Essay Proposal

I'm going to write based on the suggestions numbers 1 & 2.  I'll further explore the blog on RPGs.  I'll do an ethnography of those who play CoD, and Sims, and if they were to make avatars, find out how they'd make them look.  I will also further examine Waggonner's essay to find more examples and help explain some terms he used.

Gamer Girls... Maybe not...

After watching the movie "Gamer" I saw that a lot of the actions in the movie were based on events that actually take place in real life.  One I'd like to focus on is the action of males taking the role of female characters in the game.  You see this in the movie when a real guy plays the role of Cable's wife in "Society," a virtual reality world where you control an "avatar," who is actually a human person with out control, and do what seems like just about anything.  This guy, who is a poor accuse for a "guy," is morbidly obese to the point where he needs a motorized wheelchair to get around, and is very disgusting as to how he lives in general, showing a severe lack in personal hygiene, and health.  This "guy" plays as Cable's wife, after she sold herself to the system.  She is a  character who is a normal looking woman among the world of "Society."  What he does to her is just outrageous though.  He controls her in a very perverse way, pretty much making her a hoe.  He approaches a male character as her, and flirts with him as his character, now keep in mind that this "guy" has no idea whether it is a guy or girl playing the other male character, then the male character proceeded to practically rape the female character.  This is how the "guy" gets off.  Now obviously this exact thing doesn't happen in real life, because people don't actually play real people in games, but some people playing the role of an opposite sex character does happen often.  An example of this is my friend, who is male, who almost always plays as a female character.  Before you start freaking out, there is nothing wrong with his brain, and he doesn't use this in a inappropriate way.  He does this because in some MMORPGs he plays, some male characters will often gift free items to female characters in hopes of something in return.  Luckily my friend knows better then that, and he just uses it to cash in.  

MOST BADASS KID EVER!!!!

            I read “Videogames, Avatars, and Identity” as a gamer, who plays many RPGs and have many different “Identities” or “Avatars.”  So while reading I was thinking about how some people play games to escape their real life, so what better way then to start a new life in a game whether it be “Second Life” or “WoW.”  As a gamer, I have never been so hooked on a game to the point that I get addicted and start living in game more then my real life.  This being said, RPGs, or Role Playing Games, are some of my favorite type of games, especially Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games, or MMORPGs.  I feel that when I play RPGs and make a character, I try to make that character look either really badass, funny, ridiculous, or look as close to me possible.  An example of the first 3 is my DC Universe Online character.  This game has you make a character who is either a superhero or super villain (which effects your story line, either good or evil), and you get to pick their powers and design their costume, to potentially make them look like anything, from a person who's just running around in their underwear or someone fully decked out in a futuristic mech suit.  You can customize body types such as tall, short, or average, weight such as heavy, skinny, or average, you can choose male or female,  you can choose different types or skin like, but not limited to fur, lava, metal, zombie, or normal flesh, you can choose different facial structures and age, customize hair and you can change the color of anything, I just listed. Obviously I picked villain because life is more fun when you don’t constantly have to be saving people, and I designed my character to be a perfect trifecta of badass, funny, and ridiculous.  He looks like a classic 90s looking kid, who looks to be about 10 years old, decked out with a red T-shirt, blue jean shorts, high white socks, sneakers, and of course a tiny back pack.  This makes him funny because people in the game often make adult looking characters, and don’t very often see a kid running around.  The fact that he is a villain makes him ridiculous, but on top of that he’s badass because he uses 2 hand guns as his weapons.  His name is Kid Pistol, which is a shame because after naming him that I realized Young Gun would’ve suited him just as well.  Kid Pistol is the perfect character in my mind because he is the trifecta of badass, funny, and ridiculous, and some might even say ironic.  I love running around the game world and people saying “WTF?!?! A kid?!?!” then getting their mind blown (figuratively, and also sometimes literally) when I pull out my duel hand cannons.  I feel in DC Universe Online, avatars are really just used to add to your experience in the game being able to put a face to a name, but also to help your interactions with people online, which Kid Pistol defiantly does.  In other games such as Skyrim, or Fallout 3 the character designs aren’t as important because you’re really the only one who sees it since these games aren’t online.  Don’t get me wrong though, I still enjoy the freak out of making my characters look badass, but it seems there isn’t much a purpose past the character customization menu.  Once you make your character, the only time you actually see it is when interacting with something in the world, or when you look at your character.  Also most the time within the first hour of game play you already find armor that just ends up covering up your character anyways.  One of the only reasons I could think of for the game makers to have you make your own character is so you feel more attached to it.  Maybe its because you took the time to make them just like you wanted, so you don't want to see it die.  When I'm playing I don't think that way, but I can see some people thinking like that.

The Cultural Logic of "Myspace or Facebook?" Analysis

After reading this article, http://moodle.csun.edu/file.php/30273/Implications_of_User_Choice_-_boyd.pdf  I felt like I could relate to what some of the teens were saying about why they made the switch but I will come back to this in a little.  My history with Myspace was a fairly short one.  I created an account after seeing both my older brothers going on, and so I thought it was so cool.  I went on as often as possible for about a week, then I assume one of my brothers told my dad about me having an account, and was having none of that.  He made me delete my account and told me I wasn't aloud on Myspace anymore because I was too young.  So for a couple years I never went on, and just heard stories of my friends talking about it, but when the time came that I was a little older then my brothers when they made a Myspace account, and I thought I was old enough, I made another account.  I thought I was so cool, because I had my own page people could go to and talk with me, and I spent a whole night looking for a perfect picture to set as my background, IT WAS DOPE!  This time I probably lasted maybe three months, then my dad caught wind that I was logging on again, and he flipped out again.  This didn't makE any sense to me because I was older then my brothers were, and he didn't care the slightest that they had a Myspace, and got on regularly.  So once again, I had to delete my account, but this time it hurt more because I spent so much time making it perfect.  Then lots of time pasts and I hear of a site called Facebook.  I hesitated to make an account for about a year, then Junior year of high school came and I thought "How am I going to keep in touch with all my Senior friends who are going off to college?"  You already know that I felt I REALLY needed Facebook for this.  So I made an account and made an account, and set up my profile page, which was surprisingly a lot easier to do then on Myspace.  This time I was sure to tell my brothers not to tell dad.  I logged on for about a year, and told my mom that I had made an account so she wouldn't be surprised if my dad found out.  Needless to say, I should've known that she would tell my dad.  So my dad found out and lectured me for about an hour about it, and still said I was too young.  At this point I pretty much said this is BS, and just continued logging on, and didn't really care what he thought anymore.  So still to this day, even as I type, I have Facebook open in another tab. :P  So after that story it is obvious that I didn't have the "normal" experience with social networking sites.  After all is said and done with Myspace and I, I see where the teens in the article were coming from.  I see why one might say it is a "ghetto'er" site then Facebook, because most the people I knew who were on Myspace alot at the time, were the type of people who tried acting "ghetto" all the time, and were always listening to rap or hip hop constantly.  Myspace was definitely, and too this day I believe is still better then Facebook with the whole music page thing.  My friend Travis and I started a band, and we made a band page on both sites.  While the one on Facebook gets a ton more views then the Myspace one, the Myspace one was a lot easier to make.  Now when it comes to profile pages, my Myspace page was tricked out top to bottom.  Myspace definitely allowed more customization of profile pages, but I felt it was extremely difficult to set up and use.  Facebook on the other hand allows very little customization of profile pages, but are extremely easy to set up and use.  On Facebook my profile is set up with profile pictures, which all depict me in a decent manner, are visible to everyone, while my more "wild" personal pictures can only be viewed by friends.  Also my post can only be seen by friends.  I do this so that people can see who I am before they send a friends request just to make sure they know me.  I believe it is also very important to self regulate what you post online, and what is posted about you and meant for you.