(ipod shuffle I won at my high school's graduation party)
One instance where a game invades my life is Zune. The software keeps track of how many and specifically what songs I have been listening to. Sounds great, this way it can recommend artists for me based on my listening habits. But it also displays this information for everyone to see. This entices me to listen more, because I want my total play count to be higher, not that I expect anyone I know to look at the count. What I have been listening to being available to everyone as well as me sharing my laptop with other people that I DJ with makes me conscious of what I am actually listening to. Maybe I’ll listen to Justin Bieber’s latest hit through a different program so it doesn’t come up on my Zune account (hint: that was a joke). This augmentation of my life is detractive, because it prevents me from freely listening to whatever I am in the mood for, or from sampling while looking for new music to play without worrying who the song is by because it might look funny that I was listening to that.
Those stupid little preferred customer cards that clutter key chains also invades my real life. Whenever I shop at Marsh I scan my card and do I look to see what my total savings have been this year every time I get a receipt. Damn straight I do! It doesn’t really make me shop there more often to rack up my total, I am a bit too thrifty for that, but it redefines my shopping experience. I leave there feeling good because I have “saved” all of this money. This influences me to go back there more often than I would otherwise because my reflective experience of going to Marsh is always that much better because of this number. It enhances my life because it makes me less depressed to spend a bunch of money on groceries.
Dating can feel like a game sometimes. You gain experience points by putting in time and effort into the relationship. Fall behind on experience points and you lose. There is also a set of rules that must be followed, and breaking them sets you back or ends the game. It is quite like playing an old Mario game, most people lose and lose and lose and eventually win or some give up. However, there are always those people that can beat the whole game in ten minutes. There may be times when it feels like this “game” detracts from life, but ultimately it enhances it.
We definitely live in a bubble of fake bullshit. Just about every product we purchase or consume is artificial to at least some degree. We also ingest a huge amount of fake bullshit from the media on a daily basis. This usually adds confusion to individuals’ lives. Reality TV is almost never realistic but people buy into the bullshit and often have unrealistic expectations for their lives.
This bullshit is fed by technology. Artificial products come from technology, as does media. But that has been a trend that has always existed. Read something written by Thomas Jefferson and there is a good chance it is about how newspapers are rubbish and just filled with said bullshit. Of course there are always exceptions, but I am strictly speaking overall.
Because it is fed by technology, the bubble is completely different for different groups of people depending on what technology is available to them and the presuppositions they have about said technology. But the bubble isn’t necessarily positive or negative. It is positive in that it is quite pleasant living in a bubble of blissful bullshit. But it is also negative because it still isn’t real. You can be the most powerful player on World of Warcraft (I have no clue about the mechanics of that game so I am assuming saying that made sense), but that doesn’t really mean anything, it isn’t real. It could be argued that it is real for the person experiencing it, but my view is that it very much is bullshit. I’m not against playing such games or anything like that; I am just stating that it is not reality. What is great about the bubble is that we have the ability to exit it at any moment. Many people and cultures live outside of the bubble and we could live as they do. It could also be argued that us living in this bubble are just progressing with time and those purposely not entering the bubble are the ones that are actually living in a bubble of bullshit. However, those people often have real consequences to deal with. Think of the people starving or living in conflict areas around the world. Every day brings real consequences. If the creators of Farmville decided to flood a player’s farm that is not a real consequence. It may ruin someone’s day, but ultimately that has little impact on their reality, whether they can recognize that or not.
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