This IS my final form!

Hello everybody, for the very last time!

This post is all about my final task for Media Channels and Platforms course. I'm... not cut out for analytical or professional texts, so I wanted to create a practical piece. At first I was gonna explore social media by making a fake account and see if I could create a believable persona, but it turned out to be a bit too hard for me so I decided to make a game instead. This is how School Survival was born!

Doesn't this title screen make you all excited?!

Visual novels and dating sims have been a big interest for me this year. I've been inspired by the games I've been playing (like Hakuoki and Mystic Messenger) and I've slowly started to develop an interest of making a visual novel game of my own. I found out about Ren'Py last year and tried it out a little, but School Survival was the first thing I actually made with it.

I've never programmed a game myself, in fact I know 0 things about programming. The reason why I decided to use Ren'Py, a visual novel engine, was that it had a clear tutorial and also a wide range of instructions online so picking up this engine's language was quite easy in the end (read: I knew what things to copy-paste...). I had to ask a couple of friends for help at some point though because I couldn't understand what was wrong with my code, but they didn't write it for me or anything.

Which one?!

I wanted to make a game with many interesting questions regarding our course but I found out that I'm too dumb to make anything too great so I ended up with very basic quiz questions. At first I was gonna program the game in a way that it would've always resulted in a bad end after a certain amount of wrong answers but I didn't for two reasons: 1. Programming it would've taken me a lot of time since I didn't really know how to do that, and 2.  I found out that writing the wrong answer dialogues was a lot of fun. Now I understand why game developers often make an achievement system: there's so many things left unnoticed if you don't play a game multiple times! (I'm partly joking about the last statement. Partly.)

I had a couple of people try out my game before I presented it to our class. They kinda liked it because it had a very relatable story and there weren't any bugs or errors at that point anymore.

Don't worry, the teacher will forgive you.

I... would like to be an illustrator but I'm not far with my skills yet. As you can see from the picture above, the backgrounds weren't drawn by me. Instead I used Prisma and Everfilter apps to make photos look like drawn images. Someday I wish that I could paint my own backgrounds too. As for the other graphics, I drew Ms. Holliday with 3 different expressions. I think that was enough for a game this short.

As I mentioned before, writing the dialogue was a lot of fun. I actually got some players interested in Ms. Holliday's backstory with all the little hints I gave here and there, which I feel like was a little victory of its own. Unfortunately I never planned to give her more backstory than there was in the game... Looking back it would've been a nice add but that would've also derailed the game from it's original purpose a little.

I was a big, bad thief and used music from different games and series for this game. Finding the tracks was pretty easy because I already had in mind what kind of music I wanted to go for. The tracks are listed in the game's credits! I used music from Hatoful Boyfriend, Clannad, Ace Attorney 5 and Yuri on Ice.

The style of this game ended up being a bit comic because I felt like I was in the mood for writing something lighthearted and fun. The self-irony is really strong in this game! The game almost ended up being a stress reliever for myself rather than a proper final task for the course... Maybe I should've made something more academic but like I said, that kind of stuff is really not "me" at all. Someday I might learn, but until then I'll keep on marching to the beat of my own drum.

The only true love of your life. In reality this game is a love story between you and your five credits. Or is it...?

I learned a lot during the time I was making this game! I now know for sure that I'm not that interested in programming (I had a feeling but trying it out made it clear) and that I definitely want to make another game. One of my friends already suggested that he could be my programmer if needed, so I might take up on his offer. I also got a good reminder of the things we learned during this course while I was deciding on the questions. Overall actually finishing something lifted up my mood a little and made me regain some of my hope for the future, haha...

Anyway! Thank you all for this course! If you want to play my exciting game, head to the Google Drive link below and download the .zip file. It should work on all computers but if it doesn't, give me a nudge! When you've downloaded it, just click MCP.exe and the game should start.
This is the link! Yay!

I hope everybody has a good and relaxing vacation!

Happy thoughts for the rest of your lives,
Oona

Media observation #15

Hello everybody!

Oh my! It's time for the last media observation. I originally planned on posting this one on the Finnish Independence Day but I was too busy stuffing my face with food I ended up not doing it. I liked the idea though so I'm blogging about it now!

☆ Finland in Japanese popculture! ☆
Finland is generally a very liked country in Japan, with a reputation of being a clean and beautiful place. You can actually find so many things with Finnish texts on Japanese products (like clothes, names of stores and brands, household items etc.) that the Finns who visit Japan have begun to use the hashtag #PäivänSuomi (= Finnish thing of the day, roughly) whenever they find something related to Finland.

You can find quite many characters of Finnish origin or with Finnish names in Japanese popculture and I'd like to list a few.

Eila Ilmatar Juutilainen from the anime Strike Witches.

Timo Salminen from the dating sim Love Tangle. Yes, I've played his route, I'd rate it 3/5 for too little romance.

Mikko, Aki and Mika from Girls und Panzer: Der Film. They go to Jatkosota High School and drive a Finnish tank while apparently playing Säkkijärven Polkka with kantele. So very Finnish. 

Kati Räikkönen from the game Akiba's Trip 2. She's a Finnish student who came to Japan because she loves the popculture.

Tsumugi Kotobuki from K-ON!: She's not Finnish but her family owns a villa in Finland.

Probably the most known Finnish character: Tino Väinämöinen from Hetalia: Axis Powers. He's practically Finland made into a character.

The manga "Shiroi majo", which tells the story of the Finnish sniper Simo Häyhä. Except that he's portrayed as a woman. This comic has been translated to Finnish as well as "Valkoinen noita - Talvisota".

As you can see, for some reason a lot of the Finnish characters have something to do with war and the stereotypical design for a Finnish character is either blonde or silver hair with blue eyes. There's probably more Finnish characters out there but these are the ones I decided to list.

And of course we can't forget the once-so-memetic Ievan Polkka/leekspin! It's just Orihime from Bleach spinning a leek while Loituma's Ievan Polkka is playing in the background. This meme was super popular at the time, influencing even Miku Hatsune.

So!!! This was my last media observation. Thanks for tuning in, I'll continue talking about nerdy stuff elsewhere, like school corridors.

♥♥♥ Super extra happy thoughts!!!♥♥♥
Oona

State and Media: USA

Hello everybody!

Our task was to do a little research on the relationship between the state and media, ours being USA. This was a hard task because I always feel like there's some many theories, opinions, truths, conspiracy theories etc. going on and how can I learn all of them in a limited time?! So I trusted my friend Wikipedia among some other sites and took a look at the question assigned for me: How is censorship dealt with?

Everybody has a freedom of speech in America and it's stated in the First Amendment. As far as I understood, even hate speech is allowed to some extent so based on this information, it seems that the US citizens are allowed to speak quite freely. However apparently obscenity and defamation are restricted, meaning that radio shows, movies, songs etc. get censored if there's for example foul language.

Despite being a quite free country, it's still listed on Reporter's Without Borders' list of "Enemies of the Internet". It's a list for countries with highest Internet censorship and surveillance. I didn't fully understand why USA is on the list, but here's a quote from my trusted friend Wikipedia:

"U.S. surveillance practices and decryption activities are a direct threat to investigative journalists, especially those who work with sensitive sources for whom confidentiality is paramount and who are already under pressure."

I couldn't have said it better!

Anyway, as you can probably see, I have no idea what I'm doing. Here's the slides for our presentation (we all just filled our own slides so there wasn't really any process to document presentation-wise):

Happy thoughts,
Oona

Media observation #14

Hello!

This time I'm gonna post about anime openings and endings. Or to be more specific, the openings and endings that have impressed me in some way. Most of the time OPs and EDs can be pretty generic and forgettable but sometimes the studios think of something more creative. I have to warn though that I'm totally not an expert on this, my opinions are only my opinions and I might've missed something. Anyway, let's have a look!

Shingeki no Kyojin 2nd OP - Jiyuu no Tsubasa (Linked Horizon)

Shingeki no Kyojin is known for good opening songs and this 2nd opening is my favourite because in my opinion the song is better and the animation has some really nice shots, like Armin standing in the rain of blood and Hanji's broken glasses. It also has all these little details that point at the events of the anime. Overall, it's a really well planned and executed opening.

Aku no Hana ED - Hana -a last flower- (ASA-CHANG & JUNRAY)

The ED doesn't have much animation, just the credits, if I recall correctly, so I chose to post this long version of the song. The short version for television is good too but this long version really brings out what this song is about. It's a very creepy song for a pretty creepy anime, Aku no Hana (Flowers of evil). The symbol of the evil flowers show often in the anime and this song is about them blooming. I really like this song for it's over-the-top crazy and creepy atmosphere which really fits the whole series.

Rozen Maiden: Träumend OP - Seishoujo Ryouiki (ALI PROJECT)

This is already over 10 years old, time sure flies fast. The overall look of the animation is very nice in my opinion so I wanted to include this one in this list. I really like it when animation studios decide to go with a slightly different, more artistic animation style. This style and song fits the series very well.

Maria†Holic ED - Kimi ni, Mune Kyun (Yuu Kobayashi, Asami Sanada and Marina Inoue)

I'm actually not familiar with the series nor do I like this song but the animation is made by Gekidan INU Curry, which I posted about a few weeks back. I really like the retro game inspired theme of the animation.

Cowboy Bepop OP - Tank! (The Seatbelts)

Of course I had to include the anime classic Cowboy Bepop in this list. "Tank!" is a really catchy song and always really fun to hear at a concert! The animation is artistic and nice as well. It's overall a very pleasing combination that match the series very well.

Here's some of my favourites, of course there are a lot of more but I decided to include these ones. I'm pretty sure I'll remember an ultimate favourite of mine just when I post this but no can do. :D

Happy thoughts,
Oona

Media observation #13

Hello everybody!

Today I'm gonna shortly introduce you to a game I've been playing sometimes which is called "Quick, Draw!". Basically you draw a picture of a given word within a 20-second time limit while a neural network/A.I. tries to guess what you're drawing. Simple as that!

The goal of this game is to actually teach a neural network to recognize different objects. The more you play it, the more it learns! You can all go give this game a try >here<!

Happy thoughts,

Oona

Media observation #12

Hello everybody,

Yes I am being a super active and good student (cough cough) and writing my media observation on the same day as we had our class! Amazing. The reason is because I instantly knew what I was gonna write about after our lesson ended. #inspirational #thankyou

Since we talked about dating sims and Donald Trump, I present you Grand Old Academy, a dating sim where you can date republican politicians. Yes, Trump is one of the choices. You're all very much welcome.

All the romance options! How can anyone resist?

Grand Old Academy is an upcoming dating sim made by several people, not a company. Basically you're the main character, Mori America, who starts her school life in Grand Old Academy. There's a debate club where all seven romance options take part in the debate club championship. During your time in the academy, you befriend these debaters and pursue romance with one of them.

The tone of the game is satirical, but the idea is not to mock republicans or Americans. The makers aim to deliver a game that can be enjoyed regardless of your political view. The game will be free to play once it's ready!

There's a free demo available as well as a kickstarter campaign, so you shoud all check it out! Here's the trailer/campaign video for the project.

I personally love wacky dating sims so I'm probably gonna back this one up, 'cause why not.

Lovey-dovey thoughts,
Oona

Media observation #11

Hello everybody!

Disclaimer: Includes Yuri on Ice spoilers. ":D"

I'm gonna talk a little about fujoshi pandering/fujoshi baiting (to me, they're the one and the same). First to clear some terms: fujoshi is Japanese for "rotten girl", not a very nice term, but it means girls who are into reading/watching series that have gay guys or implied gay guys in them. Or just guys but the fujoshi want to see them together anyway. This term is used when talking about Japanese animation or Japanese comics mostly, I don't really know a word for a person who likes gay guys in Western media. Maybe "fujoshi" applies to them too.

Fujoshi baiting is pretty much the same thing as queer baiting. Let me quote Wikipedia: The term refers to what happens "when people in the media (usually television/movies) add homoerotic tension between two characters to attract more liberal and queer viewers with the indication of them not ever getting together for real in the show/book/movie". So, baiting is purely a marketing gimmick.

Fujoshi baiting has been a hot topic for the past years because a lot of the sports anime is about guys so the creators add little hints of "these characters might or might not have something going on" to attract fujoshis. Why do this? Because if a fujoshi likes what she sees, that means more money. It's like baking a cake: most of the eaters (=non-fujoshi) like it as it is and are willing to buy your cake but if you add one little cherry on the top you get a whole bunch of new potential cake-eaters (=fujoshi). This is why fujoshi baiting exists, at least in my opinion.

Case in point: Free! Iwatobi Swim Club. Totally not full of fujoshi baiting moments.

Why I'm talking about fujoshi baiting now is because of this on-going anime "Yuri!!! on ICE" or YoI for short. To me this anime is the most extreme fujoshi baiting series to this day. I honestly wonder how far the makers of this anime can take things without actually admitting that "yes, these two are into each other". I also wonder how anyone can watch this and not get the huge gay vibe it gives off. Um, let me show in a couple of pictures.

...and these are just a small portion of everything that's going on between them. The whole plot develops and moves forward because these two interact with each other. The writers basically write this huge tension between them and everyone's hooked. There's a lot of discussion whether these two actually will end up together or will this series just end up being a massive bait. I'm positive this will be a bait but that will make the series badly written in my opinion. The whole plot up to the middle of the first season is about the main character's sexual awakening which is all thanks to this silver-haired man appearing into his life. So if that's just brushed off as something that never happened, I'm gonna judge the writer pretty badly.

I wish the fujoshi baiting would stop actually. I only become sad because of it. Give me actual romance, not just hints that are never confirmed to be true. I've been longing for an anime that has a romance between two guys that develops just as normally as any other romantic relationship. Such thing just doesn't exist. Now some of you might raise their voices and ask "What about BL and shonen-ai?" (BL = boy's love, shonen-ai = romance between boys, both are genres). Well, BL or shonen-ai anime is not what I'm looking for. I've yet to find a shonen-ai anime that has this sort of slowly developing normal romance setting. In shonen-ai there's always somebody kissing someone else against their will or rape attempts or just otherwise stupid plots. I just want to see a normal romantic story. There's actually one movie I have my eyes on that seems promising, but can't say for sure yet because I haven't watched it .

I don't actually know what gay people think about fujoshis and fujoshi baiting. Do they see it as fetishization? This would also be an interesting topic to make research on.

Happy thoughts,
Oona

Oona talks about the presidental election as schoolwork: The blog post

Except that I'm not gonna talk. I don't know anything about politics. I personally loathe Trump for the things he has said and done, but I know nothing of Hillary and clearly she has done some bad things in her past because people are so emotional. I'm so tired with the world right now, everyone throwing insults and dead threats to each other. I don't want to discuss my personal views any more, I'm just gonna link this very angry man here.

Media observation #10

Hello everybody!

A week ago (4.-6.11.) there was an expo weekend in Helsinki, consisting of DigiExpo, GameXpo, Skiexpo, BoardExpo and Lätkä&Säbä (ice hockey and floorball). I went there with Pirre! Our main reason to go there was because the Finnish cosplay championships were a part of GameXpo and I also got a free ticket because the expo used our musical's prop as a decoration there.

Me and our sweetie Gyarados, who was doing a superb job at being a decoration!

The expo hall was quite big and everything fit there surprisingly well. However I'm used to sharing nerdy culture with other nerds so it felt a little odd to walk there among all the non-nerds who were there for for example the Skiexpo.

There were mainly lots of booths. In the GameXpo section there were booths for Xbox, Nintendo and Playstation, but also for Turku game research lab, a board game association and some others too. There was a Just Dance booth where you got energy drinks if you just played one song so all the young boys were dancing there in hopes of getting an energy drink. It was funny. Keep on dancing fellas!

At Digi-Game stage were held small gaming competitions and also short interviews with game makers. I went to partly listen to some small speeches about VR and AR. I was expecting a little more from those but then again I just went to Mindtrek to hear about those things so no wonder there was nothing new for me.

Program on the digi-game stage.

I used the time before the cosplay competition to wander and goof around with my friends, some of which I hadn't seen in a long time. I didn't attend all the expos even though I could've (the ticket included all of them), but I did take a peek at DigiExpo and Skiexpo. Otherwise there wasn't much to do since the program wasn't interesting enough and all the gaming consoles were swarming with teenage boys. So yeah, I was goofing around.

I was personally very excited about the cosplay competition because three of my friends were competing there and my favourite Finnish odottemita group PUREmode was also performing. The competition was pretty nice, I liked it a lot more than the basic cosplay competitions you see in Finland. I also was more entertained than while watching the European championships so good job Finland! Hapsu's Barbossa skit was exceptional, it really made me laugh a lot! Congratulations on winning the solo competition! If I'd have to give some negative feedback to the organizers it was the volume of the music: it really hurt the audience's ears. But I heard it had to be loud because there was a rapper having a gig nearby the competition stage... Maybe a better expo scheduling would've been in place or the competition could be held in more suitable environment.

The winners and runner-ups. The first three from the left were the winners of the group category and the winner of the solo competition is the fourth from the right. Photo taken by Nyymix.

I'm proud of my friends for competing even though they didn't get a prize. I'm so happy that they got their beautiful costumes and skits done in time and had the courage to take part in the competition. ♥

As an experience the expo was OK. I probably will not attend again unless the Finnish championships are held there again. Someone has suggested that a better environment would be a handicraft expo and I partly agree on that. So, we'll see where the future takes us.

Happy thoughts,
Oona

Media observation #9

Hello everybody!

Since I'm at the storytelling & scriptwriting course at the moment and narrative has been a topic on this course as well, I thought I'd write a little about the movie "How to Train Your Dragon". This post is one big spoiler about that movie so don't read if you still haven't seen it!

When this movie first came out, I wasn't interested at all. I found the theme of "dragon hunting vikings" a bit boring and maybe even old-fashioned. My friends and the people in internet however love this movie so I got a little interested in it and finally ended up watching it this week.

I'm not going to write out the whole plot here but this is basically how the movie starts: The movie tells a story of a young viking named Hiccup. He lives in a viking village which is constantly under attack by dragons. It's a tradition that vikings kill dragons and Hiccup is eager to become a true viking. He's a pretty small and slim boy with a tendency to be clumsy so other's don't really see him as a potential dragon slayer. One night the village is attacked by dragons once again and Hiccup goes hunting for the legendary dragon called "Night Fury", which nobody has seen. With the catapult Hiccup made himself, he manages to hit a dragon which falls down to the middle of the forest. He goes searching for his prey and finds out he'd captured Night Fury. In the end, he's unable to kill the dragon and frees it, however they'll cross paths again...

As a practise, I tried to think of how the movie would fit the Syd Field "Paradigm", which is an example of the classic Hollywood narrative. I can't say if the results of my thinking are exact but at least I tried!

ACT I
I'd say the inciting incident is when Hiccup captures Night Fury. That sets the whole plot into motion. The 1st plot point would be the moment when Hiccup tries to tell his dad that he's unable to kill dragons and his father refuses to listen, making Hiccup join the dragon hunter training.

ACT II
First half
Hiccup joins the hunter training and tries to train Night Fury/Toothless in secret at the same time. I'd say the first pinch would be when Hiccup almost falls off of Toothless' back while flying.
Midpoint
Hiccup makes progress in school and with Toothless' training.
Second half
I think the second pinch is when Astrid finds out about Toothless. The second plot point would be when Toothless comes to protect Hiccup in the final test of his school's training and is captured instead.

ACT III
Vikings set sail to dragon's nest making Toothless to lead the way. The climax would be the battle and victory against Red Death, a gigantic dragon. The resolution to the whole plot would be humans becoming more friendly towards dragons.

I think the movie did fit the classic Hollywood narrative pretty nicely. I also tried to compare it to Hero's Journey but the plot didn't seem to fit it that well.

I liked this movie for many reasons and I'd like to list a few of them down below:

• The main character was a nerd: building all sorts of machines and things
• It promoted the message of understanding each other instead of just killing the enemy
• I always love it when a boy doesn't have to be a manly macho man to save the day and get the girl (Although we can argue about the necessity of the love story between Hiccup and Astrid...)
• At the end, both of the main characters have a prosthesis. It's always nice to see big movies include a wider spectrum of people as main characters.

I'd recommend this movie to people who like watching animations. It's a bit cheesy and corny at times but at it's core it's a sweet story. I'll probably watch the sequel(s) too at some point!

Happy thoughts,
Oona

Media observation #8

Hello everybody!

This time I'd like to give a small shout-out to one of my favourite (if not favourite) animation troupe: gekidan INU CURRY, which composes of Doroinu and 2shiroinu. It's a troupe from Japan and they take inspiration from Russian and Czech stop-motion animation styles. They've most known for making witch animations for anime series called "Puella Magi Madoka Magica", which is also my favourite anime series, partly thanks to gekidan INU CURRY creating a wonderful atmosphere with their graphics.

Above you can see some of their work in Puella Magi Madoka Magica from around 0:26 forward. The girls are not animated by them. As you can see, their style is very naive yet very nightmarish at the same time. I really like the contrast. Also Yuki Kajiura's music really compliments their style and vice versa.

They've also done other works as well, for example Usagi Drop's and Maria Holic's ending sequences but also a music video for Maaya Sakamoto's song "Universe". I recommend taking a look, I embedded the video below.

I find it hard to find information about them online, mostly because I don't really understand Japanese. But I really adore their style, it's so cute, creepy, creative and full of surprises. Their art makes me want to experience different styles as well and test my artistic boundaries. They also have a webpage (where I took the images below), but it seems that they don't really update it any longer.

 

I hope you guys found this interesting because to me it's super interesting!

Happy thoughts,

Oona

Delivering news on events through VR

Hello everybody!

Our task this week at class was to think of a new way to deliver news. We thought it would be cool if there were VR news about different sorts of events. We had been talking a lot about VR on the passing weeks so this idea came to us pretty naturally.

So the concept of this news channel is that we'd get to experience events via VR. For example, an art museum, a gig, a football match etc. could be what the service provides to it's viewers. I thought that some of the footage could be a reportage of an event and some would be just pure live stream where you'd get to experience things from your own home.

We were thinking that the service would be available online and maybe through an app as well. These services would have an "upcoming events" list as well. In my opinion our service is best enjoyed with a pair of VR glasses but watching a 360 video without the glasses should be interesting too.

Since our "news channel" is all about delivering cultural events, we thought it would be nice if people could give heads-up about upcoming events that could otherwise be left unnoticed. Different sorts of exciting events should keep people coming back. Also we'd have a chat where you could discuss about the events, which you could also do in our social media channels. We'd also allow people to send their own (moderated) footage.


I would really enjoy this sort of VR news service because there are a lot of events all around the world I can't attend. I would've totally watched a couple of gigs in Japan through VR if that would've been possible. But I'm positive things are moving towards that direction anyway.

I've included the slides from our presentation in this blog post, as you probably noticed!

Happy thoughts,

Oona

Media observation #7

Hello everybody!

As some might know, 2016 is the 20th anniversary of Pokémon! Pokémon is a game series from the beginning of the 90's which has grown to be one of the most popular series ever with lots of spin-offs, animated series and a whole bunch of merchandise. The goal of these games is usually to catch creatures called Pokémon, beat the bad guys and become the best Pokémon trainer by defeating other strong trainers.

For the celebration of Pokémon's 20th anniversary, Nintendo is publishing new Pokémon games called "Pokémon Sun" and "Pokémon Moon". They will include new Pokémon alongside the old ones and also new "Alolan forms"of already existing Pokémon. I find the idea very interesting, because of course when species live in different areas they mutate to look a bit different. Some Pokémon are executed very well, like Exeggutor and Vulpix, but some of them (at least for me) were a huge letdown.

Alolan Exeggutor. So bad it's good.

The reason why I'm writing this thing (alongside being a huge Pokémon fan for most of my life) is because I stumbled upon this article. Pokémon Sun and Moon are already breaking records even before their release! They're the most pre-sold games in Nintendo history and their special demo has been downloaded more than any other Nintendo 3DS demo. Way to go Pokémon! I'm excited to see if the games will break any sales records when they're officially released in November.

I'm of course getting myself a copy of Pokémon Moon. I'm actually not too excited about the new games, I mean I love Pokémon and I want to celebrate it's 20th anniversary but Nintendo has made some changes I'm unsure about so I'll see if the games are actually worth the wait and money when I get myself a copy. The predecessor games Pokémon X and Y were SO good it'll be hard to top them. But I'll try to stay positive. At least there's this new little friend, Mimikyu! It even has it's own official song... ;__; #TeamMimikyu #MimikyuSavesEverything

Gotta catch 'em all!
Happy thoughts,
Oona

The trek to Mindtrek

Hello everybody!

Phew, Mindtrek = over! I usually attend 4-5 conventions in a year but this was my first time visiting a conference. In the end, they did not differ that much, which I found pretty interesting. We were asked to be analytical but since being analytical over stuff that requires knowledge which I don't have is not really my strength, I'm going to be a bit analytical about how the conference was made from the viewpoint of a convention organizer. But first, I'm going to talk a little about what I heard & learned.

I usually go to hear the opening ceremony of conventions so I went to see that too in Mindtrek. And boy, I'm so, so, so glad that I went because I got to hear Neil Harbisson's keynote lecture and I was just blown away. I'm still amazed because of that lecture, my mind and world got expanded so much. Happy accidents happen and me going to hear the opening ceremony was one. I'm so glad. Let me tell you why.

Basically Neil Harbisson told us about his life as a cyborg and all the possibilities cyborgism has to offer. He told us about his antenna that can transfer colours to sounds so he can hear them and how he can listen to the colours of space. He also told us about his colleague Moon Ribas who can sense earth- and moonquakes thanks to her cyborg sense. I had never even thought that we could expand our senses in such creative ways! It really opened a new door for my creative thinking. How far can we go? How crazy can we go? How can we use this technology to make life more interesting or more easy? I'm really, really excited to see & hear more about cyborgs.

Otherwise the lectures were pretty OK. I really enjoyed the ones that had something to do with games and/or theatre. I wanted to go see some VR lectures as well but ended up not going to a single one for some reason...? Well, these sort of things happen. First I was struggling pretty badly because I went to some lectures I couldn't understand at all but luckily I found some interesting and understandable ones in the end! You can read about my adventures at Mindtrek from my Twitter feed below. I didn't want to use the hashtag for a couple of reasons: 1. To avoid my tweets being selected to the big screen, 2. Not wanting people to follow me in hopes of getting intellectual content out of my account, 3. Mindtrek was obviously not aimed at me, so me tweeting about Mindtrek would've felt wrong because I'm not part of their community. This one's a bit hard to explain but maybe this sort of example would help: It was like a non-geeky person would've gone to a geeky happening and not understanding anything, thus proceeding to tweet criticism or "wrong" stuff online, possibly making the community look bad. I didn't want to make their community look bad or myself look stupid. I don't know if this cleared anything up but yeah, please continue to my feed now...

Tweets by oonamedia
Then a couple of words from the perspective of a convention organizer! Overall Mindtrek was a nice experience with not much issues. However, I did pinpoint some things that could've been better:

Name tags/tickets

1. People were printing name tags on the morning of the conference, which seemed a little odd to me. Next time maybe they could print them the day before to make things run more smoothly? They were not being overly strict about me having the name tag with me so they just gave me the Mindtrek bag and let me go attend the panels, asking me to fetch the name tag later. So, not having the name badge didn't really affect my schedule. However...

2. ...that also means that they weren't really keen on ever checking the name tag or badge. Anyone could've walked into the venue and attended since neither Mindtrek staff or Tampere-talo staff were paying any attention to who had a badge or not. Also nobody was there to check who had bought the more expensive pass that included the lunch, resulting in non-payers eating there. That's quite problematic since the lunch-inclusive pass was way more expensive and letting just anyone eat the lunch puts the buyers of that pass in a very unfair position.

The conference booklet

I've collected program booklets and made one myself as well, so I have a couple of things to say about Mindtrek's.

1. First of all, TBA's. There were a couple and that's usually alright BUT they were never even updated to the webpage either. I have no idea what was held during that time. Maybe they could put up a deadline next time for the speakers to ensure that they either attend or do not attend? TBA doesn't serve anyone: the conference-goers have no idea what the lectures include and the speakers probably don't get that much audience.

2. Maps were not up-to-date. The main auditorium was marked on the map even though it was not in use at all: thus making me believe that the main hall in the schedule pointed to the main auditorium. It was never said in the booklet that Park hall was the main hall. Fortunately they had some signs up in the bulletin boards that pointed that the Park hall was the main hall but still, it took me some time to realize that.

3. Keynotes. It could've been useful to mention that all the keynotes were held in the main hall instead of just marking them happening everywhere simultaneously.

4. Not good enough program descriptions. It's understandable that sometimes it's not beneficial to the convention to print expensive booklets that have all the info about programs but in these cases you should have all the info on the website in a handy form. I wanted to check what programs contained a couple of times but because the webpage was so odd my phone didn't want to co-operate with it. It was not mobile-friendly at all, at least for me. Maybe technology conference could invest in better technology next year. Mindtrek app would be a really handy thing for next year!

Also, some of the programs were running late.

Then some positive points as well:
- Nice, calm environment (minus that one rude guy shouting at the keynote speaker)
- Overall things seemed to work despite the flaws I mentioned
- I really liked the idea of breakfast & coffee
- Some lectures were really interesting and inspiring

For next year they could maybe include some entry-level lectures as well for people interested? I know the point of Mindtrek isn't really to introduce newbies to the business, but just a suggestion! ;)

Mind-boggling creative thoughts,
Oona

Media observation #6

Hello everygamer!

It's been two days since Nintendo published their trailer for their new console, Nintendo Switch. Before this not much was known about the console and it went under the name "Nintendo NX". Nintendo Switch combines a home console and a handheld console in a new way. I recommend watching the trailer I've embedded below, it all looks very interesting!

I'm a bit curious about Switch myself. If it proves to be a good console, I might end up buying it!

Happy thoughts,
Oona

Oona stalks a famous person for schoolwork: The blog post

Hello everybody!

I did a little internet stalking on a person called Ladybeard. Well to be honest, I follow him everyday so there wasn't really anything new. I love him and you should too, regards a devoted fan girl.

He's the Beauty and the Beast!

So I'm taking just a teeny-tiny bit of freedom regarding this task because I've been following Ladybeard (or Beard-chan, it's a nickname fans use) for some time now and I have knowledge how he interacts with his fans through social media from a longer period of time than just a couple of days. So I hope this is ok!

To sum up Ladybeard: He's a cross-dressing metal-singing pro-wrestling Australian living in Japan. Ladybeard is a character made for pro-wrestling: she's a 5-year-old girl who loves all things kawaii (Japanese for cute). Ladybeard brand has expanded a bit though and Ladybeard can mean both the pro-wrestling character and Ladybeard's celebrity persona as well. He also does kawaii-death metal shows, modeling and TV advertisements. In this post, I mostly talk about Ladybeard's persona, not that much about the character.

Sing, dance, destroy!!

Ladybeard's known for his warmth towards his fans. It's a known fact that he wants to deliver a good show and that's why he's also known as a perfectionist: he really wants to nail everything down for his audience's amusement. This shows in his social media profiles as well.

He mostly posts photos of his projects and adventures to social media, but also gives us updates of his life. Sometimes he makes fun video clips and posts them to FB! He's gives off a very genuine image, even when he has to comment something more negative. He updates his social media daily but doesn't spam.

Here are some examples of how he interacts with his fans online:
- He did a thing a couple of weeks ago when he asked his fans to send him poses and he'd imitate those poses, took photos of them and posted them to Twitter for one hour
- He sometimes replies or likes the tweets send by his fans (He even calls his fans "Ladybirds" because they tweet so much!)
- He had an "Ask Ladybeard"-segment in his radio show where fans could tweet him questions. I got my question answered twice! ♥
- Like I mentioned above, he gives off a really genuine image of himself: apologizing when something hasn't worked, worrying about his fans if something has happened (like one time people send him really depressed messages when he had promised to give some life advice, so he took time to apologize about not being able to help them professionally and then proceeding on talking for a long time in his radio show about his life advice in hopes of helping his fans out) etc.
- His pages are managed in both Japanese and English so everybody has a chance of understanding what's happening

The whole Ladybeard thing is not about laughing at men in dresses or anything. It's about him wanting to make others feel happy. And it works, I feel super happy whenever I see him having a fun time and doing silly stuff. Aaand destroying some boundaries at the same time!! It's super awesome that he boosts the message with being super nice online (answering questions, doing "fan service" etc.) and offline (giving his all at gigs, being super nice when talked to etc.). It all works out so well.

Here's me making all my friends jealous by posing on Ladybeard's arms.

He's a very interesting and energetic person who likes making others happy. What could be better? Now go follow him on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram!

Stay genki & kawaii,
Oona

Media observation #5

Hieeeee!

Because the topic was reality TV, I'll present you with my favourite reality competition TV-show: RuPaul's Drag Race.

RuPaul herself.

Yes, it's all about drag queens. Yes, it's America's Next Top Model meets Project Runway. Yes, everyone is fabulous. Yes, yes, yes gawd!

RuPaul is an iconic drag queen who hosts the show and actually won an Emmy award this year for Best Reality Host! The competition consists of 9-14 drag queens competing for the crown and cash prize (usually 100,00$). There has been 8 seasons of Drag Race and 2 seasons of Drag Race: All Stars.

The usual episode consists of a mini challenge and a maxi challenge. The winner of the maxi challenge will get some sort of prize (usually sponsored goods like jewelry or holidays) and secure their place in the competition. Every week there's also the bottom two, which have to "lipsync for their lives" aka they hold a lipsync battle whose winner will stay in the competition. Sometimes both get to stay or both get eliminated, to spice things up a little.

Some of my favourite queens. (1/2)

At first, it all may seem confusing. But then you'll get sucked into the glittering world of drag queens and you can't get out. The series has a very quirky sense of humor, bad puns, lots of creativeness and gorgeous dresses, a lot of drama and unforgettable moments. It's an experience.

The show has been criticized for bad editing. A handful of past drag racers have raised their voice about how they were edited to look more mean than they actually are, to the point where they've told that sometimes the filming crew/directors tell them what to say or ask them certain questions and then edit the answers out of context. It's all very interesting and adds an extra layer of drama to the show, but at the same time it kind of takes away the excitement when you know that "oh, this could be edited to look different". Some competitors have even gone to screenings of the new episodes and told people that some other competitors were edited to look more mean than they actually were.

I recommend giving this series a try! It's best to start from season 1 and then continue chronologically because then you will understand more jokes (the show jokes a lot on itself and past competitors and their catchphrases) but if you want to jump straight into Netflix and watch the 7th season, feel free. It has some gorgeous faces!

Some of my favourite queens. (2/2)

Now sashay away,
Oona