Final Intervention
For my final intervention, I opted to go a more comedic/parody route to touch on toxicity in pop culture, and give an example of one way I have actually seen people try to fight back against that. My commercial focuses on two new "inventions": The Shower and The GrowUpInator. One of these, thankfully, exists, while the other remains just a thought in my imagination. You see, the toxic gamers that run amok in servers or online lobbies all have some form of derogatory term or negative thing to say, so my character, in a sense, becomes toxic himself to strike back against that. While the persona put on in the commercial would love to tell a racist in a Call of Duty lobby to take a shower, or grow up, that will never stop them. What actually will stop the toxicity is ignoring these people, and as I have done, mute their mics in the game chat.
Weird Al's 'Foil' music video served as inspiration for this project, as did infomercials on Channel Pix 11 in the early morning hours. It was not very hard to shoot the video, although a helping hand would have been useful. I didn't necessarily do a lot of research for the video, as a lot of it was my own writing, but browsing the r/pcgaming reddit forum showed me that I am not alone in noticing a trend of older male's being the main source of this nonsense. Being the only one who doesn't play on a PC, I have to listen my friend groups talk to their virtual opponents, with their opponents being incredibly toxic overall. (I suppose this is what happens when one plays League of Legends.)
So, I generally have a good grasp on what is going on in the world of gaming, outside and within my circle. This is really why I decided to choose this topic, because it was not only something that allowed me to use my Media Arts/Film stuff for a big video, but also so I could show my thoughts on the idea of over-anger in gaming. It was a thought that came to me after looking for YouTube parody commercials, or even the most recent Spider-Man themed Liberty Mutual ad. I enjoy injecting humor into these serious situations, while never losing touch of why I am doing it to begin with. It reminds me of the Guerrilla Girls billboard where they put themselves up against art museums in a snarky way. The quote on the promotion actually reads "Art is expensive! So is constructing new buildings! We totally get why you can't pay all your employees a living wage!"
This all really goes back to meme culture, and how memes have sort of become new symbols against injustices, or have correlated through remade images. On the topic of memes made during Trumps presidency, Sage Lazzaro of Vice said that "Most are rooted either in expressing anger, mocking Trump, or collectively coping with the absurdity and even trauma of his presidency. " (Lazzaro) This is similar to what I've done, where I'm essentially rolling with the absurdity and letting it fuel my video a lot more. The toxic gamers I'm talking about have set themselves up for failure, which is not unlike the politicians who did the same during their runs, currently or before.
Building on the idea of these gamers setting themselves up and connecting back to politicians, Lizzie Fison of artsy.net said that "In recent internet history, politicians have set themselves up for ridicule by providing the perfect conditions for their memeification." (Fison) These young men spewing nonsense in game lobbies really do fall in line with politicians like Donald Trump who spewed nonsense and forced people to react in ways they might not have wanted to after hearing the things he said. It is a perfect comparison because both also may react in a childish manner when things don't go their way. Unfortunately, this means that my advice at the end of the video, where I say that ignoring these people is okay, may not always work.
In conclusion, I am glad that I chose the topic I did, because it means a lot that I have a platform to speak on, even if my opinion isn't new or anything special. I made a video, put it on YouTube, added some tags, and now I am hoping that the right people will get to see it and share their thoughts on the matter. It is a serious problem that hopefully I can help others take in better with a video that kind of puts down the people it is about.
Link: https://youtu.be/UB6bgL6P0hU
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