The Internet is Real: A Story of Social Discovery

My video game idea came as a direct result of me learning that the internet is a real thing. By that, I mean I realized I could use it to connect with real people and real ideas, not just learn about celebrities and current events, watch Netflix, and otherwise waste time.

It all started when I got home from my mission and my brother told me to check out TED. I was free and looking for a way to get back into the world but keep doing good, so I checked it out.

Holy crap.

Jane McGonigal
(CC BY-SA 2.0 by  Meet the Media Guru)

I loved it. I ate it up. But then I ran into this talk by Jane McGonigal, and things really started cranking.

When I got a job with Coach Alba, a tech start-up in Provo, I had to set up a Twitter account. McGonigal was one of the first people I followed.

Because I followed her, I found out I could get a signed copy of her book, Reality is Broken, for Christmas.

Reading her book and following her on Twitter, I kept expanding my internet lens until I ran into a BuzzFeed article about the new Bioshock game, which led me to a ridiculously intellectual review of the original Bioshock by Clint Hocking.

So I started following Hocking as well. His recent post covering his speech for the Art of Games exhibit at the EMP museum quite possibly changed my life, and is the motivational fuel behind my whole paper.

And that, friends, is why the internet is a good thing.