Second Skin/Culture Jam Blog #2

The Second Skin documentary made me see another side of the virtual world that I had never seen before.  I was surprised to read the opening quotation "These computers on our desks are turning into portals to other realms of existence... realms that will one day be preferred to earth" -Edward Castronova.  I was surprised that people would actually prefer a virtual world to earth but after watching the documentary I see it is true.  I think the thing that most surprised me about the documentary and the virtual world were the relationships that were built within them.  Some of the players would say that "it takes your head away from everything else." The 9-5 does not exist for most of these online players.  A study showed that 1 in 3 women gamers date someone in the virtual world, and that they feel like it is a place where it is safe to get intimate.  That really surprises me that people believe the virtual world is a safer place to get intimate when you do not know who is on the other side.  I was also surprised by the companies that are run in China where employees are called gold farmers.  These people play these online virtual worlds and sell things in the virtual world to make money.  I think a quote that was said to sum up the whole documentary was the company was "taking advantage of consumption fever in the US."  These virtual worlds just further show the rate at which consumption fever is taking over our lives.
In Culture Jam the quote that appealed to me was "We, the people, have lost control.  Corporations, these legal fictions that we ourselves created two centuries ago, now have more rights, freedoms and powers than we do.  And we accept this as the normal state of affairs."  This quote show the over-arching implications from both the book and the documentary.  Corporations are taking over our lives and creating a non-stop over consumption in  the US.  Theses corporations have control over what we see on tv, what we see in stores, and what we see when we drive.  They grab our attention and get us consumed by these virtual worlds they create and the products we buy. 

It's scary to see that these virtual worlds are becoming so realistic.

Intro Blog

Hello! My name is Darcy White and I'm a senior at Shippensburg University.  I am planning on graduating in May of 2011.  I am a business management major.  Some of my hobbies include riding motorcycle, reading my kindle I just got for Christmas, hanging out with friends, and watching football, I'm a huge Philadelphia Eagles fan.

I was interested in this class because I love to read and was excited to read some new books that I had never read before.  I love listening to country music, watching romantic comedies, playing my Wii, and watching drama series on TV such as, Grey's Anatomy and Private Practice.  The last book I read was The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson.  I read as often as I can, and enjoy reading mystery and suspense novels.  I believe that literature is any written work that expresses emotion of some sort.