Buffy the Vampire Slayer

            The episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer that we watched in class demonstrated how powerful of a role computers play in our daily lives.  In writing this episode, I think that the writers and producers were trying to show us, the viewers that the Internet takes over our lives.  In the computer lab scene, one of the characters is quoted as saying, “If you’re not jacked in to the computer world, you’re not alive.”  This episode is from over ten years ago and even then they knew what an influential role computers and the Internet would play in the future.  The computer teacher says that in today’s society more emails are sent than regular mail.  That is just one example of how computers have greatly changed how we communicate with people.  This technology makes your personal relationships impersonal.

            Willow, who play’s Buffy’s friend meets a guy on the Internet, Malcom, who she thinks is the greatest simply because he tells her the things she wants to hear.  But does she really know anything about him?  The computer can hide people’s identities and that can be a very dangerous thing.  So many people become brainwashed by these predators because they think they are normal people just chatting online.  But most of the time these people do not turn out to be who you think they are.

            The computer teacher asks Rupert Giles who is Buffy’s watcher, why he dislikes computers so much.  He says that, “the knowledge gained from a computer has no context, its there and then it’s gone.  Books have a rich smell; the knowledge from computers does not.”  This episode is trying to show us how much we rely on technology.  Technology is transparent.

            The producers demonstrate the effects of Computer Mediated Communication (CMC) in this episode.  Specifically with the relationship Willow finds on the Internet.  She finds this guy online and starts this impersonal relationship with him because she is lonely, instead of finding someone who she can have a face-to-face relationship with.  As we see towards the end of this episode Malcom is not who she thinks he is.  This shows that with every good and positive thing these technologies bring, they also bring something negative.