my favorite meme

My favorite meme right now is an image of this cat which has been floating around the internet: http://nerdapproved.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/pikachu-cat.jpg

I have no idea where the original came from, but it's brilliant. Perhaps it stems out of lolcats; it has been clearly established after all that the entire internet likes cats. Plus, Pokemon is an international phenomenon that almost everyone is aware of. Combine the two and you have a recipe for memetic success. It is just another variation of a lolcat, but it's unique variation allowed it to rise to fame, a type of evolutionary success.

(By the way, no cats were harmed in the creation of this meme, it's been confirmed that the image was photoshoped.)

matrix/plato

I think that the obvious analogy between the republic and the matrix is how the cave = the matrix. In both inhabitants are blinded to some greater reality and live in ignorance of the truth. In the cave, people can only see shadows and are limited to a single perspective because their heads are chained down. In the matrix, people are forced into this fake reality by machines and have no way to escape by themselves. In both cases "ignorance is bliss", as cypher says when he eats his virtual steak. The virtual pleasures of the matrix are not real. Similarly, people in the cave can not conceive of a world outside the cave and therefore have nothing to be jealous about. Blindness and sight are also reoccurring themes - Neo's eyes hurt when he first enters the matrix and Morpheous tells him it's because he's never used them (in a very metaphorical way). The cave people when exposed to the light of the outside also turn away because of the pain in a more literal way. Both are hinting at the idea that the truth is is overwhelming hard to take in if you have been sheltered from it for so long.

In terms of our own media age, I can clearly see how people before the age of electricity would be considered like people in the cave. They were technologically advanced, but they knew no other reality so they didn't have a problem with it. Even looking at old people today who are confused by new technology is an example of someone's eyes being hurt by the light. I don't think there is a red pill for totally erasing everything we know about technology after we have been exposed to it, but I suppose living in the wilderness could help move you along that path.

stress & tranquility

Media Toolkit - Layla K

Medium is the message

While a lot of this reading was hard for me to grasp, a few points did really make sense to me. I really agree with McLuhan’s opinion that, “the effects of technology do not occur at the level of opinions or concepts, but alter sense ratios or patterns of perception steadily and without any resistance.” We are bombarded by so much media today in America that you are absolutely bound to absorb some of it even if you try your hardest not to. What I didn’t necessarily agree with was his claim that, “the serious artist is the only persona able to encounter technology with impunity, just because he is an expert aware of the changes in sense perception." Sure artists tend to be open-minded and reject some surface level conformity, but they are still surrounded by the same media we are. They still see advertisements walking down the street and have to at least hear about current media and technology from other people. McLunhan’s claim seems like a large generalization to me I don’t think that being aware of your sensory perception is enough to allow you to supercede the influence of media and technology.