CLMOOC: Making Me

            So I've just spent some time recreating a digital overview of myself in the form of a South Park character. I had other choices. I could have been a superhero or a Simpsons character. To be honest, I don't feel like a superhero and I don't watch the Simpsons, but I love the politically charged, over-the-top, in-your-face hilarity that is South Park. It was an easy choice, really. While my avatar slightly resembles me (I love wearing bright colors, and I do have brown hair), it's the idea that I am a South Park character that is interesting to me.
          I feel like I'm from a small town where ridiculous things always happen. Everyone knows that kid whose dad is way out there, just like Randy Marsh. Everyone knows that really annoying fat kid. Really though, it's the idea that I could imagine myself nestled in a quite mountain town where strange and mundane collide. In an alternate universe...this is me.

       Surely though, I am not the only person who has imagined themselves as part of South Park, for the show has garnered thousands of fans from all over the place. South Park is a cult artifact because it gives us a completely furnished world into which it is easy to plug ourselves in and the work is encyclopedic, just as Umberto Eco states it should be (Convergence Culture, 2006). I can give quotes like 'Hello, children!' or talk about throwing snowballs at rabid, mutant turkeys and true fans will know what I'm talking about. Hopefully, the culture created by this quiet, little, (fictional), podunk mountain town inspires other makers across the web. 

#SouthPark #CLMOOC #MCERT #Simpsons #ConvergenceCulture