The characters in the video were a prime example of living your normal life and then living your life on the computer screen. In the very beginning of the video a man with glasses delivers a pizza and gets the money slapped onto his forehead. He then goes back to his car and wishes that he was Brad Paisley. By being Brad Paisley, his life will be easier and getting women will be simple.
So once the man realizes that he won’t get a female if he presents his own picture online, what does he do instead, he puts a picture of Brad Paislley as his photo on his myspace page which will obviously make him seem more good looking than what he actually may appear in person. As a society we often let the way we look effect our self-esteem and our confidence when in all actuality it should be who you are as a person and your character. In today’s world when someone is online and chatting with someone whom they have never met, its easy to ask for a picture or base judgments off the pictures that are displayed on someone else’s profile. Not knowing who you may be talking to is tough and looking at a picture can make it even harder because the picture can be fake as we saw in the Brad Paisley video.
What is key in this discussion is how we use the internet for communicationm and more importantly for status in our world today. Instead of going out and meeting new people, our generation is sitting on a computer chatting online with whoever and not gaining the true experience of face-to-face conversation. In a way you could look at it as people just like being on a computer and it makes it easier to meet new people. Yes this isn true but I believe that this is more common because our generation lacks the confidence and the communication skills to go out an dmeet new people and make new relationships with people.
It’s kind of like how Postman was talking about using your tools for work that will be constructive or to get the job done. In today’s world we use the computer and the internet as a tool. To meet people and base our decisions and judgments off of a meet and greet session online. As opposed to going to the grocery store, or church, or even a night club to meet some new people and possibly a guy or a girl that we could possibly hang out with and start a relationship there after. The tools that we need now are lomg gone in many humans and teh internet is the tool to use in any case to get any job done. Being shy is not necessarily a bad thing nore is it the reason so many people rather have a conversation online than face-to-face, but it does have something to do with the trend of meeting people online becasue some people are shy and don’t speak well in person and being in a online relationship or atmosphere gives that person an opportunity to express themselves and communnicate in their own way.
January 21, 2009 at 1:06 pm
yeah you are right, it does give shy people a chance to express themselves a little more freely, but what happens when (and if) they actually meet up with the person. I suppose they might be shy upon initiation of conversations, and therefore the internet allows them to break the ice without loosing too much face. I mean if they are rejected online, no one else really sees the embarrassment that would have happened in a physical meeting. This video reminds me of film ‘Napoleon Dynamite’, and how Napoleon brother meets an online lover—haha anyway that just popped in my head.
January 21, 2009 at 9:03 pm
You bring up an excellent point about the potential for the internet to compromise our social skills. I personally have not seen this displayed in real life, but the internet does threaten our tools for face to face, old fashioned, normal conversation. I hope we continue to use the internet as a tool, and pray that our evolution of communication on the internet has reached its peak.
January 23, 2009 at 1:09 am
I like how you compared the internet to a tool. You’re right, many people use the internet as a tool to help meet people or ease the process of meeting people. I also agree with you in saying that this generation seems to lack self confidence and that that contributes to the use of the internet to start relationships. It is easier to talk to people when they can not see you, I think. You can completely re-invent yourself, and that can be quite liberating. I don’t, however, think the idea of meeting people and talking to people only online is a good thing. Previous generations didn’t have a choice. They had to meet people face to face and through that, though it may have been uncomfortable, they developed self confidence. Meeting and chatting online may be easier and it may help someone at first, but in the end, I don’t think their confidence will be boosted and lack of confidence can be very problematic.
January 23, 2009 at 6:59 am
I agree that in today’s society we tend to judge people more on their appearance and shut them down if we do not approve of how they dress, how they walk or how they do their hair. We place so much emphasis on the physical appearance that we fail to discover what the person is like on the inside. Therefore, there are people in the world that are similar to the guy featured in the video that have to turn to alternate means of communication (myspace, facebook, email) to meet friends and potentially love interests. In the modern world people tend to use what Wood and Smith refer to as synchronous communication where we are communicating with two or more people in real time through technology created chat rooms such as AOL (42).
The point that you make about why our generation spends most of their time on the internet and conversing through technological means is so true. I fully agree the reason people use the internet is because they lack the self confidence to go out in public and meet new people. In all reality it doesn’t matter what you look like because if you carry yourself well and don’t act like a puppy with its tail between its legs or like a pompous jerk you will more than likely be able to make friends and get a date. While technology has opened doors for us that many never imagined possible it has also closed several doors. More and more people are looking for alternate means of communication. This could be detrimental to our future generations. Unless people come out from behind the shadows and regain their confidence eventually people will forget how to communicate face-to-face which could have a vital effect on our society.