then shown to be screaming at his girlfriend, furious with her disloyalty. Before he can finish, he is knocked to the ground as the main girl continues to beat him, with intermittent scenes of the two girls spending time together. It cuts to the female friend cupping her hands around the main girl’s bloodied face with tears of relief as they kiss and embrace. The video then references back to the beginning, where we see the main girl riding her bike with bruises on her face. The only difference this time around is that she is smiling.

This video not only challenges the traditional roles of a romantic relationship (heterosexual) by establishing that “girls like girls like boys do,” but also breaks the stereotype that there is always a person who “wears the pants” in a relationship/displays a more masculine or aggressive side and one that is more submissive. Both girls openly display comfort in their femininity and find that aspect attractive in one another. It also displays a solidarity between women that stems from the frequently overlooked domestic abuse they receive from men. As shown in the music video, men who go through substance abuse often end up abusing their significant others, especially women. The message sent by the main girl fighting back when she was thrown to the ground by the boyfriend is one of empowerment. The intermittent scenes of herself and the female friend having good times as she beats him back reinforces the idea that the solidarity shared by women can break through the societal advantage held by men who abuse their positions of power. It also defies gender stereotypes by showing that women can be equally as aggressive and physically strong as men, if not more in some cases.

https://youtu.be/E8b4xYbEugo

The video starts out with a woman in sportswear running, combined with cuts to a cityscape. Captions in black and white reveal it to be a television ad for running shoes called “Big Data” shoes (reference to the band name). The scene cuts to 4 handcuffed convicts walking in a circle while 2 scientists with glasses and clipboards studies them. The convicts are all wearing Big Data running shoes, and it can be inferred that they are test subjects. One of the convicts, a tall African American fellow (nice racism) suddenly glares at one of his fellow inmates before headbutting him hard enough to send a spray of blood across the face of one of the shocked scientists. He then stamps ‘Approved’ across one of the blood-stained papers on his clipboard (most likely a safety regulation form of some sort.) The scene cuts to an office board meeting of sorts, the topic being Big Data Shoes. Two casually dressed men are shown fistbumping each other before the meeting begins (they are presumably the ones who are pitching the product to a company). The head of the meeting pulls out a Big Data shoe from a box and sets it on the table before the members begin to discuss and brainstorm ideas for an advertisement. The two men seen before the meeting present a storyboard reminiscent of the scene seen in the beginning of the video. They seem to suggest an increased bust size for the woman running in the video, with camera emphasis on her breasts. More discussion results in the original woman in the advertisement being completely replaced by a “sexier” woman, emphasized by the caption ‘[sexual breathing]’. More visual ideas for a bus advertisement and a billboard are passed along the meeting table. The men seem to be pushing for even more emphasis on bust size, much to the visible discomfort of the women at the table. The meeting members seem to be rather disinterested by the ideas presented thus far, the head of the meeting falling asleep in his chair. A woman circles the word ‘viral’ on a pad of paper, written in bold red letters, all-caps. The same woman from the beginning is shown running again,but with a scowling face and a more aggressive stance. The captions below her tell the viewer that Big Data shoes will help them “headbutt” their way through life (in reference to the scene with the convicts. Along with intermittent scenes of the 2 guys pitching the idea acting it out, she is shown grabbing a random man and headbutting him so hard that his skull is blown wide open and left a bloody, concave, mess. There are demands of more blood, to make the scene extra gorey, which the head of the meeting visibly disapproves of. One of the male meeting members is shown drawing penises in his notebook while his boss eats a bagel. Multiple male members are shown eating bagels while the women abstain. Ideas for social media marketing are introduced with red marker on the notepad. The sexy runner is shown again, this time with “cool indie background music” shown in the captions. As she stops to catch a breath, the camera zooms in on a homeless woman holding a cardboard sign with “Fuck You” written in black marker. The runner then grabs her and headbutts her in the same fashion as the first man, and leaves her bleeding corpse on the pavement before running off and joining the first runner as they target more civilians. The female board members glance at each other and roll their eyes. The two women then brutalize a man with a hot dog and rip off his leg. Meanwhile, the board meeting seems to be drawing to a consensus. The head stands up and begins to clap. The two women in the video undo their ponytails and begin to french kiss. The office bursts into celebration and someone brings out bottles of alcohol. The video finishes off with a rotating view of the Big Data shoe, supposedly a  

newly released television advertisement.

This video is satirical in the way it approaches and criticizes modern advertisement and pop culture. The exaggeration of violence (head smashing), capitalist disregard for consumer welfare (the scientists who passed the safety regulation despite the obvious danger), and selling “sex” (emphasis on the runner’s breasts and appearance along with fetishization of wlw intended for the male gaze). It also points out everyday microaggressions in the workplace (as demonstrated in the board meeting) as the men are shown to approve of the outrageously NSFW ideas pitched by the 2 men selling the Big Data running shoes while the women look extremely uncomfortable but not speaking up about it. In the cut where one of the male office workers was drawing penises on his notebook, there were sexual comments written above about the presentation and some of his female colleagues. While there isn’t a direct representation of feminist views in this video, its purpose was to draw attention to the oppression they face and the prejudice encountered in mass marketed media in how it portrays women versus how they really feel about it (see the expressions of the female board members during the product pitch). By highlighting and over exaggerating certain themes in the advertisement, a sense of irony is created through the viewer becoming the critic.

https://youtu.be/pFuJAIMQjHk

The video starts out with a brief introduction of the band members and the different roles they play in the mv. The characters are: an attractive young man, a girl who falls in love with him on sight, a “nerdy” looking young boy, and a leather-clad “cool guy” with slicked back hair and sunglasses. The first scene shows the girl encountering the young man in a hallway, immediately struck by his handsome appearance. She continues to follow him throughout the music video in multiple attempts to win his affections while appearing in a different “disguise” each time: first as a maid, then a flight attendant, then a nurse. During the young man’s flight, the “cool guy” attempts to himself on the girl while she’s in her flight attendant uniform. She puts some sort of sedative in his drink to try and subdue him so she can bestow her attentions on the young man of her affections, but he ends up drinking it instead of the “cool guy” passes out as a result. After he wakes up to a “nurse” (the girl in disguise) trying to kiss him in the hospital, he struggles furiously against her grip. The doctor (the nerdy looking boy who was sitting next to the young man on the flight) rushes in and uses defibrillators on him, which renders him unconscious yet again. The next scene shows her hovering over him on the bed from the hotel in the beginning of the video. Before she can finally kiss him, however, another girl enters the room and sits on the bed next to the young man and asks her “sister” who the girl straddling him is. It is then revealed that the “young man” was a girl the entire time, causing shock and outrage from the girl (admittedly pretty transphobic.)

This music video calls into question the traditional constraints of gender norms. It enforces the idea that women should be able to dress as traditionally masculine or feminine as they want without having their gender identities called into question (though the end of the video was somewhat ambiguous on this stance, despite there being seemingly humorous intentions). Despite the fact that there were multiple “male” characters in the video, they were all played by female singers so the young man was really a girl dressed as a guy who was actually a girl. The layering of these roles also influences the way we perceive their actions. For example, the scene where the “cool guy” was forcing himself on the flight attendant becomes less threatening and more “humorous” in the context that it’s a girl playing as the guy, it’s more satirical.The solidarity shared by these women are emphasized with cuts of them singing and dancing intermingled with the scenes where they act out different roles.

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assignment 4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-ltf6Rk2TA

In this particular advertisement clip, Mars Inc. uses their allotted Super Bowl halftime break to broadcast a clever and humorous Snickers commercial. A surly-looking man (actor Willem Dafoe) in Marilyn Monroe’s classic white dress stands on a subway grate at a photoshoot. The director offer him a Snickers bar, telling ‘Miss Monroe’ that ‘she isn’t herself when she’s hungry’ (which is the company’s slogan for that brand of candy bar). After he takes a bite from the Snickers, he is immediately replaced by a woman resembling the original Marilyn Monroe, who claims to be feeling much better.

This advertisement incorporates many aspects of post-modernism in its message. The meta fiction created through references to a easily recognizable celebrities like Marilyn Monroe and Willem Dafoe create contrast in that one is a pop icon and the other is a lesser known actor emphasizing the slogan of “you’re not you when you’re hungry” Combined with the hyper-reality projected by the false photoshoot shot by a real photoshoot, the viewers are then absorbed into what seems to be a backstage scene, while the real backstage scene remains unseen. The pastiche created by the comical allusion holds the attention of the audience by referencing a familiar subject matter while remixing it by putting it through the lens of a different genre. The original image of the actress Marilyn Monroe standing on the subway grate while the skirt of her white pleated dress is blown up around her legs is meant to be flirty, provocative, and a symbol of feminine beauty and youth. By replacing her with an angry man in the first half of the commercial, Mars Inc. creates a sort of ‘shock humor’ by associating a familiar scene/outfit/pose with a lesser known person/figure, who is in many ways, a polar opposite to Marilyn Monroe. Where she is female, he is male. Where she is shown to be smiling sweetly, he is shown to be scowling and angry. The cognitive dissonance between these two figures makes the situation comical; in that it is completely unexpected by the audience. The most important thing to note, however, in the advertisement of their product, is that the Snickers bar is the catalyst for restoring “Marilyn Monroe” back to her original self. Beneath the initial shock humor relayed by the ad, there is a more subtle message of fulfillment through the purchase of this product. Snickers’ slogan:”Snickers’ satisfies™,” is tied into the phrase “you’re not you when you’re hungry.” The implication here is that in order to combat the loss of identity experienced by the lack of nourishment (being one of our most basic needs of our body, tied into what scientists refer to as the ‘reptilian’ brain) a food source such as Snickers (which packs high calories into a small amount of physical substance; convenient for people looking to sate an appetite with no time to sit down or a meal) offers a remedy or antidote of sorts, in order to ‘complete’ the individual. Marilyn Monroe is not the memorable actress we all know and love without this product. You are not complete without this product. Such is the psychological advertising tactic of a large corporation in the postmodern era.

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assignment 3

In Cohen’s “Monster Culture (Seven Theses),” he describes 7 different aspects of what human culture defines as a “monster.” The aspects Cohen describes can be summed up to the following: a fear of the unknown, pre-existing social biases, and an attraction to the taboo. Personally, I agree with Cohen’s definition in that a “monster” is simply a sociocultural construct that often borders on bigotry, as the majority of these terms are often used to refer to oppressed peoples (POC, women, other minorities) in a sense to strip them of their humanity. Bram Stoker’s Dracula, and Sheridan Le Fanu’s Carmilla both incorporate homosexual subtext, purposefully creating a sort of intolerance and associating anything outside of a cultural norm with the “evil” and “supernatural.” When Cohen speaks of the “monster’s body” as a “cultural body,” this is to say that as long as humanity exists, the presence of monsters are inevitable, seeing as how the tides of history and circumstance have brought about “monsters” in varying forms. The dehumanization of the Jewish pre-WWII, along with colonialism justifying its mistreatment of natives by labelling them as subhuman “savages,” among many other instances of social injustice have all contributed to the creation of “monsters.” Many modern day “monsters” can all trace their roots to some subtype of racist allegory (see the antisemitism conveyed in the prominent nose found on a stereotypical witch.) By applying animalistic (werewolves, basilisks, etc) or paranormal traits to more familiar objects, a sense of fear is created by balancing the impossible with the seemingly possible. Yet despite this, there is an undeniable attraction/longing for the “monstrous.” The “monster” in every story remains forever elusive. No matter how many times it appears to be vanquished by the protagonist(s), it always resurfaces in one form or another. Marketing purposes aside, the fascination with monsters may stem from the desire for the forbidden or taboo. Stories such as Dracula always tend to come with some sort of sexual undertone. Monsters exist to fulfill the so-called “dark” needs of humans; in a sense, they become scapegoats for the crimes humanity is too afraid to take responsibility for themselves. Cohen’s idea that monsters are our “children” stems from the idea that we impart the negative aspects of ourselves onto fictitious creatures which we then exaggerate and distort further to create a more clear distinction and remove the “human” aspect so there is less of an empathy to bring us down from a supposedly higher moral ground. However, newer “monsters” emerging as urban legends have prided themselves in becoming more plausible or “realistic” in a sense. Such examples include famous characters such as Pennywise from Stephen Hawking’s It, a being capable of changing its appearance at will to manipulate the fears of its victims (a metaphorical being whose existence represents the multiple facets of human fear). The more human aspect brought forth by these creatures creates a deeper sense of unease through a feeling of psychological intimacy unlike the classic “monsters” of the past. New shifts in technology, culture, and more will bring forth an entirely new slew of “monsters,” many of which may not be all that different from their human creators.

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assignment 2

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCrJ2m-FOaQ

The video starts out with a flashing, dark image of what appears to be a concrete basement floor. It cuts to an image of a flashing light overhead, then focuses in on a tangled wire near a wall. This cuts to an aerial shot of a dirty carpet, scattered with assorted items: more wires, a toothbrush, a gray box, and what appears to be a plastic red easter egg. We then pan zoom over the toothbrush, revealing it to be extremely frayed, dirty, and cover with hair. The scene cuts to an open, bare concrete room in the same basement, there is a dim incandescent light which reveals a washing machine to the right and a clock hung at the top left of the doorway. The next cut takes us to some sort of dark liquid spilled over concrete, presumably water. The camera shakes severely, before panning up to a large, dark shape at the base of the wall. It can be presumed to be a blanket or sleeping bag of some sort. The wall behind it is covered with cobwebs. The camera cuts back to the dusty carpet and zooms out and up before cutting back to the blanket. It then moves along the edge of a crack in the ground, which has lifted up partially, with very many discarded and indecipherable items scattered around. The screen flashes along with intermittent images of what appears to be mold or water stains, before cutting to a ceiling fan light, panning down to a pipe with a basin-like sink attached. there appears to be a black hose of some sort coiled inside. This is revealed to be in the same room as the washing machine seen earlier. We then cut to a white room with beige tile, and a doorway obscured by a dark brown patterned shower curtain. The curtain is opened to reveal beige tile covered with dark mold, and a rusted drain. The camera takes us back to the ‘bathroom,’ with a toilet missing a tank lid. There appears to be toilet paper and a wastebasket next to it. We then pan over to a sink faucet covered with tinfoil and plastic grocery bags. It can be presumed that it is broken or leaking. The image of the blanket and the inside of the toilet tank are briefly shown, along with a closeup of a bleach bottle label which is revealed to be inside the sink along with the hose. After another full view of the sink, we cut to some metallic circles on the concrete before flashing back to the blanket yet again. Next is a close up of a framed image with a holy figure. It appears to be a crocheted fabric of sorts, with the words Dieu bénisse notre foyer, or ‘God bless our home’ embedded in shiny thread. The video ends with a cut to the basement entrance, with a small animal (presumably a cat) appearing near the doorway.

Something to note is the audio playing over the video throughout its entirety. Amidst a high-pitched, ringing background noise, there is a static-y man’s voice repeating ominous words:“You live here. I let you live here. I gave you a home. you live here. You are ungrateful. I took you and kept you warm. I feed you. You live here. I give you a gome. I give you a place to sleep. I gave you a secret place, just for you. A place to clean your disgusting body. You live here. I cleaned you. I let you be like a person. You are ungrateful. You live. Here.”

First off, we can establish that the entire video took place in the basement or home of the speaker. He talks about allowing an unidentified individual to live there, having “taken them in.” Yet, the images shown throughout the video paint a much darker picture of the inhabitant’s living conditions. The entirety of meatsleep’s youtube channel appears to be a series of bizarre, dark, and seemingly random videos with ominous undertones of stalking, kidnapping, and even implied cannibalism. The audio, combined with multiple cuts of the blanket, shower, toothbrush, and bleach all allow the viewer to infer that the speaker is obsessed with hygiene, especially when it comes to the inhabitant of the basement. These methods seem to be rather inhumane, if we are assuming that the inhabitant is human. The theme of cleanliness may have religious undertones to it, if we are to consider the framed picture of the holy figure on the wall. The speaker may also be French or Canadian, based off of the crocheted text. Aside from the context within the video, the creator’s intents are a different story. Meatsleep was created on March 28th 2014 as an ARG, or an ‘alternate reality game,’ which is an interactive networked narrative that uses the real world as a platform and uses transmedia storytelling to deliver a story that may be altered by players' ideas or actions. It’s likely that despite the intentionally ambiguous and rather ominous tone, the consistent audiovisual themes convey the story of a captive forced to live in unsafe and unsanitary conditions in the basement of an unstable (and perhaps religious) man.

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assignment 1

In Kurt Anderson’s criticism of cultural stagnation, he states that the aesthetic aspect of American society has remained at a plateau since the 1970′s. However, such a controversial statement is not without its faults, especially considering that the article was written 6 years ago. Andersen compares the bold fashion and lifestyle of young adults in the 70’s as opposed to the 80’s and onwards, stating that the visual differences were so distinct in contrast that a time traveller would have no trouble blending in.

Yet there were many factors that Andersen overlooked in his criticism. The 70s in particular were a special case. The reason for such a drastic change in style was heavily influenced by the specific sociopolitical situations of that time; the introduction of newly created mind-altering drugs, JFK’s assassination, the Vietnam War, and the then-recent Civil Rights Movement all helped to shape the collective thought of young adults, directly impacting lifestyle and fashion as well. as seemingly revolutionary a style as the 70’s were, the hippies drew their inspiration from pre-established institutions of thought such as Buddhism, with messages of peace, and Der Wandervogel, a German youth movement originating from 1895 that emphasized personal freedom and reconnecting with nature.

Andersen points out how literary classics written 20 years ago can still be applied to the context of today, which would be a fair point to make had he not attempted to make it seem detrimental to cultural innovation and progress. The law of conservation of mass states that matter cannot be created or destroyed; it can, however, be rearranged. A similar concept can be applied to ideas. No person can create something out of nothing. Shakespeare’s works have remained a scholastic staple despite their age. This hasn’t stopped other writers from creating new works that may reinterpret bits and pieces in a different way.

    So why does he believe that the difference between the 2000s and the ‘90s is so difficult to spot in comparison? For one thing, from the 80’s onward, the advancement of technology has resulted in significantly less US war casualties in comparison, which has also shaped collective social, political, and even environmental thought by proxy.

       Andersen accuses Americans of “scrupulously attending, as never before, to the details and meanings of the design and décor of their homes, their clothes, their appliances, their meals, their hobbies, and more,” disregarding the possibility that due to this time of relative peace, we have progressed to a point where the bases of the human needs pyramid of our society are largely stable (food, housing, health, etc) enough for us to focus on other things such as personal appearance and style. He also claims that “the things [Americans] own are more than ever like props, the clothes [they] wear like costumes, the places where [they] live, dine, shop, and vacation like stage sets” to build up to his point that Americans long for “authenticity” in an age of rapid technological growth. This subtle implication that scientific advancement is somehow ‘superficial’ contradicts his own criticism towards the supposed stagnation of societal development as a whole. He fails to address the fact that our society thrives on consumer culture, meaning that elements of fiction are often based off of real life ( and vice versa) to appeal to that sense of familiarity for marketing purposes.

Furthermore, Andersen’s most crucial mistake was his self-contradiction in attempting to separate the growth of pop culture from the growth of technology. He first claims that “the only thing that has changed fundamentally and dramatically about stylish objects (computerized gadgets aside) during the last 20 years is the same thing that’s changed fundamentally and dramatically about movies and books and music—how they’re produced and distributed, not how they look and feel and sound, not what they are,” before backtracking and claiming that “anyone anywhere with any arcane cultural taste can now indulge it easily and fully online, clicking themselves deep into whatever curious little niche (punk bossa nova, Nigerian noir cinema, pre-war Hummel figurines) they wish.”

Technological growth has woven itself into so many other aspects of our lives that to simply do away with it in an analysis of American pop culture would be impossible. Social media has combined both political and social trends in one platform, examples ranging from the Arab Spring and the Black Lives Matter movement to Youtube celebrities, many of whom have become defining characters of entertainment today.

As for the visual appearance of youth today, it’s rather inaccurate to say that style has simply been recycled over the past 20 years. There are many factors of recent events that have influenced modern fashion. Starting with 2012 up to the present, there have been many significant changes, from the legalization of same-sex marriage and advances in transgender equality, to increasing visibility and representation for POC, to the rapid growth of the entertainment industry---the effects have been visible. Fashion has branched off into countless styles (goth, hipster, lolita) and become wildly more colorful, more experimental, now that people are starting to break free from the traditional constraints of gender & style, away from the traditional sense of what looks “good” or “bad.”

With the improvement of social equality, creators that never would’ve had the opportunities they did 20 years ago are now able to see the efforts of their talent come into fruition as they directly influence the visual, musical, and literary fabric of our culture for the generations to come.