So what happened to Panzernator?

For those of you who follow my youtube channel, you might have noticed that I haven't been uploading videos for a while. The reason why is simple: my computer broke. More specifically my video card died probably from being damaged in transit from Louisiana to Notre Dame. The good new is the computer is fixed and a new video card should be coming in any day now. Until then, I have enough videos in reserve to upload until I get things back to normal.

Now some of y'all might remember that I wanted to try and do a few things to improve the overall quality of my channel. The main goals were to make a channel trailer, intro and outro segments for my videos, thumbnails, and channel art. Well, since I have been occupied with school work and fixing my computer, this hasn't gone anywhere. I still have no idea how to do any of this and now I don't have much time to look into it. Of course I am going to try, but no promises on when this will happen. Needless to say I'd be more than happy to take fan submissions. I'm not saying anyone has to do it, I will try myself, but if you would like to make something or already have something that'll work, feel free to message me on youtube.

Moral of the story: Der Panzenator has returned!

This Is Africa...

Blood Diamond with its scenes of child soldiers gunning down women and children in their villages brings attention to what goes on in Africa. If anything, the movie increases awareness of the many human rights violations that take place in Africa and how they are connected. Rebels need guns and people to use them. So, they raid villages and capture young boys. These boys either mine for diamonds or become soldiers. The rebels sell the diamonds they find to smugglers, who then sell the rebels the guns they need. The diamonds then go to whoever the smugglers sell them to, both providing the buyer company with an unfair advantage of a cheaper source and the easy way out of claiming ignorance of how the smugglers acquired the diamonds. The movie also brings forth the idea that the consequences and motives from colonialism is still present. Colonies were established to acquire resources whether it be for industry, military, or in this case, luxury. Now, even though the western superpowers have handed over the keys to the (mostly corrupt) locals, the demand for those resources is still present. So, people still bleed the land of its resources for the westerners, and violence over who controls the resources still follows. Honestly, there is little difference from French or British soldiers oppressing the natives than rebel militia groups. Violence is still violence and the demand for these blood diamonds remains even though the situation has changed. Blood Diamond shows that even though the colonial system is a thing of the past, the new governments and power structures have left Africa facing the same problems that came with European explorers. The only difference now is the western governments are no longer directly responsible for the sufferings taking place.

Telling the "Real" Story

There are many movies that focus on historical events, but not all of them tell the "actual" story. This brings up the question, what responsibilities do films or other popular media have in terms of representing "real" historical or political events? The first time I thought about this question was after I saw the movies Inglorious Bastards and Valkyrie around the same time. Both are movies set in World War Two, but Valkyrie is historically correct while Inglorious Bastards is not. Another important thing to note is both movies have a similar message: not all Germans in WWII were bad people. This is explicitly shown in Valkyrie where high ranking officers in the German Army plot to kill Hitler, while in Inglorious Bastards, Colonel Hans Landa "the Jew Hunter" is a man of his word whereas Lt. Aldo Raine (the "good" guy) is a backstabber who cannot be trusted.  Despite the factual shortcomings, I wouldn't say Inglorious Bastards does wrong to WWII history. Although it isn't factual like Valkyrie, the story in Inglorious Bastards seems plausible and could have very well been true. After all, with all of the assassination attempts on Hitler, one easily could have been similar to what was depicted in Inglorious Bastards and worked. My point is, even though the story in Inglorious Bastards isn't factual, it doesn't offend those passionate about WWII history because it is clear that it isn't factual although it could have happened that way. I am personally fascinated with "what if?" scenarios like the one presented in Inglorious Bastards or if the assassination attempt in Valkyrie paid off. Therefore, I say that the responsibilities films and other media have is to tell a good story albeit true or false. Of course, so long as they do not claim something false as true. As applied to this example, what makes a movie a good WWII movie is that it makes sense in the context of WWII, not necessarily that it actually happened in WWII.

The Battle is Won but the War Continues

Zero Dark Thirty ends with Maya, the protagonist, boarding a C-130 when the pilot asks her where he needs to fly her. The movie ends before she responds. This gives the audience two messages to take away from the movie's ending. The first deals directly with Maya. Before the raid begins, another CIA official asks Maya if she worked on any projects before Bin Laden. The answer was her life's work was hunting down the terrorist leader. So, once Bin Laden is killed, her life's mission fulfilled, but also no clear direction of where to go next. She doesn't have a family to go home to, the only friends we know of are her co-workers, a few of whom die earlier in the film, but she is still young and just getting started as a CIA agent. Regardless of where Maya goes after the final scene, we can all agree that it should involve some awards and praise.
On a similar note to Maya, the final scene also sends a message about the War on Terror. As it has been said many times, what makes the War on Terror different and difficult is the type of enemy America is facing. We are fighting organizations and individuals, not nations and armies. Our enemy's goal is not for them to win, but for us to lose and there are no front lines. It is very hard to determine when we win because of how unconventional a war this is. Zero Dark Thirty portrays what is the largest, but not final, victory in the War on Terror. When Bin Laden died, the face for terrorism died with him. There are still many terrorists operating throughout the world, and Al-Qaeda still exists, but the man many Americans see as the enemy is defeated. The troops have almost entirely pulled out of Iraq and Afghanistan. The "War" is over, but the enemy is not defeated. That is where the final scene comes in. Just like how Maya doesn't know where to go with her life, the death of Bin Laden has no clear next step for the War on Terror. What do we do next? What can we do next? Although killing Bin Laden may have given many Americans closure on the War on Terror, the fight is not over. The War on Terror might very well be our generation's Cold War. Even if there isn't a traditional "war" going on, the military, CIA, and similar government institutions need to stay on their toes to protect the American people.

The Motives Behind the Media

In Manufacturing Consent, Chomsky explains how advertisers have a major influence over the media. Basically, the larger an audience that a media company can attract, the more advertisers want to purchase ads in that particular media. The more ads that are sold, the more the company can lower their prices. The lower the prices go, the audience grows even larger and the cycle repeats itself. Essentially, the power to attract an audience and the power to attract advertisers coincide and build off of each other. One leads to the other and so on. One of Chomsky's main points, is that this system favors strong companies getting stronger and weak companies dying out. Although his point was made using the example of newspaper companies, the same can be said in the digital age. One area where this is true is YouTube channels that focus on Video game "let's plays." The idea is someone records his or herself playing a game and posting the footage either to help the viewers do better or, as in most cases, to be entertaining by being funny. When it comes to channels who do this, jut like in newspapers, the popular channels get more popular while the smaller ones stay small for the most part. A channel that gets a lot of views will earn more money. Earning more money means buying better equipment. Buying better equipment means higher quality videos. Higher quality videos means more viewers. I have felt this system first hand. There are plenty of YouTubers that make their livings off of posting videos, while my channel (linked below) hasn't even earned me a dollar. Granted, I don't work on my channel full time, in fact I haven't touched my gaming PC since I moved into college, but even if I did, I wouldn't be able to achieve as high a level of success. Unfortunately, the internet is no longer an open frontier. The big players have already established themselves and it has become extremely difficult to break into the YouTube scene, or for that matter, in any part of the internet. Still, just like with newspapers, Television, or any form of media, the internet obeys the rules Chomsky identifies. A YouTuber will only continue a series if it generates enough views, just like how only "good" football games will be aired on TV. One example is this weekend in College football. What ended up being the two biggest games were Notre Dame vs. Michigan State and LSU vs. Auburn. Every other game involving a ranked team was a blowout, so LSU defeating Auburn by two touchdowns was a "close" game. The reason the two games mentioned were aired is because the TV companies knew that these two games would draw the largest viewership making the airtime more valuable to advertisers. Thankfully, the Fighting Irish and the LSU Tigers (my two favorite college teams) came out with a win in front of a national audience.

Geaux Tigers and Go Irish!

My Youtube Channel

Discourse Communities

In his attempt to define literacy, James Paul Gee first presents the term "discourse" which he defines as, "a socially accepted association among ways of using language, of thinking, and of acting that can be used to identify oneself as a member of a socially meaningful group or "social network."" The idea is a person has many discourses or identities such as gender, ethnicity, age, where they live, what they do, and potentially infinite categories. During an in-class discussion about the concept of discourses, the point was brought up about each discourse having many sub-discourses. The easiest example of this is where a person is from and the more I thought about it for myself, I realized how different the image for a discourse was as you got more and more specific.
Let's take a look at where I'm from. First, we look at how I'm from "the South." Most people think of southerners as people who say "y'all", are nicer due to "southern hospitality", and unfortunately somewhat racist. As for me, "Yankees" have complimented me on being polite and nice doing habitual things such as saying "thank you m'am." I also say "y'all" a lot, have been told I have an accent, and do tend to say things that the rest of the country wouldn't consider politically correct. An example is back home my friends and I would sarcastically say things such as "the south will rise again!" while here at Notre Dame, it wouldn't be seen as a joke and people would label me as the racist southerner.
To get even more specific, I'm from South Louisiana. I jump straight there skipping Louisiana as a whole because north Louisiana would be better described as "West Mississippi." Although many of the generic "southern" traits are still there, the stereotype shifts away from the typical bible belt southerner. Now I'm thought of as a Cajun and not a redneck. I eat Jambalaya, Gumbo, Boudin, Cracklin, and Crawfish . Mardi Gras is an official holiday and happened to be the day I was born. When I was in England on my senior trip, I was telling an American History teacher that I was from Louisiana and he listed things such as the Louisiana Purchase, the Battle of New Orleans, and Huey Long. Although being from South Louisiana is extremely different than being from Mississippi, Alabama, or any other southern state, we still say "y'all" and are still nicer than the rest of the country.
Yet even more specific than being a Louisianian, I'm from Lafayette, the capital of the Acaidana region. This is the true Cajun heartland where you will find actual Cajun food, not something with extra spices or some New Orleans imitation. We don't just say "y'all" we say things that not even locals can spell. Acadiana even has its own flag. Also, we are recognized as the best city in America (link at the end).

We are still part of Louisiana and therefore the South, its just that the way we interact with each other is strongly different. Someone from Breaux Bridge would know what a good Gumbo tastes like but someone from as close as New Orleans wouldn't make it the right way. In Louisiana we all know about Mardi Gras, but people in Mississippi don't celebrate it like we do. The more specific we get with where we are from, the dynamic of that discourse shifts to something that can sometime share very little with the umbrella discourse community that you started with. Just from explaining where I'm from when I meet new people, I realize that I always say something like, "we're (south Louisiana) very different than the rest of the South." Yes we are very different, but we still have a lot in common. From these experiences, I understand the importance of knowing which discourse community you are operating in.

Lafayette, Louisiana Named Best City in America

Digital Expiration Dates

One of the ideas presented in Jeffery Rosen's article, "The Web Means the End of Forgetting," is the possibility of internet posts, such as Facebook pictures and tweets, having expiration dates. The thought behind this is that the internet stores everything while people eventually forgive and forget. So, employers would not see posts from many years back since they would "expire" after a few years and be deleted. Although this idea might sound good at first, there are a few big problems and loopholes. 

The internet shares many properties with the real world. There is no taking your words back once they leave your mouth. The same is true with the internet. As soon as something is posted online, even if it is taken down shortly after, anyone who saw it could have saved it and re-posted it elsewhere. It only takes one person to copy a picture and post it on another website for an image to be permanently online. Although digital expiration dates would help by removing old pictures, it would only affect the original post, not the countless numbers of copies. Some people might be skeptical about the number of copies of a picture there are on the internet, but when it comes to memes, website fan bases have heated arguments on who owns the original. If a picture is embarrassing enough that one wouldn't want it online for long, they probably shouldn't post it at all and it would probably be copied because of its content.

Another trait the internet shares with people's minds is the new pushes out the old. People often forget things from the past because they are replaced by newer, more relevant, memories. The internet does the same thing. Facebook posts, tweets, blog posts, and many other forms of internet posts get pushed down as newer posts take their place. Because of this, it may take a while to find this specific blog post five years down the road since there might be dozens of pages of posts to look back through to find it. We have all tried, at some point, to look back through our old Facebook posts to the beginning. The result is either frustration from having to wait a long time for the page to load, and then amazement when we look at the scroll bar and seeing how small it becomes. Of course, the way around this is the shortcut of searches. Some websites even have features that help their audiences easily find older content. The point is most internet posts get better hidden with each post that follows it.

My final issue with the idea of digital expiration dates is what I'll call the "collateral damage." Of course an expiration date would be great for a picture or post that would be followed by "#yolo", but not for a family picture or something similar. Picture libraries on the internet should work more like a family photo album. Only the best should be posted, or put into the album. Another way to look at it would be like the box of photos we found when we went through my grandfather's house after he passed away. My dad spent a lot of time going through pictures deciding if they should be kept and which sibling should keep them. The best pictures from the most memorable moments are kept while duplicates or pictures from the same event but lower quality, are discarded. 

When it comes down to it, the best way keep bad posts off the internet is to not post them. If you don't want someone else to post it, it's a bit more challenging, but it can still be done. Just post what you are sure would be wanted a few years down the road. That way the rest of us who already watch ourselves on the internet won't have to deal with something crazy like digital expiration dates. 

Introduction

I am Mikie Michot, but much of the internet knows me as Panzernator. Here I will talk about gaming, Youtube, movies, and my other interests with the occasional "whatever pops into my mind" post.