blog post #3: fortnite (no, keep reading)

WAR IS PEACE, IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH, yada yada yada-- you know the slogans. 

and we've been pretty deeply exposed to them, and as concepts as a whole, throughout the entirety of this book. so when Winston decides to read The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism, i was kind of intrigued to hit some more depth, you know? 

and the ideas that are presented are pretty interesting. the idea of the uppermost class creating all this churning conflict in order to placate the masses is something that i found very unexpected parallels in.

do you know Fortnite? you know, the big video game that's critically acclaimed and massively popular, where players will fight each other to the death but in a very cartoony way? it's a phenomenon. my younger cousin plays it all the time, and yours probably does too. it's run by a company called Epic.

and of course, you know Apple. they make the iPads, the iPhones, and the laptop i'm typing this out on right now. they also host the App Store, where people can download a variety of applications made by third-party publishers. the thing is, any charge that the third-party asks for from consumers, Apple gets a share of, because they're hosting the app.

and therein lies our conflict. Epic decided to take money straight from consumers, instead of paying through Apple, so Apple doesn't get a cut. in response, Apple kicked off Fortnite-- its #1 game-- from the App Store. in retaliation, Fortnite created a parody of Apple's iconic 1984 ad. etc etc etc.

people all over social media-- like my younger cousin-- went crazy over this, and took sides and did a lot of uproar. but for what? Apple and Epic are huge billion-dollar corporations. this only helps their names grow, and helps people flock to their products in the means of "choosing a side." this isn't some like fight against corrupt market tactics on Epic's end. they know they're going to get a lot more downloads. and Apple can spare the change. they have more money than the US Government. they just know it's going to get them more media attention. 

see. the uppermost people controlling the proles. we're seeing it in front of us.

do you think this is a comparable example? what else can you think of?