Gimme Back My Internet!
Oprah is not your friend and Michael Bay is the harbinger of doom – and some dead trees
Tags: Life With Mike Categories: Blog, Contributor Blog
Posted by Mike "Two Tone" McConnell on Aug 13th, 2009
With celebrities migrating to twitter as their new “common people” communication method, can the Internet be called “New Media.” This isn’t Luddite, but may be a bit elitist. The problem I have when Oprah tweets about whatever new age drivel she’s pimping, of Ashton Kutcher tries to have a publicity contest with a network is that it removes what makes the Internet, “new media.” The internet was all about community and participation, and I doubt Oprah is listening to the internet. Twitter has proven to just be another way for PR people to speak for their clients, (EXAMPLE: http://bit.ly/GlSV6) So who gives a crap about what Oprah is pretending to be saying, she has a show where we can see her read that script. The internet has its own culture, and its thriving, and with a few exceptions it’s largely free of the “us and them” approach of traditional media. The two worlds exist simultaneously, no one going to displace the celebrity industrial complex, and TMZ can make a killing brining that to the internet. What I don’t want to see is interaction replaced by broadcasting, and debate and discourse displaced by punditry.
The third rail of modern entertainment is the acknowledgment that people like crap. Michael Bay has several mansions and wheelbarrows full of money that prove it. That’s why I always strive to connect something to its target audience. That philosophy rarely fails me, and has lead to an idea that most people don’t want smart media. Critics do, most teachers do, but they don’t recognize they themselves are another demographic. That’s how modern media works; every single demographic is given a set of entertainment. Nerds are given the discovery cache of networks, G4, SyFy, and a few nights of network television. However the large swath of media is directed at the vast middle, who want to tune in and turn off. Smart media happens when people ask for it, and I do see a large uptick in shows that are smart humor, others with dense multithreaded stories, and even others who put forth topics that spark discussion. So those that have said the boob tube, and the internet are making us dumber I ask, would a show like Lost even came close to airing in the 70’s and 80’s? Our culture is now annotated, difficult references are easily resolved through fan-blogging, Wikipedia, or simply Google. So yes people like crap, explosions, boobs, and dialog that reads like a ten year old’s creative writing assignment, but it’s getting better. If you feel underserved by media, have you seen what they give kids to watch these days, let alone what they have for video games?
And just to completely turn things around…
Math on acid, more aptly Math on Mushrooms, is the best way to describe the work of mathematician Clifford Pickover. He has written some heavy math books that will be left out of this description of his work, and although he can be a bit New Agey, they are fun. The first book I picked up was Sex, Drugs, Einstein and Elves. This is an exploration of the world of the religious and occult through the eyes of someone who knows better. Altered consciousness is his culprit for much of what we chalk up to paranormal experiences, but he does a great job of joining the two worlds.
That book may be only of interest to philosophy students, but he also makes puzzle books. I have been working through Alien IQ Test. This is akin to one of the lateral thinking books your teacher used to have, but way more weird. He puts forth about 40 different puzzles that all have this alien abduction theme. He even sets up an alien counting system you have to discern for some puzzles. This is for the TI-85 crowd, but it’s great fun. And let’s face it the TI-85 crowd likely needs to unwind more than anybody else.
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Tags: Life With Mike
Posted by Mike "Two Tone" McConnell on Aug 13th, 2009 and is filed under Blog, Contributor Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can post a comment, or trackback from your own site.
