Mike Bielaczyc once said when I first met him that he didn't realize how much time he wasted playing video games until he actually stopped playing them. That was the start of a new life for him, from what I remember, and he now makes a ton of money selling fantasy prosthetics (elf ears, satyr horns, etc.) to his respective obsessive fan subculture that he is a part of.
Today marks the day that I officially quit from Disney's advert-gaming experience known as Virtual Magic Kingdom. This MMOG (Massively Multi-Player Online Game) was designed to advertise the Disney parks while providing a free game of sorts to people who couldn't experience the magic of the theme park.
Some magic. Since I joined the game about two and a half years ago, I watched it devolve into a pool of general hormonal angst where the youth of our generation think it is a requirement to hook up with another player and pretend to be boyfriend and girlfriend. Completely unaware that the person they may be pretending with may very well be an adult. That's not including the fact that kids these days will curse at you the moment they do not get their way, at least in the game, calling you things like "cheater" if you win a player-verses-player game fair and square.
The bottom line is that this free game has attracted a group of people I not only pity but wish not to be around anymore. They are an obsessive fan base that is not only obsessed with Disney, as I am, but are obsessed with themselves. I'm not going to even attempt to psychoanalyze them; I don't have that right. All I know is that these bad apples are spoiling the entire bushel, and what few good apples that are in there have already been taken out.
What Mike said was true. Looking back on my VMK experience, I can't believe that I spent two and a half years with that game, often devoting entire weekends to it for the sake of some Flash animation for my avatar. As someone who swore he wouldn't fall into the same category as those who play EverQuest and World of Warcraft, it only serves as ironic that I fell to that level through my own fandom with Disney.
Expressing honest thoughts to everyone and no one at the same time.
About Me
Wishlist and Other Nonsense
Followers or Fans
Labels and Tagged Posts
Blog Archive
-
▼
2008
(176)
-
▼
March
(29)
- Birthday Thoughts
- A&E: Avatar and Explination
- The List (Part 2)
- The List (Part 1)
- No Work and No Play
- I honestly do not know!
- Focus Deferred
- 12 Hour Studio Day
- No Leg To Stand On
- Paper: DONE! Art: None?
- Art? What Art?
- Prometheus and Bob
- Porn Subculture & The Online Youth
- For Jason
- Juvenile Moment
- What I Did Wrong
- Part of Me @ Odds
- Should-a Would-a Didn't Done Do
- At School During Spring Break
- How Quickly the Weak Fall
- What we have here is a failure to communicate.
- No Help, No Choice
- Why bother now?
- Good-Bye Virtual Magic Kingdom
- Avatar Sculptures Update
- Relics of the Past Resurfaced
- It's Finally My Turn
- Riddle Me This, Batman!
- Birthday Thesis Theme Park
-
▼
March
(29)
2 comments:
Jon,
I don't play games on the computer but sometimes I am aware that I spend too much time on MySpace. And I have this compulsion to answer emails when they are really not personal at all. I am trying to resist that impulse.
Pretending is a game but it is a one-sided affair and only a game for the pretender unless both people are fully aware that the other is pretending. This is the reason that I have few MySpace friends. I prefer to have met them face to face or at least personally know someone who has met them. I do have one who I suspect is a pretender.
This is a bit of good news about you. You will have time for more productive things, maybe even mould making.
Robert
Good riddance to anything related to Disney. Especially anything Disney-related that soaks up your time and mental energy like some kind of ferocious parasite. God that company burns me up, with their plastic mouse logo everywhere and shameless celebrity child-labor.
Britney Spears, Olsen Twins, Linsay Lohan - these are the products of a Disney childhood, the ideals in which we let our children baste as if wholesome and good. It's delusional and paralyzing. It's mind-numbing, deceiptfully corrupt, and evil. That company is taking our country to hell like one of its own demonic villains, laughing at how easily we're letting it happen. All under the guise of cartoonish innocence and nostalgic bullshit. "Oh it's only harmless entertainment" or "it's only an innocent cartoon" - this is wool over our eyes. It should be easy to see that we have loaded the Disney Corporation up with unfathomable power (money) and now it has its poisonous tentacles embedded deeply in nearly every aspect of our culture, our lives, our minds.
Having said that, I applaud you for your efforts to cut away anything that you find addictive. This is a marvelous step toward greater empowerment and independence. I say "good for you!" and if I were wearing a hat, I would doff it in your honor.
Now would someone please help me slay this evil corporate giant?
Post a Comment