WEEK 5

Smosh: If Video Games Were Real http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bKoahtmcHY


Some of the things, probably most of the things around us are changing its forms into more portable and easy-to-access. The good examples include paperback books into iBooks in iPhone and downloading music illegally but freely through the websites such as 4 shared, and so on. Video game too, could be argued as one of the entertainment that reached the state as being one of our “popping” culture. However it goes beyond the world of humans. It opens up the world of impossibility and something, if we were lucky, could experience, such as being something other than human being (e.g. animal or a monster), or be at somewhere we will never be at such as (e.g. heaven, hell, Africa, etc) and do something that is unlikely to happen in our lives such as…. Flying? Shooting machine guns at people? And if video game is a target to blame, for its VIOLENCE, well there is plenty of violence, sex contents, languages, involved in other forms such as thriller/horror novels, fiction/fantasy films, television shows and so on. Why is it video games then, not MEDIA as a whole?

‘If Video Games were real’ is a short clip made that is simple and easy to understand, but on the other hand, suggests that yes everything is as simple as this clip. If people take video games and its effects on human lives easy, and not care about it, there won’t be a problem. However people love to blame something bad on something that is weaker in power and more “vulnerable” (as Kevin named in the tutorial). This not only relates to the idea of people who does not agree with the judgmental ideologies about playing video games but also to many other social discourses such as gay, lesbians, the poor, the “losers” in our society.

If people were simple minded and open to different and new things and cultures, the world might be little more peaceful and care-free. However something that emerges as foreigner, or newcomer, the founders, still seem to offence the present world. Through the course and learning about videogames as culture, I realize how videogame still fights for and is struggling to break those walls that have been built by humans for last long years. It is still a minority, the vulnerable, but we will have to see about what status it would be sitting at in, say, 50 years time? So for now, take it easy.