Monday, March 21st

This is what Laura thinks the argument of Reality is Broken is:

To be fair, we're going to call Christianity a myth that fits in with all the other mythological systems that have existed over the course of time. They have all depended upon a certain kind of narrative structure in order to spread and exist; this structure is called "The life of the hero." It predominates in epic stories, the Bible, and all kinds of contemporary media texts. So why do these things matter? This structure has allowed these myths and religions to persist throughout the history of mankind.

Jane McGonigle talks about this phenomenon in terms of gaming. She looks at the alleged gaming problem in which there is a mass exodus into the world of gaming. They're leaving reality in droves for the gaming world, and Jane asks why? She says this is because reality is broken (haha, title of the book). She says that games allow ordinary people who can't stand their lives to undergo the life of the hero within these games, and this is extremely attractive to these people.

So why is reality broken? In what ways? Social problems, no poetic justice (corruption). To me, I think that reality hasn't necessarily broken down, it's just transformed. What's broken is the notion of reality itself and the utopian desires of people who want reality to be a certain way, void of the elements that have broken reality. Reality has simply spread out across multiple mediums, becoming embedded in the virtual world. In addition, there is now global interaction, which has actually expanded reality in a universal sense.

Jane says that in reality, we need to be able to see problems, be able to confront them, and solve them in the best way possible. Obviously there are limitations to this ideal, so that's why people are leaving the world for games. Jane suggests that we make reality a game, which would make more people want to join in and feel empowered.

What happens if we make a social problem a game? One example is Ender's Game. It's a great book in which a boy is trained to fight an alien army, but finds out that... I don't want to give away the ending.

It's a hard time to be optimistic in our society with all the negative stuff that's going on, so Jane asks us if we can set goals on positive progress. This is a much lower bar than other huge goals that a lot of people focus on. Laura asked us how many people can set goals and focus on progress (I raised my hand). She offers 3 steps that help us do just that:

1. Develop the When and Where of creating an alternate reality.

2. Invite people into our alternate reality games (friends and family).

3. Create activities that can be adopted as the core mechanics of our alternate reality games.

We can't believe that we can create a better place in this world all on our own, but we can believe the narrative of games. Therefore, we should turn reality into a game.

Superbetter- turns hardships and trials into a game, completing 5 missions a day until the goal is achieved. Example- Jane the Concussion-Slayer. She had to make the concussion the villain, and recruited her little sister as her guide who had to call her every day to check in. Other people got roles too, making it much like a game. People believe in this kind of language a lot more than that which "worked" in the past (the disease is a demon). She wants to take the enchanted world and implant it into the disenchanted, realistic, scientific world. It's very idealistic to think that we can fix reality with games, but I think that it's something that is very intriguing.

However, I also think that it takes a certain kind of personality in certain circumstances to get into this mentality. If I had a concussion or some other disease, I don't think that I'd be able to immerse myself into that kind of a mentality without feeling extremely self conscious about losing my reputation or maturity. I can definitely see how it can work for other people, but for me, I have to be able to see the problem in the most simplistic sense in order to see what kinds of solutions will/won't work.

That's just me though. I can absolutely see how this can work for others.