Hey, Sexy Lady

Today Blizzard, a video game company, released its new online first person shooter, Overwatch. Overwatch recents got a little flap from the public for its oversexualization of its playable female characters. In particular, there was a lot of gripe of the poster character Tracer. When winning a match this characters victory pose had her back facing the audience showing off her butt, placed in a pair of tight fitting spandex pants. Fans were outraged at the over sexualiation of her and Blizzard listened. They changed the pose and apologized, stating that the fans were right. Fan were also upset do to the fact that all the females seemed to have a very sexual issued and sultry design. Where as the male characters had a variety of looks. In response Bilzzard released a female character that was strong and sporty in order to show the crowed that the company was wrong and the fans were, once again, right. But this isn't always the case. There are many games where females are overly sexualized. They are give large dairyaires and have their bosoms busting out of their blouses. In other areas women can either be drop dead gorgeous or an old crone. How do you feel about video games over sexualizing women? Do you think they do it to their male characters too? Many think it's just the female characters. Why do you think they sexualize the female characters?

Is Any Where Safe?

I agree with everything Carrie Rentschler says in her article "We need Good Samaritans on the Web." There is quite frankly no where that is safe from the praying habits of bullies. In fact online bullying and abuse can outweigh the abuse found in the real world. People who hide behind a screen are far more likely to abuse because no one can tell who they are. But when the online community is a place we go to in order to find a place for acceptance, something we all discovered in our ethnography projects I am sure, it hurts to see that there are people out there who want to abuse the comfortable environments people have found for themselves. Bullying in the online world I a huge issue, especially for women. Women are demeaned and sexually assaulted over the internet for nothing more then being a female.
Recently there has been a very big issue in the online gaming world known as "Gamer Gate." Gamer Gate is a harassment campaign revolving around sexism in the online gaming community. Actress, YouTube personality, and gamer Felicia Day was a target of this kind of discrimination. Day wrote a blog post in response to Gamer Gate where she expressed fear on speaking out on this issue. However, after making this post she had her address and personal email published online by an online bully. What on earth is this world coming to?

A Quick Praise for the Internet

I feel like I have spent much of my time on this blog shaming the Internet and our culture's dependence on it. But I would like to take a moment to give media and its acceptability one small bit of praise for three reasons:

1.) Geek & Sundry - Table Top:
There is a channel on YouTube called "Geek & Sundry" on which they produce mulitple shows, one specific show .... Table Top. Table Top is a board game review show, one of many on the Internet, on which actor Wil Wheaton plays table top board games with other celebrities. Wil teaches you the game and shows you a play through. Here's why this is important. It's exposing people to something fun to do outside of the computer, the tablet, the smartphone. In a world where we are so wedded to our gadgets what better way to help get people off the Internet then by using the Internet to show them what they are missing by being barrier in it! Geek & Sundry's show has proven to be so popular that they created a whole day based around gaming, International Table Top Day (April 30th)
(Click HERE to go to the Geek & Sundry YouTube page)

2.) Netflix helps me flex:
I know I am not the only one in this big wide world of ours that has trouble motivating myself to workout. I can make it to the gym, but staying there and pushing myself for realistic amount of time is even harder. But thanks to being able to access Netflix on my smartphone I'm able to watch while doing cardio workouts on a treadmill or an elliptical machine. I may be buried into my phone, but the hour I spend doing cardio passes in the blink of an eye and as a result I am able to stay in shape.

3.) Personal Branding:
Random success story, not my own sadly.
There is a YouTuber by the name of Rachel Bloom Rachel made comedic/parody music videos and posted them on YouTube. A year ago a producer in Hollywood saw Rachel's videos and contacted her about making a TV show. They created a pilot for showtime, which showtime later rejected. HOWEVER, the show ended up being picked up by The CW and Rachel won a Golden Globe this year for best actress in a TV musical or comedy. Rachel had her dreams come true thanks to her use of media and now she is an award winning actress with a brilliant show (Crazy Ex-Girlfriend).



So I will give in and say that the Internet and media isn't ALL bad, it can have some really good uses. But we have to be careful, if we abuse our access to the Internet then the Internet will abuse us.