media

Violence, Cynicism, and False Maturity

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Several times in my life I’ve encountered people who seemed honestly stunned or dismissive of the idea of avoiding violent confrontation in political, military, and even personal spheres.  There seemed to be something that didn’t register to them that the best solution was not always the one with the highest body count, the most blood, and the greatest number of smoking craters.  The idea that a less or no-violent solution may produce better results seemed alien to them, weak, or even laughable.

Of course most of the people I knew like this grew up.  When I look at our “3Ps” (politicians, preachers, and pundists) that are most popular, I’m seeing a lot of people who didn’t grow up.  Oddly, they posture themselves as the mature ones.

Similarly, in politics, in media, in punditry, it seems that nothing is too cynical, too dark, too nihilistic not to propose.  The more cynical the view the better, is the rule it seems, and thus we have people who denounce many if not a majority of their own countrypeople as evil, or contemptable.   We see it in media that vies to be the bloodiest, darkest view of people imaginable because it’s “true” – in short, it’s what we want to think.  Cynicism is seen as maturity.

Violence and cynicism (often mixed with sarcasm, which drags down sarcasm’s good name) are postulated as being mature.

Stepping back for a moment, these are two traits that very much are not mature.  To engage in violence for no good reason is a mark of pathology.  To be in a race to hate the most things is insanity.  Yet, it is considered mature.

It is considered, in short, realistic.  Upon reflection it’s certainly not realistic since it’s basically having highly predetermined and unchangable worldviews.  But it’s pitched as “realism.”

Realism is about cause and effect, true maturity and understanding, goals and achieving them, people and working with them.  We’ve traded real maturity for a kind of regressed adolescence of violent fantasies (of course those having the fantasies assume they’ll be untouched) and dark speculations (which of course justify the dark fantasies).

Next time you look at Congress, or our media, ask yourself how much is maturity and how much is faux maturity.

Then at that point, you may need to drink.  But do so in a mature manner.

– 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/.

How We Might Turn Unoriginality To Our Advantage

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Nearly two years ago I noted that every other book cover I saw looked like Twilight and wondered about an originality/unoriginality arms race.

Reporting from the front lines in pop culture, I’d like to report that now a lot of book covers look like “50 Shades of Gray,” so I think unoriginality is winning.

When you think about it, there is doubtlessly a lot of 50-Shades derived books out there.  50 Shades is hot and hip right now, so there’s going to be attempts to jump into the market.  Sure all the covers look alike, but some of this is probably selling anyway.  Even though I am thrilled to see fanfic become fic , the story itself disturbs me.

Kind of makes me wonder how many stories wouldn’t be noticed, got made just for this, or were revived to take advantage of the new 50 Shades related craze.

So this got me thinking for all my writing and media friends.

We know that there’s plenty of problems with media originality.  It gets talked about a lot here at Fan To Pro.  Well, ranted about, as we do since many of us are authors.

We know that media goes in cycles, ones that are often big, obvious, and kind of blatant.  Twilight created one, 50 Shades another, but we know this goes back to the days of Star Wars and all it’s obvious ripoffs.

So instead of giving up on your great idea, or avoiding trends, why not embrace it and see what works you have work with current trends?

Any good author or artist has all sorts of ideas, potential projects, half-finished works, and more.  You could try and time their release or development of one of your works to jump on the existing trends.

Yes, there’s the danger of looking derivative, or unoriginal, or getting ignored.  But if you’re going to go with some of the big publishers, you’re facing enough challenges as it is.  Being seen as unoriginal by some, getting a smaller part of a larger market share, etc. aren’t the worst risks you can face.

So, if we’re gonna be in this cycle of unoriginality for awhile, maybe we media procures can take advantage of it.

Worse things could happen.  If nothing else maybe the book covers will all look the same differently . . .

– 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 Adaptions, Books, And Why We Don’t Really Know Much

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On his own blog, Serdar noted that in a way books aren’t being written as books anymore, they’re parts of franchises and larger efforts.  In turn, some books aren’t being thought of as books because of this – they’re franchises, or works that are made to transition over, or something else.

We discuss a lot of media transitions here, especially adaptions, which Scott has done a heroic job covering.  Those are important in the Geekonomy as they drive efforts and affect geek culture.  However one thing rarely discussed is that this is a comparatively new phenomena, and one we’re only now exploring as it’s new.

Right now things can go from book to TV, from video game to movie, from comic to game, from  . . . well you get the idea.  Merely looking at the ever-expanding media empire that is Star Wars, or the way “The Avengers” succeeded against all odds, gives you an idea of how far media translations and transformations can go.  It’s almost normal now to discuss what actor will play who in a film or what anime would be great as an adaption.

It just hasn’t been normal for most of human history.

How many movie or television adaptions only became viable when computer technology and special effects reached enough of a pinnacle to actually make them believable.

How many adaptions only exist because of chance-taking like HBO’s Game of Thrones that wouldn’t have taken chances a decade ago?

How many television shows, books, or comic adaptions wouldn’t have existed just due to cultural issues in the past

For that matter, so much technology we take for granted didn’t exist decades or a century ago.  I rather imagine radio adaptions seemed somehow radical at the time . . .

Then of course go back 200 years and 99% of what we discuss about adaptions is moot.  Your biggest worry was probably how well the play went or getting a certain book.  Hardly comparable to “Is Benedict Cumberbatch going to make a good Smaug?” being a big concern for people.

(The answer by the way, is yes).

So when we discuss adaptions, when we discuss what it means for culture or economics, we have to remember this really is new.  We have to remember that this is new in human history, in a serious new way.  We don’t have many models, we don’t have previous experiences, we don’t have a lot to extrapolate directly from.

We’re in new territory here, so when we discuss economics, careers, etc. there’s not a lot to go on.  Accepting that is going to make dealing with these crazy times and options easier, as we don’t have to delude ourselves to our level of knowledge.

We don’t have much.

– 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/.