Friday, April 9, 2010

Why I Care, Part 3: What We Love Defines Us

Note: This is part three of three. For part one, click here. For part two, click here.

3. What We Love Defines Us.

You know that phrase, 'you are what you eat'? Well with art, it's "You Are What You Love". What you love, defines who you are. For example, if you like Twilight (YES I'M GOING TO RIP ON TWILIGHT SOME MORE IT'S TERRIBLE), you are a 12 year old girl with no taste (Hey-oh!). Ok that might have been uncalled for, but it's true, what you love says a lot about you.

It's more than that, and this ties into reason 2, but what we as a culture like says a lot as a culture. I mean, look at our culture, Americans like violence in media, and we have high crime rates, we like sex in media, and we're a sex crazed culture. Even more than that, you can go down to a specific area of a city, and what movies people there see reflects a lot on the area.

Now don't get me wrong, this isn't always true, and the degree to which it applies varies on the person. Not everyone who like violent movies is a serial killer, obviously, and not everyone who sees a movie with a sex scene is necessarily going to become some sort of sex crazed maniac. But people who like violent movies might have shorter tempers, or be more prone to fight.

It sounds like I'm trying to say that video games cause violence, but that's not true. All I'm saying is what you love reflects a lot about who you are. Both positively and negatively.

I mean, let's say you were playing the game Team Fortress 2. That's a very violent game. But that doesn't mean you're a violent person, necessarily. TF2 is a team based game. Maybe you are really good at teamwork? Maybe you're a great leader, depending on how you play in it?

Heck even more than that, I can go deeper on the topic. You love playing an engineer. Maybe that says you're the kind of person who likes keeping your team safe, building a turret gun to keep the intel in your base safe? You love playing Spy. Maybe that says you're the kind of person who loves to be sneaky, and trick people?

I don't claim to be able to interpret these things correctly. I don't think there's one correct answer to these things either. The point is, what you love, what you care about, defines who you are. So it's important to care for that reason as well.

So there you have it, 3 reasons why I care so much. I hope reading this has educated you on why caring is so important. It progresses culture, it defines who you are, and we're the first generation that hasn't had to care.

But why should you care what I have to say? I'm just some video game snob. What right do I have to tell you whether or not to care? Well, maybe you're right. Maybe you shouldn't care what I say.

But at least you'd be caring.

No comments:

Post a Comment