The Pop Culture Media Apocalypse

Hello dear readers and people who stumbled across this by accident. Today I want to discuss a very severe issue that is going to affect the lives of everybody in the world at some point. It is a serious concern and must be dealt with the utmost care and attention. I am, of course, talking about zombies.

Night of the Living Dead. Dawn of the Dead. Day of the Dead. Land of the Dead. Resident Evil. Shaun of the Dead. Planet Terror. Zombieland. The Evil Dead. 28 Days Later. The Walking Dead. Alien Zombies. Zombie Strippers.

We as a society are not unfamiliar with the concept of zombies. They are the reanimated corpses of those near and dear to us. And they want to eat you. They want to rip you to pieces and feast on your brains. They want you to join them. Because of all the aforementioned pieces of cinema, video games and literature, we believe ourselves to be prepared for this pending disaster. But are we really?

What would you say to a person who walked up to you on the street and said they were from the future? Or that they had just been abducted by aliens? Or that they were the reincarnated Jesus Christ? You would probably say something to the affect of "get lost you crazy bastard!" Why would you say that? Two words: Pop Culture! We have become jaded by the Hollywood elite. We are no longer mystified and intrigued by the bizarre and unexplained. Hollywood has done every concept 12 times over. Two hundred years ago Joseph Smith created a religion of loyal followers based on the simple statement that he had spoken to God and Jesus. If he were to have said that today he would have been tossed in jail for public intoxication or possibly fitted for a straight jacket. We as a society are no longer impressed by anything. The same can be said for fear. We have real fears now. Terrorism. Cancer. Another Transformers movie. We as a society can no longer concern ourselves with irrational fears that have been popularized by the media. This, of course, brings me back to the issue at hand: ZOMBIES!!!

For 60 years zombies have been a mainstay in cinema and literature. What began as a little known vodou belief of reanimating the dead for labor. This, of course, evolved into the dead coming back to life to feast on the living. Movies like "Night of the Living Dead" and "Dawn of the Dead" would tell you that they just came back to life. Nobody knew how or why. It just happened. Later, more detailed origins would tell you it was a virus. "House of the Dead" and "Resident Evil" are two very popular video game franchises that tell of a zombie apocalypse due to a genetically engineered virus being let out into the general public. Now, with movies like "28 Days Later", "I Am Legend" and "Zombieland" the zombies aren't even dead. They are live people infected with a virus or disease and are completely incapable of controlling their actions and are forced to their most basic of beastly instincts.

Zombies are a popular topic in the media. They sell movie tickets and people can never wait for the next big video game epic where they can chop up and shoot their way through a zombie horde. But one idea slips most people's observation. People out there strongly believe that the zombie apocalypse is nigh. This is, of course, not unlikely due to the idea that zombies rise as a result of a biochemical weapon or virus. However, prepared as you may think you are thanks to the media, are you really ready to face what may be at hand?

Facebook and MySpace are littered with quizzes that rate your chances of survival in the event of a zombie outbreak. And most, if not all, begin with the question: "What will you be doing when the zombie outbreak begins?" Most people tend you answer along the lines of: "sitting at home watching the news broadcast" or "out with my friends, so I don't know". But what if you're that first person who sets eyes on a zombie. What if he approaches you all slow like a hobo begging for change? Or even worse, what if he sprints down the street and tackles you like you have the football in the Super Bowl? How are you going to react? Will survival instincts kick in? Or will rationality take hold and make you say something like "Sorry I don't have any change" and then get eaten?

For crying out loud we have zombie bar crawls. People walk through malls dressed as zombies. People go trick-or-treating as zombies. Sometimes people go out on a random Saturday as zombies because they think it's fun. How, in this day and age, are you going to know that a real zombie infected with a creepy biochemical virus or an aggressive strain of swine flu isn't about to tackle you down and chew out your jugular? Will you allow yourself to be eaten? Or will you risk going to jail for murder because you thought a guy in costume was really about to eat you?

If you choose the latter, please know that I am by no means endorsing that we kill all potential zombies. It is, currently, more likely that any zombie you see is in fact a person in costume. What this blog is meant to be is an observation of our chances of survival in the event of a zombie outbreak. Frankly, I don't think they are that good. Watch all the movies you want and kill all the zombies you can in Resident Evil 27, but at the end of the day, are you ready and willing to one day kill a real zombie? Prepare yourself. Check out The Zombie Survival Guide by Max Brooks.

Common Sense Isn't Found In The Couch

I love Facebook. I honestly don't think there is a better, more efficient communications tool on the Internet. It has everything you need: Email, Instant Messaging, a user-friendly interface, Groups, Blogs, Apps (just to keep things interesting) and Ad Space. It's also a cleaner, more eye pleasing layout, as oppose to sites such as MySpace (may it rest in peace...once it realizes that it's dead, of course) where the sites and sounds cause an epileptic seizure or make you want to run over bunny rabbits with a Hummer (for the record I've never contemplated that last one...)

The point is, Facebook is a fantastic tool. It's innovative and constantly evolving. One of the reasons MySpace developed Cancer and died is that it didn't evolve with the times. It stayed the same over cluttered and incomprehensible mess that catered only to the entertainment industry and never changed it's layout or added new features. It got boring and monotonous and people just stopped caring.

What Facebook does is a stroke of genius. It changes every few months. Sometimes it's little changes such as new features and about once a year (or twice at most) it performs a complete overhaul of it's interface. Now, for some, this seems to frighten and annoy. After all, people don't like radical change. They may have voted for it, but at the end of the day, people prefer a comfort zone of familiarity. I know what you're thinking, "this guy is contradicting himself. If people don't like change, then why did MySpace fail. This guy sucks!" Not at all, my words were "radical change". People are okay with an easy-to-adapt-to-subtlety, but they don't like overhauls. That's why every time Facebook performs one of these 27 new groups pop up within the first 3 hours that demand it goes back to the way it was.

I am not a supporter of such things. It's true, I am one who does not like radical change. I prefer change to be subtle. However, I am forced to ask "who can even remember what the first Facebook layout looked like at this point?" It really doesn't matter when Facebook changes because in a week you'll get used to it and go back to your day-to-day of Status updates and photo uploading. It's OK everyone. The sky isn't falling and Carrot Top isn't performing for you in your living room. When Facebook changes, it is fine!

Except for this time.

Facebook recently implemented one of their more subtle, barely noticeable changes. However, it's causing more of an out lash than any of their overhauls that they've done in the past. What it is is that you're being prompted to "reconnect" with someone who hasn't been active in a while as a means of helping them to feel special or liked. It also prompts you if Facebook thinks you haven't been communicating with this person enough. Well, I have been repeatedly asked over the past few days to "reconnect" with a dearly departed friend. Yes people, Facebook is asking me to reconnect with a dead person. One could easily understand how this may be an emotional issue and one that Facebook really should have thought out when they decided to implement this change.

And it's not just me. There was a story on Yahoo! News today about the very same issue. People all over the world are being asked to reconnect with and write on the walls of deceased friends. Here's the article if you want to read it when you're done here: http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20091028/us_time/08599193280300

Now, I understand completely that Facebook doesn't know that these people are dead. All they know is that the person hasn't been active in a while and that you haven't been trying to contact them for anything. What you'll read in the attached article is that facebook now has instructions as to inform them of who has passed on and appropriate measures will be taken. That's all well and good, but it forces to ask yet another question regards to the implementation of said change: "do people still have common sense?"

Sure, if the developers at Facebook are curious as to why there is little activity from a particular profile, the last thing they probably want to assume is that the person has died. But what if they just don't like Facebook anymore. There have been a few people to jump ship and go exclusive to the simplicity of Twitter. What if you (being the person who is receiving the suggestion to reconnect) just don't want to talk to that person anymore? I mean, friendships do come and go after all. The person is still on your friends list, but you don't want to talk to them anymore (FYI: Friends Lists and having people on them that you don't like is another topic that I'm kicking around, so stay tuned...). Also, what if the reason I haven't Facebooked a person in a while is because I see them in person on a daily basis? A few days ago I was asked to reconnect with my roommate. For obvious reasons I don't Facebook him, therefore the good people at Facebook Development decided to intervene.

Change is good Facebook. I enjoy your site very much and that fact that you mix things up from time to time is one of the reasons I keep coming back. But you need to think things through before implementing the next big idea. Do some Marketing Research from time to time. Find out what people actually want. The option for a "dislike" button has been a hot topic for at least 6 months now. Where's that? Listen to the people and you will succeed. It's a concept that politicians haven't yet grasped, but maybe you can continue being the trend setter that you are and get the ball rolling on that one.

In the meantime dear readers, live long and don't touch my shit!

A Change of Pace

So...Tasty Groove Studios is no more! I know...pause for moment of silence. However, things are still kicking! "Alien Zombies" is still going under the banner of Paper Tiger Comics and will soon be online at its own website (www.alienzombiescomic.com).

So what does this mean for the blog? Not much. Just that it will now be my personal blog and not necessarily limited to the comics that I make. See you all soon!

Times (might be) a changin'

The Groove might already be done for (nothing official as of yet). The comics will still be getting made, though. It just so happens that I've been invited into an already established indie comic group, so all my fantastic ideas may be flying under a different banner when they make their debut. I'll be sure to keep you all posted.

PROGRESS!

I have successfully finished three pages of "Alien Zombies" with significant work done on the cover. Once I have at least two more pages and sufficient funds, I will be ready to launch the site and debut the comic to everyone. In the meantime, check out my Facebook page www.facebook.com/therealjamesthomas. I have the first three pages and the cover (up to this point) posted as a preview. Feel free to leave feedback. I'll take all comments into account before posting the final work to the site. See you all at the Groove...eventually!

Drawing, Inking, and soon to be posting...

So work is progressing very well on the first web comic to be offered from Tasty Groove Studios. "Alien Zombies" is in the drawing/inking stage and has a multitude of pages about finished. Once I have access to a scanner they should be ready for lettering and hopefully (but not yet fully decided) coloring. Once all that is said and done and I have the reasonable amount of content, the long awaited launch of the site will occur and all (if any) who are reading this right now will finally get to see and read the wonderful things that have been keeping me so preoccupied as of late. It will be quite the cause for celebration when the site gets launched and there will be many toasts in my honor.

Thank you all (again, if any) who have been sticking with me during this process. See you at 'The Groove.

Copied from Mike Hutch

Below is a blog copied from my friend Mike on his Myspace page. It is quite the insightful bit of brilliance. Enjoy!
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"Non Sequitor"

Today I tried to rescue a turtle wandering in the complete opposite direction of my neighborhood lake. Turned out he was a snapper. Needless to say, this didn't work out for either of us, and the turtle and I agreed to go our separate ways.

When I was a kid, I briefly borrowed my mother's copy of "Everything I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten." Even at a young age, I realized this book was crap. This is the kind of thing only Martha Stewart would think was awesome, and even then only if she were stoned out of her gourd on special brownies. Having recently retired from the world of video games, however, I gotta tell you: the shit you really need to know comes from video games. So many of life's little mysteries really only begin to make sense after you've wasted a few years on your ass exploding the crap out of computer-generated opponents. And I'm not attempting to be cute or clever, I'm deadly fucking serious: the lessons one can learn from video games will CHANGE YOUR LIFE.

BANANA STICKERS: This is a concept that I hammer into the ground because it's one of my favorites, and the term was first coined by Brendan Small. All right, you remember when you were a kid in school and your teacher would reward a good grade by putting a sticker on your paper? Maybe it was a little smiling apple ecstatically waving his hands saying "You're the best!" Or maybe it was Billy the Easily-Excited Banana with a word balloon over his head that read "YEAH YOU FUCKIN' DID IT!" Banana stickers are an ancient tool used by teachers to make you want to succeed. This is called "psychological validation" and can be applied to pretty much everything that motivates us. Video game designers implement the same sort of thing into their games: players accomplish a task, they're rewarded with flashy lights, big musical numbers, cheering CG crowds, a kiss from a princess, or a random old man that jumps out of nowhere and screams "YEAH YOU FUCKIN' DID IT!" It's all the same thing: Psychological Validation, AKA "Banana Stickers."

Banana stickers are a massive part of why we do everything. Athletes compete for them. Politicians campaign against each other for them. Junkies snort and shoot banana stickers. Smokers get stressed out that they don't have as many as they deserve, so they light a banana sticker on fire and shove it in their mouths (menthol banana stickers are particularly validating). Hell, a lot of people will argue that all of society is merely based on mankind's desire to acquire and keep acquiring the most overrated banana sticker of all: sex. "If I can get laid, then I must be doing all right. YEAH I FUCKIN' DID IT!"

Why is this useful information? Because knowing the cause can be helpful with the cure. It's a lot easier to quit smoking once you've reduced the psychological validation aspect to the term "banana sticker." And this isn't the sort of thing I would have realized before I played so many vdeo games. I once spent six hours in front of a Playstation trying to make a computer-generated puppet perfect his role as a pirate in an Opera, and never at any point during those six hours did it occur to me, "Dear God, why the Hell am I doing this?" Let's continue.

POKEMON: Three words: Gotta. Catch'em. All. Pokemon didn't invent this concept in video games, but they were the first to blatantly rub their psychological warfare tactics in the faces of helpless parents forced to spend thousands of dollars on Charizards and Psyducks and Penisface and whatever the fuck that raccoon-squirrel thing with three tails was called.

Surely to God if you've played at least one game in your life, you've played one of the Legend of Zelda games. In these games, you control a little green guy named Link. In every game, he starts with little more than a pocket full of dreams and an incredibly large bag with X number of slots in it. The "object" of Zelda games is SUPPOSEDLY something about rescuing a princess from a giant blue pig-thing armed with a magical three-sided paper weight (I'm not making this up.). But anyone who's actually played knows this is bullshit. Long after you've destroyed the evil blue pig-thing, you're still diving through sewers and digging through dungeons searching for those last magical items that you somehow overlooked during your adventures. And I don't mean the useful items like Hookshots and Boomerangs and Swords that shoot lasers (Again, not making this up.). I mean shitty, useless junk like the Toothpick of Everlasting Minty Freshness, the Discarded Underwear and the Toilet Paper Roll of "How the Fuck is This Supposed to Be Useful?" Kids in my generation devoted hours at a time to searching for all this useless crap, and we knew it was all worthless. But you wanna know why we did it?

Because we wanted to fill all the slots in the bag. Gotta. Catch'em. All.

Pokemon Syndrome applies to a lot of people in real life. Some people apply it to movies and television. Some apply it to music (hardcore music fans typically apply this to one genre.). Some people take it a step too far and apply it to drugs. Frat boys do it with beer and then devote yards of shelf-space to their Pokemon-beer can collection. Some people apply it to sex ("I dated a white girl, then a black girl, then an Asian girl ..."). Currently, soda companies incorporate the "Gotta Catch 'Em All" mentality into soda production. Mountain Dew in particular will release a "limited edition" soda for only a few months. The phrase "limited edition" is a huge psychological dickslap that forces people to go out and "try the soda while they still can." This actually works. Shit, I hate Mountain Dew. I HATE Mountain Dew. But everytime I go to Taco Bell, what do I get? The shitty Baja Breeze Mountain Dew flavor. Why? Because I can only get it at Taco Bell ...

Seriously, what is wrong with me?

Japanese invented the concept, but the Americans perfected it. MMO's like World of Warcraft add so many dungeons and items on a monthly basis that it is literally impossible to acquire everything in the game. There is literally, LITERALLY no end. How does one beat a game with no end? Simple: Cancel your account, uninstall the program, and throw your CD's in the trash.

I win!

THE RANDOM OLD MAN: The Random Old Man is a plot device implemented by the writers who put together the storylines for video games. The archetype is Fusoya from Final Fantasy. Fusoya's appearance in the game goes something like this:

MAIN CHARACTER: Come on gang, let's go kill the last boss!
(Random Old Man jumps out of a nearby piece of incsonspicuously-placed pottery.)
MAIN CHARACTER: (Gasp.) Who are you?
FUSOYA: I am Fusoya, the random old man who appears at the end of the game! You know that guy you've been fighting for the past twenty hours who almost killed you and raped your girlfriend while pouring sugar in your gas tank? Yeah, turns out he's not actually the bad guy, he's just your brother with amnesia.
MAIN CHARACTER: It all makes sense now!
FUSOYA: Now I'm going to disappear and never be heard from again after I join your party and help you wreck some shit!
MAIN CHARACTER: YEAH I FUCKIN' DID IT!

Some of the earliest random old men appeared in the Legend of Zelda. In this game, Link ran into random old men all over the place, and we're not just talking slightly random old men like you'd see in a shopping mall food court. I'm talking reclusive old farts hiding under lakes, inside of mountains, across invisible bridges. At one point you set fire to a tree. You know what's inside? Yep. An old man. That's the apotheosis of random. And once discovered, there was no way of predicting what these wacky geezers would do! Sometimes they give out weapons, sometimes they wanna sell you shit or gamble or steal your money. One dude SETS YOU ON FIRE. Why does he do this? That's not rhetorical, I'm genuinely asking a question because I have no idea why this jerk sets you on fire. This accomplishes ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. Your character's just running around on fire while this senile, sadistic fuck laughs at you. Surely by now the randomness of the situation speaks for itself.

What's the point of all this? Arguably the most important lesson to be learned from video games: Never, ever, under ANY circumstances should you talk to random old men!

MICHAEL JACKSON SYNDROME: Video games do a great job of inflating one's self-importance. It's surprisingly easy.

A Non-Player Character is a computer-controlled character in the game. They serve a variety of functions such as vendors and hint-givers. Some NPC's are limited in actions, only able to move a few steps back and forth, and are unable to say much more than one line (Such as "What a horrible night to have a curse," or "I like swords," or "YEAH YOU FUCKIN' DID IT!"). NPC's are a little creepy. Why? Because every single one of them knows who you are! And they know about what you've been doing! It's like this in pretty much every video game ever, and more often than not, it achieves the desired effect: You feel like a celebrity! You feel like Michael Jackson, like the most famous person in the world! And just like people did with Michael jackson, these NPC's will be nice to you and sing your praises NO MATTER WHAT! You could drop your pants and take a shit on that poor NPC's head, and he'll just sit there smiling away and saying "YEAH YOU FUCKIN' DID IT!"

I began to notice these concepts a couple of years ago while playing WoW when I realized that this little online community was something of a microcosm of the human condition, and the more aware of this I became, the more I loathed it. Everything you hate about real life is evident in MMO's and it's hyper-exaggerated to the point of cartoonish ridicule: liars, cheaters, assholes, Napoleons, alphas, omegas, leeches, losers, drunks, perverts, druggies, womanizers, Eskimos and Republicans. When I was a kid and I used to hide in my room in the dark playing Crono Trigger, you think I did that to be social or popular? Video games USED to be a counter-culture thing, and they stopped being cool the moment Grand Theft Auto became popular and made the video game market safe for the average consumer. It's kind of the way Kurt Cobain got pissed off when he realized jocks and frat boys were listening to his music: it wasn't originally intended for everyone. Video game kids used to hide in the back of the cafeteria and whisper about Final Fantasy in small, tight-knit groups that collectively gasped if a girl so much as blinked in their general direction. Otherwise they were like me and they didn't play video games with anyone. Period. Ever. I got to college and I thought multi-player was a great idea. Oh how I erred ...

I like some of the kids I played WoW with, don't get me wrong. I've even met a few of them in real life. But Jesus ...imagine the casts of Animal House, Hee-Haw and Soul Plane all breaking into your house at once while you're trying to play Chess, and all providing simultaneous advice and commentary on your progression in the game. That's what online-gaming is like, and the fun part is that thanks to Michael Jackson syndrome, everybody's of the mistaken impression that their opinions are made of solid gold. Not to mention the inevitable drama that comes from cramming people together in such a close-knit (virtual) space. I got banned from playing with one group of people because one of their higher-ups wanted to boink a girl who apparently liked me. In a video game. I've seen people invest hundreds of dollars of REAL MONEY into disguising their identities and relocating after they steal from other people. In a video game. I know of at least two men that pretended to be women online and used their "sexual prowess" to get free weapons and armor from under-sexed nerds. In a video game. Have I mentioned that I'm totally not making any of this up?

After a while, I became incredibly sick of the game, sick of the people, just sick ...but I kept playing ...and playing ...and I couldn't stop, and for months I had this little subconscious news ticker (the kind you see scrolling across the bottom of Fox news) that kept saying "Why am I still playing this stupid game? This isn't fun. You know what'd be more fun right now? Ice cream. Or Internet Porn. Or a root canal. Or just about anything." Slowly but surely I began to recognize all the little devices this company had implemented in order to keep me hooked on their product, and eventually after having all these epiphanies I got to the point where I could walk away.

I'm dead serious that these revelations have real-life uses: understanding why you do something is the first step to dealing with it, acknowledging it, curing it, accepting it, helping other people understand it or whatever. If you have some sort of habitual behavior or drive or goal that you don't understand, that you have no idea why you do it ...it might be a banana sticker. It might be Pokemon. Or it's possible it's just another random old man.

That's all the psychological validation I've got time for today. Tune in next week when we teach poodles how to fly. Good night, and fuck off.