Filter Bubbles

I'm not on Facebook all that much.  Back in high school it was an aggregate to see what all of your real friends were up to, but now it's mostly "suggested content" (advertisements) and political garbage articles spread without any regard for fact checking or intellectual dignity by people you don't even know.  I've seen friends on both sides of the political spectrum sharing something inflammatory and then being called out immediately because it was factually untrue. 

I'm not surprised how divided people are today.  The sort of algorithms that Eli Pariser talked about have amplified the effects confirmation bias has on our information diet.  I feel like all we see are emotionally charged, opinion-validating articles masquerading as unbiased fact.  The ones we like and the ones we don't like confirm our biases that "we" are sensible and correct and "they" are crazy and evil. 

Fox News has turned the word "liberal" into a curse word and now I hear people hating on others calling them "liberals" with no regard to what liberalism actually is politically.  It just means "someone people who identify as conservatives don't like." The word "socialist" has received the same treatment.  When conservative oriented people see news involving "liberals" it's always some screeching, smug stereotype who feels more like a comic book villain than a real person.

The left isn't much better.  I've noticed a disturbing trend in recent years where some people on the left want to label anyone they don't like as a nazi.  There's a real and shameful presence of neo-nazis in America, but to say anyone who thinks immigration laws need to exist or that an over-reliance on welfare can adversely affect the economy are actual no-holds-barred nazis is ignorant at best.  I'm not a "commie" because I think excessive wealth inequality is bad for the economy, and they deserve the same respect.

One Bad Meal

     A meal is more than what's on your plate.  The smell of the restaurant, the attitude of the staff, the cleanliness of the menu, and many other factors all tie together to form either a pleasant outing or a nightmare.  What follows is an absolutely true recounting of the worst meal I've ever had which would totally be corroborated by many witnesses if only they weren't all so conveniently busy.

     It all started when my wife and I first arrived at the restaurant: that hole-in-the-wall Mexican place you've seen time and time again.  Immediately upon walking in: the smell!  Merciful gods above, the smell!  It wasn't a bad smell, like a dumpster or a middle school locker room.  It smelled like an Italian restaurant.  Notes of olive oil and tomato sauce permeated the air. I had to pop back outside to verify I was in fact at La Cocina and not La Cucina.  The incongruous aroma did not ruin the evening, but the confusion set an uncomfortable tone.

     The teenage host couldn't be bothered to look up from his phone long enough to guide us to our table.  After several minutes of awkwardly staring a hole through his head, he motioned toward an open table with his head.  We weren't worth even an arm extension or a finger point.  After sitting down and clearing a day's worth of crumbs from the table with my sleeve, our waiter gave us a half-empty bowl of chips and salsa that I just saw him take from a recently vacated table.  When I brought this up he rolled his eyes at me like I was being unreasonable!

     The waiter returned with fresh bowls of chips and salsa, and we ordered our drinks: two glasses of water with lemon. He brought out two glasses with lemon slices and a pitcher, set them on the table and walked away. Apparently I was eating at the restaurant version of Build-A-Bear because I had to assemble my own drink. After taking a sip, I found that the "water" was actually flat Sprite. What a power move! He must have intentionally poured out some Sprite and left it in a pitcher for hours, just to be able to pull this on customers for no reason.

     I'm no Indiana Jones, but I am a bit of an adventurer, and after the nightmare we'd had so far I had to know in what sort of condition the food would be served.  Would it be raw or rotten?  Would it even be what I asked for?  Will this turn out to be a rather confused Italian restaurant that serves chips and salsa after all?  To my surprise, the food itself was delicious, and precisely what I ordered no less!

   What I forgot to mention at the beginning of this story is that I am an accomplished dark wizard, master of ancient and chaotic magicks that precede man's rule of the Earth. The food was delicious, but did not make up for the rudeness of the staff, so while exiting the strange and rude establishment, I summoned a million tiny meteors from the sky that crashed around the restaurant in a semi-circle. They all opened up like tiny escape pods and a million and three tiny demons (six of them had to double up) descended like a chattering avalanche upon the place.

     My wife and I cackled maniacally in the seedy parking lot as the screams of the damned and the sounds of swiping claws and gnashing teeth echoed off the wall of the nearby Denny's. When the demons' fun was over, the smell of burnt lasagna wafted through the air. They all boarded their meteor ships and I sent them back to space-hell with a wave of my Earth-wrist. The young host crawled out from the burning building and thrusted his head forward with his eyes wide and his brows furled: one final gesture to ask, "Really, bro?" Yes, young host. Really bro. And then he died. And then I spit on him a little bit. And so did my wife.

     A bad meal is more than just burnt bread or bland steak;  it's an entire experience.
   

Narrative Essay: W-A-R-C-R-A-F-T -- Find out what it means to me!

    I didn’t have many friends growing up.  My brother enjoyed more social privileges than I did because my parents tried too hard to protect me.  They allowed him to roam the neighborhood on his bike for as long as he could ride without training wheels.  I finally won that ability after an argument with my mom at thirteen.  As a result of my parents' excessive concern, my interests focused on activities I could enjoy alone: video games chief among them.  I met my best friend Oscar in fourth grade through our mutual love of video games.  Eventually, World of Warcraft became the sacred direct link between my interests and friends and it served as the foundation of my social life both as a teenager and a young adult.

     At the start of my teenage years and shortly after moving to North Carolina I maintained contact with my Virginian friends over Xbox Live, Microsoft's online gaming platform.  While playing Call of Duty on my brother's account, Oscar told me that he and some friends of ours started playing World of Warcraft.  Warcraft had existed for at least a decade as a strategy game where the player controls entire armies, and I felt excited to try it from the more intimate perspective of a role-playing game where the player controls only one character.

     Later, in the second half of my freshman year of high school, I met my friend Jordan in gym class.  We often had to choose between participating in a team sport or walking around the running track, and we met because we both frequently chose the latter.  One day he revealed to me that he had started playing Warcraft with his cousin about the same time I did.  I introduced Jordan to Oscar and the others and we all became fast friends.

     Playing religiously with friends was critical for the game to hold my interest.  It has been simplified now that Activision (the publisher of Call of Duty) bought Blizzard (the developer of Warcraft) and wanted to appeal to a more casual audience, but when I started playing it was incredibly complex with a steep learning curve.  The subtle clues given by non-player characters made quest objectives elusive.  When players did find that cruel bandit, they found him surrounded by weaker minions and not everyone could fight them all without help.

     Alone, I would likely have given up and played something more accessible, but the excitement of triumphing against the odds with my friends made it all worthwhile.  I would come home from school and one of them would message me saying they found some cool new place or got some powerful new weapon.  The excitement of experiencing the game from several perspectives at once kept it fresh.  It also served as something Jordan and I could talk about at school.

     We all played together for my entire high school career, but after graduation I had an important question to answer:  what now?  College was always my goal but I never really thought about how to pay for it.  I looked at my brother’s slowly growing mountain of debt and decided that was not what I wanted for myself.  I took a page from my dad's book and decided to join the military so that I could pay for school. 

     After seven months of training and a few weeks of leave I found myself in Alaska.  I was farther than ever from my high school friends and family.  I made a few friends in the dormitory while I lived there, but few as strong as the ones from high school.  The inability to see Jordan in person made me sad, but I had already gone through that with Oscar.  We could all still hang out in-game and it felt like little had changed.

     As time passed, it became less common that all of us played simultaneously.  Real life obligations came up for each of us and we all started playing off-and-on.  Occasionally our lives would sync up so that we could all play together again like the good old days.  It always felt like a high school reunion minus the regret.  We’d explore new game content together and talk about our lives and then we’d slowly log in less and less until the next cycle.

     The cycle continued as Blizzard released new content for the game until January of this year.  On the seventeenth of January, I received the tragic news that my childhood friend Oscar had passed away.  His brother wrote me on Facebook, “Hello Jeffrey, as you may or may not know…there has been a tragedy in our family. Oscar passed away on Monday.” My grief was immense and still haunts me almost a year later.  At first I thought I’d never play Warcraft again because of all the memories tied to it, but now I find that I continue to play for precisely that reason.

     I take a bittersweet, nostalgic trip down memory lane every time I log in.  I still see him in my friends list with his status set to away.  Seeing that makes me sad, but it helps keep his memory alive. Blizzard announced some time ago that they planned to release a version of Warcraft similar to how it was when we all first started playing.  Jordan and I decided that we’d play it for at least little bit in his honor.

     World of Warcraft means more to me than a simple game.  It serves as my mall, my hair salon, my race track, my sports arena: the place my friends and I all meet up to hang out and have fun. Now it also serves as a living memorial to the greatest friend I’ve ever had.  Thanks to Warcraft I know that no matter where I live in the real world, my best friends are only a log-in away.

One Story

     My personal experience with one-story related ignorance involves my German heritage.  When Americans think of Germany, they seem to think of Nazis, beer and funny accents, in that order.

It's not hard to imagine why.  The only time Germany is brought up in American schools is World War 2.  It's also about the only thing the History channel ever talked about until it decided to shift gears and focus on nonsense conspiracies and reality TV.  Elsewhere on TV, there are countless road-trip or party movies wherein the characters invariably wind up in Germany for Oktoberfest.  Beerfest comes to mind.

     When I was in middle school--that lovely time in our lives when kids have discovered horrible ways to hurt each other but haven't developed the maturity not to do so--there were a few occasions where I was called a Nazi simply because I said I was German.  The potential informational structures of DNA are unfathomably numerous, but I believe it is incredibly unlikely that one could find the text of Mein Kampf encoded into my DNA.  Moreover, I think it just as likely that were such a thing to happen, it is equally likely to happen to anyone, regardless of where they happen to be born.

     These words hurt as a kid, but now I recognize it for what it is: ignorance.  People who would call me a Nazi for being German would turn around a lament that others call them inbred for being southern, lazy for being Hispanic or criminal for being black.  They possess a stunning lack of self-awareness and empathy that is tragic, but understandable.  

     Were I to probe my thoughts and feelings long enough I'd find some misinformed perspective about some group of people that could be considered harmful.  My defense is simple: to recognize where I am ignorant.  When I feel a certain way about someone new I ask myself why I feel that way.  Is it because of some behavior they exhibit or is it because of cultural stereotypes ingrained into me?  

     Perhaps I'm cynical, but I find that many people offer reasons to hate them for what they choose to be.  Hating them for what they didn't choose to be is lazy on top of being wrong.  If you must be hateful instead of compassionate, at least put in the effort to make it justified.

     

     

Warcraft Weekly - Full 'Zine, Now in One Place!

Warcraft Weekly

A ‘zine by Jeff Deetman

Mission Statement

I write this magazine to share my passion for World of Warcraft with fellow players, casual and fanatical.

Letter from the Editor

     I’ve been playing Warcraft for eleven years now.  It was a cornerstone of my teenage years and continues to play a massive role in my adult life, and I’m not alone.  Millions of people all over the world have Warcraft accounts, and they all play for their own reasons.  The main feature of this issue will explore some of the reasons people have for sinking so much of their time into just one video game.  We’ll also look at the new dungeon Siege of Boralus, check out some gamer gear, answer questions from fans and more!

-Jeff Deetman, Editor-In-Chief

Advice Column

“I just started playing and I have no idea what class to play.  There are so many choices!  I think I’d like to play a damage dealing class because the responsibility of healing and tanking are intimidating.”

-Kirk Vanderblurg, Sacramento CA

At twelve classes with three specializations per class (four for druids), there is a total of thirty-seven possible ways to play Warcraft!  I was just like you when I first started playing: overwhelmed by so many choices.  If I were you Kirk, I’d play a Druid.  The Druid class is the jack-of-all-trades in Warcraft.  While most classes are relegated to either damage and tanking, damage and healing, or just damage, Druid can do all three.  Druids are unique, however, because they can do both ranged magic damage and close-up melee damage.  It will give you a taste of all four roles in the game and allow you to switch between them at will!

Announcing: September Art Contest!

     Gather your pens, pencils and paints because Warcraft Weekly’s bi-annual art contest is upon us!  To commemorate the release of the new expansion Battle for Azeroth, we invite readers to create their best fanart depicting each faction’s new alliances.  Whoever can best capture the spirit of the Zandalari trolls or Kul Tiran humans will win a fabulous prize of $5,000 and a trip to Blizzard HQ in Irvine, California.  Second and third place will receive a limited-edition Warcraft gaming mouse and keyboard.  All entries must be received by September 14^th.  Contest winners will be announced in the October issue!

Send your art to:

warcraftweekly@email.address

(Digital Submissions)

123 Magazine Street,

Magazine Land, US, 54321

(Physical Submissions)

Battle for Azeroth – Siege of Boralus: Dungeon Review

            The dramatic tale of betrayal and redemption unraveled by alliance players during their adventures in Kul Tiras culminates in the Ashvane company attacking Boralus, the capital city.  Players fight through the burning city streets, ultimately driving off the kraken Viq’Goth.  As a mythic-difficulty-only dungeon, Siege is controversial among players as this marks the first time Blizzard has gated the end of a narrative behind hardcore content.  Many casual players dread the merciless difficulty of mythic, and feel like their story efforts have led up to nothing, as they are unwilling to attempt it.  However, those who step outside their comfort zone will be rewarded as they overcome one of the most difficult and satisfying five-man challenges this player has ever completed.

Gamer Gear Recommendation: Razer Naga Mouse

     If you’ve played Warcraft, you know you’ve got more spells and abilities than you 

can shake a stick at.  The tiny square icons seem to overwhelm your screen and you 

waste critical seconds scrolling your mouse over to each one during a tense boss 

fight, or perhaps you hit the number 4 instead of the number 3 and that mistake is 

the difference between life and death.  With Razer’s Naga mouse, you have 12 

buttons easily accessible to your thumb.  Combined with the Bartender addon’s 

customizable action bars, you can map your abilities to the mouse, dramatically 

cutting down on input time and mistakes.  Utilizing shift and control click functions 

as well puts 36 spells in the palm of your hand!

Glossary: Common WoW Terms for Outsiders – Dungeons

                 The dungeon is the lowest level of player-versus-environment (PvE) content in World of Warcraft.  The narratives of many zones culminate in one or more dungeons requiring a team of five players.  The monsters in these dungeons are more powerful than those outside, and the boss fights require a level of coordination between players that goes beyond standard fights.  Dungeon groups are comprised of the tank, who ensures that enemies attack him or her to keep the rest of the group safe, the healer, who uses restorative spells to keep the group alive, and the three damage dealers who burn down enemy health bars.

Advertisement – Leave Me A-Clone®!

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                Leave Me A-Clone® will send you an identical android body double that folds neatly into your computer desk!  Send your robo-self off to handle all the distractions you can’t be bothered to deal with when there’s loot on the line!  Leave Me A-Clone® isn’t just for kids either.  Are you a parent and your kids won’t stop crying?  Send in the clones!  Is your dog bothering you?  Throw him a clone!  Big deadline at work?  The clone is on the case!  When life gets in the way of Warcraft, tell it Leave Me A-Clone®!

Warcraft Trivia: Show Me the WarFacts

1. At its peak, World of Warcraft enjoyed 12-million unique subscriptions. That’s almost 3.5-million more people than the population of New York City!
2. WoW originally launched in 2004.  At fourteen years old, it is the longest running Massively-Multiplayer-Online-Roleplaying-Game (MMORPG).
3. At launch, players could choose between 9 classes: Druid, Hunter, Mage, Paladin, Priest, Rogue, Shaman, Warlock and Warrior.  Since then, Blizzard has added 3 more classes to the game: Death Knight, Demon Hunter and Monk. 
4. The paladin class was exclusive to the Alliance faction and the shaman was exclusive to the Horde at launch.  This changed in the first expansion which introduced the alien Draenai (Dran-I) to the Alliance and the jaded Blood Elves to the Horde. Each race could play the previously inaccessible class for that faction.

Untwist the Nether! Word Search

     A Warrior, Priest, Warlock and Druid walk into a bar.  Unfortunately, that bar is located in the Twisting Nether: the trans-dimensional glue that holds space-time together in the World of Warcraft.  After taking a drink, the four heroes merge into a transcendental super consciousness.  Neat as that may be, the Warrior needs to be home soon as his wife will give him what-for if he misses dinner again.  Help this higher power sort out the who's who within by finding each hero's class specializations in the Word Search.  Do so, and you will save them from a fate worse than death.  The warrior's wife will appreciate it, too.

Word Search generator: http://puzzlemaker.discoveryeducation.com/WordSearchSetupForm.html

Untwist the Nether!

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AFFLICTION	ARMS	BALANCE
DEMONOLOGY	DESTRUCTION	DISCIPLINE
FERAL	FURY	GUARDIAN
HOLY	PROTECTION	RESTORATION
SHADOW

Editor's Choice - Glossary: Common WoW Terms for Outsiders 2 – Specialization

            Often shortened to spec, a specialization defines how your class behaves in combat.  Some classes have one spec for tanking, and others for damage.  Some classes have a spec each for tanking, damage and healing.  The monk is one such class.  The Mistweaver spec allows the player to use healing mists to keep the group strong.  Brewmasters use potent alcoholic brews to dampen pain and control enemies.  The graceful Windwalker employs traditional martial arts to dish out devastating combos.  Meanwhile the Warrior has one spec for tanking: Protection.  The other two are both for damage but have different play styles.  Fury emphasizes the Warrior’s rage mechanic to attack recklessly and brutally, while Arms focuses on tactical use of various weapon techniques.

Who Plays Warcraft? An Exposé on Why Players Play

            What do we think of when we imagine people who play games like World of Warcraft?  Most people would probably say the standard issue nerd: either under or overweight, unwashed, acne-ridden and socially awkward.  I’m not going to sugarcoat it. As many of us players know, there are many of those guys and gals out there.  Chances are I just described many of my dear readers to a T.  There isn’t necessarily anything wrong with that character description, so long as the person who meets it is happy, but it is unfair and inaccurate to assume they make up the entire fan base.

                Perhaps it’s arrogant, but I would say I’m reasonably attractive: on the low end of a healthy weight, mostly clear skin and charming when I want to be.  My wife says I have great cheekbones and naturally well-defined eyebrows.   I don’t think anyone would be surprised that I play Warcraft, but I also don’t think anyone would assume it just by looking at me or talking to me, yet I spend a significant amount of time online.  I’ve taken my most recent dive back into the game for different reasons, but for the most part I play because it fills a social need, as it does for most players in some way.

                We can imagine that the stereotype discussed before plays because they’re more comfortable talking through a keyboard and a different identity.  In the game, nobody can see their acne or their stomach, smell their poor hygiene or hear them stutter.   There’s less fear of rejection because they can just block or ignore people who upset them, so they can approach others to socialize with confidence.  Sure, some players use these factors as an excuse to be nasty, and that’s unfortunate.  I’d wager that they are the minority though, despite how noisy they like to be.  Even the socially awkward nerds are mostly good people.

                I was much more socially awkward as a teenager than today, but I didn’t need to play in order to make up for a lack of tangible friends.  I used the game as a means of keeping in touch with and spending time with friends I made in the real world.  Some people have lived in one place their entire lives and can’t relate, but moving as a kid is hard.  The friends I left behind after middle school had been my best buddies for five years.  When I found out my best friend started playing World of Warcraft, I was thrilled to give it a try.  Coincidentally, a kid in my new school had started playing recently as well.  We bonded over that and we’ve been the best of friends ever since.  It’s easy for outsiders to imagine Warcraft nerds as friendless losers, but in my case it made me friends; in the real world, no less.  Through Warcraft and through me, my old best friend and my new best friend got to meet and become good friends themselves.  That never would have happened if we all hadn’t started playing.

                I’ve known others who have used the game to enhance their real relationships as well.  A few of the guild leaders I’ve had over the years have been married couples that play the game together.  Some people even meet in the game and then get married in real life.  When people laugh off Warcraft fans saying, “get a life, make some real friends,” they forget that behind those pixels on the screen are real people, making real connections.  Chatting with people online isn’t that different from chatting up a stranger at a football game or joining other fans’ conversations after a movie.

                Ultimately, what I’m saying is that if you are a World of Warcraft nerd, or any kind of nerd, you’re not alone.  While it is important to get outside to the real world and talk to people face to face, don’t let anyone diminish the very real friendships you’ve made online.  An interesting world takes all kinds of people, and our hobby is just as valid as anyone else's.