The Embed was disabled, so I wasn't able to give you a video that I find both impressive and disgusting:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mB3ZIHS63Lo
I'm an avid player of the Rock Band series and enjoy playing a fake guitar every now and then, because I sure as hell can't play a regular one. However, the video gives viewers a great sense of what certain simulacra has given humanity - a chance to be a rock star in your pajamas, without all the girls, drugs, or annoying agents. (If I'm repeating any former posts in regards to video games, please don't hesistate to call me out). What does remain is the ego factor involved with these games; on Xbox Live, there are contests associated with weekly downloadable songs; a call is sent to players to achieve the highest score on the charts, where probably some 30-something living in his mother's basement is playing bass in your band instead of getting off his ass, going outside, and getting a job.
It's understandable if you have an actual musical instrument talent (I once played Bass and regular Clarinet for marching and concert band) - You actually commited notes to memory, like countless muscians before you and can play organized sheet music. Games like Rock Band and Guitar Hero keep flooding the store shelves, but when it comes to retaining their value, they suck completely (A copy of GH 3 in Gamestop I saw once would've cost me three bucks or something near there).
But why do people flock to virtual worlds like this? Is it because they can escape from the dulldrums of a meaningless life? Or, do they believe that this make-believe dimension is more realistic thant the one they live in now? That answer depends entirely on how you interpret Baudrillard. One thing is definetely for sure: I won't be simulating this my life time:
Im commenting on this post because I cant figure out how to post an original one...I tried before and it's not showing up. Anyway..I was watching the news today and there was a story based on Snooki from Jersey Shore. It was involving her getting arrested and her excessive partying and drinking in which she replied, "After you get shown doing it so much it just kind of becomes a part of you"..or something along those lines. I couldn't help but think back to a discussion we had in class involving "the death of the author". This being once you are brought into main stream culture and people start making copies of your work and satirical comments on what you do, the original maker of the work becomes irrelevant. All that matters now is the personna that has been created through main-stream. That being said I thought that it was funny that snooki said that after being portrayed in the media so much as a party girl she ultimately has let the media TELL HER who she is. This is a very bizare way to look at this theory but also pretty comical. Snooki is not herself as a person anymore but rather what everyone else tells her she is...funny.
ReplyDelete-Jodie
I feel like music games that simulate instruments just give children and teens hope of forming a real band or playing a real instrument. Though games like Guitar Hero don't actually teach someone how to play a real instrument. They only simulate and form false hope for how people to learn to play a real instrument. It's come a type of genre where many instruments being a DJ is simulated. To think it all started with a dance simulation game. There are even t-shirts that say "I only dance to arrows" just to show how we're more obsessed with a duplicate image than the actual image.
ReplyDeleteThe obsession with Guitar Hero and Rock Band become even funnier when you see a professional band play their own song and fail miserably. We like to think these games can give us the real experience of playing an instrument, but since when do guitars have buttons?
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7cuGI4zckSc