culture

The Rabbit Hole Of Stupid

by

You may be late for a very important date, but then something stupid on the internet appears and you become even more late.

The internet allows us to get all kinds of news, information, commentary, and of course, examples of blatant human ignorance and venality.  The latter can come in many forms: it could be ignorant comments on a news article, a story on an excessive idiocy, or an artifact of pure drivel.  Whatever form, it’s distracting.

When you see the stupid, you get curious.  You have to read the comment, then see how people respondent.

When you see the stupid, you have to find out more.  You click the link to read about the latest atrocity of human intellect.

When you see the stupid, you have to face the stupid.  You read an entire article manufactured from delusions and deliberate idiocy just to find out how bad it is.

Then, your time is gone.  It won’t be coming back.  The stupid grabbed your curiosity and absconded with your time, and you helped it.

Anyone can spend hours down the rabbit hole of stupid.  It’s intriguing, fascinating, horrifying, and you have to follow it.  Don’t think I’m immune, my natural curiosity has taken me to some dark places where idiocy shined brightest of all.

I’m not proposing a moratorium on avoiding dumb things; just we be more aware of how we’re easily distracted by them.  If you don’t think this is a problem, then remember you just spent how many minutes reading a blog post on how stupid things can be, so I may have just become part of the problem . . .

– Steven Savage

Steven Savage is a Geek 2.0 writer, speaker, blogger, and job coach.  He blogs on careers at http://www.fantopro.com/, nerd and geek culture at http://www.nerdcaliber.com/, and does a site of creative tools at http://www.seventhsanctum.com/. He can be reached at https://www.stevensavage.com/.

Media Awareness 9/3/2012 – Everywhere And You No Longer Care

by

As I mentioned yesterday, I’m doing an experiment on better understanding how I consume media – something important in a high-tech media-saturated age, and relevant as I often speak and write on geeky careers, which are quite media/technical.

The basic technique is simple – keep a journal and write down when you game, watch TV, or something similar and why you do it.  Just asking “why” is pretty informative.

However, one of the things I noticed quickly is that those of us in America are in a very media-saturated society.  I’m sure many others live in similar societies, but I’m focusing on my current situation.  My current situation is very loud, noisy, and distracting to say the least.

Televisions running in bars and oil change shops.  Advertising everywhere.  Celebreties famous for being famous hawking perfume when I go to buy a shirt.  Giant media events with film releases or book releases making news.  New shows to watch, new DVDs, etc.  This is even before we get to the internet.

Then there’s the tie-ins.  Products and promotionals.  Branded candy.  Games based on the movie of the book.  We are surrounded by media, by information, by things that go into our brain or tie into things already there.

This of course is understandable: we’re human, we’re creatures of information.  But media is everywhere, all the time.  Culture is not something we carry or act on, but something being poured into us.

When you start monitoring your media habits, you start realizing very quickly how much is coming in, at times involuntarily.

A few takeaways:

  • I think the love of “media” jobs – writer, actor, etc. is so popular as such careers are so visible.  If you see actors, hear about writers, etc. all the time then people will want to be them.
  • Media competition is competition for attention, and at high saturation points that can get pretty intense.  Just look at concerns over ad hit rates on web pages.
  • Control of your own media consumption is a way to prevent dilution of time and knowledge.  I’d love to see media-use strategies of successful people analyzed.

 

– Steven Savage

Steven Savage is a Geek 2.0 writer, speaker, blogger, and job coach.  He blogs on careers at http://www.fantopro.com/, nerd and geek culture at http://www.nerdcaliber.com/, and does a site of creative tools at http://www.seventhsanctum.com/. He can be reached at https://www.stevensavage.com/.

50 Shades Of Shut The Hell Up

by

So, yes, we all know the story.  Woman writes Twilight fanfic.  Twilight fanfic gets repurposed as erotica series known as “50 Shades Of Grey”.  Woman makes money.  People make fun of situation.

Really the only problem as a progeek for me is the latter one – the mockery.

From what I hear about “50 Shades of Grey” is, to put it mildly, is rather purple and the content is may disturb some.  It’s not Shakespeare or Pratchett, and there’s elements that sound rather squicky.  But really the only criticism that seems relevant to me may be some of these quality issues, and even then there’s only so much I can say because I actually watch films like “2 Headed Shark Attack.”*

Read more