Yamamoto: Prologue - Story 1

Maddie Baum
Yamamoto: Prologue - Story 1

A) The dominating similarities that I found in this reading were the authors' focus on AI, the common idea that the internet was not public knowledge, as well as the relationship of space and robots.

B) Three Media Examples:

1. Zathura

Why I thought the old film Zathrua correlated well with this reading was because of the abundance of space references. I really enjoyed how the reading ended, with Yamamoto saying "AN escape from reality? Laugh if you want. To be certain, no such vessel named the Celestial existed in real life. But the bond, faith, and friendship of the crew were undeniably real" (54). This reminded my of the movie because of the relationship between the siblings and the astronaut. They needed reliance on one another in order to survive in space to get back home.

2. Black Mirror - USS Callister (Season 4 Episode 1)

The USS Callister Black Mirror episode is a perfect reflection of the chapter and relates well to many of Yamamoto's discussion. This example shows how one of the characters escapes from reality by entering into a galactic universe. The universe gave the character a coping mechanism to escape from his problems back at home, as well as a false identity to seem more powerful than he actually is.

3. Black Mirror - Nosedive (Season 3 Episode 1)

Another Black Mirror episode that I was reminded of when reading Yamamoto's writing was Nosedive, where in a false reality individuals are given the ability to rank someone off of interactions that they have which affects their socioeconomic status. The main character becomes obsessed with her ranking which lead to her becoming so obsessed with what everyone else thought of her that she ultimately lost positive ratings. I correlated this to the reading because both realities give the perception that characters are able to come off with the identity that they want to have, similar to the USS Callister episode.

C) As we move to the next reading, I believe that it is incredibly important to be learning about digital cultures through a text that is fiction. Not only does it allow readers and those who have a desire to learn about digital culture become exposed to digital worlds that they may not be familiar with, but it opens the door for creativity for those that are beginning to learn about the digital world. Coming into this course, I was really unaware of the basis of what I would be learning about. Through reading text that is fiction but exposes us to key factors in the digital world, I have learned that there is so many factors and perceptions that the digital world carries and there is constantly something to learn from.