The Conversation

The title sounds way more provocative than the topic at hand. Briefly, one day I was watching television and saw an ad for a show on Lifetime (I know!). After the promo, I looked at my friend and we decided to watch it. Fast forward to now, I've caught some sort of throat demon. But, on my daily visit to The Hollywood Reporter, I saw an article about the show.

It's titled The Conversation, and it looks pretty awesome. I can't say if I'm going to watch it tonight, but I know I will in the near future. If you click on the link, you can see a small preview of the show.

I'm way better at a shorter format, so I may actually keep this up for a while...

Fandoms, peer pressure, and Slytherin

     Nearly every Sunday, I spend some time on Postsecret to check out the update. For the uninitiated, PostSecret is a collection of secrets that are posted online after being sent in as postcards. This week, I saw this secret:

I've read/listened to all three more times than I'm willing to admit. 

I don't even know how many times I've gone through the entire series, but I read Goblet of Fire more than 30 times. It gets better every time!

I laughed a bit, but then thought about how I've now attached myself to all these fandoms without giving them a second thought. Twilight started in high school, and once I read one book (in 6 hours), I invested time and one Christmas to get the books. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo was one of the first books I read on Alexander Helios, and in three days, I had finished the trilogy. The Hunger Games, the most recent series I've become invested in, has been different in that I've only listened to the audiobook of the first book. However, I plan to listen to the second audiobook when the semester end. Before this wave, I read The Da Vinci code and Angels and Demons (and I still remain adamant that Angels and Demons is a better book and a better movie). Before that, I had Harry Potter (and so did millions of others). In every single case, however, I was not one of the first wave of fans. I've always been in the second wave of fans. I've jumped on the bandwagon and enjoyed the ride well after the trendsetters, but I've started to wonder if there is some truth to this secret. Is fandom a new form of peer pressure?

With all these fandoms, Hollywood has come a knockin'. And these movies have become and more profitable. The Hunger Games scored a huge opening weekend, the third best opening weekend of all time and only this weekend was finally beat by another film for first place in the box office. What I'm trying to get at is this: These fandoms begins as a small community that reads a books and really loves it and balloons into a community that makes a studio $155 million one weekend and makes household names of actors. However, in order to do so, these fandoms are the ones who do the promotion. The NYT, in a fascinating article titled, "How 'Hunger Games' Guilt Up Must-See Fever" details how a team of 21 people with a paltry budget of $45 million made the Hunger Games go viral. Knowing how much time us young adults spend online, and the new marketing strategies that are used, how can these fandoms not partly be driven by peer pressure?

Friends who are obsessed become ambassadors for series. That's how the Hunger Games finally caught my eye. A high school friend posted a picture of his Panem ID, and then I googled Panem. I decided, if he's reading it, maybe I should be reading it. In addition, there's always the anxiety about missing out on a cultural reference point. Will comedians make jokes that I don't understand? Will friends look at you like the weirdo who has never heard of Cinna? Will I be missing out on something exciting and destined to become a pop culture fixture? So many of the items we consume, I consume, have come to our attention through  other people. You have to consider this effect when you're trying to sell this product, and so far, marketing has been spot on. If I had read the entire trilogy, I would have followed the entire process of making the Hunger Games from casting to release date. I would have shelled out the money to watch the film (and the $3 for a coke), and I would be telling other people to watch the movie as well. After all, that's what I did with Twilight and Harry Potter.  I was trying to introduce people to the material that drew me, and in doing so, I just made a marketing agent's life a bit easier. So, at the end of the day, when do you think I should expect my checks from Warner Bros. and Summit?



P.S. Pottermore, a great way to continue the experience of Harry Potter, has gone live. And, I'll admit that I was one of the people who chased around the internet for clues to enter the beta site. This just seems to me proof that fandoms create their own buzz. The fact I now want to own the ebooks of Harry Potter is an example of how effective fandoms are at making me spend more money. Now that I've been sorted into Slytherin, it also means I'm in the market for a new scarf...

Citius, Altius, Fortius

     There are 101 days left until the London Olympics! Now, seeing as how I'm not athletic at all, it would seem surprising that I would follow any news about them at all, but what can I say - Those who can't do like to watch!
    Here's where it stands. I've met the mascots, Wenlock and Mandeville. I suggest you watch the last part of the small movies about them here:




But, moving on, the London 2012 Olympics offer an interesting dilemma for broadcasters. How in the world to convince people to tune in for primetime events when, by then, everyone will be able to find the winners online and even watch the winning moments online?
   
The "first social media Olympics" in 2012 will apparently have a strict code when it comes to the athletes themselves. This mashable article goes on to say that athletes won't be allowed to tweet photos featuring anything that is not an official sponsor or even share pictures from inside the village. Now, as a curious viewer, I love it when people share random pics. I first started following cyclists on twitter (I kid you not. For 5 years or so, I would watch every stage of the Tour de France LIVE, which meant waking up at 5 AM to catch the beginning of the mountain stages - the stages where the Tour is won and lost.), and  I loved the pictures of enormous pasta meals, the sunflower fields in France, bruises and injuries from each day, and pictures of biker tans. It may not have added to my knowledge of the Tour, but it did make me feel bonded to some cyclists more than others. For professional athletes, creating that bond can literally translate into money. Even better if they're a good athlete!

However, getting back on track, NBC (home of the 2012 London Olympics) has had to tackle the difficulties of the new media environment. Their solution is to give in...with reservations. NBC has decided to live stream anything they can get a camera on, but they will not archive big events. In doing so, they're banking on the fact that people cannot be at a computer at all times. And, considering time differences, they may be correct. In the same way that no one I know would be willing to TIVO the Super Bowl, NBC hopes that viewers will be drawn to the website (www.nbcolympics.com), which will likely feature some roomy ad space for sponsors ranging from McDonald's to Tide. There's sure to be plenty of youtube videos taken down for violating the terms of use and facebook is likely to be one huge spoiler for those waiting to watch primetime coverage of the Olympics. Despite all of that, the Olympics are sure to continue to be a huge ratings draw for NBC, and I honestly have to ask, why?

I'll admit, I don't think very often about why events like the Olympics make me so anxious to watch television. After all, if I'm being honest, there are much better things one could be doing rather than watching 3 hours of Olympics coverage for two weeks. There is a buildup, an orchestration of events that occurs around the Olympics though. Add on the personal stories of athletes who have sacrificed their lives to a sport for a chance, once every four years, to get an Olympic medal. You literally could not create a better environment for remarkable stories to unfold, for bonds between the public and athletes to develop, and for sponsors to take notice. I guess what I'm getting at is this: The Olympics are an athletic competition, but they're also the process by which national heroes can be created. They're the process by which products are advertised and athletes become advertisers. This is all starting to sound extremely cynical in my head, but spend some time to think about it. For all the athletes who win gold medals, who even place on the podium, there are more who don't place at all, who don't realistically stand a chance to medal, but who compete anyways. That is not to downplay the level of skill needed to reach the Olympics, because my skill is zero. However, one cannot help but wonder, why do sporting events like the Olympics draw so much attention? Is it the individual feats of athletes or a well-managed publicity campaign that draws us in?

Click here to read more about NBC's solution.

Book stuff!

   Well hello. It's been a while, hasn't it? This will be a very brief posting on some book news I found this morning. First and foremost, JK Rowling's new book now has a name! I'll admit, I was more than a bit excited at the idea of any new reading material coming from her, but if you click here you'll get a bit more details on the plot of The Casual Vacancy (talk about an intriguing title!). Also important, it will be sold in ebook format!
     Which leads me to my second little article. You see, the Justice Dept filed suit against Apple and a number of book publishers accusing them of collusion to drive up the prices of ebooks. Some of the publishers have settled, but the decision raises some questions about how the relationship between publishers and Amazon, in particular, has evolved. There are more details in this NYT article, but I think it's curious that the immediate fears are that in punishing Apple and several publishers for driving up prices, the Justice Dept may have just created the perfect environment on the ground for Amazon to develop a monopoly on the ebook market. I've already shared just how much Amazon has changed my reading habits, even before I got a physical kindle to carry around with me EVERYWHERE, but just a thought. One thing's for sure, I will continue to be loyal to Amazon until they decide to restrict my free kindle content (the horror). However, for many people immersed in the Kindle culture (that's how I've begun to think about it in my head), Amazon may just be playing a long-term bait and switch campaign. Wireless delivery may be free on Amazon Whispernet, but I can easily envision a future where Amazon starts charging for that  - so that even my free ebooks will come with a price tag. My collection of more than 150 free ebooks at $.10 per delivery would be $15- $20 extra dollars for them...not much in the grand scheme of things, but considering how ebooks sales continue to grow, it could be a lot of many in the bank for them. This is all speculation, of course, but it's thought-provoking (to me at least).
     That's all for now. But my next post will be coming soon-ish (less than a week I hope), so stay tuned for that.

Easter reflections: el Papa

     Having a week away from school means more relaxing than advisable, and a good dose of Spanish culture. It's not that the environment here is lacking of diversity, but there's a big difference between going to a Mexican food restaurant and watching Spanish dubbed TV at home. You see, my mother's television is permanently on SAP (which stands for second audio program) mode. This means, those two hours of Grey's Anatomy on Lifetime are dubbed in Spanish, and let me tell you, Seattle Grace has never sounded so salacious...
     Getting on with the topic at hand though, it was only when I got home that I heard that His Holiness, Pope Benedict XVI, was going to arrive in Mexico. Coverage on Univision (the main Spanish language channel from my youth, and still the channel that my non-Spanish speaking friends at least recognize) included reports on the towns, information about the last time the Pope had been in Mexico, and how different it was now that Benedict instead of John Paul, was visiting. Of course, the day he arrived in Mexico, Univision had planned extensive coverage and one of their reporters was on the Alitalia plane with the pope himself. I missed out on seeing the plane itself landing, but everyone except my father, who was at work, watched those first moments when he landed. And then, my brother asked, why are we watching this?

Would Bank of America do this?

     I've always considered my religion as more of a cultural byproduct. It's about my family getting together and going to church (the same church my parents went to when they first came to the US) and then going to the same Salvadoran deli that we've been going to as long as I remember for some authentic food. But here I was, watching the pope, and there was still the same sense of awe and wonder. Now, it may just be his fancy clothing, but he still represents so much to so many people. People assume that Latinos are more religious than non-Latinos, and to some extent, I do believe that to be true, but looking at the numbers in Mexico itself, it's easy to see why the pope went. If you take a look at this article from the Economist, the first figure they throw at you is 83% of Mexico is Catholic. In the area where he stayed, Guanajuato, 94% of the population is Catholic. These figures are impressive, but it lends itself to the question: why preach to the converted?
     The article goes on to mention the fact that Evangelical communities offering social benefits have been creeping their way into Mexico and loosening the grip of the Catholic Church in Mexico. Add into the mix instability in Mexico, and such benefits are not only a relief to the people, but also solace in a country that has been in the midst of violence directly related to the drug trade. We have family friends from Mexico that we spent the Fourth of July with last year, and they told us how schools in entire towns had been closed down because of teachers fearful of being killed and parents frightened for the safety of their children. If the news has escaped anyone, I would be surprised. Since 2006, violence has been quietly escalating, but dismembered and beheaded bodies are sure to have left their mark on the Mexican public.
     In this environment, there was an obvious concern for the safety of the pope when he announced he was going to visit Mexico, and Univision was sure to offer commentary on the point. They used a term (which I cannot for the life of me remember) which essentially suggested that the various drug cartels had issued a ceasefire during the papal visit. I remember I turned to my mother and asked her what it was, but she simply shrugged because it was likely a term that the Mexican media had created to describe this ceasefire. Essentially, the drug cartels decided to keep the violence to a minimum when the pope was visiting. After all, they may be murders, but they understand the impact of the pope in society. I even told my sister, they know better than to mess with the Catholic Church, because that would be one offense too many for the government and the public. That may be taking the importance of the pope in Mexico a bit far, but how many public figures are able to impact the region they visit so deeply?
     At the end of the trip in Mexico, there was general consensus that it had been a success, and a once in a lifetime event for many of the people who were able to glimpse him, but it does leave a curious question in my mind. I grew up with Univision news bulletins interrupting the novelas I would watch with my mother. Take a minute to look at this page to see how my image of the pope has been been shaped. The golden warm tone, the cross on the right...these are images I saw when I was younger. I cried when John Paul II died. And while I'm not as religious as some might be, the pope remains, in my mind, one figure you don't, almost can't criticize. So, I have to wonder, how much was I conditioned while watching my novelas? How much more did I learn about Mexican culture watching Univision?

* Here's a nice rundown by the BBC on the drug-related violence in Mexico and if you look here is a report (in Spanish) about preparations in Mexico, which at 1:03 shows the billboard I screencapped!

   

What's going on...

First, please sing the title post to yourself to get into a good mood.

Second, last post aside, I've been feeling friendlier towards the internet the last couple of days (mostly because my dead laptop has been turned into a laptop connected to a large screen combined with "Game of Thrones" on HBO Go).

But, more important (yes, even more than the April 1st premier of the second season of Game of Thrones), I've been trying to compile some posts, which I will be posting soon!

For now, however, I will leave you with this little article on what David Carr has labeled Hashtag Activism, which is an appropriate title for the kind of activism my generation is all about. If you click on the wonderful link, you'll get to see Carr talk about how digital support for various causes may not be akin to protesting out on the streets, but how that little click may lead to some good. Or, that little click may lead a movie, like "Bully," which the MPAA gave an R rating, to a $5 million opening...

Behind the screen

     When I was younger, the internet was a smaller place. Everyone connected through AOL, and you had to set up a time so that you could have a chat with friends. It was a simpler time....

     Now, every single time I go on facebook, I can log into their chat service and check if anyone's online to talk to. Interestingly enough, that means I chat less often that I did when I was 11. In many ways, I feel that I've deviated from my peers when it comes to remaining connected online. My phone is not smart. The high tech gadget I wanted for Christmas was a Kindle. Tablets seem like fun, but I'm not pining after one. Hell, my laptop screen broke, and instead of asking for a new laptop, I've connected Hector to an external monitor we had a home (although how I'm getting it back to campus has not yet been discussed). I stay connected via text, but even then, my circle of friends is limited to those people I see in person everyday, every couple of weeks, or those who are blood-related to me. I've removed people from by facebook newsfeed, but I've yet to sever my facebook friendship with them because I think that's very dramatic. And my online reserve has a source that I've just been thinking about.
    You see, I think too much connectedness online is ruining the real bonds we can develop with people. Every time I see a Cisco commercial that talks about the human connection, I cannot help but roll my eyes. Humans can connect online. There is not doubt about that. I can join any variety of communities online, from facebook groups to tech forums to RPG communities. People can build genuine connections online, I've no doubt of that, but I worry about how younger people, people who are suckling at the teat of social networks long before they need to, treat one another.
     I'm about to get personal, so look away if it makes your eyes burn, but I've browsed through tumblr pages and seen what people have written to one another. On that website, I've discovered hilarious GIFs, but I've also seen the very darkest side of the internet. Anonymous comments that simply read "Why don't you kill yourself already?" and "The world would be a better place without you." I've seen anonymous comments calling people sluts, whores, useless, worthless, ugly, and other vile things that I don't want to share. When you've seen that written on anyone's page, I would like to think any sane person would be revolted. Now imagine having that written about a relative of yours or a dear friend. I can tell you from personal experience that it's upsetting. Because who do you turn to when that happens? You can write a comment defending that person, which is honestly more likely to result in you being called worthless as well. You can try to report a user to tumblr, which is not as simple as it should be in my opinion (they ought to take a note from youtube which immediately removes comments that users flag as inappropriate), but that doesn't change the fact that out there, behind some screen somewhere, is a living, breathing person who sat down and typed out "I hope you kill yourself" and sent that message to another person. This is what disturbs me. This silent bullying that is seen by the user, and then maybe promptly deleted. Because that message, once seen, cannot be unseen. I'm glad my internet, the one I grew up with, was a safe one for me. I chatted with friends on AIM Fridays at 7. There's was no blogging site like tumblr onto which I stumbled. No one ever sent me a message telling me I was worthless. No one ever threatened me online. No one ever went out of their way to share how much they hated my existence. I don't know what has happened that anyone thinks this is acceptable behavior today. I really don't know, and that scares me.
     I was going to look up some facts and figures and try to work them into this post, but I think the most important fact I can end this post with is this: Behind every screen is a living breathing person. Technology may be changing how we interact, but it is never an excuse to be hateful. It is never an excuse to hide behind anonymity and try to deliberately hurt someone else.

RLS

I'm starting to believe that Restless Leg Syndrome may actually exist, but it just may be the prospect of spending 8 hours in a computer lab surrounded by anxious peers attempting to finish up studying for everything in the universe...so, in attempts to make this a happier experience for all, here is a wonderful clip of Community, one of my favorite shows on air (returning March 15th!)




Enjoy!

Alexander Helios, a.k.a. Kindle Baby

 

     It took me some time to finally find a name for my Kindle. I had settled on Benedict, but then my family reminded me that Benedict Arnold is still a phrase that people use. I could have lived with my Kindle being synonymous with a traitor (I had a strong inkling that my Kindle would remain loyal to me), but finally I found a perfect name: Alexander Helios, after one of Cleopatra's children. It's my small way of honoring her, but to make a long story short, while Alexander Helios remained unnamed, I started calling him (most of my electronics are male, by the way) Kindle Baby. Not a very masculine name, but it happened. However, my relationship with ebooks began more than a year before I finally held a Kindle in my hands. Here's how it went:

He looks like a silly clown, doesn't he?

How Amazon got me hooked...
     My first ebook, purchased via Amazon, and delivered to my Kindle for PC, took place in March of 2010. It started with free ebooks that I had seen on Project Gutenberg (famous for digitizing public domain books). From there, I started to scour the interwebs for free ebooks. I ran across various sites which I would constantly visit. The recently discontinued online-novels.blogspot.com became a most viewed website for me. I would check that website every day. On holidays, I could expect to find a surge in authors offering their books for free online. I started out finding original ebooks published on Scribd.com, smashwords.com, and amazon.com. I have a Nook for PC, Adobe Digital Editions, and my Kindle for PC to place all those books. As I continued to find free ebooks, I started to "buy" more and more Kindle ebooks. The checkout was easy, and I could change the size of the display (something which epubs complicated by maintaining the original format of an actual book). I inverted the color scheme so I could read white text on a black screen. Highlighting made the few coursebooks I owned much more amusing to read. However, the listing of the Best Sellers in Kindle eBooks (that it, the "Top 100 Free"), really sealed the deal for me. Not only did they list them, but I knew Amazon was more likely to carry ebooks that had been vetted. Amazon provided the quality control I had been lacking on other sites. Whereas on Scribd or Smashwords I had found some questionable content, Amazon ebooks were higher quality and much more flexible than other formats.Thus, my Kindle library grew large with freebies. Some ebooks were short hour long reads, and others were seven hour long reading fests. However, when I hit 150 items, I seriously considered getting an actual Kindle. There was only one problem - technology can be expensive.

Kindle Fears!
     I DO NOT like to pay more than I have to for some things. My Kindle Library containing almost exclusively free ebooks is proof of that. So, you can imagine the dilemma I was faced with: Buy a Kindle in the early months of 2011, or hold out for the inevitable "new" Kindle, which I was positive was going to be cheaper.
     I chose to wait. That meant, my laptop Hector (named after the prince of Troy) was my main source of literary entertainment. I did not mind, but as more and more people bought Kindles, I started seeing them everywhere. On the T, on the coach bus to NY, in Penn Station, on the LIRR....everywhere, EXCEPT in my hands!
     And then, it happened! Right before Christmas. the Kindle 3 came out, and I knew, barring complications, I would be getting a Kindle for Christmas. I sent Santa an email (Did you know he has a google account?), and sure enough, early on the morning of the 25th of December, I held a shiny new gadget in my hands. The world was a different place. The sun was brighter and our 60'' flat-screen was brighter. If that was not enough, my hometown library had recently announced something that made my Kindle just a bit more wonderful: they were going to let me borrow ebooks!

The lending library, or as close to bliss as is possible
     Five books at a time. An email address, my library card, and an internet connection gave me access to the public libraries in the surrounding area. Here, I discovered trilogies, quartets, and series that have yet to be finished. Not as many academic books as I expected, but a great collection of entertaining books! Hours of time were spent reading all sorts of mindless drivel, but I was able to do so on my tiny (when compared to Hector) Kindle. It was when I decided to borrow the Millenium Trilogy (Stieg Larsson), instead of  buying it ($5.99 was the lowest price I saw on the first book in the trilogy) that I started to wonder about how much money I had avoided paying by my consumption of free ebooks.
   
Sorry self-publishing authors! 
     I was a bit proud of myself (and continue to be), but I also began to think of how different the publishing industry had become in a few years. The books I was buying on Smashwords and Scribd were freebies usually published by amateur writers. With these new technologies, more books were certainly available. If I were struggling to establish myself as an author, would I be handing out books for free? What if I had a publisher? Would he (the faceless publisher) agree to handing out ebooks for free? And as soon as I started asking myself that, I realized how my free ebooks had led me to spending actual money on Amazon...

Mo' Money...for Amazon
     They got me. They got me good. Amazon lured me in with those free ebooks. Here I was, feeling guilty about being cheap, when I remembered just how much money they had swindled from me (strong wording, but that was my gut reaction). For every, "first in the series" book I had bought for free, Amazon had suggested a sequel, or even the entire series. Then, Amazon had the audacity to suggest books in the same genre (which they knew I would want to buy!!! Especially after I couldn't find them from my library!). Of course, in the same genre means another multi-book series. Before you know it, I've dropped more money than I should have.
     But, it wasn't just Amazon's sinister recommendations. It was also them flinging books at me for $0.99, $1.99, and $2.99. I'll admit. I had my vulnerable moments when I paid the $2.99 after having read the free preview (which goes to show you how important the beginning of any composition is). I pined over the third book in a series (which held steady at $8.64 until my sister took pity on me and suggested an Amazon gift card from Santa could be the solution). Even now, I'm cyberstalking, not my peers, but Amazon ebook prices. Logically I know I could buy a cheaper hardcover from the Amazon marketplace, but when I'm holding my Kindle, and I have the first FOUR books in a series on that Kindle, wanting the fifth and sixth book in a digital format is nothing new. Those two books (respectively $9.99 and $11.99) will be bought soon (most likely a rainy day scenario), but for now, I look at them longingly online. Of course, Amazon knows me well enough to send me friendly reminders every month telling me that they still have those two books in stock...

Testing out

I think this will be fun...

One of my outtake profile pics