culture

Pop Goes The Culture

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

There’s something about current pop culture that doesn’t really “pop,” doesn’t seem to engage us unless it’s heavily marketed and promoted. I wonder what can help us find stimulating, challenging work these days.

In fact, what do we want from pop culture beyond entertainment and common ground.

Serdar wrote about what he wanted out of pop culture . He described how really interesting pop culture work isn’t top-down, but feels that it somehow escaped into the so-called mainstream

“I kept coming back to that word, “escaped”. I like it when it feels like some piece of popular culture has gotten away with something. I liked that Blade Runner 2049 was essentially a $200M art film, because we should make more $200M art films, dammit. I liked that David Lynch’s Dune, for all that was wrong with it, also had a lot that was daring and unrepentantly weird.”

This is something I want as well. When I look back on my pop culture interests, I find these things that feel escaped, at that subvert things genuinely really appeal to me. It’s pop culture on fire, that honest lightning that strikes us easily as it’s “pop” and accessible, but also something that twists, advances, or subverts expectation. Good pop culture travels along our common cultural wires, but delivers an unexpected and enlightening shock.

Most of my pop culture tastes tend to this role. My Hero Academia mixtaped American Superheroes and classic Shonen ideas, threw in a liberal dash of body horror, and created a haunted funhouse of action. Farscape was the Adams Family to the Father Knows Best of too much washed out science fiction, subverting tropes while delivering drama with a smirk. One of my most-beloved video games was Dungeonmans, a comedic Roguelike game that deconstructed the tropes of its genre, while delivering an actual good game.

Also those “wow” factors produce social bonding. That sudden, fulminating bond of an escaped wild idea can’t be duplicated.

But a lot of pop culture is pop only in popular, with giant conglomerates churning out cautious product. It’s meant to be popular,its meant to be widespread, but it doesn’t have that jolt, that scruff, that edge that some other projects do. It’s safe on every level, but that also mean’s it’s not challenging. When something big subverts expectations – say Shazam’s embrace of the family idea or Bird’s of Prey’s over the top delivery – we notice.

At some point, I think things are just going to keep grinding away and be less interesting. We’re watching DC capitalize on Snyder Cut mania for . . . well, I don’t know what reasons. In this Pandemic, are we really missing movie theaters and the usual output? Right now our cultural changes are making us massively rethink our media and media choices.

Serdar and I have discussed several times that any big media company who wants to do more needs a skunkworks. You need to try a lot of different things and see which clicks. Hand people low-to-mid budgets and see what you can run with that allows really great and interesting ideas to “escape” from the confines of creators heads – and the current media machines.

But barring that, we creators, we indies, have to be the skunkworks. We’ve got to try wild things. Weve also got to market ourselves and each others. I’m not sure we can count on anyone but us.

(Note: Despite it’s many, many flaws, by I will defend David Lynch’s Dune as being unspeakably, daringly weird and bizarre. People gave him Star Wars money and he made a David Lynch movie.)

Steven Savage

Stop Being The Writer You Are

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

Let me ask you a question – imagine someone is basing a character on you as a writer. How would they portray it, what “writer archetype” would you easily map to?

My guess is that answer came a bit too easily, or that once you examined it, you found the choice was not quite right.

Our culture provides us many ways to think about being a writer – roles and tropes and ideas of who we should be. Lately I’ve been aware of just how often writers (and indeed creatives) slot themselves into various cultural tropes. I think it’s actually holding us back.

How often have you met people describe themselves as “X kind of writer?” How many people have said “I’m trying to be like X?” Have you ever met someone who seemed to be playing a “role” as an author like Unappreciated Creator or Self-Depreciating Writer or Calculating Opportunist? Culture provides us many ways to think about ourselves.

How do you think about yourself? And is it healthy? I’ve come to wonder if the roles society gives us aren’t that healthy.

There’s so many negative ideas of authors and all creatives. There’s the inevitable Sad Failed Author, or the Unappreciated Auteur. There’s the Has-Been, and the Never Will be. If we’re not thinking of ourselves in bad ways, we worry others may fit us into the tropes.

There’s also so many limited ideas of author. How many people “Just Write X?” How many people “Want To Be Like Y” – the way so many movies are “like A plus B.” How many roles, even positive, are constraining?

So here’s my challenge to you. I want you to rethink yourself as a writer. Come up with a way to describe yourself that’s your own. Define yourself.

Perhaps you do it like a Fantasy Class. Are you a Fantasybender? Are you a Priestess of Promotional Advice?

Maybe you do this in a simple evocative way. You’re the Hard-Bitten Humorist. You’re The Worldbuilding Guru.

Another way to do this is put it as a role. Supporter of Cosplayers. Crafter of Sarcasm.

Try any of those, but I challenge you now to come up with a way to describe you, as a writer, that’s yours.

Steven Savage

Musings On Ideal Media Culture

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

Last time I posted on how it was hard to deal with there being so much “stuff” out there, which Serdar has commented on. In turn, he also provides this link on how books are still dominated by a few megablockbusters. So yes, there’s problems with “so much stuff” as well as “big stuff over all of us.”

Think of it this way. We also have a lot of new stuff on Netflix and giant blockbusters dominating everything else. We can publish anything but there’s also huge books firmly lodged in popular culture It’s easy to get lost in obscurity or be overshadowed.

This doesn’t change my take on writing or creating your thing – do what you want and what works for you. But it does lead to another question.

What do I think a healthy media-culture ecosystem is? Admittedly not this one, but what is my ideal that I think is, you know, good for people (and thus creators).

Before answering that, let me turn to my ideas on a healthy society.

Steve’s Ideas on a Healthy Society (Duh)

So first, what do I think a Healthy society is like? I view it in a very organic sense – a healthy society maintains itself, grows, and evolves.

Thus I think of a healthy society as one that contains “interlinked independence” across all levels. People and organizations, states and government offices, are highly connected in ways that support each other. Think of it this way – an individual supported/supporting a strong union, working at a local business, voting at all levels, and working with an NGO dealign with climate change is closely tied with the world and closely supported. Everyone’s got your back with connection – but also you have the ability to “firewall” away from negative influences.

Or in short, a society needs people to have each other’s backs on all levels, while having the ability to survive the conflict among various factions and elements that will doubtlessly occur.

So that’s my ideal of a society in an abstract form. Now how does that apply to media?

A Healthy Media Ecosystem

In a healthy culture, I see media interest and creation as “scaled” much as I see a healthy society, a series of linked interests and enthusiasms on various levels. People would not just indulge, however, they would advocate.

  • You may do your own creative work, and and advocate for it. Your friends and connections would assist you, and perhaps you get wider views.
  • You enjoy local authors or niche authors. You advocate for them, promote them. Perhaps they get wider views.
  • You enjoy your various media tastes. Obviously you advocate for them, small or large.

Thus you’re independent and evaluating your own tastes – while also promoting them and taking feedback. You connect with media on various levels, from local to extended. You advocate and promote work.

New things get found, people evaluate, work gets elevated – and you never get dependent on one media strain or theme. Plus, of course, its hard for any one media company or source to dominate.

Needless to say this works best in a world of strong monopolgy laws.

So Is This Actionable?

So in our current world, is this actionable? Beyond a dream of mine based on my ideals can we do anything?

Well, yess.

First, KEEP CREATING. As I noted, do it for your own reasons.

Secondly, PROMOTE YOURSELF and tell people what you do.

Third, CONNECT with writer groups as well as other social institutions.

Fourth, PROMOTE other people you meet, help them out, help them get noticed.

Fifth, SELECT your media consumption to keep your life diverse and interesting.

Sixth, POLITICALLY be aware of the way our politics affects media.

This is an obnoxiously short list. Maybe it can be a point of discussion.

So, everyone . . .

. . . start talking.

Steven Savage