Hundevad Productions

My parents were movies. My friends were video games. The coaches of my youth were the amalgamation of Samuel L. Jackson, Denzel Washington, Kurt Russell, and Howard Eknes of Coach Carter, Remember the Titans, Miracle, and my actual youth basketball team, respectively. My mentors were the heroes in films like Robin Hood, WaterWorld, and Last Action Hero. 

My friends were the video games I played, a transient relationship of pretending to be the character and existing alongside with the character. Video games and movies, this type of digital literacy, kept me company, helped with life, and structured my skills to internalize three decades of plots, characters, worlds, and wonders that has shaped my mentality, taught me the abilities to work in and through technology, and influenced my conscious palette to create my own digital literacy. 

In the beginning, movies like Winnie the Pooh sparked a sense of adventure in me, as did the literature of Magic Tree House. My brother and I would play video games like Donkey Kong Country on the SuperNintendo, and later the original Halo on the Xbox. Saturday mornings would be me biking to SuperAmerica, now Speedway, for snacks, drinks, and candy for me to munch through as I watched WaterWorld for the six thousandth time. But I felt like it wasn’t just passing time or recreation, for me, I was totally invested in not only the plot, but the characters development and reaction to the action, the side characters quest and arc, and the redemption factors in a lot of stories; at the time it was just what I did, but really I was unknowingly learning how narratives work in digital literature. 

My parents divorced in 2005 and the 2008 recession made it worse for them to support their three children. Drama aside, it was a time that I had a lot of time to myself. My brother was old enough to work and drive, while my sister was young enough to be at child care and after school programs. I stayed home and hung out. I watched movies, played MetroPrime on Gamecube, worked on my hero monologues. This time made me self reliant, independent, and being comfortable alone, and I had been all the time, again, unknowingly learning how narratives work in digital literature of video games and movies. Endless hours of this has internalized quote plots and characters that have developed into my own conglomeration of stories and writings. 

Video games and movies became a staple in passing time, but was also supported and solidified in my educational doctrine. I was not only partaking in it as a consumer, but an active member then and now in the system of educating digital literacy to the masses. Digital literacy homogenized with education, therefore internalizing that trait inside me.

In my school, digital literacy was a necessary educational tool. We had AR points, a digital point tracking system on the class computer to track the amount of books we read that year. Music class has STOMP videos, science class had those Eyewitness science docs with the memorable theme song, or the even more iconic, Bill Nye the Science Guy. History class had the world-changing computer game, The Oregon Trail. We even had a dedicated computer classroom where we learned typing and played educational games like Jumpstart for Kids. That digital literacy education continued into high school and college with courses like Media Literature, TV Media, and History of Film. Classes focused on how advertising works, how media literature is used to sell, persuade, entertain, or inform. We discussed political discourses in relation to the shifting culture of how we consume media. We would analyze and research the evolution of humor, drama and the cycle of storytelling via digital literature; for example how show’s like  Everybody Loves Raymond has evolved to F is for Family. Digital literature changes with our cultural times, reflecting life, telling a story of our times. 

Digital literature also aids in our development. I have apps like Duolingo and crossword puzzles, prime examples of a digital literature packaged as educational entertainment, let alone thousands of others like Babbel and Braingames. My digital discourse has been ever present and trained since a youngling and forever will be dictated and formed by this technology via more digital literature. I typed this on an iPad, recorded it on my phone, airdropped both of those to my computer, edited it and submitted it. All without learning how to do it, it was just intuitive because I grew up in that culture. The ease of use and knowledge of knowing the digital discourse is not an intelligence measure but just an outcome of living in a culture centered and effectively run by that digital discourse necessitating it to be accessible to all. The ability to work in and through technology is that outcome of living in that culture, learning that technology by doing, being present in it, therefore requiring this education around digital literacy. 

This has transformed to my personal life as the digital literacy I gained in education homogenized with my internalized pre-existing digital literacy. Video games, movies, plays, blogs, are for me, not something to escape into anymore and role play, they are a course on human experience, an educational opportunity to learn about people, culture, life, and trouble. Each video game plot line, each movie has a theme, a moral,  a story, some lesson to be learned and relearned and for me I find myself seeing those, and wanting to relate. This is what drives me to be a storyteller, this is what excites me about literature, telling a good story and having the audience take something out if it. 

If people are just products of their culture, then my digital literacy would be the sum of all content I’ve consumed. My words would just be a conglomeration of copied quotes from characters in a movie, my reactions just reflections of what I’ve learned to act like, and my knowledge just reiterations of what has entertained me. My narrative is a randomized retelling. I read something. I will write about it, and someone will read that and they will write, and someone will read. 

And they will write. 

And our legacy will live 

on in the literatures 

of fellow humans. 

Live Long and Prosper.