There was quite the festive spirit surrounding the opening of my first Magic the Gathering trading card booster box. I was surrounded by fellow game shop patrons and MtG players, all likewise going at their boxes with gusto. Afterwards came the value sorting and trades, but in that moment, the act of unboxing was one of pure delight. It was an act completely devoid of narcissism.
Cut to September 30th, 2013, as I set out to procure another MtG booster box, this time for the newly released Theros expansion. From the outset, my digital camcorder caught the whole trip, or at least as much as its technical limitations and battery life would allow. This whole road trip video was spurred by the initial concept of making a Magic the Gathering unboxing video, an aim itself inexorably linked with “video art’s support of the psychological condition of narcissism.” (Lev Manovich, 234-235) In true narcissistic fashion, this piece of new media would literally “represent to the user [his] actions and their results” (235), i.e. the trip and the procurement of the box. Furthermore, the whole process would be framed in the cinematic style of an opening credits sequence, making use of visual editing (fast-forward montage), musical soundtrack and the framing of yours truly as the protagonist.
Cut to September 30th, 2013, as I set out to procure another MtG booster box, this time for the newly released Theros expansion. From the outset, my digital camcorder caught the whole trip, or at least as much as its technical limitations and battery life would allow. This whole road trip video was spurred by the initial concept of making a Magic the Gathering unboxing video, an aim itself inexorably linked with “video art’s support of the psychological condition of narcissism.” (Lev Manovich, 234-235) In true narcissistic fashion, this piece of new media would literally “represent to the user [his] actions and their results” (235), i.e. the trip and the procurement of the box. Furthermore, the whole process would be framed in the cinematic style of an opening credits sequence, making use of visual editing (fast-forward montage), musical soundtrack and the framing of yours truly as the protagonist.
Assertions of narrative are interestingly applied to the medium of unboxing videos. In their way, booster boxes are tangible databases of the cards they contain, said cards lending themselves to a specific and definite organizational structure via each one’s collector number. The hypernarrative that is the potential for all the card’s revelation from their packs, and the act of opening and analyzing the cards (the algorithm), further adhere to Manovich’s defined aspects of traditional narrative within database structures. (227-228) Of course, this narrative only exists in the realm of the syntagmatic, as a mental construct drawn from the paradigm that is the physical contents of the booster box. (230)
With unboxing videos, the raw database of footage is transformed into the narrative of the unboxing act itself, the syntagmatic made permanent through linear cinematic record. Much as Vertov’s Man with a Movie Camera took to the task of seeing the world for other people (240), so too does the unboxing video filmmaker. Where Vertov and others make use of cuts and edits to contextualize database footage, the unboxing video utilizes narration and commentary to lend the proceedings a defined narrative thrust (such videos can be edited, though doing so seemingly defeats the video’s traditional purpose of acting as a record of defined linear events).
Rather than take the conventional approach of a straightforward video, I opted to supplement the standard unboxing video format with the inclusion of commentary captions throughout. In this way, I was able to make use of an overarching awareness of and access to my video database to create a variety of contexts for a duel narrative structure: that of the recorded footage and the caption commentary.
With unboxing videos, the raw database of footage is transformed into the narrative of the unboxing act itself, the syntagmatic made permanent through linear cinematic record. Much as Vertov’s Man with a Movie Camera took to the task of seeing the world for other people (240), so too does the unboxing video filmmaker. Where Vertov and others make use of cuts and edits to contextualize database footage, the unboxing video utilizes narration and commentary to lend the proceedings a defined narrative thrust (such videos can be edited, though doing so seemingly defeats the video’s traditional purpose of acting as a record of defined linear events).
Rather than take the conventional approach of a straightforward video, I opted to supplement the standard unboxing video format with the inclusion of commentary captions throughout. In this way, I was able to make use of an overarching awareness of and access to my video database to create a variety of contexts for a duel narrative structure: that of the recorded footage and the caption commentary.
The most prominent contextual element of this narrative was the creation of a dynamic between commentators, the recorded and the edited, using the trading cards on display as a physical stand-in for the later. This trick presents itself initially as a meta-textual gag concerning the composition of the video, then asserts its importance by having the text, fully embodying the role of the boar token, engaging in a dialog with my video self, accepting compliments and taking swipes at retrospectively inane moments. Using this narrative device, I was able to turn the inherently narcissistic qualities of my unboxing video back onto themselves, retroactively rendering the whole thing something akin to satire.
Vejby and Wittkower explore the implications of such humorous re-appropriations in their essay “Spectacle 2.0,” an extended association of new media with the precepts of the French Situationists of the 1960s. Just as the unboxing depicted in my video failed to recapture the experience of the first paragraph, “Spectacle 2.0” sites “a fundamental idea of the situationists… that people in modern societies have become passive spectators removed from enjoying authentic experiences.” (100) In turn, the cause for this disconnect stemmed from the conscious act of conforming to the assumed unboxing video format; in essence, the spectacle of the unboxing was allowed to supersede the actual experience. (98)
Such rigidity and homogeny of form, the Situationists say, must in turn be subverted using the tactics of “détournement” or “derailing.” That at least was the tactic utilized in my video, which bears the strongest similarities to the subversive tactics put forth by prominent Situationist Raoul Vaneigem. Vaneigem’s call-to-arms was phrased by Vejby & Wittkower thusly: “By constantly being creative and spontaneous, the individual can create events… that will then ensure a permanent state of subjectivity." (106) With virtually all of the edited text for my video having been improvised over the course of a single viewing, there’s no denying that the end result bore a subjective slant of playful self-effacement.
That said, all the good-natured ribbing in the world can’t get past the essential realities in which my entire unboxing video endeavor, sincere or satirical, narcissistic or self-depricating, must exist. Vejby and Wittkower briefly touch on the prospect of “corporations seducing us into thinking of ourselves and others in terms of whatever it is that [the corporations] happen to be hawking.” (100) Trebor Schulz is more on the nose about the matter in his article "Facebook as Playground and Factory": we are co-creating the experience that attracts us to the service in the first place." (249) When you makes a video to upload to Youtube, you're not just putting your own name out there, you're also facilitating the site's business model; more to the point, you're propagating the culture that initially drew you in. With MtG unboxing videos, no matter how narcissistic, the one benefiting the most is Wizards of the Coast, the corporate entity who is both receiving free press and the propagation of the fan base that makes up it's core market base. Even the supposed "bottom-up expression of citizen sovereignty" discussed by Waddick Doyle and Matthew Fraser ("Facebook, Surveillance and Power," 226) ultimately serves WotC's own ends. Remember when I touched on the consumer generated value of various MtG cards in my video (utilizing TCG Player, a decidedly non-narrative database)? However much or little players decide a certain card is worth, that market demand ultimately works in WotC's favor.
All of this adds up to a kind of cycle for what Doyle and Fraser deem a compulsive ritual of narcissistic self-display. (229) From the initial unboxing video, we saw a reassertion of the author's self-importance through the satirical re-contextualization, basically a "platform to talk about [myself] -- and, by doing so, establishing what [I] believe to be true." (222) That satirical product all the same contributes to both the media culture that inspired the unboxing video to begin with as well as the corporate entity that supplied the product.. It's a seemingly inescapable cycle, but Vejby and Wittkower seem to suggest that it's not all bad. The general belief goes that "we are now not as easily seduced into passivity by the media, but have become better at seeing through the seduction and voluntarily decide to submit ourselves to the organization and control of media. like [Youtube] when it suits us, and engage in irony and other forms of playful resistance when it doesn't." (102)
In effect, the rampant narcissistic implications of various new media is mitigated significantly by the mere acknowledgement of its existence. All this isn't to say that the halcyon days of my unmediated unboxing are lost, nor that modern narcissism exists solely within the realm of new media. It seems enough to tacitly recognize new media narcissism not inherently as a pejorative, but as a possible and comprehensible element of influence.
Vejby and Wittkower explore the implications of such humorous re-appropriations in their essay “Spectacle 2.0,” an extended association of new media with the precepts of the French Situationists of the 1960s. Just as the unboxing depicted in my video failed to recapture the experience of the first paragraph, “Spectacle 2.0” sites “a fundamental idea of the situationists… that people in modern societies have become passive spectators removed from enjoying authentic experiences.” (100) In turn, the cause for this disconnect stemmed from the conscious act of conforming to the assumed unboxing video format; in essence, the spectacle of the unboxing was allowed to supersede the actual experience. (98)
Such rigidity and homogeny of form, the Situationists say, must in turn be subverted using the tactics of “détournement” or “derailing.” That at least was the tactic utilized in my video, which bears the strongest similarities to the subversive tactics put forth by prominent Situationist Raoul Vaneigem. Vaneigem’s call-to-arms was phrased by Vejby & Wittkower thusly: “By constantly being creative and spontaneous, the individual can create events… that will then ensure a permanent state of subjectivity." (106) With virtually all of the edited text for my video having been improvised over the course of a single viewing, there’s no denying that the end result bore a subjective slant of playful self-effacement.
That said, all the good-natured ribbing in the world can’t get past the essential realities in which my entire unboxing video endeavor, sincere or satirical, narcissistic or self-depricating, must exist. Vejby and Wittkower briefly touch on the prospect of “corporations seducing us into thinking of ourselves and others in terms of whatever it is that [the corporations] happen to be hawking.” (100) Trebor Schulz is more on the nose about the matter in his article "Facebook as Playground and Factory": we are co-creating the experience that attracts us to the service in the first place." (249) When you makes a video to upload to Youtube, you're not just putting your own name out there, you're also facilitating the site's business model; more to the point, you're propagating the culture that initially drew you in. With MtG unboxing videos, no matter how narcissistic, the one benefiting the most is Wizards of the Coast, the corporate entity who is both receiving free press and the propagation of the fan base that makes up it's core market base. Even the supposed "bottom-up expression of citizen sovereignty" discussed by Waddick Doyle and Matthew Fraser ("Facebook, Surveillance and Power," 226) ultimately serves WotC's own ends. Remember when I touched on the consumer generated value of various MtG cards in my video (utilizing TCG Player, a decidedly non-narrative database)? However much or little players decide a certain card is worth, that market demand ultimately works in WotC's favor.
All of this adds up to a kind of cycle for what Doyle and Fraser deem a compulsive ritual of narcissistic self-display. (229) From the initial unboxing video, we saw a reassertion of the author's self-importance through the satirical re-contextualization, basically a "platform to talk about [myself] -- and, by doing so, establishing what [I] believe to be true." (222) That satirical product all the same contributes to both the media culture that inspired the unboxing video to begin with as well as the corporate entity that supplied the product.. It's a seemingly inescapable cycle, but Vejby and Wittkower seem to suggest that it's not all bad. The general belief goes that "we are now not as easily seduced into passivity by the media, but have become better at seeing through the seduction and voluntarily decide to submit ourselves to the organization and control of media. like [Youtube] when it suits us, and engage in irony and other forms of playful resistance when it doesn't." (102)
In effect, the rampant narcissistic implications of various new media is mitigated significantly by the mere acknowledgement of its existence. All this isn't to say that the halcyon days of my unmediated unboxing are lost, nor that modern narcissism exists solely within the realm of new media. It seems enough to tacitly recognize new media narcissism not inherently as a pejorative, but as a possible and comprehensible element of influence.