This week we (my class) were charged with finding our "social bookmarking soulmate" or someone online who reads and keeps up with things we talk about in our blogs.
I will be honest, I thought this challenge was difficult. I had a hard time finding people through diigo.com and delicious.com, who were interested in new media, transmedia, and fandom professionally rather than simply for fun. I had trouble just figuring out these websites, whose platforms were very different than what I am used to.
But I ended up finding some interesting folks, one of whom can be found here.
What you can find in this profile of bookmarks are articles on transmedia, new media, digital humanities, and Web 2.0 and how all this affects academia. This is a topic I'm fairly new to, but the resources here are very interesting, such as this article on wikis and blogs and how they help categorize academia now, and this article on narrative history and memes.
This user highlights and annotates certain texts, but not all, and updates with a great deal of frequency. They have a lot bookmarked, and though a great deal of it has to do with academia and the Internet, there is enough variety that those simply interested in one or the other can find a lot of what they are looking for. The tags are fairly organized to help with this search.
There is a lot of content here, and it is all very, very interesting. I would definitely recommend checking this guy's page out for a look! :)
(Note: I'm not sure if we are allowed to use names, so I will just link and refrain from naming him in case privacy is an issue.)
Most young people today know and love the Pokémon franchise. I am definitely amongst that group of people who would consider themselves avid fans and players (although I must sadly admit to have never finished a single Pokémon game. This is mostly because I am not very good at video games. I am so sorry, BasedGod.)
The Pokémon fandom is still alive and kicking even to this day, and this is mostly due to Nintendo's frequently release of games, comics, manga, card games, books, television programs and movies. Though some would still be surprised at its relevance, Pokémon is something that is clearly here to stay, much like Super Mario Brothers and other Nintendo franchises.
What's interesting about the fandom, is how many new and creative things come out of it. Anyone who knows Pokémon knows that it is a fairly straight forward game--you find and capture creatures called pokémon, fight them for badges, and to be called the Ultimate Pokémon Master. Very recently however, the website twitch.tv (a haven for Let's Play type videos in which people watch other people play video games) has come out with "Twitch Plays Pokémon", an entirely new take on the Pokémon games. You see, "Twitch Plays Pokémon" is run by a computer program in which logged in viewers can contribute to the gameplay, working together to get through the original Red/Blue version.
What is this? TwitchPlaysPokemon is a social experiment, it is a stream of the Gameboy version of Pokemon Red (151 romhack) running on an emulator. An IRC bot translates buttons said in chat into keypresses (simulated in software, no fancy typist robots). How do I play? Say the button you want pushed in chat (a, b, start select, up, down, left, right), please be aware that there is considerable input lag (see below) and will take awhile before your inputs are registered. Only one button per message is accepted, there's no combos or holds.
Many video games have collaborative elements--you must work together to get through certain levels, and cooperate as a function of the game. "Twitch Plays Pokémon" puts a whole new spin on that collaborative effort by forcing a huge group of people to work together to physically press the buttons to play the game. The game has since developed further, now with "anarchy" or "democracy" options in which those in the chat log can help spin the fate of the game in either direction. Under anarchy, whatever buttons are called out and inputted into the system and are pressed. Under democracy, "75% of the vote" must go to a certain button voted upon. The fans certainly have proven a preference for anarchy.
It has only been around for 6 days, but it has become a fandom phenomenon. Fanart, fan fiction, all the works have been dedicated not simply to Pokémon, but now specifically "Twitch Plays Pokémon". More than that, the game has developed a "cult" like dedication to it, spawning a fan religion of sorts to the Helix Fossil, an item found in the game that can help you get the Omanyte pokémon. There is a whole mythology built around the occurrences within game, Helix Fossil being the one true God, Bird Jesus, the Pigeot, being the savior (as the strongest pokémon in the team), and Flareon/Eevee being the False Prophet after a particularly unfortunate series of events which caused the collective players to lose two important pokémon, and important gameplay opportunities.
What's fascinating about this (as fandom phenomenons happen quite frequently, though are not swiftly forgotten) is all of the interaction and encouragement surrounding this fandom. A google doc has been set up specifically to help fans understand, keep track of, and experience "Twitch Plays Pokémon" even if they haven't been around from the beginning. One can ask the Great Helix Fossil for advice using this handy website. There are separate google docs and communities varying from deviantart, tumblr, and the sub-reddit, to discuss the game and contribute fan creations. And despite the anarchical structure of the game, all of this is very surprisingly organized. The community is kind, welcoming, and open to show new fans the ropes. This is not always the case with memes or fandoms, and it's always refreshing to see this occur.
The best part of this huge experiment, despite all the hardships of getting stuck in puzzles, getting stuck in the options menu, and the False Prophet's attempts to sway the populous from following the wishes of the Helix Fossil, the game is going precisely how the game should. The hundreds of thousands of people playing "Twitch Plays Pokémon" together have succeeded in capturing the required amount of pokémon (which is six for those of you who don't know), won four gym badges, and defeated the big bad of the Pokémon games, Giovanni, head of Team Rocket.
(I had the pleasure of watching their first attempt at battling Giovanni. Let's just say I was a convert after that very stressful, very exciting, and very sad 7:12 minutes.)
Overall, what's exciting about this is not only that this is a new way to play video games, and that we can play together, but that we can tell a story together. Pokémon follows a basic narration, but by involving over 100,000 people within that story and letting them experience the same game, simultaneously and with one another, we are at a whole new level of experience. Before, people just knew the game--they talked about it with their friends, discussed strategy, and knew the bare bones of the plot. The plot was secondary to the battles. Now Pokémon has become a collective narrative in the hearts of all these people. Their trials and tribulations have been experience together, their in jokes made together, their enemies made together. This is merely a social experiment, but think of all the things we are learning from this experiment. We are learning that even when anarchy rules in this silly game, people are willing to work together to create an experience. Experience ties us all together, and with that experience, we tell stories. When I asked my friends on Facebook about this strange, weird project, I had so many enthusiastic responses and stories told to me about what this game means. And I just think that's pretty beautiful.
We might never see something like this again, but I can guarantee you, it won't be forgotten. At the end of the day, it will be remembered by those who played, and it will inspire them to create similarly inventive, creative, and collaborative media.
This is just a short post, but I thought you might be interested.
Here's a way that I'm trying to keep up with transmedia and new media news.
I'm still working on it a bit, but so far I have widgets to search for videos, blogs, and news articles coming up about transmedia. I'm keeping up with some trade websites, both interactive media and film and television media. I've also put the wikipedia page for transmedia up, so that anyone curious can see the definition.
Other things you will see are the RSS feeds for the blogs that I am following to help for my research for this blog. I've linked to them before, but they are pretty cool places, so I would definitely check them out:
