8 posts tagged “culture”

Only a quick glance for now. I'm sure I'll have more to say about the entire experience when I'm not getting ready to head off to my Grandfather's epic 94th birthday party. In the meantime, here are a few shots I just grabbed while surfing through the ultra packed Wondercon:

Wondercon 2008

There is little I can do to describe my sentiments regarding this years winners of the World Beard & Moustache Championships. From the charming 1998 web design, the dapper varieties of sports coats and top hats, and of course the inconceivable arrangements of facial hair, this collective of competition, pride, and cultural significance in whisker shape is stunning and strange to say the least.

1rst Prize in the Partial Beard Freestyle

pixel intermission

Jet-setting to the other side on a red-eye flight with no sleep, this weekend I spent my days and nights remembering the very good city of New York.  A weekend alone is not nearly enough to trace the lines of my nostalgia for the city, but I can't complain since the hours were action-packed and always filled to the brim with good people.

With help and encouragement from dear ee.en, I attended 8-bit-people and The Tank's all weekend Chiptune bash Blipfest 2007.  Held at the Eyebeam gallery in Chelsea, the space was never left with an empty echo.  Throes of candy-colored concert goers, from the mandatory city hipsters to the graying groups of vintage gamers, pulsated to the 8-bit performances and basked in the lite-brite like colors of the set.  I spent a couple of nights dancing, nerd crowd-surfing, and bit-bumping, but the experience alone was intense enough to tire me out by the third night.

To give you a taste of what was had (and what should be hoped for in the next installment of Blipfest 2008) here's a trailer of last year's performance :

Note: This post was written in context to a current discussion being held within the community blogs at Destructoid.com, initiated by Reverend Anthony's recent podcast rant about the phenomenon of 'grrl gamers'.  To get the full story, listen to Anthony's argument here a little before midway into the show and read VirtualGirl's response post here.

grrl gamer?

After listening to the good Reverend's rant and reading Virtualgirl's response I felt the need to just skim the surface on my personal thoughts in regards to the grrl gamers out there. I'm going to try to keep it simple and short so as to potentially develop my argument later, so here goes nothing:

Media scholar and philosopher Marshall McLuhan coined the quintessential expression "the medium is the message". Taking this into consideration with grrl gamers, the particular ailment of these female gaming communities is the dependency on the image as their first and foremost means of communicating their apparent plight for 'respect'. As Rev. explained, when these girls slather prolific amounts of photos of themselves the message they are projecting is very particularly and exclusively oriented towards distinguishing themselves as 'female' or 'not male', thereby immediately debasing whatever idea of equality they were supposedly demanding.

Why is this message so inherently black and white? Because these photos are circulated within and are part of the mass media in which personal intentions, general goodwill, and individual personalities behind the image are altogether ignored, erased, and replaced with the surface level meaning. Period.

I want to reiterate that the key phrase of this statement is 'mass media'. Personal stories such as VirtualGirl's reveal to us that there is a large level of devotion and meaning within such cultural acts as dressing up as Lara Croft at a convention which I can respect to a certain degree on an individual basis. Her passion and confidence for something that she loves are to be envied. But the mass media cares only what the masses want, and within this largely masculine gaming demographic the masses want to consume stereotypical, sexualized fantasy women, so thats what they will see.

My advice? If you want to discuss how you want to be treated equally as a gamer because you think that you are somehow alienated by your sex then write about it instead of posting photos of yourself. What you look like has absolutely nothing to do with how passionate you are about gaming or games.

Takeru Kobayashi

Takeru Kobayashi, most well-known for dominating the world record for hot dog eating for six years, failed to meet his fans expectations today at SpikeTV's "Turkey Bowl" where competitive eaters furiously clawed through 20 lbs of turkey. Amidst the competition, Kobayashi stopped all of a sudden between his chews due to the pain in his jaw from artheritis.  It was nearly a whole minute before he started to eat again so as to not disappoint his fans worldwide, this time sucking pieces of turkey whole to swallow since he could no longer chew.

I'll be frank, I think that food eating competitions are pretty disgusting displays of first-world entertainment and luxury.  I can't for the life of me understand how one obtains pride and satisfaction for being able to eat so much in so little time.  But in comparison to the pale bellied, soft fingered American food eating competitiors that ate alongside him, Kobayashi seemed like some kind of exotic variety of a hero.  It really made me sad when he couldn't keep chewing, and it was tragic to see the look in his eyes lose their intensity as he nursed his throat with cups of water.

Don't be too sad Kobayashi, eating that much Turkey on Thanksgiving was never a good idea anyway.

Book: Show us a book you've read more than once.

My Father's Dragon

Ruth Stiles Gannett

14 comments

There is a point in every child's life where they have reached the full capacity of re-reading their picture books and are looking for the next level up.  The 'chapter' book is a huge milestone in reading, or at least it was for me, and the very first chapter series I can remember reading is the My Father's Dragon series. With colorfully illustrated covers used as a visual launchpad to set a child's imagination on fire, I eagerly went through these books several times even though they were a bit more 'advanced' than what I was used to.

  A friend of mine recently looked back on them and was surprised to find that the books were a lot more simple than she initially remembered.  Simple or not, I highly recommend this series for the young ones.  As mikepop and I have been discussing the books are vividly descriptive and fun, mikepop even pointing out that it reminded him "of an early-generation text adventure in that he filled his backpack with an odd assortment of things (chewing gum, lollipops, rubber bands, boots, compass, toothbrush, compass, six magnifying glasses, hair ribbons, and so on), then used each of those items in turn (none left over!) to solve puzzles in the story". 

And who doesn't want to follow a young boy who eats fig newtons and tangerines on his fantastic adventure into the jungle?

EDIT: mikepop posted this lovely illustration from My Father's Dragon, to give you all an idea of what sort of lovely scenes took place in this book:

alligator bridge

Show us a book that scared you as a child.

scariest cover evar

I was a pretty big wimp when I was little, certainly not the kind of child that reveled in getting creeped out by scary stories.  Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark was a relatively popular series of scary stories when I was younger, and I remember always seeing this horrifying cover on the library table top at any given point in time.  It freaked the crap out of me so much that I didn't even dare to page through the actual book until a few years ago.  The illustrations inside are equally as creepy, but at least now I can go to sleep assured that they won't come out and get me.

Gamdrop

Well folks, it turns out that I'm getting a little more involved in the larger blog-o-sphere everyday.  Following my internship with MTV, the lovely folks over at the MTV Games department have kindly asked me to help them write for Gamedrop, a gaming blog about gaming, culture, n3rds, and all that follows. Since I have a certain tendency to write about gaming on this blog anyway I'll be cross-posting my written work to share with teh Voxers I heart so dearly.  Furthermore, if any of you Voxers have gaming tips or interesting gaming culture tid-bits you'd like to share, I'd love to write about it.

So without further ado, my first cross-post on Vox!:

Goodies for the Crafty Gamer

hand-made boo coasters

3 comments

    Searching for an 8-bit accessory or two to boost your gamer cred?  Tired of having the same retro game shirt that everyone else has?  Well look no further than Etsy, a unique site where crafters far and wide sell their hand-made art online. Fortunately for us, there exists a cornucopia of crafters who have put their nimble fingers to work at one-of-a-kind gaming related paraphernalia, including t-shirts, earrings, keychains, and original art.

    To uncover a multitude of gaming treats simply type "video games" or other gaming-related words (Nintendo, Final Fantasy, etc.) in the search bar. My personal favorites include a set of Super Mario Boo coasters, a Bubble Bobble pin, and a heartwarming crocheted Katamari keychain, all of which are sure to receive respectful nods from any passing hardcore gamer. Now its up to you to do the rest of the treasure hunting! Arrrrgh!