This week was super exciting to see my classmates present their best hacks in an even better version. It was super clear to me that everyone took the time to “master” their design. There are a couple of things I wish I could have changed, however. Specifically, I wish I could have made a super small simulation of the game on some part of the board or created a scenario that would actually happen in the game. I believe that could have strengthened my classmate’s understanding of the game and the changes. Additionally, not a failure, but I am still questioning the visual aspect of my board. I do believe the handmade aspect adds something necessary to the game; however, I think there is still a better way to execute somewhere out there that I was unable to find. Other than these two small regrets, I am very pleased with my final Hack overall. It was something I really enjoyed, and I put a lot of hard work into it.
OH WAIT. How could I forget!!! The biggest failure this week was this dang WordPress site. I ran an update (because I was forced to), and it took DAYS. I mean DAYS to finish. I have no clue why. For the first day, it would not even begin the update, but it finally did. It was quite possibly the slowest thing ever. I left my computer open and charging so that it would go faster (that did not help!) At least know it is back up and running with the latest software for the final portfolio.
This Hack was the most fun for me because I really enjoyed creating this game and always love the opportunity to better one of my creations after receiving feedback. I decided that my approach to reimagining this process needed to start with the visual, because this was the aspect I felt was lacking the most from the alpha release. As I discussed in my design process journal, I originally thought the best approach was to create the board online in order to create a super streamlined product that was not reminiscent of “homemade.” However, after lots of trials and even more errors, I decided that the unique touch a handmade board added was necessary for my game. After this was decided, I knew I needed to fine-tune some of the rules and structure of the game. The thing that was lacking, tactically speaking, the most from my original version was the question of how the players would react to the information.
I created a game that had a clear message to highlight the inequities of the patriarchy and male-dominated society, but it did not necessarily force the players to interact or think critically about the issue. Therefore, I made the “Reality Check” card changes (encouraging critical conversation) and required males and females to switch roles upon starting the game in order to put individuals in a position they have not previously experienced. With these two critical changes, I hoped that the players would be forced to be in new, uncomfortable positions in order to realize the severity of the problems they might have never gone through. Additionally, you can bring up a problem, but if discussion is not required, then people might never hear important perspectives or treat it as significant.
Mary Flanagan’s definition of critical play, which she explains to be a “careful examination of social, cultural, political, or even personal themes that function as alternates to popular play spaces,” was a big inspiration to my reimagining. This inspired my alpha release; however, when I was reviewing my artist statement for Hack #2, I realized that it was a failure of the project: it was not a “careful examination” because it did not provoke or encourage conversation and reflection. Very similarly, something I also aimed to address was Flannagan’s concept that critical play requires a confrontational or intervention approach. My roommates and I played this game with their boyfriends, and boy, did they find it controversial. Not in the sense of thinking this stuff didn’t happen in real life but being upset that they actually had to deal with the consequences and hear the hard truth. Mary Flanagan was one of my favorite authors we read this semester, and critical play was definitely my favorite unit. I wanted to really embody the strength and power that she says critical play can have,
I think my beta version is a proactive version of my alpha release. Originally, the game was interesting yet merely introduced a concept. It could easily be played for fun without bringing any awareness to the injustices occurring: the message could be ignored and, therefore, forgotten. However, the newest version of Tradwife forces new roles, critical conversations, and uncomfortable realities. Unless someone is taken out of their comfort zone, they will never see or think about the problems affecting others, and this is what I hoped to do with the new version of this game. I do not want a guy to play this game and get excited because his female friend has to have four unwanted babies and constantly miss her turns while he gets to go through the game with complete free will and win. I really want Tradwife to not only shed light on an issue that continues to be present and even considered trendy but also to create conversation about the change that needs to occur.
DESIGN PROCESS
(I decided to keep a journal style of my design process to show what actually went on so I did not forget and could reflect on the decisions I made in real time
April 22nd: This was the first day that I started working on my Hack. I knew I wanted to improve some components of the game based on feedback from Dr. Sample and classmates, but the first thing I wanted to work on was the actual board. I did not have enough time during Hack #2 to make a clean, new board, so I just altered the real one. However, I knew that I wanted to make this Hack more reformed. I searched all over the internet for a board that I could edit or change (because I had found a template for the Monopoly board that could be edited for my other class). No such thing existed, so I wasted a lot of time looking for that! I then went to Photoshop and used the pen tool over the top of my old Game of Life board to create the same “path.” I then copied it onto a new board and added some decorations. It looked absolutely awful. Okay, not awful, but it was not giving anything I needed it to give. Although it looked much cleaner, everyone I asked agreed that it did not fit the vibe and that the level of personal creativity that came from the “done by hand” version was much better. In a fit of rage (because I spent HOURS trying to make it look good on Photoshop), I deleted everything (hence why I can’t show a picture!).
April 24th: I took a day off because I was so annoyed and thought there was no way to get it to look professional enough doing it by hand. I then decided that was the only way, so I started to brainstorm. I realized I needed to create a path out of paper to cover the one on the board while still showing the designs and illustrations. That also proved to be tricky because I had to trace and then trace again onto thicker material and cut for soooo long. Anyway, I had to figure out a solution and could then begin to work on the tactical aspects of the game. I was a bit skeptical because before, everything was colored and covered, and it looked rough.
April 27th: I decided to take the biggest points of critique/suggestions from my classmates and Dr. Sample and use them to improve the logistics of the game. To start, Dr. Sample suggested I consider the impact of the “Reality Check” cards. Although they were very important and brought up great inequities, it did not matter if that was not how the players perceived them. As a result, I decided to make it an option for the person who draws each Reality Check card first to have the option (if everyone agrees) to have a conversation about it to be rewarded with no consequences. This, in my mind, forces conversation, debate, and recognition of the idea I am trying to push. Secondly, the main thing I thought about was that typically, we play similar characters in a game, so girls would want to play as girls and vice versa. This also completely skips over the important message of the game, which is why I created the rule that you must play as the opposite gender of yourself (at least having half and half represented) in order for people who don’t experience life as a woman at least get this simulation
April 28th: I had ironed out all of the rule changes and just had to spend a lot of time improving the visuals. Also decided to name it Tradwife in order to bring a sense of reality to a term that is “trending” right now for seemingly the wrong reasons and does not teach the next generation the full picture.
I did not have too many hardships last week (except for submitting this late yet again; I can’t seem to get this together. This semester is killing me with interviews and so much work). ANYWAYS . . . I enjoyed this Hack, which was refreshing because #3 was really hard for me. I had so much fun making this remix video. I did, of course, run into some hiccups with merging everything together to get it to look the way I wanted, but I really enjoyed the creative process. I also got so much great feedback in class. I felt like I had so many things to talk about in my artist statement that it was kind of all over the place. However, I had so many objectives and things I wanted to accomplish that I needed to bring up everything to paint the full picture.
I also really enjoyed seeing everyone’s creations in class. I felt like everyone produced really important yet fun pieces. It is really cool to see everybody’s varying interests. I am really excited to start working on the final Hack. I think I am going to work on my board game. I want to redesign it, make it look more professional, and push my critique.
Curious Chipmunk’s “Evolution of Technology” (my 4th Hack) is a critique and ironic piece that evaluates the evolution of technology and its impact on society. I produced a video on TikTok inspired by some videos I have seen on the platform. Recently, my FYP has had numerous videos calling for better data security methods and less access to data by platforms, especially after the TikTok ban, when individuals found out about how much risk we agree to when joining these apps. I find it very ironic that people are sharing their concerns about data commodification on a platform known for collecting immense amounts of personal data and has gotten in trouble before for leaking individual information.
As for the rules of the project, we were instructed to include three distinct time periods, four sources, and three types of media, critique a cultural concern, and break one of the rules. My intent was initially to break the three types of media; I was just going to use video and sound. However, after watching my Hack with just these two elements, I realized my critique was not quite strong enough because the irony did not come across in the manner that I wanted. So, I decided that adding text–the thought bubbles and the gifs–would provide the necessary amount of contrast to produce an ironic piece. Ultimately, I broke the rule of breaking a rule, ironic in and of itself.
My process started with me thinking of a topic of interest, which, of course, ended up being a critique and exploration of the technological world. This is something that continues to be of interest to me through this class, as well as my other classes, where I am learning about surveillance culture and artificial intelligence. I continue to stumble upon fear of the future and what it holds in the technological world. Technology is not always seen as a positive now. Even a couple of years ago, it would have never been a question of whether technology was helping or hurting the field of academics and student performance. However, now, this is a real debate that has occurred in my studies. This was when I decided to do the voiceover to foreshadow the shift in perception of technology as the video progressed. Rather than keeping the sound from the clips, this added another element of irony because of the chipmunk effect that I decided to use.
Another important part of my critique was to show how technology has changed our perception of its role in our lives. In the late 20th century and early 21st century, it was seen as a tool to help us complete tasks and speed up various processes. However, with the invention of social media and platforms like TikTok, that role has shifted. It is not just a helper now; it is an entertainer and predictor. Algorithms have the ability to know us better than our own family and friends. These types of technology seek to understand and control our behaviors, not just help us perform tasks more diligently. Additionally, in order to nail down the point of the new risks of technology, I needed to add a clip that demonstrated its downfalls. I decided to include something that most people would care about: their social security number. I personally know how damaging it is to have your SSN stolen, and it shows people how much of your identity is available to be breached or leaked just by having an online presence.
I originally started creating my video on Adobe Premiere Pro, but I realized it would add more depth and commentary if I were able to actually generate the video using TikTok features. Shockingly, it ended up being a much more simple and streamlined way. Adobe Premiere and other high-tech, expensive platforms used to be the only place for people to edit and mash-up videos to a great extent. Now, I can create a video made up of many clips, with sound, voiceover, and text in a free app on a phone. Creativity is becoming easier to accomplish and access with new technology. I had never made a video on TikTok before, but I mashed everything together and added all of the “extras” in probably two hours from start to finish. When I began this process on Adobe, I had already spent nearly 2 hours converting files, lining things up, and refreshing myself on the complicated interface. I believe this reflects a much lower need for skill in order to be creative in the digital art world.
These advancements in technology are what people dreamed of 100 years ago, but at what point do they become a burden? I had a lot of objectives and goals for this Hack. First, I wanted to explore the change in emotions related to emerging technologies: it used to be so exciting, and now it’s almost dreadful when a new computer gets released. Second, I wanted to challenge the TikTok call-for-help videos I have been seeing on my FYP. There is a culture right now of posting to raise awareness for things that would be better suited to be dealt with by real actions or in other ways. People on TikTok calling for greater regulations on data privacy are being completely counterintuitive. Third, I wanted to explore how technology has made creativity and originality more accessible and, therefore, easier to achieve and less special: anyone can produce a video on TikTok, and the probability other creators copy that idea until one of them happens to become viral and famous is extremely high in this cultural climate. Lastly, I wanted to create an overall ironic piece that deals with a highly important topic through the use of sarcasm and non-professional strategies.
This week, I really enjoyed the continued conversation on the commons. It’s kind of unrelated to online/technological commons, but when I was in the airport on Thursday, I thought about the “commons” of Starbucks online order pickups. They legitimately leave out all the coffee and food, and you just come and take the one with your name on it. I have never once had my online order picked up from Starbucks. I asked my coffee/Starbies-obsessed teammate that I was with, and she also said she never had anything stolen. People are killing each other all over the place, yet there is enough respect for the commons of Starbucks mobile orders that nobody (not regularly or often) steals orders. That is crazy to me.
I enjoyed playing the games for class on Tuesday. I enjoyed hearing my group mates’ perspectives on “Eleanor.” I found it a bit odd and struggled to see how it made an intervention or remix. It just seemed like unrelated things piled together. I wish there was more info about each piece of art on the page because, as someone who knows nothing about art, I did not understand the juxtaposition/importance of artwork.
To be completely honest, I am super behind on my remix. I have had so many other papers and projects. It feels like all my classes were pretty chill until Spring Break, and now every teacher has assigned so many things. I am drowning in work! But I am really excited to get more work done on this project tomorrow and Sunday once my team gets back from Chicago!
Well . . . here I am again doing my Flog on a Sunday night. I, like a lot of my fellow classmates it seems, can not remember to post by Flog by Friday Night. I think it is because Friday night is typically the one night of the week when I do not do any homework, so it gets overlooked. This week, I am going to treat it as homework to do before class on Thursday, and then I will update it after class (hopefully) so that it gets done on time. This is a MAJOR MAJOR fail as it is not like me at all to simply forget to do something or not do it on time. This week, I will do better.
Last week was really interesting to me. I loved the discussion on Tuesday that we had as a class surrounding the Obama remix image. I felt like I could have talked about it all day. I have gone back and forth a couple of times after class about my feelings surrounding that image. It seems that when I put my shoes in the photographer’s position, it changes how I feel. This form of copyright seems so subjective to me, which I find interesting because I never really thought about this as such an opinion-centered discussion. I also loved the reading for Thursday and our discussion of the Commons. I always find it fascinating when there are ideas or places that society just treats a certain way, and it is implied that everyone will follow them. It is a really interesting view of social norms, and I had never thought about it in terms of the Internet before.
I am getting excited for Hack #4 and hope the readings and class — because I will not be here on Thursday — will be super insightful and helpful for starting that process. I have found that there is normally one thing said or mentioned in class/readings that immediately sparks my brain and gives me my initial idea.
This week was very interesting to me, and I found myself really stopping to think. The readings for Tuesday were dense, but I really appreciated how they directly played off of one another, with one being a commentary on the previous. I absolutely loved Jonathan Lethem’s piece. His examples about music and cartoons were things I had never previously thought about, but really opened my eyes to what originality really means. Also, not knowing that his paper was patchwork until the very end was a weird experience for me. To know that everything I had just read was a combination of all these different creators made me question everything honestly. Even if we think we have an original idea, is it really? It is probably based on everything we have picked up in the world around us. This piece also made me realize that originality and technology have an inverse relationship in my head. As technology and access to it increases, true originality and unique ideas decrease. This is something I continued to think about during the other readings. Goldsmith had a lot of interesting commentary in regard to the influence of digitalization on originality. I also really enjoyed the comic reading, and I wish I could have been in class because I am sure Jacob would have had really cool insights into the music world, as it is something I am quite unfamiliar with. I also just thought the format was really cool, and I have never come into contact with a truly academic piece using this format.
I feel like this Hack will be really hard for me because this whole week, I struggled to know my own opinion on this topic. I would read one thing or hear one person’s perspective and think to myself, oh yeah, that makes sense, but then I would see the other perspective and also agree. For me, the feeling of this week was intriguing but questioning. I also felt like during these readings I would start thinking about a point the author made and then read the next 5 pages without actually digesting anything because I was thinking about a previous statement. I think I need to do a better job of trying to digest and separate so I can read and then fixate.
What will the use of this technology encourage me to notice?
This question from “Do Artifacts Have Ethics?” spoke the most to me in relation to my third Hack. Taking a deeper dive into Google Docs made me realize the affordances are all geared toward academia and business. Opening my anonymous confession document feels weird. Most people have never used Google Docs as a personal or collaborative helpline in any regard to emotional content. It forces the individuals interacting with it to question a piece of software they regularly interact with. When taken out of context, it requires reflection on the specificity upon which it was created. I have never thought about how Google Docs encourage interaction in solely one subject or area of productivity. Beyond Docs, it made me question the accessibility that work-related applications have that personal-focused software lacks. Because of technological innovations, we are never separated from email or modes of work, yet we have not gotten there in terms of using technology to help increase access to personal growth applications. I think this speaks volumes to the importance we place on success in school and work. It is still taboo to consider mental health as important as physical health, and I believe that is the reason there is little to no software created geared towards this subject. The Google Suite has everything an individual could need to succeed in their job, yet it discourages this one important aspect because of the way it was created.
This hack was definitely the most challenging for me. Although the mission was simply to repurpose some type of already existing software in order to use it in an unexpected way, I struggled. It was very easy to think of ways that various platforms could be used in ways they were not intended; however, I found it hard to find any that carried significant, cultural values. I really wanted to nail the “process, aim to reverse, challenge, or complicate the cultural politics or assumptions of the software” part of the prompt because I really enjoyed that aspect of my previous 2 hacks. I initially thought I should draw on a Ti84 plus calculator or make an image in Google Sheets, but that does not have any larger implications, so I was not satisfied. According to Dunne and Raby, I wanted to approach my project from the “B” angle, or the way that a speculative designer would by seeing a problem and creating it in order to address or challenge that problem. My intention was to design a platform that sparks debate and makes users question the larger implications, not just simply make a piece of software perform in a different way.
My idea came to me when I was sitting in class and had a super deep thought about a really important relationship in my life. I thought oh, this is good; I want to think and journal on this later; let me write it down so I don’t forget. Then I realized I don’t really have anywhere to write this down; I am in the middle of class, and I prefer no one sees and my journal is at home. I immediately thought of the contrast if this had been a thought about sending an email or adding a thought to one of my essays. We have access to emails, work, and school platforms at any and every time during the day through our laptops, iPads, and phones. Why have we not used technology to expand on personal growth or collaborative help spaces? We have Yik Yak, and Reddit, and social media, but none of those spaces create the correct environment to safely share important, personal information with others to feel more seen and get help without “outing” oneself.
I knew I wanted to make an “intuitive leap” that addresses this gap in technological platforms. Sennett’s The Craftsman reading that we focused on Thursday in class was particularly inspiring to me. It went into great detail on tools, intuition, and “challenging the process.” The second step of an intuitive leap is adjacency, which can be defined as “two unlike domains are brought close together; the closer they are, the more stimulating their twined presence” (Sennett, 210). This relates to all the hacks we have done, and the point I was really trying to make through this project. I decided that in order to achieve this sense of juxtaposition, I needed to use a piece of software that was intended to be the opposite of reflection, ambiguity, anonymity, and emotion. Google Docs was the perfect thing for that. The purpose, explained by the name, is to convey and share information. The entire Google suite and domain is geared towards academia and businesses.
I immediately created a Google doc titled “Things We Can’t Say Out Loud” and wrote some instructions regarding what the document was for. I prefaced the document by setting boundaries and hopefully creating a safe, welcoming space for users. The challenge then came when I wanted to ensure the users’ information stayed anonymous. Google has created a lot of barriers that encourage all data to be known and collected by everyone who has access to the document. I had to then create the document on my “burner” email, which I used only to sign up for a discount. This way, when I made the document public, I had no previous connections or interactions with anyone, so their avatars would pop up as varieties of different anonymous animals. I then decided to change the name of the document to “*Grocery List” to provide an extra layer of protection for people who do not want anyone to know they have accessed a document for sharing their emotions. I then shared the document with my team, my Snapchat story, and my brother (who is in college in another state). I then did not check the document for two days.
I came back to nearly 6 pages of individuals’ dreams, regrets, fears, and more. Some people even left comments of support to others. It was incredible to see the success of this. People actually felt like it was a safe space to share secrets, and they wanted to. Oftentimes, we want to share our experiences, especially failures, with others so we know we are not alone, but it is hard to do so when your identity is not kept secret. I felt this engagement played into the notion of social integration that Balsamo details in their work, “Design” from International Journal of Learning and Media: the idea that the design of a piece of technology or product is subject to the way that users interact and contribute to them. My idea rested in the hands of the individuals who received the document, their experiences, their willingness to share, and the content they produced; this is what ultimately created “my design.” I took away from this reading and my hack, that design does not exist without the audience or users who interact and collaborate with the work.
This week has been quite challenging. I have really enjoyed the readings though, and the discussions from class on Tuesday and Thursday. It is always cool to see the different ideas my classmates pull from the readings. I particularly enjoyed the Craftmanship reading because it was interesting and just the right amount of confusing. Thinking about everything as a technology that we often times ignore was fascinating.
I keep going back and forth regarding my software invasion. Not even back and forth, but all over. I keep having “good” surface-level ideas, but then when I put them into practice, they are not substantial enough. I think because my last hack provided such an important critique of the world, this one seems useless. My classmates also had such important hacks, and this project definitely renders less important results (or at least I haven’t been able to come up with any). A lot of my ideas have been to use the platforms in unconventional ways, but still, ways that the platforms could be used. I am struggling to come up with the “never thought to do that with that” idea. I am also just now realizing maybe I should have documented some of my first ideas to show the evolution of what I finally landed on.
I also would like to update my WordPress with a fun theme and make it more engaging; however, any time I sit down to accomplish just that I end up just scrolling through themes and not changing anything! It feels like a commitment and that it might make me clueless if my interface changes.
Major failure: I went to update something to this flog and realized I hit save and never published!
This week was not met with any true failures, but I did struggle to get my game of Life to “perform” and show the exact message I wanted it to. The hardest thing for me to work around was the investment squares. I struggled to find a way to make various “reality” check cards that were applicable because users could be at different stages in their lives. I also realized after I heard my classmate’s hacks, I thought of changes or additions I could make to my game that would improve it. I feel like I needed to finish my Hack early and really sit with it to make sure it was “everything” I wanted. For the last two hacks, I felt like even a week after the project, I discovered an amazing additional stipulation.
I do not have many ideas for Hack #3. Well I do, but none of them with importance or impact. I need to find an idea so I can have extra time marinating on the best way to execute. This week has been a bit of a failure in general as I broke my thumb in practice on Friday and have had a lot going on personally making me fall a bit behind. I am hoping this project will help me get back on track in an enjoyable manner.
I think chatting with classmates about ideas could be helpful for me or anyone before Hacks are due. We all have various ideas but hearing other people’s struggles can help inform each other.
For my second Hack of this class, I decided to add a bit of a twist to The Game of Life. This idea first came to me when we were exploring adversarial design, as presented by Carl DiSalvo in his Adversarial Design. The notion of creating designs that are intended to provoke critique, discussion, and even disruption really spoke to me. On February 4th, the class discussed different ways the game Cops and Robbers could be reskinned in order to make a broader, more important critique or play on a serious matter. In the middle of this discussion, my brain somehow landed on reskinning The Game of Life. Although I was unsure of how I wanted to comment or critique, I knew I wanted to make an important assertion about the disparities in expectations for men and women in the trajectory of their lives. This ties right into Mary Flanagan’s definition of critical play, which she explains to be a “careful examination of social, cultural, political, or even personal themes that function as alternates to popular play spaces” (6).
I sat down with the game and began brainstorming. The creators of the board game have updated it since I last played, making it more inclusive to nontraditional lifestyles, which is great; however, I believe it does not accurately reflect the pressures and beliefs in society. The game has become more progressive, yet it does not actively consider the slow-changing nature of real life. In order to accurately portray the way that society still views adulthood, marriage, familial relationships, and the workplace, I needed to reskin the game.
To begin, with the very first step of the game, I wanted to expose one of the biggest and most important barriers that remain between males and females – the pay gap. The player randomly chooses one occupation from their gendered stack and one occupation from the either gendered stack. They then get to decide which occupation they want to have. The male “gendered” occupations all require graduation from high school and hold the prestige of “high-paying jobs” (pictured below). On the other end of the spectrum, females are allowed to pick from low-level jobs that require no education. Lastly, the either gendered stack includes four jobs; however, the pay gap is reflected in the job’s respective salaries. This reflects a harsh but true reality: Not only are women typically kept out of work in areas such as science and math, but they typically receive less pay than men for the same job when they are equally qualified.
After starting the game, the players who chose to be female are hit yet again with another obstacle. Only men have the option to not get married. Although this is not completely realistic, it accurately reflects the general sentiments society poses about marriage. If a woman in her forties is not married, it is viewed as weird and frowned upon. However, if a male counterpart is similarly single, there is no comment or second thought. Additionally, the game explains that once married, the women must quit their jobs to become stay-at-home wives. This is another typical assumption of women. Although women today are doing a great job at breaking this stereotype, it is still considered traditional for women to be caretakers and stay at home. I also made the rule that women then receive the average amount of salary that their theoretical husband would be making ($100,000). This is more than any possible job a female player could make in the game (based on how I designed it). I did this to show that no matter how much a woman does, they often receive and are viewed as less than men. These female players are now just as profitable as a man because they receive their salary; however, they do not have the freedom of decision, which they will soon find out.
As the game progresses, the female players encounter their next hurdle. If they land on a “baby, pet, or none” space and their car is not full – representing that their family is not complete based on societal standards – they must have another baby and have no option. On the other hand, the male players have free will to choose any of the three they please. As I alluded to above, the female players wish they would have just chosen to be male from the beginning because they would have been more successful and had more autonomy over their lives. Additionally, I thought requiring the women to have a baby provided a cheeky commentary on women and unwanted pregnancies. If a man were to accidentally get a woman regent, he could just disappear and never suffer any consequences. However, women do not have that option. The responsibility falls completely on them, and they can not simply “get rid of it” (I am not going to get into politics here, but they have to deal with their decision either way). Society pressures women to have babies and continue producing offspring no matter their story or what they actually want. It is by a man’s doing that a woman gets pregnant, yet a woman has to deal with everything and suffer any consequences that come as a result.
The last modification I made to the game was to change the “investment” squares into “reality check” spaces. Ten of them are shown below. These cards correspond to the stage of life the players are in during the game. They serve as commentary on the assumed standard of women and the role of moms. Most of these have two “checks,” one for male players and one for female players, with the female players being disparately impacted by having to skip a turn or lose a significantly greater number of women.
I chose not to make these stipulations apparent until the users started the game in order to confront them with reality head-on like a person experiences in the real world. Women do not get a “trigger warning” that allows them to avoid these obstacles and unfair standards that society poses. My game took a confrontational or intervention approach to critical play (Flanagan 11). Through my creation, I hoped to take a fun game of endless possibilities and put it into the realm of real life: Life is not actually a game of endless possibilities. The constraints, standards, and disadvantages that society yields to women do not allow for the same upward mobility and magical life that men can experience with ease. This game forces the aspect of critical play as it confronts users and requires them to think about actual life trajectories.
This week has not been met with too many big failures; however, it seems like I can’t do anything right when it comes to my Hack #2. I have the idea of what I’m gonna do: reskin the game of Life, exposing our misogynistic society. That seemed very easy in my head (like that’s any small task). It has been the little things that are taking me a while or stumping me. I am trying to send the right message and make it clear without going overboard. It seems to be a fine line. I do not want the game to be absurd because I want to depict real life but try to bring the male-centered tones to light.
I have really enjoyed the content and the material this week (even the first pop quiz that I did not do too hot on). My skim reading for Tuesday’s class was clearly a fail! However, it was a failure, and I am glad I had it because I realized how little I was actually retaining and how much I was missing. This is an overall struggle, but I am in four digital studies/data science classes this semester: E-lit, Critical AI, Surveillance Culture, and this course. I am having a really hard time remembering what I talked about in which class. For instance, in this class, we talked about surveillance/hacking originating at MIT today (Thursday), which I had just talked about in my other class. As I was reading and listening in class, I was confused about what I had already heard versus if I was making stuff up . . . idk It’s like when you can’t remember if you made up the crazy thing you were about to say or if you best friend told you.
I am super excited to see my game of Life come to life !!! Hopefully, I do not hit any more roadblocks as I finalize things this weekend.
— will be super insightful and helpful for starting that process. I have found that there is normally one thing said or mentioned in class/readings that immediately sparks my brain and gives me my initial idea.
