Blog Post Six

Since our awesome school website seems to be falling apart during registration I thought I'd make my blog post. 

Most scholars agree that Jesus of Nazareth did in fact exist. Christ's message promoted the values of: charity, faith, compassion, and virtue. Christ also established the notion that a personal relationship with god could be achieved by everyone without a intermediary such as a priest or idol. His teachings inspired the teachings of countless christian religions, and has defined spirituality in the western world for the last two thousand years. For this reason Christ serves as an interesting study as both a historical figure, and religious. Christ is many different things to many different people, he is both a symbol of  institutionalized worship, and  personal savior to many. For this reason analyzing the Christ figure in the digital age raises new questions on the role of Christ in the modern era. Is Christ's message bastardized through the lens of new media? Or does new media only allow Christ's message to me more tailored, and personalized to the individual--perhaps the way he intended it to be. 

Manovich principles:

Variability will be a big one.

Transcoding could be interesting

As well as automation.  

Blog Post #6 - Intro to Mad Men

The following is a an introduction to the show, Mad Men (even though I feel like I have already introduced the show to you. Sorry, this is kind of a repeat...)

Mad Men is a show on AMC that began airing in 2007. In early 2013, it will begin its 6th season. It poignantly portrays American life in the 1960's and provides viewers a peek into an era that seems so outdated that it almost feels unreal by today's standards. Fans love the show and are attracted to its social commentary and portrayal of life in a "simpler" time. They're also able to see what life looked like for their younger parents or grandparents. The show has been a favorite among critics and has been the recipient of numerous awards including 4 consecutive Emmy awards for Outstanding Drama Series beginning in 2008.

The show centers around the mysterious character Don Draper (played by Jon Hamm), a New York advertising executive, and his career as well as his seemingly perfect early 60's family life. He is as handsome as he is talented. Don is a likable character, yet, like most interesting protagonists, wrestles with a host of inner demons as well as a troubling past. He is a master of manipulation--which perhaps is the very reason he finds so much success in advertising. Don's character is supplemented by an extremely talent cast: Peggy Olsen (Elizabeth Moss), Betty Draper (January Jones), Joan Harris (Christina Hendricks), and Roger Sterling (John Slattery).

In terms of Manovich, my mind immediately thinks of the 1960's technology portrayed on the show. In particular, I recall a scene where Peggy, a newly-hired secretary at the agency, is being briefed by Joan, her superior, on her new job duties. Peggy is introduced to a rotary phone, intercom, and a circa 1960's typewriter. She is told not to be overwhelmed by the technology...

We find this kind of funny because these devices are soooo old media. They don't represent the modularity, transcoding, or numeric representation of the new media devices we see today.

The Office Intro

The Office, a mockumentary of the average work place, originally aired in the United Kingdom in 2001. First airing in 2005, the United States version of The Office documents the varyious employee relations in Scranton, Pennsylvania's regional office of paper company Dunder Mifflin. Played by Steve Carell is Michael Scott, the manager you love to hate, who lacks any notion of self awareness or office appropriateness. Michael creatively leads and inspires a group of salesmen, accountants, and other admin employees. The frenemies of The Office are Jim Halpert and Dwight Shrute who consistently aggravate each other through obviously clashing personalities. Jim is notorious for his harmless pranks against the unsuspecting and naive Dwight. Ongoing inter-office romances occur between Dwight and Angela Martin, Ryan Howard and Kelly Kapoor, as well as Jim and Pam Beasley.

I plan to use Manovich principles throughout my project and feel that modularity may be most useful in the design.

Blog # 5

My YouTube results were free from commercialization and were mainly homemade clips. The top result which I linked in this post is an armature clip. The clip was created by Park City TV. I assume there is not much content commercial because of the difficulty of the sport and the typical age of a trail runner based off my observation is 35 to 50 years old. Many trail runners are x marathon runners who became tired of road running and are looking for a challenge. The content in the clips are short bios or how to run with some tips thrown in.

 The commercial market has not latched on to trail runners just yet and that is why the content is mostly home made clips. I also mentioned the average age of trail runners being higher than most athletes in many other sports. I think the older age group is less concerned with making trail running videos to promote the sport and more concerned with trail running. As a matter of fact one of the nations largest and most popular trail runs happens every year right here in Utah. I bet you have never heard of it. It is called the Squaw Peak 50. The average age of competitors this last year was 32.

These videos are serving a small purpose for the sport but I do not think the clips on YouTube have influenced the sports culture at all, simply because there are not enough people doing the sport for commercial internists to take hold and promote the sport. I do however; think the purpose of the clips serves a quick crash course for somebody who may be considering trail running for the first time and searches YouTube before they embark on a maiden voyage or beginners who might want some tips on gear or methods.

Ultimately there has been a growing interest in trail running because many of the "Extreme" races such as the Dirty Dash, Spartan Race and many other such races that feature trail running for the main event. I believe by this avenue the sport will achieve much of its popularity in the future.  I have embedded a link for a Spartan race. Competitors essentially trail run through rough terrain from obstacle to obstacle.

Park city TV trail running clip.

Spartan Race.

So this is going to sound lame but I can not figure out how to embed the videos into my blog post. Any help would be great :)

Bill Buttlicker

The most common YouTube Videos made by fans are Jim and Dwight pranks which are my favorite. I chose this video because I had never seen a Lego interpretation before of an Office moment before. I thought they did it well. There are also several Jim and Pam love story videos and probably the most interesting are the outburst of people pranking other coworkers. Office environments are being influenced by Jim and Dwight pranks, and I love it.

The Office has redefined how many people see an office environment.

Mad Men in 60 Seconds - Fan Video

So...I found this video on Mad Men and thought I'd post it for a couple of reasons. First of all, its short, witty, and done really well on what appears to be a fairly low-budget. Secondly, I don't think any of the blog readers (all three of you...) have ever seen the show. The clip shows actors playing different Mad Men characters and will give you a satirical overview of the show and it's overall vibe.

There are a ton of Mad Men video spoofs and parodies on YouTube. It would seem that the show was made to be parodied. You'll also find many videos showing small clips of the show put together in funny or entertaining ways (is this called a mash-up? I don't know...sounds good though). These videos highlight and exaggerate the show's many themes: drinking, smoking, philandering, etc. Essentially, they are good-heartily mocking the show's social commentary of the 1960's. 

This was one of the best fan-type videos I was able to find. While there are a lot of high-quality, professional Mad Men videos (check out the Sesame Street parody...too funny), fan videos such as this are lacking. Most are not funny and appear to be done by a 14-year-old. I was a little surprised by this, especially given the show's popularity.

Youtube Videos

Youtube videos concerning Jesus on Youtube span a wide array of topics ranging from the philosophical, religious, musical, and comedic. One video in particular had more hits that any other. The Video is called, "Why I hate religion, but love Jesus" the video consists of the performance of a poem a man has written explaining in his opinion the difference between Jesus and organized religion. He comes to the conclusion that  coming to Christ is a good thing, but doing so through organized religion may not be the best route. Interestingly, this video has spurned a series of responses from both atheists, muslims, and catholics. The dialogue taking place is interesting. Well, maybe the topic in and of itself isn't really that interesting, it seems to be the timeless debate which millions have fought over for centuries now, but to see this age old debate play out in the form of new media is particularly interesting. I suppose people just don't get tired of debating Jesus, and religion and Youtube has just given us a new way in doing so. Here is the Catholic response to the video, which I found more interesting than the original.

Another thing I found particularly interesting while searching my topic was the clash between "sacred" videos (I use sacred as way to describe homage videos to Christ) and what many would consider to be sacrilege videos. I've been thinking about how the bible was translated from Latin into the vernacular giving more people access to religious ideas, and how now through the internet we see that same pattern continue through the form of new media where people are both able to be exposed to more religious ideas, but also to express their opinions concerning their beliefs (or lack thereof) to a broad audience. I think this ability to respond, and actually be heard is very unique to new media. 

# 4, 98,000,000 search results in a quarter of a second.

After Googles extensive quarter of a second search, nearly 100 million search results were at my finger tips.

My search was (trail running)

The narrative looks like this...

The title of my narrative would be "Running Shoes" very little substantive information came up on the first page about

actually running. The information was all about shoes. The first chapter of my book would be called "shoes, buying the
 right ones" the next chapter would be called "how you know if they fit" and the third chapter would be "try them out for
 a few days, but do not run because you could die"There was hardly any information about actually running it was all information
 about shoes and where to buy shoes. Nearly all the sites were owned by shoe companies. The overarching theme in my narrative
 would be how one can appear to run and do all the motions of a runner with out actually running.

The next few pages in the search order were about injuries that happen to runners. Not until page five does the actual information start.

i.e where to go, tips for nutrition, times of year that are best for certain areas, what to bring, miles to a hospital, wild life 

in the area and so on.  

I would like to point out the harsh reality of the first three pages of my search results. look around at school and see how

many people are wearing running shoes who look like they either have no athletic ability or have never run a day in their life

and are still wearing the shoes. This is crazy to me, it would be like a NASCAR driver wearing his race suit to school, or 

a gymnast wearing hand chalk pads around all day. 

The narrative would eventually move into actual running about search page 15 or "chapter 15" where sites begin to appear 

about signing up for a run, or fun trails to run in your area. This narrative seems almost backwards to me. The narrative 

would little connecting information from one chapter to the next and would simply be a random collection of chapters about running 

shoes. Perhaps this is precisely the reason why so many people want to run so they buy the shoes and then do not know

what the next step is. 

Gooogle Narrative

Constructing a narrative from all the random information a google search yields is a daunting task. The conversion of a google of jesus' name into a narrative would begin something like this...

Once upon a time there was a man named Jesus, also known as Jesus of Nazareth who was the son of God, and eventually came to be the central figure of worship for all Christian denominations (wikipedia). This first chapter would be something of a look at christ as both a historical, and religious figure.

The next chapter would take a different perspective. From a person in the 21st century attempting to figure out who Christ was, and is. This quest would bring him/her to jesus.org which to me would be something like a revival meeting in the format of a website. At this meeting a man would be spewing the absolute "truth" of who Christ was, and how to follow him.

Chapter three would begin with our young protagonist so inspired by the ideas of the revival meeting attempt to establish a personal relationship with Jesus. This would manifest itself in really the only way our hero knows how which is to add him on Facebook. Yes, Jesus has a facebook. Here they would develop a relationship, and our hero would learn to exercise his or her faith through the internet whether that be through inspirational memes or liking Jesus' status's.

Eventually our hero would become curious of more orthodox ideas of who Jesus was, and is. This would bring him to the catholic church. Here he would search the annals of the catholic encyclopedia.

Then disaster will strike. The shard of papyrus discovered from the 4th century alluding that Christ may have had a wife will rock our young hero's faith. He will then turn his back on his beloved Fox News, and read an article from the New York Times on the subject. With this seemingly innocent act our hero will begin a long and troublesome journey towards atheism.

Along this path he will befriend Jesus on twitter. Where he will not build a relationship with Christ as he did on facebook, but will begin to mock christianity, as well as the very concept of Christ through the form of hilarious memes, and tweets.

Eventually our young hero will comeback to Christ once he hits rock bottom in the depths of twitter. In the end he will turn back to the web site, whoisjesus-really.com and his faith will be restored, after which he will close his twitter account, and cancel his online subscription to the New York Times.

The Office Chapter Book

Chapter 1- Current happenings of The Office brought to you by NBC.

Chapter 2- A detailed history of The Office brought to you by Wikipedia.

Chapter 3- Delve into the actors' roles on the show and individual careers on IMDB.

Chapter 4- Watch episodes on Hulu! Right now! Do it. Now.

Chapter 5- "Like" The Office Facebook page and receive awesome updates.

Chapter 6- If you are a true fanatic, follow The Office Talley blog where your entertainment becomes obsession.

Chapter 7- Like the American version? Try the British version now on TV.com!

Chapter 8- All great things come to an end. Details on the final season of The Office.