Culture

Media Gray Goo

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr.  Find out more at my newsletter.)

Every now and then (OK, weekly), something Very Dumb happens involving a piece of mass culture media. People meltdown because of some casting. Someone gets fired because of saying something controversial like “hey, don’t be a douche.” Some new thing comes out that really just builds on something else, and we vaguely care.

How much of our minds get occupied by stuff like Marvel, DC, Star Wars, Doctor Who, Star Trek, and the like? How much of our culture involves these works? How many people hang on every new book, idea, episode, etc. Geek that I am, I’m starting to wonder if this has gone very, very bad.

Let’s imagine how a healthy body works. Yes, it’s a unified whole, but also it’s got specific parts and is filled with checks, from antibodies to the ability to vomit bad food to neurons holding back other neurons from doing something terrible. A body is a single thing composed of parts that are both linked and independent in some ways (but not separate from the body).

A body that was one giant unified mass is basically an amoeba or The Blob.

Now let’s ask about a healthy culture. Shouldn’t it be the same way? There are dominant cultural elements, and many subcultures, specialized knowledge, and generalized knowledge. There will be conflict, but often in service of a larger whole – subcultures generating widespread ideas, widespread ideas passing their time and going to memory, etc.

A culture that is one giant unified mass is a gray goo of nothing, large but nothing to hold on to, nothing relevant to the individual.

I’m thinking our mass culture is becoming a mass of gray goo. Sure some of it may be great gray goo, but overall it seems to be samey even when good. I’m glad we can re-invent things (Like Jodie Whittaker’s Doctor, who I loved), but why do we have to keep doing the same thing?

Worse, doing the same thing keeps giving power to the same group of people and companies (usually Disney these days). We’re letting people own vast chunks of our culture, and the inevitable battles between “do it good and interesting” and “give me the gray goo I expect” are exhausting. Besides, we know in the end that the big companies are going to play it safe – and safe isn’t always the best thing for the culture.

(Think of it as being like your brain overruling your body’s warning signals to keep drinking and eating cheeseburgers.)

This is probably why some big companies like Netflix and Amazon caught on and are working on churning out different stuff. It’s perhaps why we see authentically good media as well because some people got that there needs to be more. I can critique the hell out of them for many reasons, but I can acknowledge smart plays against gray culture goo.

So now I want to imagine a different media culture.

Imagine a media culture with few to no dominant media properties. Imagine things actually ending for a change, and excellent media being rerun or reread instead of being extended. Imagine not having cultural space taken up by gray goo, but more, smaller things.

Imagine if you do get into something that is a long-term media commitment, that it’s a more intimate experience. That TV series going on for a decade and its spinoffs don’t have to be forced into our consciousness. Imagine fandom as more interlinked preferences than A Big Thing.

Imagine more originality or at least new versions of the same old thing.

This is going to sit with me awhile. It makes me think about my own tastes, about what matters, and about what I’m writing.

Steven Savage

Some Thoughts On My Media Choices

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr.  Find out more at my newsletter.)

My media tastes seem odd for a man of 50, at least for many people’s point of view.  I’m big into anime, documentaries, unusual or odd films, animation, and things that catch my fancy.  It’s not a lot of typical stuff out there, even though a lot of supposedly “mainstream” stuff (like “Better Call Saul” or “Atlanta) is pretty damn spectacular, especially compared to past shows.

It’s strange to explain it to people, because really why should I?

We all have our own tastes and reasons.  We all have our inclinations.  We all have different needs.  What’s weird is how it seems some things are “appropriate” by simple things like age and gender – as if a lot of media even fit those definitions easily.  I can show you a few episodes of the anime My Hero Academia, supposedly targeted at a young male demographic, that would make you think otherwise.

But we feel that our tastes somehow must fit a series of checklists for our demographics.  I’m not sure why we do that.

Is it part of our culture?  Is it part of our ideas of gender?  Part of our idea of ages?  I’m sure all that plays in, but know what I think?

I think a big part of it is how we want definition – and marketing.

Marketing drives us to classify and target works.  What sells.  What fits.  What makes the most money.

Definition is our need to classify things, to not deal in ambiguity.

Combine Marketing and the need for definition, and you’ve got a toxic stew of assumptions.  I’m kinda tired of being told I should like “X as I’m Y,” while I try to explain how awesome Steven Universe is.

This is why I am so pleased that Netflix, Amazon, television, and animation in general is crossing boundaries. I’m glad to see stuff like The Dragon Prince that has that family-for-all feel, a highly accessible but very smart and serious fantasy.  I’m glad to see hyper-real stuff like Atlanta, a heady and near-experimental mix of character story and hyper-reality.

Let’s enjoy what we like.  Which is why I’ll be watching Deku become a superhero, then scope out an indie film, and then on to a documentary on fonts.

No More Heroes – But A Legion Of Them

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr.  Find out more at my newsletter.)

Giant tentpole movies and famous book series everyone loves and knows about are a bad idea.

Yes, I’m thinking the Marvel Cinematic Universe might not be a good idea. I’m concerned that Megaseries like Harry Potter and Twilight may have been too widespread. I’m happy that My Hero Academia may be the new gateway anime, but I’m concerned it could become too big in an age where everyone wants to find the “right” thing to see or read.

Why do I think this? Well, you’re lucky because I have a reason for my ranting.

First, I think we’ve become conditioned to produce and look for The Big Hits. What’s the hip thing to get in on? What’s the thing I must make to corner the market? The drive to make The Big Thing becomes not about what it’s about but marketing and social positioning – it degrades the literary elements.

Secondly, I think it encourages repetition and unoriginality. Because we are trying to make What Works and What Sells and What Gets Big, everything ends up the same soup of warmed-over ideas. It’s probably easier to make the Big Thing in a mix of doing the same with a few twists or famous faces or advocates.

Third, because people are trying to make What’s Big and follow What’s Big, people burn out. Do you want to watch another by-the-beat film? Do you want to read another story like the last? I once left SF and fantasy for years because it seemed All Alike.

Four, it leads to pathetic fan wars and academic arguments. When everyone is advocating to be King of Mediocrity Mountain, no one asks if they actually want that.

So, what do we do?

I do believe that we should read historically important fiction and appreciate important movies and so on. We don’t have to make it required, we don’t have to force it, we should just advocate for understanding. Besides, some of this stuff may be important but it can be limited, bigoted, or honestly kind of be bad.

I do believe we should share literature and media, but no more preaching. Let’s encourage people to enjoy things but let’s stop pursuing the next big thing – it’s wearing us out and wearing us down. It’s tiring to have so many must haves. Let’s make offerings not demands.

I do believe in standards for literature and values, but none of those are embodied in one book or one show or one movie. Let the values and standards have multiple forms and manifestations and stop looking for the Holy Grail Of The Right Thing.

I do believe the ideal media future is not people pursuing imitating each other or What’s Big in the hope of being the Next Big Thing. Let’s actually push for more authors getting exposure, have more literature and film and shows for different people. Let’s stop trying to be J.K. Rowling or George R.R. Martin levels of fame, and just focus on being good and making a good living.

Let’s not enocurage the Big Thing or preach the Big Thing or dream of making the next big imitative Big Thing. Let’s work for diversity and high standards, history and new things, that make life interesting and dynamic.

Take down the tent poles. Let’s walk under the open sky.

-Steven Savage