media

The Competitive Edge of Surprise

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I'm a fan of Reno 911!, a show about a lovable but flawed group of misfit policepersons in Reno, Nevada.  A parody of shows like "Cops", what makes it intriguing is a lot of it is improvised.  Though there's many running jokes, this level of spontaneity adds a charm to the series, and makes it more human.

There are other forms of media "spontaneity."  The Random House/Stardoll deal that allows for people to vote on the outcome of a story for instance.  There is the unpredictability of reality shows – much as I'm not a fan of most of them – that appeals to people.  I've been addicted to both Borderlands and Dragon Quest IX – games with randomly generated content to keep the games fresh.

Such things got me thinking about spontaneity and unpredictability.  These are things you can't really fake in media – and these are traits people like in their media, be it books, or shows, and so forth.  We love having an unknown to explore, something that doesn't fit our expectations (yet does).  In short, in an age where there's so much competition for attention, can the media we produce be more competitive if it adds spontaneity and unpredictability?

I think so.

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A World Of Elseworlds

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We're in an age of remakes, sequels, and one-offs based on existing properties, mostly Superheroes.  I hear talk of an "originless" Fantastic Four film, and if you're a fan of DC comics I've seen a lot of direct-to-video films.  None of these involve the usual origins stories as their known to their target audience.  Many of them don't exactly involve a continuity of much kinds except well-known tropes and character backgrounds.

Years ago DC comics started doing things called "Elseworlds" – books of alternate ideas, histories, pasts, and futures of various characters.  These Elseworlds series mixed familiar and unfamiliar elements, and for my money, were often fascinating.  Batman as a priest fighting a corrupt theocracy?  A sword-and-sorcery Justice League?  Sign me up.

I think some of our beloved figures are entering an age of "mild" Elseworlds.

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It’s All Media

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I was looking over the news of the day, thinking over our podcasts as of late, and noticed that Bonnie and I talk and write a lot about technology companies.  What's Apple up to?  What about streaming video?  What about this or that . . . it's always streams and circuits, chips, and screens, and technology.

We talk about tech a lot.

Here on the blog we're all about geeky things – Tech of course.  Video games.  Also books, comics, television and more.  We're not exactly a tech career blog, and that's intentional – we want to cover a lot of progeekery.

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