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Why I’m retro (and not in a good way)

By ~LS~ On May 29, 2009 · Add Comment · In Generations, Pop Culture, The Quotidian (yadda yadda) and tagged Tagged With: Age, Consumption, Generations, Pop Culture, Silliness

1.I still play on text-based games (muds, mux, etc.). Most of the gaming world has moved onto MMORPGs.

2. My cellphone is the one they sell to senior citizens. Big digit buttons, no keyboard for texting. I don’t text. I don’t surf. I don’t even download ringtones. In fact, I don’t even keep my cellphone on. I just turn it on to call out.

3. Until my new computer this week, I didn’t have the capacity to play DVDs on my computer.

4. Until this week, I was using html frames instead of CSS for my website.

5. I would rather play D&D 3.5 than move to 4.0. Partly because I don’t like 4.0 and partly because I just don’t want to bother to learn a new system.

6. Teaching public speaking. I have long thought that public speaking organized around the standard informative, commemorative, and persuasive schtick was utterly [...]

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Amateur Porn

By ~LS~ On July 23, 2008 · 4 Comments · In Feminism, Pop Culture, The Web and tagged Tagged With: Consumption, Feminism, Media Ecology, Pop Culture, Sex, Sexism

One of the things new media critics point out is the way that new media technologies turn consumers into producers. Nowhere is this more true than in amateur porn production. I just read an article in Wired about how the porn industry is feeling the economic crunch. One of the reasons that the porn industry is posting losses is the endless free supply of amateur porn. Of course, despite the losses, the porn industry is still thriving, but it makes me think of the relationship between amateur and professional porn.

The whole idea of amateur porn raises a host of issues about women’s autonomy and subjectivity for me. All the feminist arguments about exploitation, victimization, hate speech, and objectification become more complicated within the context of amateur porn.

1. One can say that in amateur porn, women have choice and even control (though the notion of choice is always [...]

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Americans Deeper in Debt

By ~LS~ On July 22, 2008 · 1 Comment · In Politics and tagged Tagged With: Consumption, Money

My relationship with money is very strange. I’m constantly comparing myself to other people to see how I’m doing financially and I’m never satisfied with my status. I live in a shoebox of a little house, I drive a low end car, most of my “stuff” is low end (my computer, my phones, my mp3 player, my coffee, my groceries, etc.). I’m never happy. I always marvel at how other people can afford SUVs and private school tuition. According to all the stats I’ve read, we are at the upper end of income in Baton Rouge. I know I don’t live in an exceptionally rich part of town, but I look at my neighbors’ yards, cars, houses, and I feel inadequate. I recall bell hooks, when writing about her BMW (maybe it was in _Where We Stand: Class Matters_), saying something about feeling this way as a child of poverty [...]

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Wall-E

By ~LS~ On July 6, 2008 · 2 Comments · In Capitalism, Politics, Pop Culture and tagged Tagged With: Consumption, Movies, Pop Culture

I liked the movie Wall-E. I didn’t love it, the way so many people do. But I liked it. I thought the message about the environment, consumption, and technology was an obvious one. One that a six year old and maybe even a four year old would get. But Frank Rich of the NYT waxes rhapsodic about the movie in the context of this year’s political campaign. He writes:

One of the great things about art, including popular art, is that it can hit audiences at a profound level beyond words. That includes children. The kids at “Wall-E” were never restless, despite the movie’s often melancholy mood and few belly laughs. They seemed to instinctually understand what “Wall-E” was saying; they didn’t pepper their chaperones with questions along the way. At the end they clapped their small hands. What they applauded was not some banal cartoonish triumph of good [...]

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I’m a new old hippie: Doc Martens

By ~LS~ On April 15, 2007 · 2 Comments · In Generations, Pop Culture and tagged Tagged With: Age, Capitalism, Consumption

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Second Life

By ~LS~ On April 4, 2007 · 1 Comment · In Technology, The Web and tagged Tagged With: Consumption, Pop Culture, Technoculture

About a year and a half ago, someone told me about Second Life, the mmorpg. I got a character there and I even bought a new video card to play there. I was very psyched about joining. I spent a couple of weeks learning how to get around and building my character. But after that, there was nothing to do except go shopping or build things, and if you’re not into code, building things is kinda boring and frustrating. So I stopped going even though I have several VR friends who go there. It seemed to me that people don’t really RP there the way they do on mushes, so I just wasn’t interested. It reminded me a lot of Furrymuck. But now Second Life is really huge and I keep seeing stories about it popping up in the press. For instance, someone named “Stroker” just sold his “Amsterdam” [...]

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Why I’m retro (and not in a good way)

Amateur Porn

Americans Deeper in Debt

Wall-E

I’m a new old hippie: Doc Martens

Second Life

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