Hey guys, Sorry I haven't posted much lately, mainly because my real life has gotten that busy.
Trust me when I say that it's a "good" kind of busy, but it's also the kind of "busy" that's eating up a lot of my free time - including finishing up tons of drafts of my blog entries. Just so you know, I enjoy writing this blog. Very much, actually. But the demands on my personal time are getting to the point that I can't set aside the kind of time necessary to keep up the kind of pace that I want to be posting here, which is roughly 2-3 times a week.
So with that, I must consider the unfortunate possibility of curtailing my blogging drastically, because I don't want the quality of my posts to suffer by trying to write in a hurry. And in case you're wondering, there is a very slight possibility that I might have to stop blogging altogether.
Just so you know, I don't want that - I want to continue writing, so let me ask you all something about what I can do. Would you be willing to accept a very curtailed blog posting schedule? We are talking maybe 2-4 posts **a month**. There might be times in which I might be able to post more than that, but judging by what's ahead for me in my real life at least through the summer, I will be lucky to get out 2-4 posts a month.
Maybe - MAYBE - in the fall, things might slow down for me where I can return to my regular 2-3 posts a week, but that's too far ahead for me to predict right now. I can offer this in exchange: Since posting to Facebook doesn't eat up as much of my time, I can try to increase my FB presence there.
I do enjoy the commenting on news stories and the like on there. Will this work for you all? If you haven't already friended me there, then look me up as "Andromeda Perseus" and drop me a friend request.
I do thank you all for reading my blog. Again, I do not plan to stop blogging, but I will have to curtail how much I post here. Hopefully an increased presence on FB will make up for what I cut back on posting here on my blog.
Anyway, do let me know your thoughts on this, either here as a comment or on FB. Thanks! You're the best! :-D
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Thursday, March 24, 2011
NOW baby boomer feminists get it! Well, sort of...
This article tells a lot of what I had been saying in the third part of my Worgen Generation blog post. It also demonstrates the failure of feminism and its alleged intents of helping young women to be strong and independent. After about 40 to 50 years of basically owning the conversation of women and women's issues, feminists have failed in the most important way in that they failed to instill basic common sense into today's young girls and women. Let me highlight one particular passage from that article to illustrate an important point that I want to make here:
So you see what's going on here? The mom in this article is demonstrating a classic Baby Boomer trait in which she is more concerned about herself and how she'll appear to her daughter than being concerned with doing what's right for her daughter. Over and over in that article she mentions regret over how she lived her own youth and that she wishes she hadn't given "it" away.
Wait, give what away?
Did you catch that?
Did you notice she alludes to "the word" without actually saying it?
Know what word that is? Wanna take a guess?
Well, it starts with "v".
Another hint: It's considered a four-letter word nowadays even though it has 9 letters in it.
If you said "virginity", then good for you! Basically, this article is an argument for waiting until marriage before having sex, but it tries desperately to avoid saying that directly.
So as to not sound like a prude, of course.
But if her own life experience has told her that she would have been better off waiting until marriage, and if her own friends' experiences also say the same thing, then why not come out and say it? And why not try to encourage their daughters to not make the same mistake?
Oh, that's right. They don't want to sound like prudes. Avoiding even the appearance of prudery trumps logic and common sense.
Look, I could say here again the arguments and reasoning as to why waiting until marriage makes the best sense for young women, especially in how they relate (and procreate!) with young men, but no doubt you'll tune me out the very second that you read my words, no matter how much sense I make in creating my argument. So instead, read that article again, and then again, until you see that the author is making the argument that waiting until marriage to have sex makes the most sense for young women. If you ask her, she'll deny it, but if you read in between the lines, you'll see that that's exactly what she's saying.
And maybe one day, she'll even admit it to herself.
But probably not before her daughter has an unplanned pregnancy. \:-(
"So here we are, the feminist and postfeminist and postpill generation. We somehow survived our own teen and college years (except for those who didn't), and now, with the exception of some Mormons, evangelicals and Orthodox Jews, scads of us don't know how to teach our own sons and daughters not to give away their bodies so readily. We're embarrassed, and we don't want to be, God forbid, hypocrites."
So you see what's going on here? The mom in this article is demonstrating a classic Baby Boomer trait in which she is more concerned about herself and how she'll appear to her daughter than being concerned with doing what's right for her daughter. Over and over in that article she mentions regret over how she lived her own youth and that she wishes she hadn't given "it" away.
Wait, give what away?
Did you catch that?
Did you notice she alludes to "the word" without actually saying it?
Know what word that is? Wanna take a guess?
Well, it starts with "v".
Another hint: It's considered a four-letter word nowadays even though it has 9 letters in it.
If you said "virginity", then good for you! Basically, this article is an argument for waiting until marriage before having sex, but it tries desperately to avoid saying that directly.
So as to not sound like a prude, of course.
But if her own life experience has told her that she would have been better off waiting until marriage, and if her own friends' experiences also say the same thing, then why not come out and say it? And why not try to encourage their daughters to not make the same mistake?
Oh, that's right. They don't want to sound like prudes. Avoiding even the appearance of prudery trumps logic and common sense.
Look, I could say here again the arguments and reasoning as to why waiting until marriage makes the best sense for young women, especially in how they relate (and procreate!) with young men, but no doubt you'll tune me out the very second that you read my words, no matter how much sense I make in creating my argument. So instead, read that article again, and then again, until you see that the author is making the argument that waiting until marriage to have sex makes the most sense for young women. If you ask her, she'll deny it, but if you read in between the lines, you'll see that that's exactly what she's saying.
And maybe one day, she'll even admit it to herself.
But probably not before her daughter has an unplanned pregnancy. \:-(
Friday, March 18, 2011
Real Life Superheroes and The Code of my world
Earlier this week on FB, I had mentioned this website, the Real Life Superheroes. They are a group of real people who have taken to wearing superhero-styled costumes and going out to fight crime. In other words, they are living the lives previously seen only in comic books. So the question is, is this a good idea?
Well, I say that no, it's not a good idea. While superheroing is cool in the comic books, trying to do that in real life is taking the law into their own hands; that is, it's called vigilantism. It becomes a problem because each person has a different idea of "justice".
No society can possibly function if everyone is out trying to impose their idea of "justice" on the rest of us. If our society is going to advance in any way, shape, or form, then we all must try to abide by a set of agreed-upon set of rules so that we can concentrate on other things. If there are any problems with the agreed-upon set of rules, then that society can try to work it out.
There are, of course, some variances and subtleties that I'm leaving out (mainly in regards to living in an oppressive regime), but that's because they aren't necessary to the basic argument that taking the law into your own hands is generally not a good idea.
By the way, in my "universe", only those who work for the government's Department of Superhuman Studies are allowed to don costumes and fight crime in the traditional comic book sense. Regular humans are especially discouraged from wearing costumes and fighting crime in the comic book tradition because of a group of superhuman supremacists known as The Code.
The "code" of The Code refers to the genetic code that gives superhumans their powers, and like all supremacists, they believe that thier "community"; that is, the superhuman community, is above regular humans. They reject the current theories of superhuman scientists that say that superhumans are an offshoot of humanity rather than the next step up in human evolution.
Anyway, one of the core beliefs of The Code is that only superhumans can wear costumes and live the lives as depicted in comic books. Silly I know, but they think that only costumed superhuman can possibly come close to living up to the ideals shown in comics. Governments at all levels, from federal to state down to nearly all larger cities have laws forbidding humans from wearing superhero-styled costumes - not to oppress them but to protect them from The Code, who get so offended by humans wearing such costumes that they will punish them. If the costumed human is lucky, then the Code member will simply rip the costume off of them, but some members of The Code will use their powers to torture or even kill humans in costume.
In case you're wondering, The Code tolerates me wearing a superhuman costume because I'm superhuman, but they view me as a traitor because I work for the government. I've been in a constant battle with them, going back and forth with them trying to kill me because I work for the "oppressors of superhuman kind" and them trying to recruit me into their ranks. Same goes for Lucky Shot, my co-worker. In fact, one of the few things me and Lucky agree on is that we both can't stand The Code.
I'll try to write more on The Code another time, because they are a very interesting topic of study. Have a great weekend!
Well, I say that no, it's not a good idea. While superheroing is cool in the comic books, trying to do that in real life is taking the law into their own hands; that is, it's called vigilantism. It becomes a problem because each person has a different idea of "justice".
No society can possibly function if everyone is out trying to impose their idea of "justice" on the rest of us. If our society is going to advance in any way, shape, or form, then we all must try to abide by a set of agreed-upon set of rules so that we can concentrate on other things. If there are any problems with the agreed-upon set of rules, then that society can try to work it out.
There are, of course, some variances and subtleties that I'm leaving out (mainly in regards to living in an oppressive regime), but that's because they aren't necessary to the basic argument that taking the law into your own hands is generally not a good idea.
By the way, in my "universe", only those who work for the government's Department of Superhuman Studies are allowed to don costumes and fight crime in the traditional comic book sense. Regular humans are especially discouraged from wearing costumes and fighting crime in the comic book tradition because of a group of superhuman supremacists known as The Code.
The "code" of The Code refers to the genetic code that gives superhumans their powers, and like all supremacists, they believe that thier "community"; that is, the superhuman community, is above regular humans. They reject the current theories of superhuman scientists that say that superhumans are an offshoot of humanity rather than the next step up in human evolution.
Anyway, one of the core beliefs of The Code is that only superhumans can wear costumes and live the lives as depicted in comic books. Silly I know, but they think that only costumed superhuman can possibly come close to living up to the ideals shown in comics. Governments at all levels, from federal to state down to nearly all larger cities have laws forbidding humans from wearing superhero-styled costumes - not to oppress them but to protect them from The Code, who get so offended by humans wearing such costumes that they will punish them. If the costumed human is lucky, then the Code member will simply rip the costume off of them, but some members of The Code will use their powers to torture or even kill humans in costume.
In case you're wondering, The Code tolerates me wearing a superhuman costume because I'm superhuman, but they view me as a traitor because I work for the government. I've been in a constant battle with them, going back and forth with them trying to kill me because I work for the "oppressors of superhuman kind" and them trying to recruit me into their ranks. Same goes for Lucky Shot, my co-worker. In fact, one of the few things me and Lucky agree on is that we both can't stand The Code.
I'll try to write more on The Code another time, because they are a very interesting topic of study. Have a great weekend!
My take on the new Wonder Woman costume...
In case you're wondering what I think of the new Wonder Woman costume for the upcoming TV series, I can sum it up in three words. Ready?
It's horrible! The bustier is tolerable, but lose the damn early 1990s pants and those ugly blue boots! Why didn't they contact me about this? I would have told them what would work best!
My initial impressions of the upcoming series just took a dive, gang.
Blech.
DO
NOT
LIKE!
It's horrible! The bustier is tolerable, but lose the damn early 1990s pants and those ugly blue boots! Why didn't they contact me about this? I would have told them what would work best!
My initial impressions of the upcoming series just took a dive, gang.
Blech.
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
Busy week this week, so - see ya next week
Just an FYI, this week is going to be pretty busy for me, so I won't be posting again until probably Tuesday, when I have some time off. See you then!
I'll still be on FB, by the way.
I'll still be on FB, by the way.
Friday, March 4, 2011
Why the "Worgen Generation?" Part 3 of 3
And now we come to the third and last part of why I think we should name our generation the "Worgen Generation".
3.) The use of the worgen also reflects something about our upbringing, and to better explain that, I have posted a page from the current comics series "Curse of the Worgen" (this is from issue #3) at the bottom of my post. Please read it before continuing, then come back here.
***(continue here)***
In WoW lore, the city of Gilneas is a kingdom of humans that had shut itself off from the rest of the world in order to protect itself from what it saw was the increasing evils of the world (in this case, the world is named Azeroth). The good leaders had noble intentions, but such isolationist actions rarely succeed, and eventually the city found itself being attacked by a race known as the Forsaken (who belong to the aforementioned Horde), a group of undead zombies who have managed to regain their sentience.
Not only that, the Gilneans also found themselves attacked from within, by wolf-like creatures that eventually came to be known as worgen. The worgen curse is passed down by being bitten by a worgen, so eventually nearly the whole city was infected with the worgen curse, including its king, Genn Graymane, who had initially kept this secret from his subjects until later.
The worgen curse was brought to Gilneas by a night elf druid (night elves are a part of the Alliance) named Ralaan who is entirely convinced of the rightness of his "cause", which is to introduce the world to what he feels is the blessing of "Goldrinn" (a wolf god in WoW who is the source of the ability to turn into worgen). Becoming a worgen also means taking on and abandoning yourself into a primal and feral fury. Ralaan claims that becoming a worgen frees the mind from the inhibitions that we tend to impose on it, and he evens goes so far as to call it enlightenment and the thought processes while under the influence of being a worgen as "purity of thought". To run wild, in other words, is to run free, and that's what he wants to share with everyone.
Does this sound familiar? This is basically the bill of goods that our baby boomer parents and liberal leaders have fed us all this time - to abandon ourselves to our basic and carnal urges. They have fed this to us because they have fed this to themselves, believing somehow that releasing ourselves from our inhibitions and freeing ourselves to our various lusts will open our minds and broaden our horizons. Some of them got so caught up in their perverse definition of "enlightenment" that they abandoned certain other responsibilities - like to their children. But rather than feel guilty about abandoning their parental responsibilities to us, they instead tried to assuage their guilt by indoctrinating us into their hedonistic lifestyle.
Before you think I'm exaggerating here, think about your upbringing. First, consider that legalized abortion became available for our parents, who at the time were in the process of abandoning themselves to their lusts and urges, and as we all know, being pregnant tends to get in the way of hedonists practicing their "craft", and we just can't have that, can we? And who were these little obstructionists? Us! Our generation lost a great deal of our number - one third of us, according to some estimates - because the majority of those who got abortions simply didn't want to put up with the inconvenience of having and raising a baby. Sucks to be us, right?
Those of you of my generation who are reading these words were the lucky ones. However, our troubles didn't end there. Our generation also happened to be the ones that were latchkey kids; that is, you pretty much had to wake yourself up to get yourself ready for school and you had to walk yourself to school in the mornings and you had to walk yourselves back to an empty home and had to prepare your own meals. Why? Because your parents (if they were still married to each other) were gone early in the morning and often returned late at night.
How many of you also spent a great deal of time in daycare? How many of you spent a lot of time with your grandparents, or aunts or uncles? How many of you were *raised* by your grandparents, or aunts or uncles? How many of you have had multiple step-parents, and step-sibling, and half-sibling? How many marriages have your parents had? And most importantly, how many of you have been told by your parents that they are doing all this "for you"? Oh really? The multiple marriages and the mix-and-match families was for our benefit?
I wish that these parents would at least have the honesty to admit that they did all this for *their* benefit, and what was best for the kids was actually an afterthought. When they did do things "for us", it was actually to benefit them in some way. Also consider this when many of you were teens: How many of you knew a friend or had a friend who knew a friend whose parents were willing to buy them cigarettes, booze or drugs? I knew quite a few. Why would these parents do such a thing? This will probably also sound familiar: They wanted to be their children's"friend". I'm not a psychologist, but if I were to hazard a guess, I would say that this was their subconscious way of making up for their lack of parenting skills. But what kind of parent makes up for their absenteeism by handing their child a pack of cigarettes or a bottle of booze?
On top of all this was the fact that in school, we were subjected to all the stupid educational "theories" to come down the pike, and we were made the subjects of every stupid social experimentation they could come up with - all for "our own good", of course! I can't tell you how many times I watched friends of mine suffer needlessly because of the stupid selfish and hedonistic philosophies that our parents and teachers followed simply because that's what their contemporaries did. In other words, they were all being conformists in their nonconformity. You would think the irony would have smacked them in the head at some point!
Anyway, to wrap this up: We were a captive audience, much like the citizens of Gilneas in their walled city, because these people were our parents and our teachers. They followed their own "Ralaans" and their ideas of releasing yourself into your primal and carnal lusts as enlightenment. We were made to follow in these philosophies because we were raised - no, make that indoctrinated - into it much like the citizens of Gilneas who were infected with the worgen curse, so a bunch of us ran wild like the worgen did in Gilneas. This is why I say that we are worgen. We are the Worgen Generation.
But there are worgen who fought the feral passions through help and through magic and medicine that helped control those passions. They regained their self-control even as they still possessed the wolf-like body, but it's a battle they will have to fight for the rest of their lives. Much like we will have to fight our demons. But friends, we can do it, and we must do it. There is a night elf priest in the comic named Belysra who felt guilt over her role in the worgen infestation of the Gilnean population, and made up for it by helping Gilneans who are cursed as worgens to control their feral passions. I want to be our generation's Belysra.
The comic page below is the point that I want many more of us to get to - the realization that we have been misled by false prophets and that we have to take it upon ourselves to bring us out of the sort of "enlightenment" that they have promised. We may have been "cursed" by people who should have been our providers and protectors, but it doesn't mean that we have to stay "cursed". But first we have to open our eyes to the problem. Only then can we get to the point that the worgen is at in the page below.
So friends, let's take control of our lives and our destinies, and let's start by controlling the name by which we refer to ourselves: Let's be the Worgen Generation. May our howls be heard the world over!
3.) The use of the worgen also reflects something about our upbringing, and to better explain that, I have posted a page from the current comics series "Curse of the Worgen" (this is from issue #3) at the bottom of my post. Please read it before continuing, then come back here.
***(continue here)***
In WoW lore, the city of Gilneas is a kingdom of humans that had shut itself off from the rest of the world in order to protect itself from what it saw was the increasing evils of the world (in this case, the world is named Azeroth). The good leaders had noble intentions, but such isolationist actions rarely succeed, and eventually the city found itself being attacked by a race known as the Forsaken (who belong to the aforementioned Horde), a group of undead zombies who have managed to regain their sentience.
Not only that, the Gilneans also found themselves attacked from within, by wolf-like creatures that eventually came to be known as worgen. The worgen curse is passed down by being bitten by a worgen, so eventually nearly the whole city was infected with the worgen curse, including its king, Genn Graymane, who had initially kept this secret from his subjects until later.
The worgen curse was brought to Gilneas by a night elf druid (night elves are a part of the Alliance) named Ralaan who is entirely convinced of the rightness of his "cause", which is to introduce the world to what he feels is the blessing of "Goldrinn" (a wolf god in WoW who is the source of the ability to turn into worgen). Becoming a worgen also means taking on and abandoning yourself into a primal and feral fury. Ralaan claims that becoming a worgen frees the mind from the inhibitions that we tend to impose on it, and he evens goes so far as to call it enlightenment and the thought processes while under the influence of being a worgen as "purity of thought". To run wild, in other words, is to run free, and that's what he wants to share with everyone.
Does this sound familiar? This is basically the bill of goods that our baby boomer parents and liberal leaders have fed us all this time - to abandon ourselves to our basic and carnal urges. They have fed this to us because they have fed this to themselves, believing somehow that releasing ourselves from our inhibitions and freeing ourselves to our various lusts will open our minds and broaden our horizons. Some of them got so caught up in their perverse definition of "enlightenment" that they abandoned certain other responsibilities - like to their children. But rather than feel guilty about abandoning their parental responsibilities to us, they instead tried to assuage their guilt by indoctrinating us into their hedonistic lifestyle.
Before you think I'm exaggerating here, think about your upbringing. First, consider that legalized abortion became available for our parents, who at the time were in the process of abandoning themselves to their lusts and urges, and as we all know, being pregnant tends to get in the way of hedonists practicing their "craft", and we just can't have that, can we? And who were these little obstructionists? Us! Our generation lost a great deal of our number - one third of us, according to some estimates - because the majority of those who got abortions simply didn't want to put up with the inconvenience of having and raising a baby. Sucks to be us, right?
Those of you of my generation who are reading these words were the lucky ones. However, our troubles didn't end there. Our generation also happened to be the ones that were latchkey kids; that is, you pretty much had to wake yourself up to get yourself ready for school and you had to walk yourself to school in the mornings and you had to walk yourselves back to an empty home and had to prepare your own meals. Why? Because your parents (if they were still married to each other) were gone early in the morning and often returned late at night.
How many of you also spent a great deal of time in daycare? How many of you spent a lot of time with your grandparents, or aunts or uncles? How many of you were *raised* by your grandparents, or aunts or uncles? How many of you have had multiple step-parents, and step-sibling, and half-sibling? How many marriages have your parents had? And most importantly, how many of you have been told by your parents that they are doing all this "for you"? Oh really? The multiple marriages and the mix-and-match families was for our benefit?
I wish that these parents would at least have the honesty to admit that they did all this for *their* benefit, and what was best for the kids was actually an afterthought. When they did do things "for us", it was actually to benefit them in some way. Also consider this when many of you were teens: How many of you knew a friend or had a friend who knew a friend whose parents were willing to buy them cigarettes, booze or drugs? I knew quite a few. Why would these parents do such a thing? This will probably also sound familiar: They wanted to be their children's"friend". I'm not a psychologist, but if I were to hazard a guess, I would say that this was their subconscious way of making up for their lack of parenting skills. But what kind of parent makes up for their absenteeism by handing their child a pack of cigarettes or a bottle of booze?
On top of all this was the fact that in school, we were subjected to all the stupid educational "theories" to come down the pike, and we were made the subjects of every stupid social experimentation they could come up with - all for "our own good", of course! I can't tell you how many times I watched friends of mine suffer needlessly because of the stupid selfish and hedonistic philosophies that our parents and teachers followed simply because that's what their contemporaries did. In other words, they were all being conformists in their nonconformity. You would think the irony would have smacked them in the head at some point!
Anyway, to wrap this up: We were a captive audience, much like the citizens of Gilneas in their walled city, because these people were our parents and our teachers. They followed their own "Ralaans" and their ideas of releasing yourself into your primal and carnal lusts as enlightenment. We were made to follow in these philosophies because we were raised - no, make that indoctrinated - into it much like the citizens of Gilneas who were infected with the worgen curse, so a bunch of us ran wild like the worgen did in Gilneas. This is why I say that we are worgen. We are the Worgen Generation.
But there are worgen who fought the feral passions through help and through magic and medicine that helped control those passions. They regained their self-control even as they still possessed the wolf-like body, but it's a battle they will have to fight for the rest of their lives. Much like we will have to fight our demons. But friends, we can do it, and we must do it. There is a night elf priest in the comic named Belysra who felt guilt over her role in the worgen infestation of the Gilnean population, and made up for it by helping Gilneans who are cursed as worgens to control their feral passions. I want to be our generation's Belysra.
The comic page below is the point that I want many more of us to get to - the realization that we have been misled by false prophets and that we have to take it upon ourselves to bring us out of the sort of "enlightenment" that they have promised. We may have been "cursed" by people who should have been our providers and protectors, but it doesn't mean that we have to stay "cursed". But first we have to open our eyes to the problem. Only then can we get to the point that the worgen is at in the page below.
So friends, let's take control of our lives and our destinies, and let's start by controlling the name by which we refer to ourselves: Let's be the Worgen Generation. May our howls be heard the world over!
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
Why the "Worgen Generation?" Part 2 of 3
Today continues my discussion for calling ourselves the "Worgen Generation". Part 3 will come Friday.
2.) The use of worgen also reflects how we communicate with each other. To my knowledge, our generation is the first to make such extensive use of online communication. That can be done in the game of WoW, obviously, but we also make use of text-messaging, Facebook, and tweeting. We are the first to live, play and communicate in these virtual environments. I know there are concerns that by being in the virtual world so much, we are losing interpersonal skills, but I say that this does not have to be the case.
We have seen in recent weeks what technological interpersonal communication can do by the recent protests in the Middle East to help organize and protest the various countries' leaders. But this had been done a couple of years back in Iran and after that in the Tea Party movement in this country. We had utilized our technological skills to good use, and thwarted "the powers that be" by being in communication with each other beyond their control. They can, of course, cut off cellphone and Internet usage, but we had already lit the fuse of uprising by that point and have already created alternate forms of communications by that time.
In fact, compare our technological form of protest with the forms of “protest” the Baby Boomers used - that is, “sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll” – and see which had a more substantial and instantaneous effect. While our parents “tuned in, turned on, and dropped out”, our generation is toppling leaders – even leaders that have been established for decades. Leave the boomers with their drug-addled brains, venereal disease, dusty LPs, and “misty water-colored memories” of the way they were; we’ll take our technology and the societal changes that we can actually see taking place in front of our eyes, thank-you-very-much!
It's important to think of that: We had bypassed the usual methods the "powers that be" of controlling the message and content by being in contact with each other in these very personal and yet very open methods. In the past, a person of power who wanted to control the message would dump loads of money to various message outlets like the media. Now, however, we can be tweeting with each other in a matter of literally seconds, and we will have already spread our message to each other long before the person in question even knows what we've said.
In a sense, you can even say that we have our own language with "textspeak". For instance, most of my generation knows what this means virtually instantaneously: OMG! CYBI? IWL, AYS? LOL! I'm sure that most of you older folks can eventually figure out what I said, but I bet it took you a lot longer than the folks my age. The benefit of textspeak is that we can translate it faster than you can even if you happen to intercept our messages.
It can be said, really, that each generation speaks its own "language" that the previous generation doesn't understand, so why should we be any different? The benefit of being so adept at interpersonal technological communication is that we are readily available for each other - literally just a Tweet away! We can be in touch instantaneously with a lot more of our friends faster than you can be in touch with yours even your speed-dial! :-D
In closing, let me say that: All your communication base are belong to us! >:-)
On Friday, I will discuss the last point of suggesting the "Worgen Generation". See you then!
2.) The use of worgen also reflects how we communicate with each other. To my knowledge, our generation is the first to make such extensive use of online communication. That can be done in the game of WoW, obviously, but we also make use of text-messaging, Facebook, and tweeting. We are the first to live, play and communicate in these virtual environments. I know there are concerns that by being in the virtual world so much, we are losing interpersonal skills, but I say that this does not have to be the case.
We have seen in recent weeks what technological interpersonal communication can do by the recent protests in the Middle East to help organize and protest the various countries' leaders. But this had been done a couple of years back in Iran and after that in the Tea Party movement in this country. We had utilized our technological skills to good use, and thwarted "the powers that be" by being in communication with each other beyond their control. They can, of course, cut off cellphone and Internet usage, but we had already lit the fuse of uprising by that point and have already created alternate forms of communications by that time.
In fact, compare our technological form of protest with the forms of “protest” the Baby Boomers used - that is, “sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll” – and see which had a more substantial and instantaneous effect. While our parents “tuned in, turned on, and dropped out”, our generation is toppling leaders – even leaders that have been established for decades. Leave the boomers with their drug-addled brains, venereal disease, dusty LPs, and “misty water-colored memories” of the way they were; we’ll take our technology and the societal changes that we can actually see taking place in front of our eyes, thank-you-very-much!
It's important to think of that: We had bypassed the usual methods the "powers that be" of controlling the message and content by being in contact with each other in these very personal and yet very open methods. In the past, a person of power who wanted to control the message would dump loads of money to various message outlets like the media. Now, however, we can be tweeting with each other in a matter of literally seconds, and we will have already spread our message to each other long before the person in question even knows what we've said.
In a sense, you can even say that we have our own language with "textspeak". For instance, most of my generation knows what this means virtually instantaneously: OMG! CYBI? IWL, AYS? LOL! I'm sure that most of you older folks can eventually figure out what I said, but I bet it took you a lot longer than the folks my age. The benefit of textspeak is that we can translate it faster than you can even if you happen to intercept our messages.
It can be said, really, that each generation speaks its own "language" that the previous generation doesn't understand, so why should we be any different? The benefit of being so adept at interpersonal technological communication is that we are readily available for each other - literally just a Tweet away! We can be in touch instantaneously with a lot more of our friends faster than you can be in touch with yours even your speed-dial! :-D
In closing, let me say that: All your communication base are belong to us! >:-)
On Friday, I will discuss the last point of suggesting the "Worgen Generation". See you then!
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