I'm Not WOTC, but If I Did It....

This morning I woke up to the same shocking news as many of my friends; Zach Jesse received a 35 year ban from the DCI. If you're reading this I assume you know what the DCI is, but if not, the DCI is the official sanctioning body for competitive play in Magic: The Gathering and various other games produced by Wizards of the Coast (WOTC). The news widely shocked the community. See, Jesse recently put up some solid finishes at Grand Prix, and while they say there is no such thing as bad publicity, maybe there is when you have skeletons in your closet.

I had first met Zach Jesse back in March when we both attended the SCG Invitational in his hometown of Richmond. Our mutual friend grabbed us to be his partners in a team draft. I'd never met Jesse or heard anything about him, and he was nice and courteous to me for the entire time we played. We also won the draft, so I had an overall positive impression of him moving forward. I saw him again in May at Grand Prix Atlantic City, where he happened to make top 8. When I saw him most recently at GP Charlotte, I knew something was amiss. Jesse had a winning record in the tournament and he was playing against a well-known opponent, but he did not receive a feature match. I was hanging out with our mutual friend who was disheartened by the news. From what I remember his quote was "This is bullshit". I had no idea what he was talking about so I dug for more information. I didn't get a complete answer, but he told me that something had happened in Jesse's past and Wizards did not want him on camera. I assumed it was an instance of cheating, and thought nothing more of it.

This morning when I found out the DCI had banned Jesse for something non Magic related I was outraged. Jesse wrote an explanation of his past behavior on Reddit, but for those of you too lazy to click the link here's the short version as I understand it. In 2003 (yes, 12 years ago) two college freshmen (18 years old) made a poor choice: they drank so much neither one had a clear recollection of the night. Unfortunately, the night didn't end there. Later that night, while the female was sick in her own bathroom, she was raped by Jesse. When the case went to court, Jesse took a plea offer for the lesser charge of aggravated sexual battery. He received an 8 year sentence, 3 months of which was to be spent in prison, with 10 years of supervised release to follow.

While I find Jesse's actions that night disgusting, my initial reaction was I didn't think it was fair for the DCI to ban a player for a non Magic related occurrence. If Zach has always displayed sportsman-like conduct in the game, never cheated, and holds a good rapport at his local shop, what could be the harm in allowing him to play? It instantly made me worried for anything that might be hiding in my past. After the initial shock passed, I tried to rationalize what the DCI did. This is what I came up with....

Sports leagues ban players all the time for things that occur in their personal lives. Most notably, the NFL suspends (or bans) players for a certain amount of time depending on... well, for seemingly random times based on whatever the commissioner sees fit. I found this graph that denotes crimes vs games suspended.

The "sexual assault" you see on the graph belongs to none others than Ben Roethlisberger, who raped a college age girl back in April of 2010. He was 28, she was 20. While we can see Ben's crime to be a bit more severe, the punishment is way more lax. Roethlisberger was originally suspended for 6 games, but upon the charges being dropped, his suspension was reduced. In fact, the WOTC explanation for the ban seem to mimic Goodell's reasoning for leaving some kind of suspension in tact

"The Personal Conduct Policy makes clear that I may impose discipline "even where the conduct does not result in conviction of a crime' as, for example, where the conduct 'imposes inherent danger to the safety and well being of another person.""

And while I enjoy watching sports, I had no idea the NFL had such a thing as a Personal Conduct Policy. In 2007, the same year the indefinite suspension was brought down on Micheal Vick, a new conduct policy was introduced to punish players for personal behavior. All of my information on the NFL, including the graph, can be found here (it's a pretty short and sweet article).

Just reading those statements, it sounds like the NFL one up-ed WOTC by putting a code of conduct in place before suspending players. Which brings us to the point - if WOTC is going to ban people for their personal lives, they need to establish the rules/bylaws to say so prior to the banning. We keep seeing WOTC amend their rules after something happens that they think shouldn't be allowed - for example, the mistreatment of women in the Magic community. What if they decided to stop being reactive and start being proactive? If WOTC wants to ban people based on personal behavior then they should take a page from the NFL's book and write the rules on personal conduct. At least that way, if someone gets banned they can see it coming. People would know what behaviors were acceptable and which ones weren't, and the people being banned would not be so blindsided. But if WOTC wants to do that they have to be more timely about it....

No matter how we each feel about Zach Jesse and his ban, I don't think anyone thinks rape is okay or a crime that should be taken lightly. The real shocker is how delayed the ban was. Hell, if Jesse had recently been convicted of rape I don't think anyone would have batted an eye at his ban. No, the real problem lies in the fact WOTC let him get invested in the game after his first Grand Prix top 8, build a brand, and spend time and money to play all without even whispers of a ban. Once he was starting to feel good and comfortable everything he had worked for, it was pulled out from underneath him.

Sure, advocates of WOTC may say that they had no idea of Jesse's past until the facts were brought to their attention, and they acted as soon as possible. Again, if that were true AND he was convicted of rape say 2 years ago a multi-year banning for the sake of the community seems reasonable. Neither of those things are true in this case.

13 years ago Jesse made a mistake that both he and his victim have to live with everyday. In all of this DCI/WOTC/Drew Levin blame, no one has addressed the victim. I don't claim to know her or what she wants, but from her interview in the local paper it did not sound like she wanted Jesse to still be haunted by a teenage mistake over a decade later.

"Zug says the victim wasn't concerned with a lengthy sentence. She didn't want to see him buried under the jail," says Zug. She just wanted to see him held accountable."

The victim seems to be a compassionate person who tries to see the good in people. After spending 3 months in jail and 10 years under supervision, I think he has been held accountable. If you don't want Jesse to be the next face of Magic: The Gathering that's fine, but putting (essentially) a lifetime ban on a reformed and upstanding member of the Magic community is unprecedented and without any established policy to back their actions.

That's how I would have done it.

Reality Bites

I think everyone has heard the expression of being a big fish in a little pond. Most of us have even felt like we were that big fish surrounded by guppies looking for something more. It wasn't until I read David and Goliath by Malcolm Gladwell that I actually knew the origin of that phrase. Herbert Marsh, a psychologist, was the first to ever record this phenomenon. He looked at how student's performance varied depending on the size of the school. His observation applies to many other situations.

For the past few years, I have been moving around from place to place trying to find somewhere I belong. I did my first two years of college in a smaller town in Ohio, Kent. Where I was fairly known to an average-sized group of people and relatively unknown to the larger populous. However, because I traveled around the same buildings, walked the same sidewalks, and socialized at the same parties, I felt like I knew everyone. In fact, my nickname while at Kent State was "Hollywood". I got a taste of being known and being the big women on campus and quickly wanted more.

I traveled 2,000 miles west to the middle of nowhere to quench that thirst. My next conquest: Bozeman, Montana. Other than college students, the population of this town is 39,860. When school was in session, the population did not increase by that much. If I was Hollywood in Kent, I was the biggest thing to ever hit Bozeman. The town was full of local girls who wore sweaters and jeans to bars. Conversely, being the fashionista I am, would blow the bars wide open with my fancy dresses and heels. I would wear these outfits religiously, even in the dead of winter. Within months of living there, I never got ID'd or paid for a drink. Everyone knew me. I thrived as a social butterfly hopping from bar to bar and social circle to social circle lapping up all the attention I could each and every night.

Living in Bozeman ruined my view of the world.

Two months after finishing college, and after I brief stent in Ohio, I moved to Las Vegas. Now I know New York is the city that never sleeps, but if that is true, Vegas is the city that never naps. Upon moving, for the first time in my life, I became a little fish in a big pond. People who have lived there for a while have earned their keep. However, even with nine months under my belt, I'm still bottom feeder. I am not the hottest, most fashionable lady in this town. I'm just one of the many pretty faces trying to stand out. Sure, I have my friends, and when we go out, we get hit on, we get drinks bought for us, and hell, I still don't pay to get in anywhere. However, my perception of who I am compared to what's around me has completely changed.

This theory is called relative deprivation. Although the theory seems simple enough, it was first observed in World War II. This theory was developed when soldiers in multiple military branches compared themselves to other branches, and their perceived value and self-worth went down.

Its human nature to compare yourself to what else is out there, but the person I am or the way I look didn't change when I moved to Vegas. I'm still the same charismatic woman that I was in Ohio and Montana, and my value isn't tethered to the perceived value of those around me.

I'm lucky I lived in Bozeman, Bozeman gave me the confidence to live in Vegas. I'm lucky to have lived in Vegas, Vegas gave me the reality check I needed before my ego grew too large. I think the time I spent in each area was just enough to grow and learn, but not too much to build me up or bring me down.

For those out there in a big pond feeling small, you're a big fish somewhere. And for those out there feeling big, you're a small fish somewhere. A lot of life is about perception and how you let your surroundings dictate how you feel, but you can't change the world. You can just change the way you view it.

Working Title....

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Introduction

In the days leading up to November 6th 2012, popular opinion polls show the race between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney to win the US Presidency as being extremely close. So much so, that on October 31st many polls show a dead heat between the two (see Figure 1). Throughout the election season both parties claimed the polls were skewed for one reason or another, however; it was not the number of Republicans or Democrats present in each polling pool that skewed the numbers. The greatest disparity in Obama winning the election over Romney was not visible in these polls; there was a greater number of youths who turnout for Obama than Romney. Obama had captured sixty percent of the youth (as categorized by being between the ages of 18-29) vote compared to the thirty-six percent who voted for Romney. What encouraged the youth to turn out in such great numbers for Obama?

Throughout this paper the voter spike caused by changes in new technology will be examined. How does new technology motivate young voters to vote and what preexisting deterrents does new technology dissipate? From there we will see if trends continue after the technology is no longer new or if the spike is only prevalent the first year of the technology being utilized.

When running a campaign that has the end goal of obtaining the most powerful office in the nation, presidential hopefuls must do all they can to reach their constituents. If learning how to harness ever changing technologies will allow closer and more personal relationship with these constituents the question is worth exploring. It is key for one candidate to outdo the other in reaching as many as possible. The introduction of social media solved the question of how to reach the masses, but the answer to how to best harness the technology to gain victory is not as clear cut.

It is crucial for presidents and presidential candidates to understand over three-hundred million people are leading very different lives and very different schedules. While it remains the people’s responsibility to obtain information and knowledge from their potential leader, it is just as important for the candidate to make the information readily available to this disparate society.

Literature Review

Why Do People Vote?

In answering the question how to best harness new technology to motivate the youth to vote we must first understand why one votes.To do so we must apply basic economics by the use of rational choice theory (RCT), we can assume that individuals make prudent and logical decisions to provide them with the greatest benefit or satisfaction and these logical individuals act in ways that best satisfy self- interest. When applying RTC to elections, voters will do a cost vs. benefits analyses to decide if the benefits of voting outweigh the costs of voting. “At least since Downs's (1957) seminal work An Economic Theory of Democracy, rational choice theorists have appreciated the ‘paradox of not voting.’ In a large election, the probability that an individual vote might change the election outcome is vanishingly small. If each person only votes for the purpose of influencing the election outcome, then even a small cost to vote like a minor schedule conflict or mildly bad weather should dissuade anyone from voting (Feddersen 99)”. “In addition, participation in an election has opportunity costs: a citizen forgoes the utility of doing other things such as watching TV or visiting friends. A citizen will only participate in an election if additional costs or benefits, i.e., selective incentives (Olson 1965), obtain. There are costs or benefits that occur or do not occur when people participate in an election. In a dictatorship, for example, people who refuse to vote (or vote for the ‘wrong’ party) are arrested or have disadvantages in their occupational career. ‘Not voting’ thus results in negative selective incentives. To be sure, in a democracy those negative selective incentives for abstention are usually absent (Dieter 355)”. With such harsh punishments for absenting from the polls not being an option in the United States, what actions can a candidate take to force the hand of voters that will create a greater benefit for voting than the perceived costs? To make people believe the benefit is greater than the cost increasing the benefit to any reason someone votes will shift the balance in voting’s favor.

The University of Amsterdam did an experiment in 1996 to try to discover why it is people vote. According to Shram and Sonnemans voting is a function of three variables: group identity (x), communication to the audience (y), and individual characteristics of the candidate as they relate to individual characteristics of the voter (z). “Our experimental data supported three hypotheses derived from this model. First, participation increased with group identity. Second, communication enhanced participation. Finally, participation was strongly related to individual characteristics. A simple analysis of the way people learn from their experiences in previous periods is used to argue that any model of voter turnout should take account of myopic adaptive behavior and inertia” (Schram Sonnemans 417).

By the use of social media the cost of voting is lessened by increasing perceived value of x,y,z or any combination of the three.

Group Identity

“Mobilization models assume that groups of ideologically similar voters are coordinated by leaders who share their policy preference. Each leader determines the level of turnout within his group by allocating costly resources to voters. It is as if leaders buy the votes of followers. As examples of such groups, one might think of unions, environmental groups or churches in which members share a common policy perspective and which have an existing organizational structure including leaders who communicate directly with members and members who meet regularly with one another” (Feddersen 105, 106). Social media allows a candidate to become a figurehead equivalent to a pope or priest of their own voters congregation.“Social network sites such as Facebook allowed users to share their political beliefs, support specific candidates, and interact with others on political issues (Vitak 107)”. The leader is better able to coordinate with their constituents by keeping in constant contact, encouraging each and every follower to voice their opinion at the polls for the greater good.

“...Do political activities on Facebook affect political participation among young voters, a group traditionally perceived as apathetic in regard to civic engagement? (Vitak 107). **Discuss how social media could remove apathy among youth via group belonging**

Communication Enhanced Participation

“The second hypothesis addressed is that communication within groups will decrease free-riding, and hence increase turnout. This is motivated by the within-group processes in the Schram and Van Winden model. Discussion will enhance the development of social pressure in the group. Some support is already found by various studies on communication in social dilemma's and in groupwise prisoners' dilemma's. Communication between group members appears to increase the level of contribution (Dawes et al., 1977: Isaac et al., 1985; Isaac and Walker, 1988). Communication provides an opportunity to make promises, to coordinate actions (especially in step-level public goods) and the group identity may be enhanced.”.

Individuals Feelings

The third hypothesis states that there are important differences in individual behavior with respect to turnout. These can be related to differences in individual goals and/or to their background. In the Schram and Van Winden model, individual turnout behavior depends on various individual characteristics, amongst which their 'leadership ability'.

2012 Youth Turnout

In 2012 the estimated number of U.S citizens between the ages of eighteen and twenty-four was 31,359,915. That number is out of the 313,914,00 U.S citizens at the time of the close election, however; the total population is an inaccurate representation of citizen eligible to vote in the 2012 election. Only 244,168,392 citizens were of age to vote (U.S Census Department). If one candidate were able to capture the entirety of their target market (the youth as a whole), they would gain almost thirteen percent of all eligible citizens.

In the 2008 election many were awed by the youth turnout. It was the second largest young voter turnout in history, but four years later America would be shocked again as a 39.7% increase was seen in youth turnout from just the year before (see Figure 2).

*Explain stats more I think. Reference graphs and such….. Why is the youth voter turnout larger? *Compare 2012 to 2008 (see Figure 3) *increase of social media use in the 2008 to 2012 election by both candidates and their target audience Conclusion

In the 90’s, World Wide Web introduced a new way to get ideas not only to the people in the United States, but to people around the world as well. Now in the 00’s, the use of social media has found a way to decrease the cost of voting to the individual, by increasing the perceived value of x,y,z or any combination of the three. It was quick, it was efficient, and it was cheap. There was no need for airtime; no need for paying millions of dollars for a TV spot during popular sports events or entertainment broadcasts, just as the internet before it, social media was deemed the “future” of technology. Technologies sprouting out of Silicon Valley during the first eight years of the decade were quickly adopted by many, and more importantly, by government officials. Starting with the 2008 election, presidential hopeful Barack Obama implemented the use of Twitter and Facebook to reach voters, and attracting a vast majority of the youth vote. Adopting tools set forth by Facebook, Twitter, and the growing amount of internet resources, Barack Obama outplayed opponent John McCain in a crucial way, since McCain did not recognize the importance that social media played with almost every voter in the nation. Four years later, Obama yet again proved by utilizing new social media outlets better than his opponent, victory was still possible.

From the days of voicing opinion over the radio, to pushing ideas via a user’s smartphone, the advancement of communicative technologies over the past seventy years have been observed and utilized by hopeful candidates and presidents, wishing nothing more than to meet the demands of the people. Whether booming voices sent over the airwaves or tweets tapped from the fingertips of the campaigning presidential hopefuls, changes in communications technologies have greatly advanced, and continue advancing, as politics and presidents embrace the changing ways of technology.

Pro Choice (From a Marketing Perspective)

Everyone who has ever heard me talk about my blog knows I pride myself on writing "stimulating" blog entries meaning they aren't about my personal life. For the first time in my blogging career, I am entering the unknown, my personal life.

A little over a year ago a made the decision to live with my (at the time) best friend. While I had heard the saying "good roommates can become good friends, but good friends cannot become roommates" I never thought this could happen to Gabi and me. We had after all traveled the country and outside the country together on multiple occasions (and sometimes she went purely to watch me play Magic: The Gathering!).

After knowing all that, there is no way living together could ruin our friendship right? Within two months of her moving in we never talked and within about three months she had moved out. How could something and someone I loved so much turn into hate so quickly? The answer- lack of choices

I think at the start of this blog I was a little misleading. I am still going to talk about consumer behavior, but I did give you an anecdote about my life ;). People like being able to decide what they can do, what they can buy, and who they can hang out with. It is the basic concept of too much of a good thing.

Anyone who has ever been to a bar with me knows I love cucumber vodka. It is pretty much my go to drink and I drink it almost exclusively, but there are times when I change it up. The same concept can be applied to Gabi; We were best friends, and when given the option I would almost exclusively choose to hang out with her, but sometimes I would choose a night in or time with a friend I hadn't seen in awhile. This being said, if the bartender were to tell me I can only drink cucumber vodka for as long as I drank I would slowly begin to hate the drink I had once loved. Similarly, when I was no longer given the choice to or not to hang out with Gabi, we started to despise each other.

I know you're sitting here reading this going " duh Mary this is all obvious", but I assure you companies make this simple mistake time and time again. Once upon a time in the greatest decade called the 80's Pepsi was making a small dent in the Coca Cola empire. I say small dent because Coke was still the market leader, but was losing taste tests 52/48. Coke could not fathom anyone liking Pepsi more than Coke and immediately took a hasty and reactive approach to the market: New Coke.

Not only does this advertisement tell you you will drink New Coke and you will like it, but it forces people into falling in love with something new. New Coke wasn't the problem; Coca Cola stopped selling Original Coke. They took away the choice of Original Coke, and left consumers to either switch or be left unsatisfied. Unsatisfied it was. That year, Coke saw the biggest plunge in market share to date. It took one mistake to lose market share and many years to gain it back.

Am I saying Gabi and I will never be friends again, I would never drink cucumber vodka, or Coke can't gain back their customer base? No, we may, I would, and they have. All I'm saying is people like choices and a lack of choice can change people's preferences. In closing, thank you to all my friends for never living with me and preserving our friendships :)

A Very Cliche Blog

As the semester comes to an end, I decided to write a blog about the top ten things I've learned about consumers and their behavior through my Senior year at MSU, or at the the top ten ideas that stimulated my interest the most.

10. Controlling the Market

There is always been a debate does the market drive the consumer or does the consumer drive the market. The majority of the time, I feel consumers drive the market; people buy things that they need. In class today we were talking about whether minimalist running is a fad or here to stay. While we all agree barefoot running is a fad, minimalist running is here to stay. Big name brands like Nike started designing minimalist shoes following consumer wants.

9. Beguiling the Consumer

To contradict my first point, consumers who drive the market can be easily tricked. Consumers are extremely simple minded when it comes to persuasion of purchase decisions pushing favor at times into the markets hands. When the bread machine was first introduced by Williams-Sonoma people did not buy it, but when a different "higher end" model of the bread machine was introduced the original and lower price bread machine flew off the shelves. The idea running through people's minds is well if I were to buy a bread machine I would like the cheaper and smaller version. This tricks the consumer into thinking they need a product because there are two options to chose from. This is called the decoy effect for anyone interested in learning marketing terms (Ariely 14-16).

8. Confronting Choice more of this blog to come.....still more than most of my class writes for one blog....

Exam 3: Rituals

Consumers engage in dramatizing activities that make an event to be something much greater than it actual is by giving these events meaning. This process is referred to as sacralization: “ordinary objects, events and even people tak[ing] on sacred meaning”. “Sacred consumption occurs when we ‘set apart’ objects and events from normal activities and treat them with respect or awe” (Solomon 541). Places, people and events all share a special spot in making something ordinary sacred.

While places people think of as being traditional sacred are attributed to religion such as shrines, temples and synagogues, in the event of sacred consumption the places which become sacred are more often an emotionally sacred place (Solomon 542). Thanksgiving is a very common day for sacred consumption. In the event of this day, it is often a specific family member whose house becomes the sacred place (Solomon 543). As we saw in Pieces of April, the family was appalled to be going somewhere other than their house for Thanksgiving. Yes, there was the long drive and their dislike of April, but there was also the feeling that if we have Thanksgiving anywhere else it will not be Thanksgiving. Similar to April’s family, my extended family always met at our house for Thanksgiving. After we moved to Cincinnati and away from my family, everyone stopped celebrating Thanksgiving as an extended family get together and started celebrating it at their own households even though everyone else still lives close together; the only thing that changed was that we moved (We Gather Together 29). Without the existence of your sacred place, events that were once habitual seem to fizzle out.

Similarly to the creation of a sacred place, sacred people often become symbolic of the sacred consumption. Going back to Thanksgiving, the year after we moved to Cincinnati is the same year my grandpa died. He was always the head of each Thanksgiving dinner, praying for the meal and cutting the turkey. It’s not that someone else could not have done the same tasks he did or we felt he had superhuman powers, but he was idolized and sacred to the event (Solomon 543). Without him there to do his part of the ritual, it seemed odd to celebrate. This could be another reason our Thanksgiving fizzled.

I think it’s the events which transpire at every individual Thanksgiving that separate say my Thanksgiving from yours. Experiences become sacred as events occur more and more and become part of the sacred consumption (Solomon 544). Every Thanksgiving my family spent together we would gather round the table, and before we ate would sing Doxology; it was not until writing this paper that I knew the name of the hymn (I Googled it), but I could tell you all the words. While I have never attempted to eat without performing this task, I believe if I did something would seem missing. The events which happen before you eat and as you gather around the table are also key parts to any family’s sacralization (We Gather Together 16).

While I talked more about feelings and emotions for many people getting the right brand at Thanksgiving is part of their ritual (We Gather Together 27-28). A Thanksgiving with any turkey other than a Butterball turkey is not a Thanksgiving anymore. These brands or objects become part of one’s extended self, if not just for the day. If the brand connects to one’s sacred consumption in such a way the day would not be whole without its existence; it has successfully become part of the extended self and invaluable to the consumer (Solomon 176). Many brands try to prey on the emotional connections people make around holidays in order to boast sales.

Many different life events can become sacred to a consumer: opening day, family vacations and holidays are just some examples of an ordinary event becoming dramatized because of the meaning it brings to the consumer.

That Inevitable Evil

I don't usually blog about TV shows. I watch so many that I could have written all twelve of my blog posts about the shows I watch. From product placement to sponsorship, you can't just watch TV shows like you used to; everywhere you look a well place advertisement is sneaking it's way into your vision.

While I was thinking about how Project Runway is brought you by HP and Intel and Top Chef is brought to you by GE Monogram Appliances I began to wonder what happened to reality TV. I remember growing up and watching the Real World black out every brand that came across the screen. What caused the shift in TV shows avoiding brand names and displaying them everywhere?

In 1989 the first film crossed the line by integrating a product into the plot line. I am of course talking about E.T's use of Reese's Pieces (Walton 71). After film came Sit-Coms, most famously, Seinfeld.

From Sit-Coms to sponsorship to product placement the evolution of where we see our "commercials" has certainly changed with the times. This is largely due in part to the decline of people sitting in front of a television and watching the full hour slot of a show. Programming used to get most of it's profits from selling commercial spots, but now brands will pump money out to been seen within the show. Whether a viewer is watching on Hulu, Demand, or Netflix the only way to fast forward through the new type of advertising is not to watch a show at all.

One more blog to go :D