Get a...nother life!

Have you ever wondered what the next step will be after people get bored with online communities like facebook and myspace? Second Life is that next step. It combines the typical attributes of any community based website, and applies them to customizable characters in a customizable setting in a 3d world. It is also similar to the massive online gaming phenomenons like guild wars and world of warcraft but it's emphasis is on the realistic aspects of life (rather that fantastical role playing). This means that you can be or not be yourself on this platform. I think that this will get more and more popular within the next few years because it's actually kind of addictive. Already, people have built friendships across the globe (as they do in myspace, but second life just adds that little extra creepiness to the exchange), and interact as you would in real life. go out to eat. go shopping. take a drive. fly like peter pan!? (c'mon, it can't be completely realistic, or else it would suck) I think this applies to the pop culture world because these tools that are created to "help people create their true identity" without the backlash of real life judgement are becoming increasingly popular. it's free to try so i suggest that you download it and mess with it for a bit. talk to people. etc. (If some of you are already a part of this community you should post your names, mine is Dai Grigorovich (weird Russian pessimist lol))
http://www.secondlife.com/

and here's the website...

http://threadless.com/

threadless

Threadless is a community based tee shirt company with an ongoing, open-call for tee design submissions. Not only are these some of the (in my opinion) wittiest, funniest, coolest t-shirts I've ever seen, a lot of them are proposed by regular customers of the company, not necessarily professional designers. Visitors to the site can also participate in the process by rating the design submissions before they get picked up for prints. You're also encouraged to send in photos of yourself wearing tees from the site, in exchange for credit towards your next purchase. All-in-all, it's one of the most community-oriented mainstream businesses I've ever come into contact with.

Fun With Wikipedia

We mentioned Wikipedia in class, and it reminded me of a couple of great ways in which Wikipedia has been made into a weird pop culture object.

First is the weird bizarre topic of Wikigroaning. First discovered by myself on Something Awful.com (WARNING: Don't surf the site if you are at work, it is some risque stuff), which is itself something I will have to talk about later, it's a somewhat popular game, referenced briefly on the Colbert Report at least once, and even in the Wall Street Journal, but Wikigroaning is simply the practice of looking at a 'respectable' scholarly article like, as referenced in the Journal, Prime numbers, or on the Something Awful page, Knights. Then you compare it with a pop culture equivalent, such as Optimus Prime, or Jedi Knights. After looking at this, examine the size of the two articles, the amount of information present, the amount of citation, etc. It's a fascinating look at how Wikipedia, even with its lofty goals, has become this bizarre object of pop culture. For every constitution, there is a lightsaber combat, and one is longer than the other.

And then, a pop culture movement that ties in very well with the discussion on wiki-vandalism we talked about is the website http://www.everytopicintheuniverseexceptchickens.com/ Started by Ryan north, writer of http://www.qwantz.com/ (another topic to discuss!), Every topic in the universe except for chickens was a proposal for how to fix the problem of wikipedia vandalism forever by having all the vandals attack one article so every other article would be completely correct. That article, North reasoned, is Chickens because no human being will ever need to know about the chicken in any greater capacity than they already do. The chickens article was eventually locked because of vandalism. Another example of how Wikipedia has become as much a part of pop culture as anything else.

Also if you haven't yet experienced Post Secret in print or electronic form... you should check the website out. http://postsecret.blogspot.com/

Tucker Max

Probably one of the funniest books I've ever read is "I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell"... a definite example of straddling the line between real art and pop culture. Regardless you guys should check out Tucker Max's blog if you haven't already... http://tuckermax.com/

Michael Flatley ruined dance.

Irish dancing is seen as a beautiful art-form in modern day Ireland and in cities throughout the United States. Ceili's are the traditional form of Irish dance. It is a group of people at a party or gathering who perform traditional dances, reenacting famous historical moments and battles. Today, competitions (more commonly known as a feis) are held in major cities throughout the US for men and women of all ages. Winners can more on to more serious competitions in London, Glasgow and Dublin. The modern form of Irish dancing seen today was brought to light by Michael Flately, the flamboyant creator of Celtic Tiger and Lord of the Dance. He popularized Irish dancing into the phenomena it became in the early nineties. He even opened a major production in Las Vegas. The horrendously tacky outfits and dance pieces have taken away from the original, traditional form of Irish dancing. The websites are of Michael Flatley's Lord of the Dance and his home page. If you watch the intro on his home page, you will get a taste of how he "transformed" Irish dancing.
http://www.michaelflatley.com/home.cfm
http://www.lordofthedance.com/

ARC Culture

Alright so here is the deal, I went Ice Climbing for the first time this weekend and it was a blast, however, I did not have the correct equipment to do so. I went to the ARC (The Outdoor Rec Center on west campus) to rents some ice axes and crampons that they said I could rent when I checked the website. However, when I got over there I was confronted with this climber who gave me an attitude and made me feel inadequate when I had to ask questions about the items. Apparently, I needed Ice Tools instead of Ice Axes and I needed vertical crampons instead of just plain old crampons. That is when I realized this group that has formed in the ARC. They are trying to keep people out by living a mountainous lifestyle in Columbus , Ohio. The people are generally very nice but it seems to me like it is a craze that will be sweeping across college students soon. The climbing group will catch on because it caters to mountaineers, emo individuals, and the workout trend. Their clothes are extremely comfortable also. So if your interested go to the ARC and check out what I think will be the new trend.
P.S.
I have usually found the people at the ARC to be extremely friendly, I just never seem to "fit" or be a part of "crowd"

Hot Topic

I was looking at Hot topic's website today and saw where they have a Pop Culture section so I just thought I would share :-)

http://www.hottopic.com/hottopic/store/nodePage.jsp?FOLDER%3C%3Efolder_id=2534374302028402&PRODUCT%3C%3Eprd_id=845524442158780&bmUID=1200256347604