Constructing Identity Online (example: Michelle Phan)

The example that I am going to talk about is the online spokesperson
of Lancome --  Michelle Phan.
She is a famous YouTube blogger. Here are some basic information about her.
She has a screenname called RiceBunny. She joined YouTube in 18th July 2006.
Her subscribers in Youtube had already over 1million. Her videos had viewed by people
over 2 hundreds of million times. The above statistics can show how popular she is.

Now, I am going to talk about the time when she was just a normal girl.
She was born in Massachusetts and she is Vietnamese American.
She started her artisitic training when she was 12-year-old. She taught herself how to
paint so we can say that Michelle is a self taught painter for over 10years.
Originally, she decided to cater to her mother request for being a dermatologist at Tampa
Bay Technical High School. But then she convinced her mother to let her major in
illustration at Ringling College of Art and Design.
So, before she became famous she was just a student and worked as a part-time
waiteress in a sushi restaurant.

How Michelle build her fame?
She is known for her high quality makeup tutorial videos. Her video style is much
more technical when compared to others. Her videos incorporate her voice over
instruction and with music and text subtitles.
Videos like "Lady Gaga Poker Face Tutorial" and "Bad Romance Look".etc are
popular among the internet.

 Now, Michelle is a public image over the world.
In November of 2010, she became "the No.1 most subscribed female on YouTube and
the first female to reach 1million subscribers". Untill now, she had created 100 videos
on YouTube. She also created a skin care brand called IQQU which is an online
shop. Amazingly, Lancome saw some of her videos with using their brand products.
Then signed her as the official video makeup artist and spokesperson in Feburary of 2010.

After being famous, Michelle still keep doing the similar things as usual --- Providing
makeup tutorial clips. At the same time, she use her fame to help the weak.
For example, she posted a video to arouse people awareness of Malaria and appeal
people to donate money.
(reference link:
http://www.youtube.com/user/michellephan?blend=1&ob=4#p/u/6/UpnmC3BbvEg)
She taught viewers how to live green to save the Earth.
(reference link:
http://www.youtube.com/user/michellephan?blend=1&ob=4#p/u/3/rDgd4gR9ZfM)
In September 2008, she helped organize a charity fashion show called "Fashion for
Compassion" to help the victim of a Tampa sexual assault case.


To sum up, we can see how her life has changed because of the platform of YouTube.
It allows her to show her skill and develop her professional image.
Before, she was just a normal girl like you and me. And now she has her own business
and influence in society. She constructed her own identity successfully through Youtube.


The most special point is that she is not the only one who influenced by her online identity.
But also others people. She use her fame to help others and change their life.
Even her makeup videos, they are influencing every girl who watched her clips.
As she said, she "wants to help women empower themselves with makeup". She believe
makeup can transform women's life even with one lipstick.


So, in this example we can see how a girl change her life and others' through her
online identity. Her online identity and real identity has mix together and this is what
we called online covergency.


Conclusion of our group:
The boundary between reality and virtual reality are unclear nowdays.
When we started  using our online identity, most people may think that there is
no interaction with our reality. But is it really true?
Through the examples from our group, we can find that what we did through the online
identity actually have some direct or indirect influence to our reality.
Michelle and Jayesslee show their talent via their online identity and finally make
their dream come true. They become popular public images. Even online identity itself
are interrelated with each other. Mia gives her real heart to make friends with a friend
online. However she finally disappointed by her disappearence. Making she feels sad.
We can see the influence of our online identity are not only in the virtual but also in our
reality. Those happiness and unhappiness we recieved are real and undenialble.


____________________________________________________________


Reference links:
- photos reference link:
http://www.google.com.hk/images?hl=zh-TW&biw=1362&bih=584&q=MICHELLE+PHAN&rlz=1R2SUNC_enHK359&um=1&ie=UTF-8&source=univ&ei=SkzhTOiRG4GucK2uqZkM&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&ct=title&resnum=6&ved=0CFkQsAQwBQ

- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelle_Phan

- http://www.vanityfair.com/online/beauty/2010/05/its-a-bad-pun-thats.html

- http://www.youtube.com/user/MichellePhan?feature=chclk

Is it reasonable to consider computer games as art?

a) How does Adams define art? Do you agree with his definition?

According to Adams, he first said that art can be divided into three types, they
are: literary art, fine art and decorative art.
Also, art work as a way for artist to express their thoughts and feeling. Good art
can even passover generations. Like famous masterpiece "Mona Lisa", it was
produced by Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci in 16th century, it is still so famous 
among 21st century. Aesthetic pleasure and ideas are elements of art.

I agree with Adams statements about art. Art gives us aesthetic pleasure.
I think one of the main "functions" of art is to give the viewer aesthetic pleasure.
Art sometimes work as therapy to cure our nervousness. Like music or a relaxing
film provide us a space to release our pressure.
Art must have content or ideas. According to Adams, "art must have capacity to
express ideas". This is really true. Artists always express their mind feeling through their
work. The feeling of the artist own's and viewers might be different. However,
there is always some message to present. Artists are usually inspired by something
which excite their thought. And the work then have its own content or messages. 

b) According to Adams, what is needed for videogames to be considered
as art?

"What the game industry does is not art, but popular culture". (P.257)
According to Adams, he used movie as an example to explain most videogames are not art.
It is more suitable to regard videogames as popular culture rather than art.
Art can provide aesthetic pleasure. Videogames can gives players excitment but not
aesthetic pleasure.

What videogames is needed to being art is the communication between viewers and the 
"author" (designers of the games). Although in videogames there is some interaction 
between players and the games. The interaction is lead by the players.
For art, it is different, the communication is lead by the author. The tension is
controlled by the artists.

Videogames emphasize on fun. But Art isn't. Videogames need more aesthetic elements
in order to become artistic. Also, we need to develop "a way to judge the artistic merit
of the elements that make up games."(p.261) Just like how we judge an artwork or a movie.
Because without any standard, it is hard or impossible to judge which is art which is not.
Also, there is no artistic standard for videogames developers to consider.

Adams also mentioned Impressionism as an example to explain that "Game developers
must experience with their medium. They must try new things and take risks."
The exsistence of Art is to broaden the way of human hearing, expecting or thinking.
So, great artists must not afraid to breake new ground. 
If videogames want to be art. It must do the same thing as artwork does.
Bringing some new ideas and things that players never expected to experience before.
Just like the Impressionism, it challenged the normal art world at that time. And brought new
outlook on art to everyone.

To conclude, videogames could be art. But obviously, there is still a long way to acheive.
As many tradtions of making videogames must be changed.

Discussion on Videogames

1.) According to the film, what are some pros and cons of playing videogames for individuals and societies?

    Videogames are popular among children and adults nowadays. In both societies and individuals, there are some pros and cons. Let's talk about the effect on individual first.

    For the positive effects, people can have basic concept on some situation, like as an army.
In the film, American army have a videogame shows the situation virtually. It can help those
youngsters who have interests in being an army to know what may happen in the battlefield.
To give them some general concept of being army, which is not having fun and very dangerous.
    Besides, people can learn some knowledge from videogames. Like a boy in the film, he played a videogame which aim at killing cancer cells to rescue people. This kind of games can tell players how the cancer cells spread in our body. At the same time, reminds people of the important of health. As the cancer cells are so stubborn that it is difficult to kill them all like in
the videogame, this can urge people to stay healthy.

    However, everything has pros and cons. Some videogames may affect us badly. Take the
American army videogame as example again. In the game, people can be the first person in the battlefield and kill people with guns and bombs. This situation may encourgae somebody
to do something similar in reality. Especially those teenagers, they may not mature enough
to distinguish right and wrong, reality and virtual. Videogames may mislead youngsters.


2.) According the film, is there any evidence that digital games can encourage aggressive values and anti-social actions in the real world? Do you agree?

Yes, there is. A boy shot his classmates with a gun without missing. According to the video,
the reporter said that was the first time the boy used a gun. But why he could be so accurate? Because he played a shooting video game very frequently.
This example tells us the harmful effect of video games. Sometimes video games
may include acts of violence. With long period to get in touch with these games,
players' mind and behaviour may easily be affected with time.
Like some shooting games, it made players being tension at a long time.
It brings excitment to them and may raise their bad desire, like, shooting with real gun in reality.
3.) Should governments have the right to ban certain games? Why or why not? 

If government have the right to ban some violence games is good.
Because it can stop the spreading of violent behaviour in our society.
Avoid teenagers to being polluted by this type of videogame.

However, how to define the boudaries of which are violent which are not is difficult.
Different people have different standard of violent.
Like the America's Army game, if I am a American, of course I would support the game.
But if I am not, the answer could be different.

I support the idea, but how to demonstrate the idea is another problem.

4.) A videogame that I like:

My favourite videogame is Fantasy Restaurant.
It is a game about developing and operating a restaurant.
Players can decorate their restaurant according to their choice.
The situation, types of dishes and employees are also choose by players.
I like this game very much. Because I think it works really quite similar to reality.
Players need to think and make right decisions to run the restaurant well.
Like, different situations have different kinds of customers.
Players need to choose the right design of decoration, play the suitable music to attract
customers.
So, it is not only a videogame but also a game test players business wisdom.