Gamer and Surrogate comparison to Reality

The idea of social identity is very broad when it comes to the relation it has with socioeconomic class structures, and gender role. With two distinct sources, Gamers and The Surrogate, they both show example of what society is made up of. Identity plays a big role that makes up the class structure in life. Not only does it affects the class system, but it describe gender role in life.  Throughout the movie and the book, there are signs that portray visual example of how the class system is structured. This all could relate to present day society.

Class System:    

     There are signs such as the idea of how, "Sam controls Kable” . This is an example of rich v.s. poor.  The irony is how it is comparable to chattel slavery.  Sam owns Kable as a “property” and Kable is just a prisoner of society and he has to do their bidding. The idea of having a civil war that ended slavery is just a joke if this would cease to exist.

Gender Role:    

     Another example of signs that was given to show the example of gender role is the idea that is brought upon surrogates. The CEO of a company that sells surrogates   has a surrogate that portrays a man, Victor. She is a woman, but she gladly accepts the idea that people treat her better if she is known as Victor rather than Victoria. The question lies whether in society does women accept the fact that gender role does exist. Are women seen as weak?

Socioeconomic:

      The idea of having a class system is very natural. Example in both surrogate and gamer shows that there exists a upper, middle and lower class in every outcome. From my point of view I see that there must exist a lower class in order for there to be a upper class. A sign of where these examples are used was linked to the creator. For example Castle, he is the richest man, “30 times richer than Bill Gates” and Bill Gates is present day 3^rd riches man. He was able to achieve this by having lower class people who works in the social world, “Society” and prisoner who works in “Slayers”. Without these key people he would not be able to achieve anything. That is the example of how society is built on wealth. The person with the most money could achieve possibly anything.

Response to Gamer

Taking a glimpse of a possible future is terrifying, especially if you see a world where human could be controlled worse than slaves. The movie, Gamer portray a possible outcome of human society if we depend on technology as a source of pleasure/solution to our problems. Gamer has a strong link of "rich vs. poor", in a society just like present day, where the rich seems to buy out the poor. This is all an act of power in reality, and the people who do not have power ends up being the slave to the rich.

                Gamer did not only use real life aspect, but to top it off, they use advertising. The advertisement that were used, relates to present day Time Square and Tokyo. With their huge flat screen TV on massive structures, gamer had a similar layout. They used skyscraper and huge buildings as a screen throughout the alternate society that was made. There were many advertisement displayed in gamer such as, Mountain Dew, LG, and AMP. The funny thing about this, in today's video games, we see advertisement just like these while we are playing. This gives us a glimpse of how companies use their advertisement to manipulate consumer for their profits.

                In Gamer, there are two different scenarios you could play. It is either Society or Slayers, and both of them involve using real people. The comparisons made about these two worlds and reality is that people enjoy a obstructive society where there are free to do what they want and at the same time  enjoy violence. Video Games and Reality television have the same agenda. They are seeking a way to have the consumer hooked. In gamer, you could see the connection because the people who are playing games are out of their mind. They view life as a game and they are hooked on it. The only difference between Slayers and Society is their purpose of existence. Each has specific excitement to cover, but in the end both of them leads to the same subject, which is entertainment.

                The relation of gamer and the real world is how similar both of them are. We view convicts as horrible people, just like the movie. People could argue that putting inmates for death row or for entertainment is the same, but it is not. It is not right to use human casualty as a sense of entertainment because at the same time we are liable for the actions we take to kill a human being. The relation to avatar in society has the same concept. Selling the control of our body, is just as horrifying as selling our body in reality. Giving someone complete control is the same concept as chattel slavery. The concept of being someone personal property is morally wrong.

RPG Experiences Blog Post #2

                Reading Waggoner’s Essay brought back so many memories for me. I went through the phase of addiction, when I use to play games for countless hours. I played games on different source of platforms that involves games such as, Runescape, Maple Story, Kingdom Hearts I and II , Counter Strike,  and etc. The funny thing about these games that I picked was the use of avatars as a way to identify myself in the game.  I had various issues designing the avatars. Usually the avatars that were offered back in the days of gaming were very limited.  I had to adjust to this by realizing that after a while of playing the character, they eventually have the ability to look unique.

My greatest experience with role playing games is with Runescape. I spent nearly my whole elementary school year and junior high year on manipulating my avatar in the game. Runescape is a MMORPG(Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game) and the difference between this and all of the other games I played besides Maple Story is the massive amount of players that were online. Literally this game resembled real life aspect and it require accurate duration of time to do a certain activity. I found this to be very addictive because it provide a virtual reality where I could do things beyond my imagination. My avatar is just like any other human , it requires skills to survive with over 35 different set of skills to train. It would take over ten years of consecutive playing to master it all.

                At one point after playing RPG game,s I felt that I was in the game as if it blended in with my life. I felt as if I had a life in there that portray my true potential in reality. I had plenty of dreams at night about what I would do the next day on Runescape. Even though everything was a fantasy, I still enjoy the items that I acquired with happiness just like I would have if I had it in reality. I did not realize that these things were happening to me as I was playing this game. The effect it had on me was very addictive and it was hard to distinguish it from fantasy and reality.

                When I play these MMORPG games, I usually have friends who tell me about these games.  And when I play and meet them at a certain place in the game, I felt the same connection as if I was hanging out with them at school. With the ability to form clans/guilds, I had a chance to fit into a group that share the same interest.  The most addicting part about MMORPG games,  was the reason why I was playing. I was eager to be the top player in the game, just like society, we try the hardest to raise ourselves in our ranks. With all the time consumption that were involved, I felt that I wasted a big part of my life playing RPG games; hence the term, “role- playing” game.