Login to South Park

Introduction
The internet provides a vast amount of opportunities to its users, opportunities that old media such as books, newspapers, and magazines could never provide. The internet provides quickness and efficiency in retrieving data. However Nicholas Carr, in “Is Google Making Us Stupid”, thinks that “the style of reading promoted by the Net, a style that puts “efficiency” and “immediacy” above all else, may be weakening our capacity for the kind of deep reading that emerged in earlier technology.” Readers may find themselves disagreeing with this statement at a time when they catch themselves lost in the words of an EBook or a short story accessed easily and sometimes freely through the web. It can be argued that the internet even sparked a revolution in literature. New types of literature are now being produced by authors over the web such as blog fiction and digital poetry. More authors are posting their works online in order to give their audience some primacy over their work. The Web 2.0, such as Wikias, allows audiences to take an active role by making a contribution to thoughts and ideas of old and new media and sometimes even influencing an author's direction.

The "Wired World" has provided new concepts for authors, readers, and texts. Simulation was a major topic discussed in class. Simulation provides opportunities to live a life different from reality. Simulation in the form of gaming can provide good experiences like the one that the story "Anda’s Game" provided Anda. Through the simulated world, Anda was able to improve her life by making her more of a leader and improving her personality. Simulation can also provide negative experiences as in the episode of South Park's “Make Love, Not Warcraft”, where simulation had a negative effect when video gaming took over the boys' priorities. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep introduced another type of simulation. The simulation in this novel was not a game, like in South Park and "Anda’s Game", but was viewed as a religion. It was a way of feeling less alone and connecting with other people. This type of simulation was crucial in DADOES because of the miserable world that the characters in the novel where forced to live in. Interpretive communities was another concept discussed in class. In "Spoiling Survivor", an online spoiling community was determined to discover the outcomes of future episodes of the show Survivor before it aired. This is just one type of interpretive community in the vast plethora of communities available on the internet.

Sixteen successful seasons of the critically acclaimed show, South Park, has built up a strong online presence that I chose to analyze for my final project. After airing for so many seasons, South Park has developed a loyal fan base devoted to the show. Some South Park enthusiasts display their support by utilizing knowledge communities. In these knowledge communities, fans are free to discuss their favorite themes, episodes, seasons, and much more. However, not everyone participating in the online presence is a fan of South Park. The show also receives viewer criticism and has a lot of controversy surrounding it because of its tendency to be politically incorrect. On the other hand, South Park followers defend the material in the show for a multitude of reasons. Some diehard fans of South Park went a step further by creating remediations of the show, taking their favorite episodes and making videos, alternate endings, and much more. The internet has allowed fans to recreate South Park and discuss it in ways never before thought possible with old technology. I will be analyzing the knowledge communities, interpretive disputes, and remediation that take place in online communities surrounding South Park.

Remediation
South Park has gathered an enormous fan base that generates a lot of fan fiction. Fan fiction can be portrayed in many forms such as video, writing, and art. The FanFiction website provides various written examples of remediation. At this site, fans are free to create their own South Park stories to include adding characters, changing endings or altering storylines all together. Remediation allows fans to express their own ideas about their favorite pieces of literature.

The Fanfiction site provides many examples of remediation in the forms of text. One in particular that I liked was by a fan named “Eveplumbs” who composed a story titled “Favorite Worst Nightmare”. This piece was about the South Park couple Stan and Wendy in high school. It was unique because all sixteen seasons of South Park are based in elementary school and the show never goes into too much depth about Stan and Wendy’s relationship. Here the author writes more of a romantic story between South Park’s characters Stan and Wendy. The fan can clearly communicate his ideas about the emotions felt by Stan and Wendy towards each other. This piece of fan fiction allows the fan to focus more on the relationship between Stan and Wendy and less on the comedy aspect of the show. It also enables the author of the piece of fan fiction to share his vision about what Stan and Wendy’s relationship will be like in their high school days.

Being an animated show, it is no surprise that fans enjoy reproducing its characters in different art forms. South Park characters look like cardboard cut outs, so fans frequently animate them differently or draw them to look like real people. One South Park enthusiast created fan art of the four main characters, Kyle, Kenny, Stan, Cartman, and their families in a different style of animation. By expressing their posture and facial expressions, the artist conveyed what he believed to be the character's personalities. The artist also illustrated his representation of what the characters would look like if they were animated with more realism.

YouTube provides many different examples of remediation of South Park in the form of videos. The most common forms of remediation on YouTube come in the form of a fan made montage of different South Park episodes that show the fans' feelings about a certain character or relationship. The YouTube video “Gay For Kyle-Eric Cartman Poker Face” shows a fan's sentiments towards the relationship between South Park characters Kyle and Eric using a song and various clips that were previously aired in the show. A piece of fan fiction on YouTube that I found to be very interesting was an entire episode of South Park titled "Trey Gets Stoned" and created by Robert Paterson. Paterson has no affiliation to the South Park creators or South Park studios. Normally, South Park is based on four young boys, Eric, Kenny, Kyle and Stan. This particular fan fiction episode bases its entire plot on the authors of South Park, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, instead of the South Park kids. In this fan fiction episode, Paterson puts South Park in his own styling and places the authors of South Park, Parker and Stone, into the world that they crafted. Paterson freely expresses his creativity utilizing the animation and crazy world of South Park.

Knowledge Communities
In my opinion, knowledge communities are one of the most interesting and useful features provided by the internet. By having the capability to collaborate with other viewers, participants in a knowledge community can combine information with other fans and make a final product public. Knowledge communities have less ambiguity than interpretive disputes and are commonly known to have enthusiasts of a piece of literature working towards a common goal rather than arguing over a meaning. Wikipedia may be the most popular knowledge community functioning today. I will be analyzing this knowledge community, dealing specifically with South Park. I will also be taking a look at the knowledge community of Wikia as it relates to South Park.

Sixteen successful seasons of South Park have built up a vast online presence. Surprisingly, Wikipedia has a main page for the South Park show along with pages for every character, episode, and season. The enthusiasts of South Park, with the ability to collaboratively edit Wikipedia, have made a main Wikipedia page for the show that gives every piece of information anyone could ever want to know about South Park. The main page is titled “South Park” and gives an in-depth summary of the show. The page includes information about the authors, the characters, the settings, the cast, and much more. Under the heading “Episodes” on the main South Park Wikipedia page, readers can click a link to be redirected to a Wikipedia page containing a list of every episode of South Park ever created. Once redirected to this page titled “List of South Park Episodes”, readers can click on any individual episode to be redirected to a Wikipedia page for that individual episode. Data regarding plot summary, setting, and what characters were involved for each individual episode of South Park can be found on these pages. The knowledge community Wikipedia also provides a list of individual characters in South Park. Clicking on any character will redirect the reader to the character’s own page containing information about the character's personality and role in the show, among other things. The knowledge community Wikipedia has formed so many pages about South Park that the popularity of the show is evident. All of the links to every Wikipedia page that relates to the show South Park can be found on the main South Park Wikipedia page.

The South Park Wikia is similar to the Wikipedia page in the sense that it provides information on various episodes, seasons, characters and other important South Park topics. What I really like about the Wikia page is the simplicity of discussing problems on the page so everyone can talk about the problem before a change is made. The Wikia page also provides multiple videos and illustrations and offers more of a sense of community than the Wikipedia page does. There are 2,798 pages on the South Park Wikia offering a full understanding of the show. There is even a page for the Denver Bronco’s who appear in and are mentioned in the series multiple times. The South Park Wikia page goes into such depth about the show, even providing a page on the song “Con te Partiro” made popular by Italian opera singer Andrea Bocelli and sung by Kenny, a South Park character, in the Season Four episode, "Quintuplets 2000".

Interpretive Disputes
The show South Park has been known to “cross the line” for ridiculing religion, politics, and people and for being exceedingly politically incorrect. The viewers of South Park have been debating since the very first episode as to whether the show's comedy is appropriate. In 2005, the ninth season of South Park, the episode “Trapped in the Closet” aired. This episode denounced the religion of Scientology and supposedly released some secrets of Scientology that only followers should possess. In addition, the episode also questioned the sexuality of a famous Scientology follower, Tom Cruise. This episode sparked an enormous amount of controversy over the show. Isaac Hayes, the voice of the character Chef in the series, even quit the show because of his opposition towards the episode. I will analyze the online presence that opposes the episode as well as that which defends it.

The episode, “Trapped in the Closet”, implies that Scientology “is a big fat global scam”. It ridicules the beliefs of Scientology in addition to the founder and the followers of the practice. After the airing of this South Park episode, the Scientologist community and viewers of the show spoke out. Tom Cruise, a Scientologist, even demanded that the show never be aired again. An article titled “Are Trey Parker and Matt Stone Just Assholes” appears on the website Flavorwire. A commenter to this article named “Brian” writes “The way that South Park depicts Scientology is incredibly misleading. It shows Scientology in a bad light and slanders the practice. To see people defending this episode (“Trapped in the Closet”) makes me sick. Everyone has a right to practice what they believe and shows like South Park are what leads to intolerance towards those practices.” There are multiple commentators among South Park's online presence that believe that a show should not be allowed to ridicule a religion like South Park did in “Trapped in the Closet”. On the website Boston, a commentator named "Ged" responds to the article "South Park, Scientology, and Isaac Hayes" by stating "The writers of South Park would write anything that gets a cheap laugh! Comedy has become trash. One day those who condone religious discrimination will be living in their own trash. What comes around goes around."

On the other hand, the fan base of South Park defends the episode “Trapped in the Closet”. On the website Huffingtonpost, there is an article titled “Church Of Scientology Investigated 'South Park' Creators Matt Stone, Trey Parker: Report”. Following the article, viewers of South Park are provided an opportunity to comment on the episode. One fan defends the episode by stating “The great thing about South Park is that no one is immune to their satire. If the entire season of shows were based solely on chastising Scientology, I'd say that Scientologists would have a right to be hurt.....but let's face it; they make a mockery of everyone, including themselves.” On the same page, another fan defends South Park by making a case about freedom of speech. A commenter by the name of “rstoos” states “Scientology should remember that the same document that allows them to exist, allows the South Park boys to speak/show their mind. Freedom of Speech and Freedom of Religion go hand-in-hand.”

There is an ongoing debate about whether the material presented in South Park is appropriate. The online presence surrounding South Park provides good opportunities for any viewer of the show to voice their opinion. The internet makes it so simple for anyone’s voice to be heard.

Links and Resources
South Park Studios

South Park Wikipedia

South Park Wikia

South Park Fanfiction

South Park Zone Blog