Fake Reality, Real Students

By: Michael Ingram  

BLUE BELL, PA--“Reality TV is anything but,” stated Aaron Berstein, a communication student at Montgomery County Community College (Montco.).  

Eighty percent of the students surveyed at Montco believed Reality TV to be scripted, “We watch because it’s entertaining, it’s fun to joke about the stupidity, no one really cares if it’s real or fake,” according to a source that chose to remain ammoniums.

When asked if they would participate in one, seventy-five percent said no.  The other twenty-five percent said “if the price is right.”  “There’s not much I wouldn’t do for money,” stated Matt Modica, a communications student at Montco.

Ten percent of Montco students said it was both scripted and unscripted.  “Writers write the story line and then the shows are edited to answer the question,” stated by Neil Goldstein, a Communication Professor at Montco. Shows are shaped to be exciting to their viewers.  “If everything was allowed to unreel in absolutely real fashion, it would end up un-pretty,” according to Nestor U. Torre, in his article, How Real is Reality Television, published by Inquire Entertainment.

Reality TV grosses well over a billion dollars on network shows such as the JERSEY SHORE and SURVIVOR.  Each year networks are adding Reality TV to their regularly scheduled programming.  The reason for this is because it lowers production cost, and allows networks to remain in operation when there’s a writers strike like in 2007, because the storey editors aren’t recognized by the Writers Guild of America, according to Winifred Fordham Metz’s article, How Reality TV Works, published on electronics.howstuffworks.com.

Even though Montco students are aware of the falsehood behind Reality TV; they still tune in daily, according to the students surveyed at Montco, to watch their favorite shows. Laughing at the stupidity the actors engage in brings joy and keeps students wanting more.  One of the main reasons Reality TV is such a success.

Montco Students Posts Lives on Internet

By: Michael Ingram

BLUE BELL, PA--Montco. students enter their information on the web under the impression that they have nothing to hide.

A survey about privacy on secure networks giving to students at Montgomery County Community College on September 23, 2013, showed 10% of the students asked, cared about what their information was actually being used for.  When the students that did not care were asked why, they all stated that they “have nothing to hide”.  In reality they have more to hide then think when it comes to personal information being entered on the web.

Ninety percent of the students didn’t care if they were being monitored or if their information was safe, 70%, including some of the 90% who didn’t care about those topics, cared that their information was being used for monetary gain.  Most websites will ask for permission before giving other sites access to your information.  Secure websites are designed to be secure, but they are not predator proof.  Just because a network advertises its safety by being secure, does not mean that your information is completely safe.  Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook, made his fortune by doing exactly that, selling peoples information (Bill Rounds, How to Remove Your Personal Information from the Internet). 

Unaware of that personal information can be easily accessed; students enter information under the impression that it is being protected.  A Belgian “psychic” who goes by the name “Dave” disclosed very personal information to people by having them only reveal their names to him (technewsdaily.com).  Bank statements, children’s names, medical history, home address, and shopping habits were easily accessed from the web.  Dave then drops a curtain drops set up behind him and a room full of researchers on computers is exposed (technewsdaily.com).  “Maybe students have more to hide then they think” according to Professor Jason Wertz of Montgomery County Community College.

NORMAL OR NERD? DEBUNKING THE MYTH BEHIND ONLINE GAMING

By Dennis Capone

BLUE BELL, PA--World of Warcraft (WoW) is an MMO, a Massively Multiplayer Online game, that currently has over twelve million subscribers. According to a survey conducted at Montgomery County Community College, an average of 70% of students think World of Warcraft is lame, for geeks, for dorks, and the most popular answer, for nerds. The stereotype of “nerd,” is someone who is socially impaired, and is generally used for people who devote unholy amounts of time to games. The popular show South Park satirizes this through an episode titled “Make Love, Not Warcraft”, in which the main characters started to play WoW to the point of physical deterioration. This helps add to people looking down on those who enjoy WoW, or any online gaming.

World of Warcraft was developed by a company named Blizzard in November of 2004. The game was a continuation of a story laid out in the popular game Warcraft. They decided to shift from a real time strategy game, involving controlling multiple units, into a role playing game where you are invested in the growth of one character. The game quickly grew due to the social side beyond slaying monsters. You could actively interact with others, strategize, and tackle epic quests together. This quickly drew in the lonely nerds who wished to escape into a world of high fantasy.
 
While it is true that “nerds” play WoW, this is not a majority anymore. A player who goes by the screen name of “Citali” is a guild master, someone who runs a guild or grouping of players who come together due to friendship or common interests, in WoW, and when interviewed about her personal life, was more then happy to show that she was a normal person. She goes to work every day, she goes to the bar with friends, and she even has date nights with her husband. And when she comes home, instead of watching television, she logs onto WoW and enjoys helping her guild. On top of running the guild bank, which is a pool of items that the guild can access, she organizes runs on Instances, which are 5-player dungeons, and even Raids, which require 10-40 players to conquer. Running these groups of people require her to not only gather a large group of people, but also she must run through every player in the group, get a rundown of their abilities, and strategize accordingly. This does not mean that she spends hours playing, however. Citali did state, “There are some moments where I'm so immersed that I forget to eat, and my husband has to drag me away. Thankfully, those are few and far between.” When posed with the question “Do you think you are a nerd?” she responded “Nah, not really. I just enjoy having fun with a few friends.”


Another member of the guild who goes by the name “Liord” is known for doting on his kids. Liord works 8 hours a day and then spends a few hours driving his daughters to their extracurricular activities. When he is finished, he spends about an hour and a half playing. “Much to the behest of my nagging wife,” Liord laughs heartily. A military man, Liord began playing in order to keep in touch with his family when he went to Afghanistan. He would talk with his nephew every other night, and be kept up to the going-ons in the family. And while overseas, he met others who had the same idea. Even now, he keeps in touch with his brothers-in-arms. “I still talk with the guys from Afghanistan. Hell, I talk with a few of them every day. They're a good bunch of guys.” Liord has plans to have his daughters give WoW a try, hoping they find great friends like he did. When asked about his status as a nerd, he laughed. “If I'm a nerd, then so are people who read books, and play sports. It's just a hobby.”

Lastly, a woman by the name of Diane is an avid player. She, her husband, and two kids all play together. She recalled how countless nights, she and family would take down a boss and laugh together. Diane had been playing since the first build, or version, of World of Warcraft, before it took the world by storm. She admitted to times where she started to play too much and cut back, but she never stopped. She repeatedly stated, “If I'm a nerd, what are the people who sit in front of the TV all day? At least with WoW I'm talking to people and making friends. TV can't do that. I have never once regretted playing World of Warcraft.”

Sure geeks, dorks, and even nerds still play WoW, but the majority of people playing are your average, everyday person. People who play nowadays have families, jobs, and lives. This relation of nerds to online games is nothing more than a stereotype.

SoundCloud Aids Audio Students in Achieving High Grades

By Rob Brown

BLUE BELL, PA--Communication students taking audio production classes under the leadership and expertise of Montco Professor Morgan Betz understood the added responsibilities which would come with taking his classes. And if that “responsibility” translated into just “work” in these students, it did not even show in their efforts to put on a pair of headphones and submerse themselves into learning the skills that are taught through hands-on sound projects and allowing others outside the course to listen in on their luscious mixes of sound effects and musical instruments.

As a communication professor, Betz has observed that “social media interaction has become part of the college experience.” He continued, “Checking Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and other sites, people do that as a habit,” yet “[they] are still going to school.”

But how does he inspire his students to tell their friends and followers about the audio projects they make in his class?  The solution is a website highly similar to YouTube, called SoundCloud.

The site allows subscribed users to upload their audio content in the same way that YouTube users can upload video.  Those users can then, as Diore Stewart, 18, of Abington, explained, “link [that content] to Twitter and Facebook…[and] anyone connected on a social network” to check out what they did. As student Dan Grundy, 19, from Lansdale, said, “[SoundCloud] is great to use especially for bands to post their music…so that they are not judged by their looks, but rather the way they sound.”

With SoundCloud, Stewart said, “it makes it easier for artists to edit stuff [and post it].  Now, you don’t need to pass out physical copies of your work.”

Professor Betz “checks on SoundCloud to see if everyone did their assignments,” Joffre Jaramillo, 35, of Conshohocken, said, describing his professor’s way of ensuring that he and his fellow classmates are up-to-date on their grades.  Jaramillo, who works in Technical Services at the College, preferred SoundCloud over previous methods of distributing audio recordings, primarily because it saves money in the long run; “burning CD’s” he said, “…is quite expensive, especially when you’re doing more than one file.” Comparing spending 50 cents for one CD in Tech Services versus posting files on social media, he added the latter “is definitely the future.”

With a younger generation of college students turning to social media and online media sites like YouTube, they still achieve high academic success in classes like Morgan Betz’s; this, according to a study conducted late last month, showed 56% of students, or 14 of 25 students surveyed, often go on sites like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, but an insignificantly less figure of 52% enter into YouTube and other online video sites, as well as utilizing college resources like the library to help students complete their course assignments; altogether, these three sites help achieve student success, with grade point averages commonly as low as a 2.0 and as high as a 3.9.

This study correlates with a prior sampling made by the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project back in 2011, which concluded that community-college students between ages 18 and 24 “showed a slight edge” in Internet use over undergraduate and graduate students. These findings, featured in the Chronicle of Higher Education, revealed that “by comparison, only 75 percent of adults nationally report using the Internet.”

In other instances of the close relationship between online activity and success in the classroom, the professor cited “someone link[ing] a YouTube video on Facebook” and “checking their college email, which would have links to YouTube or Hulu videos.” Social media has become an enormous asset for people trying to land jobs in the production industry, as Dan Grundy explained that “they need to post their work to the Internet.”

Education – or in the case of Professor Betz, technology eduction – has changed how college students succeed and how often they use social media, particularly with the use of SoundCloud in his audio classes; he later noted that balancing social media and classwork “is lots of work for students, but they still manage,” adding that “I just don’t know if everyone’s doing it.”

Hip Hop Culture Serves Big Influence on Montco

By Jordan Ly

BLUE BELL, PA--Eight out of nine students and a professor agreed that hip hop has changed and garnered a strong influence on campus. It is one of the youngest and most popular music of today’s genres. Students compelled in answering questions about the hip hop community and indicated strong interest in the topic because they loved music. They explained what the genre has brought and changed in the students that walk around campus today. They also all added their opinions of what they thought about the genre and how it’s impacted them and others. All of the students that took the survey agreed that hip hop now has changed for the worst and that old school hip hop is better. Some of the examples included how old school hip hop was more storytelling, like famous rapper the Notorious BIG talked about his rags to riches stories, instead of the new generation of hip hop rappers today. Robert Gambone, an avid fan of hip hop and a student from Montco says, “I believe hip hop has changed for the worst, the content has gotten worse, and rappers now like Big Sean just repeat and rely on catchy phrases, rather than substance.”

There is no secret that hip hop has changed, and each student explained the details of what changed in the music. They talked about how the interest of the artists now are more worried about the money than the substance, how the content today is about beats rather than lyrics and that it is more fan friendly. Brandon Amster is an aspiring musician and hip hop fan, who attends Montco says “Yes, I am a fan, the genre hasn’t changed for the better because the music is more about boasting and partying,” He also went on about how new school hip hop has become less truthful. Others also missed old school hip hop and how it was more authentic and gave you a “classic” feeling that no other music could give you. The professor and audio producer of this survey Morgan Betz states “The music was accepted by popular culture, by doing so the nature of the music changed.” He gave his reasons why he wasn’t a fan of current hip hop and that it was watered down.

The impact of hip hop culture and style on campus was agreed by the students that it had a strong take and influence on campus. Each student named their favorite artist and how they have changed over the years and what impact it had on them. They talked about the detailed traits on the impact, like the style of how they dress and the slang of how the campus students and they talk because they look up to these artists. An online survey that took down similar opinions and statistics called Hip-Hop Influence Survey Statistics at Survelum Public Data Bank says that most students get the influence on their behavior from hip hop and that it is somewhat a good influence, but mostly a bad one because of the way students are trying to “fit in with the crowd.” The hip hop genre and culture has undeniably changed, but students agree that the impact has not, showing how strong the influence of music can be throughout campus.

Student Expands and Improves Her Music Career with Help from the Internet

By Johnny McKenna

BLUE BELL, PA--“The rap thing started off as a joke,” Bar Shoham, a self-taught, self-promoting rap and hip hop artist and student at Rutgers Newark confessed. Two years ago she realized her love for wordplay was what other artists in the genre share.  That joke evolved into an exercise where she wrote sixteen lines of lyrics a day.  For Shoham, “(the sixteen bars a day) was really just a way of finding out for myself that this was something I could potentially excel at, which encouraged me to explore rap as a musical art form.”  The exercise was helpful enough for her to put her lyrics up to music and in April 2012 she released a mixtape named Comfort (16 Bars a Day) under the stage name “Esmarelda” for free on Bandcamp, a major music publishing website.  

A year and a half later, Bar has eschewed the pseudonym and simply goes by “Bar S.”, under which she has published two more professionally recorded full length mixtapes.  Because she does not make the music tracks that back her lyrics, Shoham reaches out to music savvy friends and music producers on popular media websites like Soundcloud and Reddit for permission to use their tracks. Successfully combining lyrics and music is not a clear cut process. “Sometimes I will hear the instrumental first and it will inspire the lyrics, other times the lyrics will have been written and need a beat to compliment them,” she explains, “Each is half of a whole.” After a handful of tracks and lyrics come together, Shoham rehearses and records performances of her lyrics numerous times, and works with a producer to move around segments of lyrics. A final mix is produced when she is satisfied with what she hears.

Bar’s greatest production tool is the internet. She publishes her music on Bandcamp, Soundcloud and Youtube. She seeks constructive criticism on her music and image as well as finding producers to use tracks from and collaborate with through Reddit, and promotes herself through Twitter and Facebook.  “I try my best to use the Internet to 'spread the hype' so to speak,” Shoham says. “In a world where there are many artists on this platform it is very hard to get recognized without professional representation.”  

A major benefit to the global presence of the internet is the ease of access to like minds regardless of location.  Shoham has an EP in the works with Joseph John Meyers, a producer in the United Kingdom who works under the pseudonym “DRIVE” who she met on Reddit.  “He posted a track and I instantly felt it fit my lyrics ... we continued to keep in contact after the track was finished because we worked really well together,” she explains.  Collaborating through the internet allows them to stay on task and keep productivity high.  She explains that, “[For me] when working in person with a producer it is much easier to veer off of concentration, I prefer to work by myself, so the internet exchange works really well for my focus.” The actual production process remains unchanged. “I send him my recording and he mixes them down, edits his beats and sends them back for review, we continue this way until we feel that the product is complete,” the only difference she notices is that the communication is purely through text. “I still haven't physically spoken to him but man do we make some good music together!”

The same willingness to make a joke and then take it seriously keeps Shoham’s music feeling inspired, lively, and unique.  Her enthusiasm and drive for progress will only continue now that she recently turned 21. “This is definitely something I am excited about!” Living in Montclair, New Jersey, only 30 minutes outside New York City, Shoham benefits from having access to one of the largest cities in the world. Most open mic events in NYC do not allow anyone under the legal drinking age. “ My age now presents me with, above all things, a lot of new networking opportunities”.  The excitement for her future is evident as she says “you know what they say, if you can make it in New York you can make it anywhere!”

Philly Set to Forge Ahead With New Game Coworking Space

By Jesse Whitworth

BLUE BELL, PA--It’s a crisp September Thursday. The streets of Old City Philadelphia are teeming with activity. Drexel students and tourists alike rub shoulders outside the bars and eateries along Chestnut St. Above, the eagles on the Art Deco U.S. Custom House gaze serenely out over the city. Below, a few steps down from where Third and Chestnut meet, an unassuming entryway is inset a few feet from the sidewalk. It’s marked by a simple red banner that reads “drink philly.” Now named The Drink Nation, the eponymous blog and drink special curator recently moved west to Center City. The banner probably won’t be there much longer.

The door opens on a narrow flight of stairs. On the second floor landing, there is simply two doors. To the right is the previous office of Drink Philly. To the left is Cipher Prime Studios. Cipher Prime has occupied this loft space since 2010. For the past year and a half it has also been home to Dev Night, a weekly gathering of Philly game developers who get together to game, socialize, and create. Now, with the new space opening up next door, Cipher Prime’s home is set to transform into something more.

“We’re calling it the Philly Game Forge,” says Will Stallwood, co-founder of Cipher Prime. “It’s not just us. It’s going to be everyone. Everyone’s helping out. It just happens to be our home, where we started. But, hopefully it’ll be everyone else’s home soon.”

The loft has been a great space for Cipher Prime over the past three years. In a blog post on Cipher Prime’s website from the time they moved in, Will writes, “For us, this is just our dream come true. It actually feels like we’re turning into a real company.” While the space has been great for the small four person team, one quickly gets the impression that perhaps Dev Night’s 30-40 participants are stretching the limits of Cipher Prime’s loft. But now, with Final Form Games and Flyclops moving in, and expanding into the space left by Drink Philly, that’s about to change.

“Hopefully some people can actually walk,” jokes Stallwood about the current chaos. He  describes a plan to set aside an area as a lounge, so the people there to play games, and those there to make them, each have a bit more space. That square footage will also come in handy when the Philly chapter of the International Game Developers Association starts hosting its monthly meetings here, the first of which will be October 12th.

“I talked to Matt Brenner, Chair of the Philly IGDA Chapter and Senior Game Programmer at AMI Entertainment] and we’re going to be the official IGDA meeting location now,” Stallwood says. “We’re doing the Philly Game Jam here, and I already applied, we’ll be doing the Global Game Jam here as well.”

When asked about the explosion of indie developers in Philly, Stallwood seems cautiously optimistic. “Hopefully they stay here. That’s the big important thing. I’m hoping it goes really well. I’m seeing a lot of soloists, like Greg Lobanov [2013 Winner of Philly Geek Awards’ Indie Game of the Year]. There’s a lot of that. I think it’s getting better. Five years ago, when we were getting started, there was us and [Final Form Games]. There was three of those guys and two of us. Five game developers in all of Philly that I knew about, at all, period. And now I know of over a hundred game developers. And about thirty to forty come to Dev Night. So I’m hoping that keeps growing exponentially. But I feel like it’s slowing down a little bit.”

For something that started as two friend’s weekly play date, it’s certainly seen more growth than one might expect. “We’re older now, so hanging out is harder. We have to have a designated night, and it used to be Wednesdays. So on Wednesday nights Shawn [Pierre, founder of OriGaminc] and I would just get together and we would have our ‘man date’, and just play video games. Then Keith Nieves and Zenas [Bellace], and all those guys starting showing up as well. And we just realised that all the people coming to play video games were also makers of video games, and that’s how Dev Night started happening.”

Whatever the future may hold for the Philly game dev scene, it looks like indie developers will always have a place to go. As long as studios like Cipher Prime, Final Form, and Flyclops continue to invest as much creativity and commitment back into the community as they do in their games, it’s almost hard to imagine it not growing. “We’re going to start putting on more events ourselves, basically like tournaments and stuff, for fun.” The old expression, work hard, play hard, certainly seems to hold for Philly game designers. And without the support of publishers, it makes a certain type of sense that these people, who would normally be seen as competitors, are instead investing in each other.

Aspiring Young Rock Musicians

By Zac Chelbi

BLUE BELL, PA--The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, and Rush. What do those three bands have in common (besides being influential figures in rock music)? Before they were pumping out hits, selling out concerts, and being inducted into the Rock ‘N’ Roll Hall of Fame, they were aspiring teenage musicians with dreams of making it big in the rock music scene. Through hard work, dedication, and tedious hours of practice, they have succeeded in reaching fame in the rock music scene. Young, aspiring musicians, still to this day, are trying to make something of their music; be it for money, artistic integrity, or both.

Eric Nethery is a 21-year-old drummer living in Blue Bell, Pennsylvania. He has been playing drums for 10+ years, and has a background playing for his high school’s marching band, as well as being trained in jazz drumming. All in all, Eric is “one talented drummer”. Eric has been a “freelance” drummer, for a while; playing small shows with friends from Montgomery County Community College who requested for him to do so. Although he does not mind helping out his friends and performing for a small crowd, Eric aspires to one day get somewhere in the rock music scene, as part of a band. He helped form a local progressive rock band called Obsidian in May, 2013. Eric and the members of Obsidian have big plans for the band, but face problems with time & practice management. “It’s often difficult to get everyone’s schedules to line up”, says Eric.

Tyler Capone-Vitale is a 20-year-old bass player from Plymouth Meeting, PA. In the past, Tyler played bass guitar for a local progressive rock band called Deepest Reality. They have recorded a few demos with Tyler on bass, but they decided on taking a break a year ago. Since then, Tyler joined Burn the Empire (BTE), a technical death metal band also from Plymouth Meeting. BTE has been around for a few years, but haven’t gotten off the ground until after Tyler joined. Burn the Empire has played in many well-known local Philadelphia venues, including the Trocadero. Although they haven’t quite fully “made it”, they are doing fairly well in the local rock music scene. Tyler says, “We’re still in the process of building a legitimate fanbase. Facebook activity helps, and we’ll get further once we release our upcoming EP.” On the topic of the difficulties of writing new material, Tyler said “Coming up with completely original lyrics that will appeal to our audience, but can also be true to me can be hard to pull

John Herring is a 45-year-old lead guitar player for the alternative rock band, the Big Black Night (BBN), from Newark, Delaware. John and the members of the BBN have each been playing professionally in bands since the 1980’s. They’ve “made it” in the local rock music scene. Although they are all professional musicians, they still face problems with getting further off the ground. According to John, “There’s a Catch-22 involved with building an audience in a band; more airplay leads to more people listening to us, but in order to get airplay, you need enough of a following to be noticed.” John also says a lot of money is needed to go towards publishing CD’s and playing shows.

Being in a professional band involves internal conflicts. John says “As a fellow member of a band, you need to learn to respect each other’s boundaries. For example, I shouldn’t play a lead guitar solo over the bass player’s parts or the drummer’s parts.” Tyler was Able to shine some input into that issue as well: “I often have to act like my bandmates’ manager; keeping them in line if they slack off. As a band, we struggle with deadlines, and of course, need to keep practicing so we perform well for our future shows. Keeping business and friendship separated is a tough decision, but one that a band member must make.”

Eric Nethery, Tyler Capone-Vitale, and John Herring are just three examples out of the many talented musicians out there trying to make it; most of whom are on the right track. Who knows how far Obsidian, Burn the Empire and the Big Black Night will get?