Tora Tora Torrent

The Torrent of Media
Here I sit in my over sized yellow comfy chair at 2am in the morning, my Mac Book Pro streaming the world wide web, a few books by my side, my ipod softly playing some Irish folk music and the cable news repeating, for the 100th time, a story they call “breaking news.” So a bit distracted from writing and my thoughts on the media torrent, I pick up the new August edition of “Hot VW’s,” even though it is still firmly June, and I browse through countless restored Busses and Bugs, none of them mine. Then interrupting the important breaking news comes on a funny commercial -- you know the one that ends with the good looking “stand-in” groom and the lady saying to the bride “Jackpot!” Come to think about it, it is more amusing than “funny.” I could have written better. I take a sip of my Diet Mountain Dew and see that I can win a trip to the X Games. I spill Dew some on my white Volcom t-shirt and wonder if the power of Tide will get it out the yellow stain.

Tocqueville wrote in his masterpiece “Democracy in America” that our culture lives to “cultivate the arts that serve to render life easy.” While George Simel thinks we cultivate things that will give us “disposable feelings.” Both of these things, assuming they are true, are a symptom of the torrent of media that is a part of our daily lives. Not that this is anything new, people have been complaining about the torrent of media that saps our minds and robs our bodies since long before thespians performed the new works of Shakespeare.

There is no argument that the media torrent exists today and that it has been building for centuries, but the debate is really about is it a bad thing? As Glinda asked “Are you a good witch or a bad witch” had Dorothy responding, “Why I’m not a witch at all,” I tend to agree that this torrent of media is not a “witch” at all. It is however, a torrent of soap operas, reality shows, billboards, paintings, books, pictures, webcasts, podcasts, mp3 music, radio stations, t-shirt logos, horrible advertising in every imaginable place, and general all-around noise. Now being a, somewhat ADD, ad guy, I am not only partly responsible, but an embracer of “all of the above.”

Now Todd Gitlin, with the Dennis Miller style rants, in his book “Media Unlimited,” is not so sold on the whole experience. Todd believes that things were better way back when we were not hounded with so much media that encourages “disposable feelings.” Media is bad and the cause of most of mankind’s problems was my take away from Todd’s book. If he had his druthers, we would be in front of a roaring fire, knitting. Now call me new fashioned, but I’d rather be overloaded with choice than have to stick those very knitting needles in my eyes to reduce the pain of utter nothingness boredom.

Now are we over stimulated as a culture? Absolutely, but this is far better problem to have than being under stimulated and rubbing rocks together to keep Tyrannosaurus Rex away. O.K. that makes me laugh because now I’m thinking about those Geico Cavemen riding motorcycles and that leads me to the annoying little Geico lizard thing. I hate those spots.

As much of a torrent that we have allowed, even encouraged, we all have the right and most of us the ability to turn if off. In fact, what makes the torrent so tolerable and even enjoyable is the times when we crank the ole facet to the off position. Both my torrent of communication at work and play and my torrent of entertainment, that starts when my iphone goes off playing the “Kings of Leon” and waking me up at 7 a.m. are enhanced by my time of absence from all things media. Now this takes some doing, and sometimes a lot of sacrifice to pull off. I know not all are able or willing to turn it all off. But I think a periodic self-imposed media famine is needed to ensure sanity and continued pleasure from the media driven world that surrounds us.
Sure, we can still knit by the fire and read an old play, that may or may not have been written by Shakespeare, but the important thing is we have a choice. Media may foster witch hunts, but media is neither a good witch nor a bad witch. It simply is what it is. A lot of crap to wade through in our daily routines. I, for one, love to wade. (Not in crap per se, but you know what I mean.) Now I’ve got to get back to the seven things I was doing earlier that allow me to have disposable feelings and have them easily.

Have fun out there.
David Yost
Creative Director

References
Gitlin, T. (2002). Media Unlimited, New York: Holt.

Losing Our Orality

As I was reading Ong's "Some Psychodynamics of Orality," I was intrigued to think of what we, as a culture, have lost as we have moved away from the orality of our ancestors. Oh of course we have gained much as well, and those things I would never want to lose. But as we go further into the written and electronic age, we distance ourselves from a very important part of communication and our history.

I still remember my father telling me stories of being a sailor and looking to the skies and repeating the phrase, “Red sky at night, sailors delight, red sky in the morning, sailors take warning.” I love the beauty of this simple mnemonic phrase. It teaches and is easy to remember. As I think of these and other almost lost oral mnemonics, I’m sadden that they are replaced by alphabetic symbols that don’t spell out a word as much as they are short hand for the short hand of language. LOL, OMG, TTFN, WTF etc. There is no richness in these communications; they are short cuts to quasi communications. Nothing wrong with them, I use them all the time. But I morn that my kids are growing up using only this shorthand to communications.

My children are losing not only the richness of F2F communications, but of any communication of an oral nature. Why talk when you can text? Sure it’s faster and more to the point and you can hold multiple conversations at the same time. What is the harm? The harm is that we are losing the oral skills we have needed to communicate since the existence of man.
I can’t imagine Noah sending a text to his family about the boat he was building. Or maybe Lincoln writing the Gettysburg blog. Or Dr. King twittering about his dream.

You can mobilize people via this written/electronic means, but can you inspire them enough to change a nation? Yes, the pen is mightier than the sword, but is the tweet mightier than the spoken word? I don’t think so. As Ong says, “Oral cultures encourage fluency, fulsomeness, volubility.” I think the other side of that is that electronic cultures encourages the opposite.
As we move toward an age that has little or no need for oral skills and functions, where will we end up? An age of uninspired symbols, PDAs, and pretend orality? I say pretend orality because I think as we go toward this end, content in movies and TV will take the place of the need for our own oral skills. Our best ideas will be mimicked notions from the writers of the Simpsons and Gilmore Girls. We will slip into a state of living via fictional characters’ lives. Love will be defined according to chick flicks and men to action figures. Life will be lived virtually. Oral skills gone, interpersonal abilities will be not only be old fashion but become archaic relics of a forgone era.

It all sounds like a bad Sci Fi flick, but as we continue to lose the orality of our past, our future will change, and we may lose for good, the skills and traditions that make mankind human.

Have fun out there.
David Yost
Creative Director

References

Postman, N. (1992). Technopoly, New York: Knopf.

Ong, W. (1982). Orality and Literacy, Ch 3. Some Psychodynamics of Orality,
New York:Methuen.

Who are you?

Who are you?



Have fun out there.
David Yost
Creative Director

Who Am I? or Searching For Our True Identity

Who Am I?
















This is a question that was hard enough before the tools of modern technology came into play. But the question, as complicated as it has gotten, is still one with which we all must grapple. We like to think that we are always the same person, no matter what goes on around us, where we are, what we are doing or in spite of outside influencers. But the fact is, we rarely are the same person. We are many people. And who we are is different in the various situations in which we find our selves.

It used to be people would hitchhike around the country to try to discover their true identity. And that was just the one identity they were searching for. Now it seems we have more than one identity to solve. Tajfel and Turner, who were pioneers in social identity theory, believed that “a person has not one, ‘personal self’, but rather several selves that correspond to widening circles of group membership.” How many people are we?

OK, we are just the one person, but we do construct multiple identities that suit our immediate needs or desires given a certain set of circumstances. There are just more and different circumstances now that have and are being created with the new technologies. To complicate things more, this identity is a construction that is not solely of our own creation Thurlow (05) says that our social identity is a construction “based on what others think about who we are, and the stories they tell about us, either face to face or to other people.”

So our identity is something we construct with the help (wanted or not) of others around us, who we’ve had first or second person interaction with. Wow it hard enough to figure out who we are, now we have to worry about what everyone in our community thinks of us? Why do we bother in the first place, constructing this identity? Well again referring to Thurlow, (05) he states that “it is the way we make sense out of the chaos or variety of our lives.” Ok I can agree with that, the mind needs to define things before it can hope to operate them. Before we can go out into the outer unknown, be it a CMC or F2F variety, we need to be able to have an understanding of ourselves. Not a complete understanding but a working model, let’s call it. With out this working model we couldn’t be sure how to act, communicate, or respond to outside forces. With this identity work in progress we can bring a little understanding and order out of the great chaos this is our life full of the tools of the new technologies.

One way that we figure out who we are, or want to be, is by figuring out who or what we are not. That is a little easier and again involves the help of others. This time a model of things we don’t want to become. I meet someone who is annoying and I say to myself, “Ok, I never want to be that person.” And then I take steps to make sure I and others don’t put me in that same category.
Now in my on-line gaming identity, I can’t afford to be soft or too obnoxious. I see others that are and that they are shunned. So I make sure I tweek my gaming social identity to not be that guy. On my Facebook, I want to be the more open guy that is funny and accepting. (Much of who I think I am in any F2F communications.) But in my on-line communities of VW enthusiasts, I see my identity as one who is wise, knowing all things VW and never getting taken advantage of when trading or buying 40 year old car parts. My F2F identity at home is still the odd man out, middle child who is creative and sensitive. (Crazy I know.)

So now we have our identity for a given community or situation constructed, are we done? Unfortunately or fortunately, no. Depending on how happy you are with your identity, this can be a good thing or an exhausting thing. Identity construction, like life, is a journey and not a destination. It is an ongoing process that will last far past our earthly lives. It is a dynamic thing that has a life of its own. People talk about us even after we are dead. I always am intrigued at funerals how perfect everyone was. How loving and caring. So your identity is still constructed by those around you, long after you are gone. Wow, this is exhausting.

So who am I? It depends on the more complex situations I find myself in as part of this moving world of new technologies, communities and tools. What I do know is that I have a say in who I portray myself as, but not an absolute say of who my social identity becomes. I also know that I can reinvent my self as I introduce myself to new communities. You are who you say you are until someone tweets otherwise.


Have fun out there.
David Yost
Creative Director



References

Postman, N. (1992). Technopoly, New York: Knopf.

Thurlow, C. (2005). Computer Mediated Communication, London: Sage.

Tajfel, H. and Turner, J. C. (1986). The social identity theory of inter-group behavior. In S. Worchel and L. W. Austin (eds.), Psychology of Intergroup Relations. Chigago: Nelson-Hall