The Gift of Sight.: Games and Avatars: For Game Freaks Only! (Wk 10)

What is Cyberculture?

Cyberculture is a culture where people have the advanced knowledge of computer information, the internet and basically just having the extra knowledge of the cyber world.

'Cyberculture is, simply, the conjunction of several political, historical, and social structures that share the present locus in time occupied by dominant Western capitalist culture. It is marked by the condition that technology penetrates, to some degree, every aspect of our existence. While its origins may be traced back to the 1960s (Brand), much of the theoretical discussion surrounding technological advancements has grown exponentially since the early 1980s. In this period the evolution of cyberculture has coincided with various issues related to conceptions of postmodern theory and the interpenetration of technology into the body.'

Basically it is a culture where technology is the reason to the growth of such culture. It means that our lives revolve around the use of technology and technology has become part of our lives...literally.

GaMeS

I have to admit I am a game freak myself! Computer games, xbox, playstation 2 and 3 I play them all! They are part of my entertainments. Games are somewhat like a simulation where you can do things that you can never do in reality. Games are a guilty pleasure I would say? Because it is partly a waste of time but a good way to entertain yourself after a hard days of work and assignments.

These are the games that I have played recently and still playing! :)

These are the games that I have been playing recently and they are awesome! I love to play games that involve actions, adventure and some thrill to it. The Sims however is somewhat like a virtual doll house where you can control the characters and give them life to live like real humans. It might sounded very scary because it is as if we are Gods controlling these characters and we decide on how they should live their lives.

Thus games somewhat take you to a different world which is the virtual world where you can do things that you cannot in reality. For example in the game called 'Red Dead Redemption' it is a game where I play as this ruddy bounty hunter and complete my mission. In this game I get to ride horses, kill and save people and also be able to learn skills that I could not learn in reality. This is the reason that games usually gives you that pleasure of being someone else and get to do things that I could never be able to do in real life. I could play this game hours and hours until I get this feeling of nauseous for being in the game for too long and then as soon as you switch it off, you are back in reality and it 'sucks' sometimes.

AVATARS

Avatar is defined as a second personality that we have or used in order for us to communicate with people via online such as through Facebook, MSN online, twitter, games etc. We create our own virtual images, bodies, faces of ourselves and featured it online for other avatars to see. The avatars represent us but not our personality most of the time. Some people tend to be different in their avatars from their real life. Their avatars might show that they are successful and popular in their career but in real life they were just jobless people who sit in front of the computers doing nothing other than enjoying most of their time living the second life.

They would gradually neglect the things around them as soon as they become addicted to it. Other than communicating or chatting with people, they also play virtual games such as Second Life and The Sims. These games are the games who give these people a second life. They do not just play the game but 'live' in the game.