Blog Post 3, Group C: Dangers of the Internet by Sam U.

Bad Match is a 2017 psychological thriller filled with a lot unexpected turns and shocking realities for millenials. The film starts off with Harris, a video-gamer with a laid-back corporate job living in a one-bedroom apartment. Harris is a womanizing jerk that loves one night stands and uses dating apps to score his victims. Much like Tinder, he has to swipe right when he’s interested and swipe left when he isn’t. However, no one is safe on this app because he swipes right every time! This film demonstrates the extreme dangers of the internet and online dating. For as much privacy you think websites offer theirs also professional hackers digging for personal information, stealing identities and accessing your cameras or microphones to spy on you. Even if the motives of these hackers are unclear– they are never good.

Harris decides to meet up with Riley after they are a match. He does his research on her to sweep her off of her feet for an easy access pass. When they officially meet, he swears to have the same interest as her and doesn’t even let her order her own drink because he is able to “see” her favorite drink. It’s a cheap move! He sees cranberry vodka and tequila shots with every girl. Surprisingly, this asshole’s move works every time. Riley decides to take Harris back to her place to do the do. Once it is all done, Harris strategically waits for Riley to fall asleep so he can untangle her hands on his body and head for the door. It's best for him to not spend the night in order to avoid any explanations or morning after expectations.  

When Harris is home he likes to go online to play videogames with a much younger kid that goes by the username “Shadowman”. Harris likes to win and while doing it these two insult each other back and fourth. They usually go for the over used “suck my dick” but Shadowman becomes increasingly offended when Harris insinuates he’ll never be able to get laid with an actual breathing woman. Shadowman and his defeated manhood go offline while Harris becomes frustrated because Riley wont stop blowing up his phone. He’s used to getting laid, leaving before the girl awakes and never speaking to them ever again. He is the common fuckboy but Riley just happens to be the game changer because she doesn’t give up easily and will make sure to see Harris again. 

After Harris has had a stressful day at his job and tiered of avoiding Riley at all costs, he decides to pick up her phone call and tell her he can’t go out that night because he isn’t feeling well. Instead, he goes out to the bar with his best friend Chuck and his girlfriend, Lydia. Harris is telling his friends that Riley turned out to be an obsessive psycho but he admits that he screwed up because he’s a slave to his genitals and slept with the same lunatic twice against his better judgment. That’s when the music in the background starts to change and get suspenseful. In the film the viewer can see the backside of a figure with a skirt slowly approach their table. When the woman makes it to the table the viewer then realizes it’s Riley! The first thing Riley says is, “I thought you were sick– who is Lydia?”. She had been standing there for the whole conversation and Lydia made the mistake to check everyone in on Facebook. Riley’s stalking game was on point but that didn’t play in her favor. She gets aggressive with Harris and walks out crying. It is easy for a man to blame their genitals as if they are not one. As if doing so, makes it more acceptable or less shitty even though he's admitting to all the wrong reasons. 

Just when Harris thought he was clear from Riley’s madness he receives a call from her. At first, he’s reluctant on picking up but Chuck convinces him to pick up. After all, that’s the least he can do for her. Riley then proceeds to say that she took some pills but wants him to go see her. Harris is afraid she might’ve overdosed so he makes his way to her apartment where he finds her laying unconscious. The room is red to set the mood of a dangerous event but Riley disrupts this scene by waking up and laughing. It was all a trick to lure Harris back into her trap and in a way get her sweet revenge. However, Harris was not very fond of her prank and reacts by smashing his fist into a mirror behind Riley. She screams and her emotions are reflected in her wide eyed gaze. Harris walks out and tells her to never contact him again.

    

Later that day, Police officers knock at his door and ask to see his computer. According to their records he downloaded over 5 gigs of child pornography onto his laptop. Unaware and afraid, Harris denies these absurd accusations. However, with all the evidence incriminating him, he is taken to jail. He speaks with his lawyer and tells him he is positive that his troubling past with an obsessive one-night stand fueled the whole situation. The lawyer believes this set-up but tells Harris he needs Riley to confess in order to prove his innocence. In addition, the lawyer asks Harris to lay low and not to take measures onto his own hands because it wouldn’t end well in the eyes of a judge. This is when Harris’ situation takes an unexpected spin. He decides to kidnap Riley after putting drugs in her drink. He takes her to a secret place, ties her up to a chair and waits for her to re-gain consciousness. The film set-up is red once again to initiate fear and suspense. He then tells her that as soon as she confesses he will let her go. Riley is afraid but agrees to do whatever he asks as soon as he unties her. She says the video wont look good if she is tied to a chair. After Harris unties her she decides to hit him and nearly kill him in order to buy her some time and find the nearest exit. Once she finds the gates that lead outdoors, she realizes she needs a code to lift the gates. Riley starts to scream for help but he unexpectedly stabs her in the chest. She removes the knife and falls to her knees to die. The viewer gets a mixture of relief and fear until he receives a call from his lawyer. He tells Harris he was right all along– kind of. Riley didn’t do it! But he did get hacked by a 15 year-old boy better known by his online username Shadowman. His mom caught him and made him confess about the whole thing.

I really liked this movie because it explores many dangerous issues going around in today’s tech savvy society. As we progress with innovative applications the idea of meeting people as opposed to getting to know people starts to decrease. Online dating isn’t one-hundred percent safe and you never know who is on the other end of the screen. In addition, cyberbullying is dangerous and harmful. One rude comment can trigger someone to do incriminating acts such as killing themselves or others. According to McAfee, “Only 61% of youth have enabled the privacy settings on their social networking profiles to protect their content, and 52% do not turn off their location or GPS services across apps, leaving their locations visible to strangers. Additionally, 14% have posted their home addresses online – a 27% increase from last year’s results”. More and more people aren’t keeping their lives private anymore. They are intentionally and unintentionally becoming victims to the internet and to an extent we are all guilty of sharing too much on our social medias without thinking twice about it.

Citation:

Ross, E., & Eichorn, K. (2014, June 03). Cyberbullying Triples According to New McAfee "2014 Teens and the Screen study". Retrieved March 27, 2018, from https://www.mcafee.com/us/about/news/2014/q2/20140603-01.aspx

Omelas or America? by Kyra Moore

The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas is a phenomenal piece of literature that I would argue is based on a theme of morality and consciousness. Although this was not my first time reading this story, I still felt the heavy theme of persecution of morality that the book provoked.

The author, Ursula K Le Guin, starts off the work by having the reader intentionally imagine a subjective utopian society based solely on their preferences. An example in the text illustrates this saying, “Omelas sounds in my words like a city in a fairytale, long ago and far away, once upon a time. Perhaps it would be best if you imagined it as your own fancy birds, assuming it will rise to the occasion, for certainly I cannot suit you all.” After Le Guin has the reader synthesize their perfect utopian society she then drops the “moral bomb” so to speak- what the utopian is dependent upon. Le Guin goes on to say, “the room is about three paces long and two wide: a mere broom closet or disused tool room. In the room a child is sitting.” After Le Guin informs the reader of such inhumane treatment the child is receiving, she continues to tell of how the citizens of Omelas feel about their happiness being brutally and inhumanely placed upon the back of a child- “some of them understand why, and some do not, but they all understand that their happiness… depend wholly on this child’s abominable misery.” I would like to pose the argument that the story and citizens of Omelas can be directly correlated to our current society and our morally selfish tendencies.

It is almost undebatable that our current society, and history tells us that past societies, exist currently or have existed within a hierarchy. Often times within that hierarchy, those who are at the top are immensely content with their conditions and would sacrifice anything for the continuance of those conditions. In present terms, we have seen this in the example of our current prison system being ran as a business resulting in the event of mass incarceration. In past terms, we have seen this in the example of, more or less, the Cherokee removal. These events ultimately transpire due to the fact of those who are in a better position sacrificing the deserved justice of those who are “lower” than them on a hierarchy. The little boy facing inhumane treatment in the story of Omelas can easily be compared to the humans that were brutally forced off of their homeland or the many victims affected by our inefficient prison system. The origin of our country even has been built on these same morally “selfish” concepts.

Lisa Fluet in her work “Ask Me If I Care: Work, Injustice and Other People’s Happiness”” supports this morally selfish concept from an excerpt in her work saying, “happiness for some involves the persecution of others” as well as “the sense that happiness for some can rely upon the unequal distribution of injustice to others is fairly familiar ethical territory in Eliot, whose works evoke “the injustice of happiness, showing what and whom happiness gives up.”

Lisa Fluet said these words in light of the moral theme that Omelas provokes which again can be directly correlated to current American society. There are countless amounts of unethical occurrences in society that can easily mirror the moral dilemma portrayed in Omelas.  

This is a reason why I deem The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas to be such a phenomenal read- it portrays such a heavy moral theme which can be applied to current and past immoral events.

Scholarly Source:

http://muse.jhu.edu.proxy.library.umkc.edu/article/546571/pdf