IT ALL STARTS WITH A KNOCK ON THE DOOR

Yesterday I heard a knock on my door. Thought that it was my friend since I am not from Tampere and nobody here knows where I live, except the friend who's also an exchange student from Latvia. Anyways, after opening the doors I saw two young ladies. They greeted me and asked if I have time. I said yes. The lady asked if I believe that there can be good news also besides all the bad news that are everywhere. I got confused and asked what did she mean. Then she pulled out her phone and said that she will show me just a one minute long video. See the video below.

After the watching it I explained to her my position towards the video and religion in general. Didn't wanted to waste my time much more on the conversation. Suggested to both of them to watch "HyperNormalisation" by Adam Curtis and wished a good day. She said to me that in case I have some questions that I can visit a site that she showed me on the back of the booklet. Both of them went to the next door.

I felt very amused about the video.

The visual side to it consists of classical royalty-free stock footage videos as well as the soundtrack. It is nothing too original, specific or artsy to please everyone. It's polite. For me personally it doesn't work. These kind of videos seem very basic and fake, they disaffect me in the first three seconds.

If we think of informational videos that every one of them shouldn't be abstract and artsy. Some videos are there just to simply deliver the message. Still you can do that without being banal and misinforming. It all depends on the auditory, goals, budget and what kind of self image authors of the video are trying to make.

What irritates me most about the video that it just yells without any facts. Okay, yes, some bad footage is used in the beginning, but what is happening there? From where is it taken? After switching to the Bible part, it seems that they are suggesting not to dig deeper in what is actually happening if it contains suffering and just open the Bible and get lost in it, to concentrate only on the "most important" stuff (what's the meaning of the life etc.). And I thought why it is like that? It's because this Bible video is not an informational video it is a commercial that's why it lacks facts. It is just a trap for the viewer. I think that this commercial is effective if we think of the certain auditory it is trying to reach. According to the video - people who would not prefer to think too much, everything is spoon-fed to them.

If we look at their webpage we can see that they are using all kinds of media - books, magazines, videos, music, brochures, photos, internet. From this I can conclude that their goal is simple - to reach as most people as possible. They are laying out for you to the maximum, that makes them seem not desirable to me. The game is weak. Maybe they should start getting into the theory of gamification and try to put it into practice, hahaha. "Download this AR app and go out to meet all the personas from the Bible to solve the big puzzle!" Ding ding ding!

"Bad news is everywhere." We have a solution!!! "Good news from God." This simple concept reminds me of silly TV commercials about household products – infomercials.

There's a lot of parodies about the format of infomercials. "Cinco Pasta Bear" by comedians Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim is one good example.

After the Jehovah's Witnesses went away I thought: "Since I am not going into the website that they gave me, I expect them to not watch the movie. It was all a waste of time for all of us." Ha! Turns out I opened the website after all to find the video for this post. But I didn't do that to find some "good" news, so I was right about myself. Maybe the same as me guided by different reason they will watch the movie eventually.

"TWITTER IS BASICALLY A MUTUAL APPROVAL MACHINE"

Tonight while resting and watching TED talks I stumbled upon a talk "How one tweet can ruin your life" by Jon Ronson. Talk is about one sarcastic joke in Twitter by a women and how it turned her life upside down. I suggest you to really watch it. If only over your dead body then at least read the quotes from the talk below. 

"Twitter is basically a mutual approval machine. We surround ourselves with people who feel the same way we do, and we approve each-other, and that's a really good feeling. And if somebody gets in a way we screen them out. And do you know what that's the opposite of? It's the opposite of democracy." 

"Maybe there's two types of people in the world: those people who favour humans over ideology, and those people who favour ideology over humans. I favour humans over ideology, but right now the ideologues are winning, and they're creating a stage for constant artificial high dramas where everybody's either a magnificent hero or a sickening villain, even though we know that's not true about our fellow humans. What's true is that we are clever and stupid; what's true is that we are grey areas. The great thing about social media was how it gave a voice to voiceless people, but now we are creating a surveillance society, where the smartest way to survive is to go back being voiceless. Let's not do that."

"My friend Adam Curtis says that maybe the internet is like a John Carpenter movie from the 1980s, when eventually everyone will start screaming at each other and shooting each other, and then eventually everybody would flee to somewhere safer, and I am starting to think of that as a really nice option."

– Jon Ronson

VIDEO GAME AND HOW IT WORKS AS A STORY

So, if I have to choose one game and how it works as a story I'd like to highlight a game called "The Stanley Parable", because of it's uniqueness. If I think of a video game, the first thing that comes in my mind is being able to run, jump, shoot, interact with the environment in different ways. What I find very interesting about "The Stanley Parable" is that there's a world – an office, a main character – Stanley, you can walk around, open doors, press something, but everything makes sense only, because of the voice of the narrator.

The narrator is what creates a story as you go as Stanley in different places. It starts with the description of the main character and what is going on that point, what has just happened (introduction + problem), then you can start to move around and explore while hearing the voice of the narrator who sometimes tells what Stanley is thinking, what he should do or should not do. Start of the game is always the same, but ending is based on what choices did the player make.

Firstly, I find very interesting the choice making. Here's a good description about it: "The narrator continues the story, but when the player comes to an area where a choice is possible, the narrator will suggest which route Stanley will take. The player can opt to go against the narrator and perform the other action, forcing the narration to account for this new direction which may return the player back to the target path or create a new narration. For example, the first choice the player makes in the game is at a set of two open doors, with the narrator stating that Stanley chose the left door; the player can choose to follow this narration, which keeps the narrator's story on track, or may choose the right door, which makes the narrator annoyed and causes him to pressure the player to return to the 'proper' path. Because of this, much of the story is considered thought-provoking about the nature of choice and decisions." (From Wikipedia)

Structure of the game with all the possible paths

Secondly, I find breaking the fourth wall moments in the game very stirring. Sometimes the narrator reminds that this is only just a game and acknowledge that Stanley is being controlled by a player.

Lastly, my favorite thing about this game is that only with the voice and minimal interactivity it is so hilarious, interesting and enjoyable. Here's one great example from the Demo version where you are asked to choose and press one button and after that narrator says to you "Did you know that 94% of all people who select that particular button are sexual predators?"

I suggest you to try playing the Demo version of the game to get the taste. It will not take a lot of time plus it's free. If not then here's a video of the beginning of the game.

!!!!!!! But, wait! There's more!

Since I am talking about games. I feel the urge to mention the excellent, the genius, one and only - Pippin Bar and his most recent game "It is as if you were doing work". You can play it here.

This game is genius, because it is enough easy to continue playing it, enough hard to find it interesting and the best part is that the name of the game fits perfectly how you look from other people's point of view when you are playing it.

ADVENTURES OF MINDTREK 2017

To be super honest I have to tell that writing about my experience in Mindtrek is really hard, because I don’t remember everything as good as I wish I would. Started writing this by staring into my notes from talks and looking through the photos of presentations. Wanted to write it the way it usually should be written - chronologically with quotes and my reflection of them. Decided to do the opposite. Below I will write down whatever pops into my mind in whatever order it does when I am trying to remember those two days in Mindtrek.

My friend had a badge with her name and under it as her’s occupation was written “Puppy Master”. It was official for two days. After first day at the Mindtrek after-party there was also one of the organizers who said that he remembers the Puppy Master and had a great laugh about it.

Before the Conference Opening the technical guy was putting on the presentation and I got annoyed that he was not using projector’s screen as a second screen. I checked out in the booklet the name of the event where I was sitting and read “International Technology Conference”. Looked up again to the screen and followed every step in the screen as the technical guy was opening Powerpoint in the computer. I had two following thoughts: 1) The little things; 2) Focus on the big picture.

I missed with my friend the beginning of the second day, because we got too much free drink coupons last night at the after-party.

The first big speech by the Huawei guy in the first day was really uplifting and I felt satisfaction from finding out the new term XR which is used to describe VR, AR and MR in one term.

I really enjoyed having free food for two days. Cakes. Coffees. Lunch. Sandwiches.

The health issue that I have heard about recently from VR headsets in public spaces are eye herpes. I saw that no one was cleaning and disinfecting the headsets in Mindtrek.

It was clear that Mindtrek was about selling your stuff, idea and so on, because nobody there was talking about what is bad about all these new technologies. It would be interesting to hear minuses for a change. I was curious about that.

There was this one talk about picking trees in the wood with a truck???? Okay, I cheated and looked up the name of the talk so it makes more sense. It was “Immersive Tech Reforms Machine Operator’s Work”. The start of the talk was a bit ?clumsy?, because the speaker did not speak fluently english and seemed stressed. The moment he cut to the chase about using VR and AR in his company’s work it all clicked and seemed super interesting. When you think of any of XR technology usually the first thing that pops into the mind is games, secondly art, thirdly apps/practical stuff like placing furniture in the room. Worker who needs to put trees in the truck and uses for that VR headset in his cabin was something new.

Also interesting was talk about Moomin Museum project. You can’t touch and see everything when you look at the real house in the museum. The solution for this problem was that they created a 3D model of Moomin House through which you can walk around using a tablet. They also are working on VR version. Reasons why this kind of system is still not in the museum is that: 1) One person experience; 2) Equipment pricy and it takes too lot of attention to look after it; 3) It is clever to wait for a cheaper and accessible version of VR to come out. The idea that popped into my mind was that it would be really cool to walk through this house using VR in real time so that the user can look through the windows and see the people as they are standing tall or looking inside the windows.

A big thing in Mindtrek was not only the Emerging Technologies, but also they talked a lot about Smart Cities. From one talk I remember an interesting fact about Copenhagen. People from public sector and private sector are shifting quite often and results are really good. This kind of model gives an insight from both perspectives to the well being of the city, makes city more flexible and fosters cooperation. Made me think about my hometown Liepaja where there is the same people working in the same positions for 20 years. And we are talking about being a Smart City?! Whatever that guy was selling, I bought it.

Hmmnnn, what else?

The second day one talk was about... *cheating*... “The Experience Age: Virtual, Augmented, and Mixed Reality”. Raven Zachary was predicting that most likely the AR will survive and will be used the most in a couple of years.

After second day I was really exhausted. But the adventure time did not end just there. We took one man’s badge from recycling box to give it to our friend so all three of us could sneak in the opening party where we did not registered. Fun times. In the evening we went home and the adventure of Mindtrek ends there.       

SOCIAL MEDIA MAKES ME SICK, BUT I STILL DO IT

Nardwuar interviews Lil B 

Recently I have come to conclusion that I feel like a junkie when I am using social media. I want more, I need to use it regularly. I get satisfaction from it, but it does not last long. I notice that a lot of people are "on" it and don't question it enough. It feels like a river, once you're in the water it is hard to go against the flow. Further on I will be raising some questions, bringing up some comparisons and sharing some conclusions.

You always need to scroll it through to the place you left before. You just can’t risk it, what will happen if you will miss something that you might have liked? Internet is so big, there probably will not be a second lucky time for you to spot that one perfect photo. You can’t get lucky twice. The photo you just liked is special. Doesn’t matter that you will not look at it again. Now it is there. It’s a part of your special collection and you feel satisfied.

What is this void that I am trying to fill? Why do I feel like it is important to be updated all the time? Do others feel that they want to “delete themselves” from everywhere as well? And why do I feel this satisfaction from being online?

From the moment when almost everyone had access to the internet the life that we knew before was gone. Nowadays, we all have all the necessary tools to create, whether it is uploading a video in Youtube or writing a comment under a post in Facebook. Each of us have become our own publicity machine. We upload images, we add descriptions, we create stories, we create our own dream self for people to see. It is just a click away.

Social media gives you the feeling of power, you can pretty easily create, reorder, collect, organise, find, explore, travel, so on.
Also it allows, or more accurately, it insists that you create a personality. It is all about expressing oneself, being unique, having a voice, even better - having an opinion. Social media goes hand in hand with that. Customize this, choose this, import that and so on. We have a frame in which we have a freedom. We tend to do everything how we want, how we think we should. Today we can really get to know what humans are like in just a second. More content, more freedom, less time, less long-term.

When it comes to Instagram it gets interesting. I find it easy to analyze, because of the limited options. Section of your posts, timeline to see posts of people you follow, explore section to see posts of people you don't follow, section of notifications about likes that you received & activity section of people you follow.
The idea about Instagram is not completely new in itself. It is a summary, improvement and addition of all the old things. Publicity, photography, self expression.
A lot of people don't look anymore what others have likes. They don't even look at posts that were liked by themselves. If we some accounts, the count of the likes on their post can tell us if it is a trend or not, how much people was moved by the photo, how much people want to be the person in the photo or have the same life.

This movement, this idea behind the photo seemed binding, relatable to 584,371 accounts (people, companies).

This movement, this idea behind the photo seemed binding, relatable to 30,186 accounts.

This movement, this idea behind the photo seemed binding, relatable to 137,458 accounts.

This movement, this idea behind the photo seemed binding, relatable to 4,251 accounts.

This movement, this idea behind the photo seemed binding, relatable to 240,193 accounts.

When we like the photos of close persons such as friends or relatives, we are supporting them, agreeing to them, we are delightful about them.

If we don't look or use our special collection of liked posts, why do we keep upgrading it? Is it just a momentary reminder that we are, that we relate? Is it a manifestation of our position?

If we keep being active for ourselves, keeping in mind that nobody really pay attention to what we are thinking, doing, is there a reason to continue? If a photo is posted on Instagram and no one noticed it, does it make a difference?
Supporting. I believe that this worth the attention. I took part. I am worth it. I am significant. Does having your own values, opinion define you or expressing it define you? I pressed “like”, therefore I am. We create evidences of our existence by being on social sites. As Roland Barthes says in his book Camera Lucida: “Photography authenticates the existence of a certain being.”
"
Some safety regulations for using Instagram:
Be careful with the count of people you follow.You don’t want to be stuck on your phone 24/7. Of course there has been some days like that, but you have some other things to do too.

If you stalk someone, never like an old photo, because you don’t want them to know that you are more interested in them as you like them to think.

Try not to get depressed if you don’t have a lot of likes on your last amazing, super cool, creative, unique photo.
You know that amount of likes doesn’t mean anything, especially the fact that the boring person from school who is not even funny or smart, there is really nothing interesting about her, got twice as much likes on one photo than you, you don’t care about that at all, because Instagram is a joke actually (50/50 sarcasm).
Don't press “like” to all the memes you find funny.Everyone is shitposting (all their content consists of memes). You think it makes them look unprofessional, the way that all their life is actually one big joke. You don't want others to think about you that. “Like” only really funny jokes, that goes along with the impression you want to make about yourself. Doesn't matter that the joke about drinking was really funny, you don't want others to know that you can relate to it. You joke with your friends about dumb stuff, not in the public space a.k.a. the internet. 
"
Deleting social media apps from your phone for a certain time and watching “The Ways of Seeing” by John Berger is a good therapy.

MY SOCIAL MEDIA HISTORY LESSON

First time I sat down by the computer and actually did something with it was in 2001 when I was 5 years old at my mother's work. I played a game called “Lines'98”. As time passed by my interests changed – not only games interested me from now on. In 2004 when I was 8 we already had a computer at home so when my cousin came over and showed me a social internet platform called one.lv. Back then it was the most popular site for russian speakers in Latvia to socialise and it was also my first experience with creating social identity. The fact that I did not speak any russian makes it all seem quite absurd today, but there were also some Latvians registered.

The same year Latvians came up with their own social site called draugiem.lv so I registered there and started to use it regularly.

From 2011 till now I am a registered user of Twitter.

I guess somewhere from 2011 till 2013 I used Tumblr as well.

In 2013 as I like to say I “deleted myself” (instead of “deleted my profile” since social media plays such a big role in our life today, of course if we let it) from draugiem.lv and switched only to Facebook. I'm still using it.

From 2013 till now I am a registered user of Instagram.

Facebook, Instagram and Twitter are my main social media platforms that I use today.

Main reasons:

Facebook for me is to get in touch, network, get new information from my groups of interest.

Instagram to see how my friends are doing, get inspired from visual material.

Twitter to get satisfaction from smart, genius, laconic thoughts about any subject.

Poorly Drawn Lines

SITUATION "XXXTENTACION" FROM MY POINT OF VIEW

Lately I have been positively surprised about how much of new albums and music in general has been released in a month or so. When I listen to a good, new (new to me not necessarily it needs to be on the freshest sounds top 20 list) song I can feel energy and satisfaction running through my whole body, that is why I take it seriously and usually spend a lot of time digging through Spotify, Soundcloud, Youtube and the internet in general.

Since there is a lot of albums that I need to listen to, this time I wrote them down in a list. Album “17” by only 19 years old american rapper XXXTentacion was one of them. Album was released on 25th of August, 2017. It has 11 songs on it.

Album Artwork

I listened to it on Spotify and added some songs that I liked to my playlist so they don't get lost. If the song seem interesting to me I almost always look up for the lyrics in genius.com and read them to myself as the song is playing in the background to get a better insight of the song's message.

XXXTentacion

After that I looked up XXXTentacion since I did not know much about him. The first thing that I found was an article in XXL magazines website (XXL is an American hip hop magazine) that said “New Details Emerge in XXXTentacion’s Domestic Battery Case”. It was about XXXTentacion being seued for abusing (hitting, threatening) his ex-girlfriend. You can read excerpts from the alleged victim's testimony in the article here. After reading the article I started questioning if I still want to listen to his music.

Later that day in one post's comment section in Facebook about good music to listen to one guy wrote “XXXTentacion” to which he got a reply – see the screenshots below:

That made me get again interested in this topic, because I still wasn't sure if I wanted to listen to his music, support him or not. So I looked up in google “XXXTentacion fighting” and got this. From the video you can tell that XXXTentacion is fighting someone. In my opinion it is always very important to be critical and to try to raise and answer some questions, for example, in this case – Why the fight is happening in the first place?; Why is nobody getting involved or stopping the fight?; Why are everyone filming it?; Are the fight out of hate?; How did it started and ended?; etc. I couldn't answer to all of those questions, that's why I didn't jump to any conclusions. Nothing in the world is black and white.

The next day I talked to my friends about this and asked their opinion about this situation – music is good, reputation is bad and if I like the music should I take unsure information into my account or should I not, keeping in mind that every time I play his song I am supporting him (artists get money from Spotify).

After the conversation I came to some conclusions about this situation:

1. Music to me don't have a race, country, gender, sexuality and so on.
2. Bad reputation is also a good commercial.
3. It is very important to today artists to create not only music, but also appealing self-image to their main auditory and it is easy to do so since everyone can follow artist's every move on social media.
4. Artist's created self-image should not be taken as the truth about the artist's personality.
5. People usually mix created self-image and the person's real personality and after that jump to conclusions, get disappointed.
6. Good music is good music and I am supporting the music not the actions. In a way of course the money from my pocket is putting the bread in artist's mouth, but it is not possible to know everything, every artist's action and thought about anything.
7. I am not the center of the world and it is okay to disagree with someone, have different beliefs etc. For example, XXXTentacion is fighting in the video, but I do not support fighting. It would be stupid, in my opinion, to judge music or art from that point of view.

In the end of the day, I think everyone just wants to be a better person. You can use your values scale to make your life better for yourself, but it is disrespectful to expect that others have the same values scale or will be willing to always agree to yours no matter how logical your facts are.

Later that day, my friend sent me a video “If You Hate XXXTentacion Watch This Video”. It is a compilation of all the good XXXTentacion's actions. You can make everything look how you want it to look. In reality nothing is just black and white.

In this case I don't think that facts from the internet or other medium can be fully trusted, because through the history everyone has always tried to manipulate and control people. But a lot of topics sure are worth a discussion. Eventually, you will need to choose what to trust or not to trust and why anyways.