It occured to me that I am a music geek. I say this with all sincerity and esteem. I am proud of the fact that I am a music geek, and not a music nerd.
I bet you are wondering what the difference betweeen the two is. I will tell you since you asked so nicely. The difference is that a music nerd knows the most obscure bands and artists to ever play a wirly wizzit concert on the third Sunday of a Month where it didn't rain in London while three lions were killed in Africa by Poachers during the festival of Shimshammery in Vegas. The answer by the way, I had to look this up, is New Riders of the Purple Sage. (that is the only joke I have ever told that only my step dad would find funny).
A geek is just a guy who really likes music, uses it to alter moods, and takes pride in having an eclectic mix of music most people have heard of. Headstone notwithstanding.
I noticed today that I in fact have a playlist for just about every occasion. I have a playlist for when it is raining outside, for when I am cleaning, for when I am playing baseball on the ps3, for when I am killing people with lightsabers, for when I am writing, for when I am masturbating...er uhmmm did I typoe that last one out loud? Ok so not quite every occasion, but for most of them anyway.
I even have a playlist for when I am talking to certain people, Like Alley for instance. I have a number of songs which I play in order to remind myself that I am a tough no nonsense dude who cannot be pushed around. I generally need this music because she emasculates me on a regular basis. "I think you just suck at that game."
This I think is what can establish my bonefides as a music geek.
I am also one of those people that likes to think he is a smooth talker. Not in the way that allows a person to talk women out of their panties, or men out of their checkbooks, but in the way that I can control the flow of a conversation and generally the tone thereof and effect others emotional states.
I have this sort of set of mental iTunes playlists for when a certain line of discussion is needed. I have several of them and am able to scroll through them generally faster than my crappy laptop can scroll through my list of downloaded porn.
This is a handy thing to have in case you find yourself in a conversation about thermall nuclear war for example. You are able to scroll either to your playlist that is about Mathew Broderick movies or the one you reserve for talking to people who live in the 80's. There is some overlap of those two playlists.
Sometimes, but rarely, I am stuck without a playlist, either a musical one or a mental talk file one. Last night I found myself in this very situation. I could not access cheesy song lyrics or witty banter, and it frustrated the bedazzle out of me.
Have you ever been in as position where you are flipping through possible relevant lists but not finding the one you are looking for?
I was in that situation. Concerned friend didn't seem to fit. The rise and fall of the Byzintine Empire didn't seem to fit. Creepy sex guy didn't seem to fit. Desperate to please guy didn't seem to fit.
For the first time in a long time, my list of convo themes wass as useless to me as my music playlists at Marlee Matlin's birthday party. (OMG! He just made fun of that sexy deaf woman who plays every single sexy deaf woman role ever on television and in movies, can we laugh or should we boo? We should realise we are now stuck in a Wil Wheatonesque parenthetical which may never end, all because political correctness has led us astray, make it stop, for the love of all that is sacred in this world why won't it...). I wanted to be supportive friend, and I wanted to also be celebratory guy. It is rarely in my nature to celebrate the misfortune of others, unless someone is being hit in the groin by a baby, but sometimes their misfortune is my gain.
The situation can only lead to something good for me. Whether it is my Florida dream, more weird telephone calls, or less bitching about life, something good is going to come of this, and I feel guilty for being happy.
I know that I am sometimes the guy that is relied upon to make others feel good about their lot in life, be it by being the prime example of how not to life, or by smooth talking with the wisdom from my extensive playlist. I genuinely feel bad that all I could offer was an ear. I know sometimes that is good, but dammit, I am better than that.
I couldn't even find an appropriate song because there was none required for the emotional state of being. I was more useless than I have ever been.
In some ways, I think it was because I had no idea what was expected of me. I wasn't sure what my roll was, nor what to expect in return. It seems odd to say that, but it was one of those things where a nything could come out of my mouth, and some of it very ungood. My instincts were shot and I had no idea where I was. I was out and about without my gps.
In my younger days, when I was first doing the whole broadcasting thing, I used to carry around this cd case in my briefcase. The cd case had 100 cd's in it. I called it my bag of tricks because no matter what kind of producttion emergency I found myself in, I could find a solution inside that cd case. If one needed a rockin tune about boobs, I had acdc, if one needed frank Sinatra, for what I am not sure, I had that. There were wizzes and wooshies, dzzzts and zooms. Shabang and Classical guitar. It was legendary in some very very small circles.
In some equally small but slightly different circles, I am a go to guy for heads up conversation, but something has happened to me of late. I am all locked up and simply not functioning properly. I have tried banging on the overhead circuitry ala Han Solo in Empire but it hasn't had the desired effect.
I think I require something more drastic.
I think I require a hug and a henderson!
Showing posts with label wil wheaton. Show all posts
Showing posts with label wil wheaton. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
Prepare the Altar.
Welcome to the round up. This is the paragraph that explains where we have been so far and transitions to where we are going. I think it is going well so far, but there is some room for improvement, and most dangerously, there is enough that still needs to be done that it might go horribly wrong. The biggest problem for me is not using the word so as an opener.
In all seriousness, we have learned that identity is not a choice, and we also learned that it takes a whole bunch of new agey words and concepts to define one's identity. For those who read yesterday's deliniation of the facets (i Had to use the word facets in a sentence because someone was using the word today non stop, but mispronouncing it. There are many faucets to this case. In order to understand what is going on we need to examine each faucet. It drove me up the wall so much that I needed to write a Wheatonesque parenthetical after actually using the right word in a sentence) to ....does anyone actually remember what I was saying before the parenthetical breakdown? Me either. Ok, yesterday we used different categories to define our own identities.
Some astute people may have noticed that I left something important out. Beliefs. I touched briefly on world view, but I specifically wanted to give this aspect of identity it's own top billing.
I did this because, it is my belief that beliefs are a strong force that implore people to behave in a certain way.
Beliefs are some of the strongest factors in our behaviour because they define our world view and speak to our desire for perfection of the future self.
Most of us are stuck in what is called present bias. We think more about the person we are right now, and less about the person of the future. Wer tend to pamper ourselves right away, rather than plan to pamper our future self. Mostly we do this because we like to think of our future self as being perfect. We think this person is going to eat better, live better, treat people better.
Think of it this way, you purchase a steak and asparagus. That night you are trying to decide what to have for dinner. You can only have one or the other. Someone with present bias (which is most of the honest people in the world. The rest will lie in exactly 12 seconds) will eat the steak and say to themself, on Monday, I am going to eat my vegetables and be happy about it. You see, the real you is in love with the steak and so you pamper yourself with it, telling yourself that the you of tomorrow is a better preson and will do the right thing.
Beliefs are much like us trying to work towards that better us. We select a series of thoughts and ideas that allow us to comfort the present self with thoughts of a stronger future self and future world.
I have no interest in going in to a discussion of spirituality at this point. The truth of religion is not what we are discussing here, merely the psychology why we choose religion and belief structures.
We use these beliefs in a ritualistic fashion. Ritual is a strong factor in ourlives because it brings on strong emotional memory. It is sort of the reverse of insanity, which is to say, doing the same thing over and over again and expecting the same result.
Our past experiences are tied to emotion, some good and some bad. We seek out with great passion and fervour the good and avoid the bad like the plague (unless we are maladaptive, in which case we seek out the bad to reinforce our skewed mental image of the world).
It saddens me to realise, I have no ritual. I have no experiences which I seek to relive.
Because it is December, I think about all my Christmas rituals. None of which I have kept or find specific interest in.
I used to desire the advent calendar. When I was a kid, I would do the advent thing every year. Each morning i would run to get my little piece of choclate. BTW, have you ever noticed that the low quality chocolate in those things tastes the same no matter where you are in the world? Creepy. Anyway, when I tried to recapture that as an adult, it just felt flat. Oh, for the geeky, I just learned there is an app for that. No kidding, you can download an advent calander app for you iWhatever, and every day you get a fun little winter/christmas themed little animation. There really is an app for everything.
I used to watch the Grinch every year, but that too has never been the same since living in Ottawa. It just now reminds me of bad feelings.
I seem to have gotten off the track of beliefs, but I think we all understand how these beliefs dictate our desired actions and feelings. Your beliefs unfortunitely hit the breakwater of your actions and emotions. This cognitive dissonance is what allows Christians to beat their wives, Muslims to kill people, Buhdists to do anything, and Athiests to be kind (just kidding atheists, don't hate me because I am sarcastic).
The point is, when we have beliefs, no matter what they are, we are forced to try and behave like our beliefs dictate. The trouble of course present bias. It allows us to break our belief structure b ecause on Monday we will be more Like Sidartha/Jesus?Satan?the great pumpkin.
Ritual is the form many of these beliefs take because we strive to reexperience anything and everything that once made us feel good. Whatever made us feel loved, cared for, whole, other adjective.
For those reasons, belief and ritual are a huge factor in our identity. We place a lot of value on how we hope the future will be, and without belief and ritual to lean on and look forward to respectively, we become lost in our own actions only. Most of which would make us feel crappy if we didn't know for a fact that on Monday the diet starts.
P.S., this post is gonna seem a bit disjointed because I removed a huge chunk, and that cripled the flow in the middle, but it was necessary, and I didn't want to not do this piece in its entirely.
In all seriousness, we have learned that identity is not a choice, and we also learned that it takes a whole bunch of new agey words and concepts to define one's identity. For those who read yesterday's deliniation of the facets (i Had to use the word facets in a sentence because someone was using the word today non stop, but mispronouncing it. There are many faucets to this case. In order to understand what is going on we need to examine each faucet. It drove me up the wall so much that I needed to write a Wheatonesque parenthetical after actually using the right word in a sentence) to ....does anyone actually remember what I was saying before the parenthetical breakdown? Me either. Ok, yesterday we used different categories to define our own identities.
Some astute people may have noticed that I left something important out. Beliefs. I touched briefly on world view, but I specifically wanted to give this aspect of identity it's own top billing.
I did this because, it is my belief that beliefs are a strong force that implore people to behave in a certain way.
Beliefs are some of the strongest factors in our behaviour because they define our world view and speak to our desire for perfection of the future self.
Most of us are stuck in what is called present bias. We think more about the person we are right now, and less about the person of the future. Wer tend to pamper ourselves right away, rather than plan to pamper our future self. Mostly we do this because we like to think of our future self as being perfect. We think this person is going to eat better, live better, treat people better.
Think of it this way, you purchase a steak and asparagus. That night you are trying to decide what to have for dinner. You can only have one or the other. Someone with present bias (which is most of the honest people in the world. The rest will lie in exactly 12 seconds) will eat the steak and say to themself, on Monday, I am going to eat my vegetables and be happy about it. You see, the real you is in love with the steak and so you pamper yourself with it, telling yourself that the you of tomorrow is a better preson and will do the right thing.
Beliefs are much like us trying to work towards that better us. We select a series of thoughts and ideas that allow us to comfort the present self with thoughts of a stronger future self and future world.
I have no interest in going in to a discussion of spirituality at this point. The truth of religion is not what we are discussing here, merely the psychology why we choose religion and belief structures.
We use these beliefs in a ritualistic fashion. Ritual is a strong factor in ourlives because it brings on strong emotional memory. It is sort of the reverse of insanity, which is to say, doing the same thing over and over again and expecting the same result.
Our past experiences are tied to emotion, some good and some bad. We seek out with great passion and fervour the good and avoid the bad like the plague (unless we are maladaptive, in which case we seek out the bad to reinforce our skewed mental image of the world).
It saddens me to realise, I have no ritual. I have no experiences which I seek to relive.
Because it is December, I think about all my Christmas rituals. None of which I have kept or find specific interest in.
I used to desire the advent calendar. When I was a kid, I would do the advent thing every year. Each morning i would run to get my little piece of choclate. BTW, have you ever noticed that the low quality chocolate in those things tastes the same no matter where you are in the world? Creepy. Anyway, when I tried to recapture that as an adult, it just felt flat. Oh, for the geeky, I just learned there is an app for that. No kidding, you can download an advent calander app for you iWhatever, and every day you get a fun little winter/christmas themed little animation. There really is an app for everything.
I used to watch the Grinch every year, but that too has never been the same since living in Ottawa. It just now reminds me of bad feelings.
I seem to have gotten off the track of beliefs, but I think we all understand how these beliefs dictate our desired actions and feelings. Your beliefs unfortunitely hit the breakwater of your actions and emotions. This cognitive dissonance is what allows Christians to beat their wives, Muslims to kill people, Buhdists to do anything, and Athiests to be kind (just kidding atheists, don't hate me because I am sarcastic).
The point is, when we have beliefs, no matter what they are, we are forced to try and behave like our beliefs dictate. The trouble of course present bias. It allows us to break our belief structure b ecause on Monday we will be more Like Sidartha/Jesus?Satan?the great pumpkin.
Ritual is the form many of these beliefs take because we strive to reexperience anything and everything that once made us feel good. Whatever made us feel loved, cared for, whole, other adjective.
For those reasons, belief and ritual are a huge factor in our identity. We place a lot of value on how we hope the future will be, and without belief and ritual to lean on and look forward to respectively, we become lost in our own actions only. Most of which would make us feel crappy if we didn't know for a fact that on Monday the diet starts.
P.S., this post is gonna seem a bit disjointed because I removed a huge chunk, and that cripled the flow in the middle, but it was necessary, and I didn't want to not do this piece in its entirely.
Sunday, November 21, 2010
Give it away now
What I got you gotta get it, put it in you.
Startin this one off with the musical interlude. For those that, for whatever reason, fail to remember the early 90's, that is the red hot chili peppers, prior to learning to play their intruments. I say that with some degree of affection, since I did in fact enjoy the album. I liked it so much that I eeven ordered it from Columbia House....ok truth is Reginald P. Ness Ordered it from Columbia House, but you get the point. It really is a wonder they stayed in business as long as they did, or that for some reason, Warner Bros. has decided to use the same business model again for orde4ring dvd's.
I don't want to go off on a tangent here, but.... Dear Warner Bros., your refusal to change your business model in light of new media and emerging revenue streams is the death nell of your company....that and doing movies like Cop Out. Physical media is somewhat outdated, and if like Blockbuster, you refuse to see it, you are in fact doing your shareholders a disservice. Please understand,for the next 10-15 years, people like my parents will continue to seek out old formats as that is all they know, but eventually they will be replaced by their children. Generation X eats new media and craps out diamonds....if you understand how to tap that ass.
You see, each subsequint generatrion will seek out the new media. Generation X, soon to be the dominant generation in the market place are the pioneers of internet content. Generation Y has always known the internet, and Generation Next has never lived without you tube.
We do not want your plastic earth killers, and we certainly don't give a crap about your scheduled television and your $8 popcorn. The sooner you get with the program, the sooner we will all be snug and making each other money.
Continuing to listten to Harvard MBA`s who learned from dead white guys how to do business is not the wave of the future.
X and Y were the early adopters of TiVo. They were the ones holding the camera for Steve-O. We are the ones that made lolcats and the meme a reality.
But I digress. The issue I am here to talk about is the new content, the new media, the new business model.
In a sense, it is the George Lucas school of economics. Screw the box office, show me the lunch box money! Content is shifting to free. More and more it becomes a ridiculous battle to fight it. Creative Commons is the wave of the future, and not understanding how it works, and why people are in to it is a mistake.
Think about it this way, I can either pay you 20 bucks to go see your movie, or I can watch a bunch of nobodies do someething similar for free. I can pay 50 bucks to go to a Dane Cook concert, or I can listen to a free podcast.
I can pay you 16.99 for a cd of music, or I can go to a local club, pay 5 bucks and hear the same thing.
Think of the internet as a local club. I can now interact with anyone and everyone, and I can hear their stuff.
This is no different than what was going on in the school yard. I remember clearly the day I went to school and told everyone about how cool this record of Bill Cosby was. Then I brought all my friends over to listen to it. Then we went to the local record store and bought more.
The internet is the new school yard. We are sharing the stuff we think is cool with each other. Wanting to cap that, control it and monetize it is as ridiculous as it would have been for you to send hired goons to my school to beat me up.
Content is no longer something people wish to pay for in the old fashion. We like to know what we are buying.
Here`s why.
When my friend Chris and I went to that record store, we picked up three things. A Frantics tape. A Monty Pythin Tape, and an Emo Philips tape.
To this day, I have that same Frantics material (only now it is a digital copy on my harddrive), and I can quote every single routine from the Monty Python tape.
I wish Emo physical harm.
I hated it. With a passion. I hated it so much I played it about 50 times for my parents because I knew they hated it. The only joy I got out of it was annoying people. Think of it as the original Rick Roll. Get in the car for a long drive, hand tape to parents and say, oh this is really good stuff, you are going to like it. Die of laughter.
Your product being a torture device is not a good thing. Because I wasted what little money I had on that stupid tape, I was angry. I was angry at Emo, I was angry at Capitol Records, and I have been angry ever since.
Lesson learned is, try it before you buy it. Not only that, but, why waste money on something I might like? Better to spend that money on something I know I like.
I would have rather purchased a Bill Cosby tshirt. I would have rather gone to a Bill Cosby concert than have spent the money on that Emo tape.
You jaded me. And now you want to take away my opurtunity to test drive my entertainment. I think not.
People can get content in any number of ways. Your decision to limit content, rather than understanding the new way to mentize.
Here are some great examples from people who have harnassed the power of the new media.
Kevin Smith and the smodcast network.
They provide a plethora of greta entertainment for free. They also provide some entertainment, bonus stuff for pay. You want more of this, go buy something from one of our advertisers and you get a free bonus podcast. They have show sponsors. They do a two or three minute commercial at the begining of the show, and then that's it. If I want the extras, I have to pay. It is a good system. TRhey also made a live venue where you can pay to watch them record the podcasts. I am not sure if it is working out for him, but it is a great idea, and something that should be encouragedd to more people. I would pay to go, if I lived in the area. I also pay for all sorts of Smith mechandise.
Wil Wheaton. The Wheaton gives free samples of his work. Like what you hear? Go buy it. Again, he provides extras for his paying customers, but does not screw over how audience in the process. The beauty of this system is that if I don't think I am going to like it, I don't have to buy it. I am still a Wil Wheaton fan, and in the future, if he puts out something I do like, I will buy it. Had I purchased something from him, not liked, I would most likely never interact with him again. How much money do you think I spent on Emo after that first album? What you want is a free pass to put out shit content, force me to purchase it, and then pcket the money. I never ever ever again want to walk out of a theatre, having spent nearly 30 bucks saying, "wow, that sucked." No one but the makers of crap want that.
Felicia Day. Felicia is the producer of the ground breaking show The Guild. This is a web based program. It is free to watch. Now that I have money, I fully intend to purchase some guild swag. I like what I see and I want more of it, so please, let me know how to get more. One of the ways they monetize is by getting sponsors. These sponsors get a short commercial at the begining of an episode and a wackload of banner ads.
Chris Hardwick of G4. This guy produces a weekly podcast. It is funny...called the Nerdist podcast btw, and see what he does is gives me this really cool thing for free, then promotes his live shows....which cost money. I would go to one of those shows, if they were anywhere near me. I would gladly go because I know I am going to like it.
So many times I have been burned by crap I just haven't liked. I harken back to the name of one of my favourite albums. NOFX, I heard they suck live. Because I knwo they do not, I will pay to see them. I will not pay to see other crap live. Just not going to happen.
You want to know why I gave away my tv and refuse to pay for cable? Because I don't feel it is worth the money.
I have reached my threshold of what I am willing to pay for, and the crap you make me watch isn't worth it. Give me good entertainment and I will sit through a commercial every 10 minutes....1 damn commercial mind you, not 5 minutes of them. When did commercials become the content? You understand that the instant the commercials became better than the shows was the instant most people with a brain tuned out right?
You want to make money, you need to follow the trend, not fight it tooth and nail. You need to be reminded of the fact that people are willing to pay for that which they deem worth it.
The crap you feed us is not worth paying for. You have two options. Make better stuff or have me arrested for downloading it. You can find a way to make money off me. I am not that hard to find, and lord knows my wallet doesn't require hacking to get in to.
It requires ingenuity. It requires creativity, and most of all it requires entertaining me. There is a vast difference between filling an empty hole in space time and providing a valuable product or service.
If the choice is between watching CSI Moose Jaw and listening to Smodcast, guess what I am going to do? If the choice is between free chance I might like something and 30 dollar chance, I am going to choose free chance every damn time.
Think of it this way, when you are playing monopoly and you land on chance, the banker doesn't charge you 50 bucks to pick upm the chance card, you just pick it up.
Want me to pay for something? Make sure I am going to like it. Or, do like the drug dealers do, hey, if you liked that you need to try this, or you need to pay for the extra bump. A free show once a week might be worth my entertainment dollars....in the form of merchandising, concerts, donations, advertising dollars spent.
What are you afraid of?
Having to actually make something worth the money we spend on it?
Ok, so this was supposed to be me bitching about people bitching about people who bitch about free stuff, but I got rolling and couldn't stop. Before congress in the United States is a bill that would seriously regulate content on the internet. It would allow copyright holders to permanantly delete websites from the internetwhen the content is counter to their business interests. This is a huge mistake. It takes content management out of the hands of consumers and gives it to producers. This is exactly what happened to television. When faced with certain choices, we can't help but take the lesser of two evils. We settle for inferior because the choice is between unwatchable and mediocre.
Rather than define content narrowly, we need to redefine what consumer means. So many people are coming up with ways to monetize their content without compromising it, or the consumer's access to it. Perhaps we should allow progress, rather than allow people with outdated modes of doing things to control how the future unfolds.
On demand, file sharing, podcasting, blogging and all the other web based content is not a fad. Nature finds a way, it always does, and our nature is to share and be likedd by our peers. You can force it underground if you want, but it is not going away.
Startin this one off with the musical interlude. For those that, for whatever reason, fail to remember the early 90's, that is the red hot chili peppers, prior to learning to play their intruments. I say that with some degree of affection, since I did in fact enjoy the album. I liked it so much that I eeven ordered it from Columbia House....ok truth is Reginald P. Ness Ordered it from Columbia House, but you get the point. It really is a wonder they stayed in business as long as they did, or that for some reason, Warner Bros. has decided to use the same business model again for orde4ring dvd's.
I don't want to go off on a tangent here, but.... Dear Warner Bros., your refusal to change your business model in light of new media and emerging revenue streams is the death nell of your company....that and doing movies like Cop Out. Physical media is somewhat outdated, and if like Blockbuster, you refuse to see it, you are in fact doing your shareholders a disservice. Please understand,for the next 10-15 years, people like my parents will continue to seek out old formats as that is all they know, but eventually they will be replaced by their children. Generation X eats new media and craps out diamonds....if you understand how to tap that ass.
You see, each subsequint generatrion will seek out the new media. Generation X, soon to be the dominant generation in the market place are the pioneers of internet content. Generation Y has always known the internet, and Generation Next has never lived without you tube.
We do not want your plastic earth killers, and we certainly don't give a crap about your scheduled television and your $8 popcorn. The sooner you get with the program, the sooner we will all be snug and making each other money.
Continuing to listten to Harvard MBA`s who learned from dead white guys how to do business is not the wave of the future.
X and Y were the early adopters of TiVo. They were the ones holding the camera for Steve-O. We are the ones that made lolcats and the meme a reality.
But I digress. The issue I am here to talk about is the new content, the new media, the new business model.
In a sense, it is the George Lucas school of economics. Screw the box office, show me the lunch box money! Content is shifting to free. More and more it becomes a ridiculous battle to fight it. Creative Commons is the wave of the future, and not understanding how it works, and why people are in to it is a mistake.
Think about it this way, I can either pay you 20 bucks to go see your movie, or I can watch a bunch of nobodies do someething similar for free. I can pay 50 bucks to go to a Dane Cook concert, or I can listen to a free podcast.
I can pay you 16.99 for a cd of music, or I can go to a local club, pay 5 bucks and hear the same thing.
Think of the internet as a local club. I can now interact with anyone and everyone, and I can hear their stuff.
This is no different than what was going on in the school yard. I remember clearly the day I went to school and told everyone about how cool this record of Bill Cosby was. Then I brought all my friends over to listen to it. Then we went to the local record store and bought more.
The internet is the new school yard. We are sharing the stuff we think is cool with each other. Wanting to cap that, control it and monetize it is as ridiculous as it would have been for you to send hired goons to my school to beat me up.
Content is no longer something people wish to pay for in the old fashion. We like to know what we are buying.
Here`s why.
When my friend Chris and I went to that record store, we picked up three things. A Frantics tape. A Monty Pythin Tape, and an Emo Philips tape.
To this day, I have that same Frantics material (only now it is a digital copy on my harddrive), and I can quote every single routine from the Monty Python tape.
I wish Emo physical harm.
I hated it. With a passion. I hated it so much I played it about 50 times for my parents because I knew they hated it. The only joy I got out of it was annoying people. Think of it as the original Rick Roll. Get in the car for a long drive, hand tape to parents and say, oh this is really good stuff, you are going to like it. Die of laughter.
Your product being a torture device is not a good thing. Because I wasted what little money I had on that stupid tape, I was angry. I was angry at Emo, I was angry at Capitol Records, and I have been angry ever since.
Lesson learned is, try it before you buy it. Not only that, but, why waste money on something I might like? Better to spend that money on something I know I like.
I would have rather purchased a Bill Cosby tshirt. I would have rather gone to a Bill Cosby concert than have spent the money on that Emo tape.
You jaded me. And now you want to take away my opurtunity to test drive my entertainment. I think not.
People can get content in any number of ways. Your decision to limit content, rather than understanding the new way to mentize.
Here are some great examples from people who have harnassed the power of the new media.
Kevin Smith and the smodcast network.
They provide a plethora of greta entertainment for free. They also provide some entertainment, bonus stuff for pay. You want more of this, go buy something from one of our advertisers and you get a free bonus podcast. They have show sponsors. They do a two or three minute commercial at the begining of the show, and then that's it. If I want the extras, I have to pay. It is a good system. TRhey also made a live venue where you can pay to watch them record the podcasts. I am not sure if it is working out for him, but it is a great idea, and something that should be encouragedd to more people. I would pay to go, if I lived in the area. I also pay for all sorts of Smith mechandise.
Wil Wheaton. The Wheaton gives free samples of his work. Like what you hear? Go buy it. Again, he provides extras for his paying customers, but does not screw over how audience in the process. The beauty of this system is that if I don't think I am going to like it, I don't have to buy it. I am still a Wil Wheaton fan, and in the future, if he puts out something I do like, I will buy it. Had I purchased something from him, not liked, I would most likely never interact with him again. How much money do you think I spent on Emo after that first album? What you want is a free pass to put out shit content, force me to purchase it, and then pcket the money. I never ever ever again want to walk out of a theatre, having spent nearly 30 bucks saying, "wow, that sucked." No one but the makers of crap want that.
Felicia Day. Felicia is the producer of the ground breaking show The Guild. This is a web based program. It is free to watch. Now that I have money, I fully intend to purchase some guild swag. I like what I see and I want more of it, so please, let me know how to get more. One of the ways they monetize is by getting sponsors. These sponsors get a short commercial at the begining of an episode and a wackload of banner ads.
Chris Hardwick of G4. This guy produces a weekly podcast. It is funny...called the Nerdist podcast btw, and see what he does is gives me this really cool thing for free, then promotes his live shows....which cost money. I would go to one of those shows, if they were anywhere near me. I would gladly go because I know I am going to like it.
So many times I have been burned by crap I just haven't liked. I harken back to the name of one of my favourite albums. NOFX, I heard they suck live. Because I knwo they do not, I will pay to see them. I will not pay to see other crap live. Just not going to happen.
You want to know why I gave away my tv and refuse to pay for cable? Because I don't feel it is worth the money.
I have reached my threshold of what I am willing to pay for, and the crap you make me watch isn't worth it. Give me good entertainment and I will sit through a commercial every 10 minutes....1 damn commercial mind you, not 5 minutes of them. When did commercials become the content? You understand that the instant the commercials became better than the shows was the instant most people with a brain tuned out right?
You want to make money, you need to follow the trend, not fight it tooth and nail. You need to be reminded of the fact that people are willing to pay for that which they deem worth it.
The crap you feed us is not worth paying for. You have two options. Make better stuff or have me arrested for downloading it. You can find a way to make money off me. I am not that hard to find, and lord knows my wallet doesn't require hacking to get in to.
It requires ingenuity. It requires creativity, and most of all it requires entertaining me. There is a vast difference between filling an empty hole in space time and providing a valuable product or service.
If the choice is between watching CSI Moose Jaw and listening to Smodcast, guess what I am going to do? If the choice is between free chance I might like something and 30 dollar chance, I am going to choose free chance every damn time.
Think of it this way, when you are playing monopoly and you land on chance, the banker doesn't charge you 50 bucks to pick upm the chance card, you just pick it up.
Want me to pay for something? Make sure I am going to like it. Or, do like the drug dealers do, hey, if you liked that you need to try this, or you need to pay for the extra bump. A free show once a week might be worth my entertainment dollars....in the form of merchandising, concerts, donations, advertising dollars spent.
What are you afraid of?
Having to actually make something worth the money we spend on it?
Ok, so this was supposed to be me bitching about people bitching about people who bitch about free stuff, but I got rolling and couldn't stop. Before congress in the United States is a bill that would seriously regulate content on the internet. It would allow copyright holders to permanantly delete websites from the internetwhen the content is counter to their business interests. This is a huge mistake. It takes content management out of the hands of consumers and gives it to producers. This is exactly what happened to television. When faced with certain choices, we can't help but take the lesser of two evils. We settle for inferior because the choice is between unwatchable and mediocre.
Rather than define content narrowly, we need to redefine what consumer means. So many people are coming up with ways to monetize their content without compromising it, or the consumer's access to it. Perhaps we should allow progress, rather than allow people with outdated modes of doing things to control how the future unfolds.
On demand, file sharing, podcasting, blogging and all the other web based content is not a fad. Nature finds a way, it always does, and our nature is to share and be likedd by our peers. You can force it underground if you want, but it is not going away.
Sunday, October 10, 2010
Fantastic
I noticed that I may have lost my mind recently. While this does not surprise me, or even worry me, it does make me feel guilty.
I am feeling guilty that maybe you didn't sign up for this. I feel like maybe I have pulled of an epic bait and switch, much like say George clooney did in this.
You see, the Rick Roll, which I know I overuse, and I promise that I will stop for at least 2 weeks, I swear, is perhaps the world's best example of the bait and switch. You go in expecting something, are told in fact that you will get something, and then instead you get Rick Astley telling you lies about never giving you up.
I think this blog has become one long Rick Roll. I made several claims as to what you can expect from this sorted little affair. I made some vague outlines of what you can expect here; however, as vague as they are, I still feel like I have lost touch with that and treated this stupid thing more like my personal journal and less like my Internet musings on ridiculously unimportant subjects.
So let's get back on track. Let's remember that Star wars references, Kevin Smith resets, bewbs, and bad tunes is what brought us here in the first place.
We need to breath new life in to our Internet courtship, lest we end up in divorce court arguing over google visitation and who gets to keep the porn collection.
To that end, let me begin the new era....of returning to the old era, by keeping the present era inline with the old era's vision of the future era (friggin Roddenberry made time travel so confusing)by simply stating....
WTF IS WRONG WITH PEOPLE?!?
By people I am referring to fans of stuff. It really doesn't matter what stuff. Any stuff will do....apparently. There is a fan for almost anything these days. I used to think that people who wanted to have sex with duct tape were the craziest thing on this planet until now.
Don't believe me? Go back to that toilet paper fan site and type the weirdest thing you can think of in to the search field. The Internet is a wondrous, and all too scary place. This is not really about that. This is more about how scary the human mind is.
For some reason, when someone becomes a fan, they loose all sense and reason. I understand that fan is a shortening of the term fanatic, and fanatic is defined as:
fa·nat·ic
/fəˈnætɪk/ Show Spelled[fuh-nat-ik] Show IPA
–noun
1.
a person with an extreme and uncritical enthusiasm or zeal, as in religion or politics.
yet, the shrinking of the term to just fan should have also carried with it a shrinking definition.
fan 2 (fn)
n.
An ardent devotee; an enthusiast.
An enthusiast makes sense. I enjoy xyz. It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside, sort of like watching a kitten....get blended....uhmmm did I type that out loud?
But really, an enthusiast sounds so tame, and much more in line with what I have in mind for my fandom.
I like certain things, like say Wil Wheaton. I like Wil Wheaton. He is generally funny and occasionally insightful in a manner that speaks to me. I can say this and also say. Wesley Crusher was the most annoying television character of all time. I can also say sometimes, he misses the mark and bores me, or tries to hard and I look at him with pity. Sometimes, he just isn't entertaining or insightful. It happens. I would also tend not to compare said Wheaton with say...I don't know, George Carlin.
Carlin was a master at entertaining and insighting (it is a new word, shut up) me and many others. He is one of the all time kings of comedy, and a true master of his art. Wil Wheaton, as much as I like him is no George Carlin.
Now, why am I saying all of this?
Because I had a true WTF moment earlier. No it isn't about why fanatics seem intent on wishing dead people a happy birthday, but rather because some tool decided to make the following statement (real geekshit incoming)
DL (dragonlance, a series of novels and a campaign setting for dungeons and dragons, which was pretty entertaining when I was a kid)is in no way near the the same literary standing as LOTR. Maybe so, maybe not. Again, I suppose we will just have to wait and see.
This person, on an internet webboard thought it would be within the realm of serious discourse to suggest that maybe draginlance and lord of the rings were on the same level.
Hands up everyone who knows what dragon lance is.
Thanks geekiest of the geeks.
Now, hands up everyone who knows what lord of the rings is.
Ok, I can't count that high, so put your hands down everyone who doesn't live in a third world country or a shack outside of civilization in the middle of Pennsylvania.
Need a slightly more dramatic example?
Ok. So the reference that this person was making was in regard to the dragonlance movie. A movie which this person felt should have been done slightly differently.
Here is the imdb site for said movie. In case you are wondering, when IMDB writes video inside the bracks with the release date, they are denoting a direct to video release.
Dragonlance the movie was treated the same as all 7,834 (or so) Olsen twins movies.
So I can see how you could compare the value of that product with say, the 2 billion dollar release of the Tolkien masterpiece.
Right well I can see how you could say a live action version might have done well, and the following qualifying statement might apply:
Personally, for me, this series could dethrone LOTR if the movies were made right.
The important part was where the person said "for me" because that means in their eyes, it might have been better. You and all six of your closest friends may have thought that way.
That is the difference between fan and fanatic. The difference between enthusiast and uncritical devotee. The difference between thinking Beiber and Lennon are the same and Wil Wheaton isn't bad, but he's no Carlin.
I could sit here and inform you about how Dragonlance steals many of it's architypes from LOTR, I could show you how setting is the only major difference between the struggles faced by each group, and thus the only true difference between the two series would be in the quality of the writing, and if that is true, then one needs not go very far in determining this person is off their rocker.
Why can't people enjoy something based on its own merits and resist the urge to compare it insanely to masterpieces?
I can draw stick figures, and I may be able to brain wash one person in to thinking that I am a better artist than Van Goh, but that doesn't make it true.
In short, no name mac and cheese is not KD. Stop saying it is, and stop trying to say it is as good or better than. It is a pale imitation. Acceptable when the real thing is not available, but seriously, it is not as good.
Stop thinking that all this new crap is better than the old crap just because it has a shinier coat of paint. And for the love of Paladine, stop thinking a second rate imitation of quality groundbreaking work is new and innovative and can dethrone the master.
Sometimes something new can be better, but most of the time it is just a water downed version of it. If you don't believe me, check out the new Santana album. It is all covers of guitar awesome songs. On the surface you would think, good guitar songs, done by a good guitarist would be good. Yet here's the thing:
He brings nothing new to the table, nor does he honour the old. He simply repackages the old, puts a new coat of paint on it and tells you you should buy it.
This is the difference between loving the old song, and hating the new one.
The difference between hunting down the vinyl for the original, and downloading a free copy of the Sanatana (and then promptly deleting it in a vein attempt to wipe it from the official record of reality).
This is the difference between a 2 billion dollar oscar winning theatrical release and a direct to video release.
Dragonlance may be cool, but it isn't as cool. Thank the ground that LOTR walks on for proving to the industry that fantasy is a viable genre. Don't complain when they realised that as viable as it is, the individual sub genres are only worth a few million bucks from us weirdos.
All of a person's complaints about generalizing or making a story more accessible to a broader audience are what make it a viable production and worth spending the money on. If the audience is so narrow as to provide only a certain level of profit, then all you are going to get is what they can afford to make for that profit.
In the end, just because we are all crazy about something, doesn't mean everyone is.
Beauty and quality are always in the eye of the beholder.
Not everyone is going to find what I like as cool as I do, but generally, I don't care about them, cause they're stupid.
Note 013/06/2012 - I actually began re-reading the Dragonlance series and watched that movie.... The books are good, well thought out and generally of good quality. That movie is tremendously shitty.
I am feeling guilty that maybe you didn't sign up for this. I feel like maybe I have pulled of an epic bait and switch, much like say George clooney did in this.
You see, the Rick Roll, which I know I overuse, and I promise that I will stop for at least 2 weeks, I swear, is perhaps the world's best example of the bait and switch. You go in expecting something, are told in fact that you will get something, and then instead you get Rick Astley telling you lies about never giving you up.
I think this blog has become one long Rick Roll. I made several claims as to what you can expect from this sorted little affair. I made some vague outlines of what you can expect here; however, as vague as they are, I still feel like I have lost touch with that and treated this stupid thing more like my personal journal and less like my Internet musings on ridiculously unimportant subjects.
So let's get back on track. Let's remember that Star wars references, Kevin Smith resets, bewbs, and bad tunes is what brought us here in the first place.
We need to breath new life in to our Internet courtship, lest we end up in divorce court arguing over google visitation and who gets to keep the porn collection.
To that end, let me begin the new era....of returning to the old era, by keeping the present era inline with the old era's vision of the future era (friggin Roddenberry made time travel so confusing)by simply stating....
WTF IS WRONG WITH PEOPLE?!?
By people I am referring to fans of stuff. It really doesn't matter what stuff. Any stuff will do....apparently. There is a fan for almost anything these days. I used to think that people who wanted to have sex with duct tape were the craziest thing on this planet until now.
Don't believe me? Go back to that toilet paper fan site and type the weirdest thing you can think of in to the search field. The Internet is a wondrous, and all too scary place. This is not really about that. This is more about how scary the human mind is.
For some reason, when someone becomes a fan, they loose all sense and reason. I understand that fan is a shortening of the term fanatic, and fanatic is defined as:
fa·nat·ic
/fəˈnætɪk/ Show Spelled[fuh-nat-ik] Show IPA
–noun
1.
a person with an extreme and uncritical enthusiasm or zeal, as in religion or politics.
yet, the shrinking of the term to just fan should have also carried with it a shrinking definition.
fan 2 (fn)
n.
An ardent devotee; an enthusiast.
An enthusiast makes sense. I enjoy xyz. It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside, sort of like watching a kitten....get blended....uhmmm did I type that out loud?
But really, an enthusiast sounds so tame, and much more in line with what I have in mind for my fandom.
I like certain things, like say Wil Wheaton. I like Wil Wheaton. He is generally funny and occasionally insightful in a manner that speaks to me. I can say this and also say. Wesley Crusher was the most annoying television character of all time. I can also say sometimes, he misses the mark and bores me, or tries to hard and I look at him with pity. Sometimes, he just isn't entertaining or insightful. It happens. I would also tend not to compare said Wheaton with say...I don't know, George Carlin.
Carlin was a master at entertaining and insighting (it is a new word, shut up) me and many others. He is one of the all time kings of comedy, and a true master of his art. Wil Wheaton, as much as I like him is no George Carlin.
Now, why am I saying all of this?
Because I had a true WTF moment earlier. No it isn't about why fanatics seem intent on wishing dead people a happy birthday, but rather because some tool decided to make the following statement (real geekshit incoming)
DL (dragonlance, a series of novels and a campaign setting for dungeons and dragons, which was pretty entertaining when I was a kid)is in no way near the the same literary standing as LOTR. Maybe so, maybe not. Again, I suppose we will just have to wait and see.
This person, on an internet webboard thought it would be within the realm of serious discourse to suggest that maybe draginlance and lord of the rings were on the same level.
Hands up everyone who knows what dragon lance is.
Thanks geekiest of the geeks.
Now, hands up everyone who knows what lord of the rings is.
Ok, I can't count that high, so put your hands down everyone who doesn't live in a third world country or a shack outside of civilization in the middle of Pennsylvania.
Need a slightly more dramatic example?
Ok. So the reference that this person was making was in regard to the dragonlance movie. A movie which this person felt should have been done slightly differently.
Here is the imdb site for said movie. In case you are wondering, when IMDB writes video inside the bracks with the release date, they are denoting a direct to video release.
Dragonlance the movie was treated the same as all 7,834 (or so) Olsen twins movies.
So I can see how you could compare the value of that product with say, the 2 billion dollar release of the Tolkien masterpiece.
Right well I can see how you could say a live action version might have done well, and the following qualifying statement might apply:
Personally, for me, this series could dethrone LOTR if the movies were made right.
The important part was where the person said "for me" because that means in their eyes, it might have been better. You and all six of your closest friends may have thought that way.
That is the difference between fan and fanatic. The difference between enthusiast and uncritical devotee. The difference between thinking Beiber and Lennon are the same and Wil Wheaton isn't bad, but he's no Carlin.
I could sit here and inform you about how Dragonlance steals many of it's architypes from LOTR, I could show you how setting is the only major difference between the struggles faced by each group, and thus the only true difference between the two series would be in the quality of the writing, and if that is true, then one needs not go very far in determining this person is off their rocker.
Why can't people enjoy something based on its own merits and resist the urge to compare it insanely to masterpieces?
I can draw stick figures, and I may be able to brain wash one person in to thinking that I am a better artist than Van Goh, but that doesn't make it true.
In short, no name mac and cheese is not KD. Stop saying it is, and stop trying to say it is as good or better than. It is a pale imitation. Acceptable when the real thing is not available, but seriously, it is not as good.
Stop thinking that all this new crap is better than the old crap just because it has a shinier coat of paint. And for the love of Paladine, stop thinking a second rate imitation of quality groundbreaking work is new and innovative and can dethrone the master.
Sometimes something new can be better, but most of the time it is just a water downed version of it. If you don't believe me, check out the new Santana album. It is all covers of guitar awesome songs. On the surface you would think, good guitar songs, done by a good guitarist would be good. Yet here's the thing:
He brings nothing new to the table, nor does he honour the old. He simply repackages the old, puts a new coat of paint on it and tells you you should buy it.
This is the difference between loving the old song, and hating the new one.
The difference between hunting down the vinyl for the original, and downloading a free copy of the Sanatana (and then promptly deleting it in a vein attempt to wipe it from the official record of reality).
This is the difference between a 2 billion dollar oscar winning theatrical release and a direct to video release.
Dragonlance may be cool, but it isn't as cool. Thank the ground that LOTR walks on for proving to the industry that fantasy is a viable genre. Don't complain when they realised that as viable as it is, the individual sub genres are only worth a few million bucks from us weirdos.
All of a person's complaints about generalizing or making a story more accessible to a broader audience are what make it a viable production and worth spending the money on. If the audience is so narrow as to provide only a certain level of profit, then all you are going to get is what they can afford to make for that profit.
In the end, just because we are all crazy about something, doesn't mean everyone is.
Beauty and quality are always in the eye of the beholder.
Not everyone is going to find what I like as cool as I do, but generally, I don't care about them, cause they're stupid.
Note 013/06/2012 - I actually began re-reading the Dragonlance series and watched that movie.... The books are good, well thought out and generally of good quality. That movie is tremendously shitty.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)