By Drew Davies

 

The SCAtrix

 

I chose to watch a film that I would never usually watch as part of the SCA festive fun package.

 

I picked a movie called Chinatown, a noir detective film starring Jack Nicholson.

 

The movie was unengaging, slow and I found myself nodding off about half way through.

 

After waking up a few hours later and tucking into a Christmas eve feast I found myself back in front of the TV.

 

I flicked through the channels until The Matrix appeared.

 

The last time I seen it I was about 15, all I could remember was some crazy fight scenes – enough to give me that delicious warm buzz of anticipation. That feeling you spend hours on Netflix looking for. I love movies but I hate it when I invest time into them only to be disappointed. I feel like I have been cheated. My attention and time have been hijacked and violated.

 

Thankfully since I was 15 I have smoked a hell of a lot of the ganja, puffed on the magic dragon many a time, rested on the sweet lips of Mary Jane blissfully, lapped up the levi roots, puff puff passed that dutchie to the left and the right, chiefed that leaf – or whatever else you call it. This means I’ve forgotten most of what happened so I sat back to enjoy this a new movie I’ve seen before.

 

I remember The Matrix for the wall running, bullet dodging and super slow mo but I never realized how little I actually understood about the film.

 

What lies at the center of the movie is actually a very interesting philosophical thought.

 

How can we know our reality is real?

 

We think dreams are real until we wake up. How do we know that our whole lives aren’t just one big dream?

 

In the movie AI have plugged humans into this reality so they can keep them in pods and feed off their real bodies energy without us ever knowing.

 

Humans are completely oblivious to the real world, trapped in a fake one.

 

It made me feel slightly uncomfortable that I could draw such a similar comparison between this and my time at SCA.

 

I feel as though for the first term I have been plugged into the world of advertising.

 

It’s pretty much been on my mind constantly, if not dominating, lurking just under the surface.

 

Am I thinking about this brief in the right way? When is the best time to do this work? What about the other brief we should probably get started on that? Who shall I work with? How can I get better? Which agency do I want to work at? Which mentor shall I listen to?

 

On 18th December I unplugged for the first time.

 

I spent time with friends and family. I worked out. I went to galleries. I got fucked up. I did some silly passion projects. Some days I did nothing. I didn’t think about advertising at all.

 

This is the real world. No KPIs or target markets or positioning or media space or budget or strategies or layouts or straplines.

 

A world I haven’t been aware of enough.

 

The problem is I’m not sure how well I can do both.

 

Recently I had to sell Fifa 16.

 

It was a sad day, almost like a divorce. It wasn’t that I didn’t love her anymore but it just wasn’t working. Worse than that – it was detrimental.

 

She was eating my time. The problem with Fifa is there is no end. You can’t finish on a loss, a draw doesn’t seem finite enough and when you win you want to win again.

 

I had to do the hard thing and sell it for the greater good.

 

I feel like SCA is similar for me. It’s all or nothing.

 

In the Matrix or out.

I’m ready to be plugged back in for 2016.