(Cover Artwork)
http://www.maidenfans.com/imc/?url=album11_vxi/lyrics11_vxi&lang=eng&link=albums
For my final blog on an open topic, I decided to do something a little different. Instead of writing about a particular article that I read and found interesting, I’ve decided to go out in a different way by showing off one of my favorite bands to which I enjoy listening – Iron Maiden. Back in 1998, they actually made a concept album called Virtual XI that has a few songs that can be related back to the virtual reality theme and string of concepts that I believe is actually important to the interpretation of why people turn to online games and synthetic worlds, and I’ve decided to share that with you.
FUTUREAL
(Video)
(Lyrics)
http://www.maidenfans.com/imc/?url=album11_vxi/lyrics11_vxi&link=albums&lang=eng#track1
The opening track on the album represents the heart of the theme of virtual reality that surrounds the album with its artwork (displayed above). The song seems to depict the life of an online gamer who is addicted heavily to the game and cannot get out of it because he has fallen “in far too deep” as the lyrics suggest. He or she shows all the telltale signs of spending way too much time at the game – a distorted sense of time (“I’m running out of my time”), physical illness (“in the day, I feel like death!”), and a disregard for sleep (“…now its getting so I can’t sleep at night…”). Indeed, when people get so involved in a synthetic world that they start to feel physically ill, they usually are so committed that they ultimately end up going out of reality and into somewhere else – to the point that if things go wrong in the game, then that leads to the person letting what goes wrong get to her to the point that she may commit suicide! This represents the surprising turn in “Futureal” that comes out in the second verse – “Sometimes it feels like a game of deadly hide-and-seek, and when you’re reading this, and then I will be gone! Maybe then, you will see!” Ultimately, while there are the majority of people who are capable of playing in synthetic worlds without getting in too far that they take it way too seriously, there are, indeed, weaker minds out there that get so entrenched in the game that they are led to question…. “Do you believe what you hear? Can you believe what you see? What is real?” The excellent Iron Maiden website known as “the Iron Maiden Commentary” (http://www.maidenfans.com/imc/) has commentary on “Futureal” that features four articles on Internet & Computer Game addiction. According to one of the articles, research at a medical university in
However, the article quotes Edward Castronova himself, author of “Synthetic Worlds: the Business and Culture of Online Games” in saying: “When people spend dozens of hours weekly at their computers, or on the internet, or playing video games, it is almost certain that some other activities will suffer. The question is: when does this behavior warrant the label 'addiction'? Addiction is a strong word, calling for both renunciation on the part of the subject and forceful intervention by others ... a behavior becomes problematic when, and only when, it degrades other important things in life. A 60-hour-a-week compulsive EverQuest user who fails to speak to his children when they come home from school is engaging in problematic behavior. But consider the same user, living alone, with all his friends being online and in the game – is his devotion of time to cyberspace problematic? In the end we can only judge whether presence in the virtual world is good or bad by reference to the ordinary daily life of the person making the choice to go there. For some people Earth is where they really ought to spend their time. For others, perhaps the fantasy world is the only decent place available.”
Most certainly, it is not necessarily fair to categorize all gamers who play in synthetic worlds for long periods of time as addicted. To do so would result in a shortsighted profiling of people who may not have any other alternative to the synthetic world.
THE CLANSMAN
(Video)
(Lyrics)
http://www.maidenfans.com/imc/?url=album11_vxi/lyrics11_vxi&link=albums&lang=eng#track4
"The Clansman" is a song that is supposed to be loosely based on the Mel Gibson film "Braveheart," but I believe that the lyrics to the song allow it to have a transcendent, general meaning about freedom from the constraints of our world that goes along with the virtual reality theme of the album. When you look at the lyrics and see the narrator, talking about "them" grinding "us" down, and the urge to not let "them" take anymore, then it is easy to extrapolate. You could easily interpret "them" as being the troublesome bosses or co-workers in your life, or the forces in general that conspire to take you down, whether those forces are real or not ( you may, after all, imagine aliens taking over the earth or something....). In this respect, "the Clansman" is a song that can motivate you to not let those forces bing you down, and perhaps the way that can be done in the Virtual XI backdrop of the virtual reality theme is that one can play a game where she becomes William Wallace and fights in a synthetic world! If one interprets the song in this more abstract way, based on the general theme of the album, and on the intentional ambiguity of the lyrics to the song, one can easily see that "the Clansman" is a great anthem that explains perhaps why the addiction that is moderately vilified in "Futureal" is so attractive. It is also fitting that a song that was inspired by such a setting as Medieval Scotland is in the album, since medieval places, indeed, are popular settings, or so it seems, for virtual reality romps in synthetic world games.
And so, I close my blog with the statement that Virtual XI provides a couple of songs that represent interesting statements on the double-edged sword of virtual reality. The synthetic worlds can help you cope with daily life and prevent "them" from taking what is rightfully yours, or they can consume you and become another debilitating force...
No comments:
Post a Comment