This is a story about stories — and the way technology is changing the scope and structure of the stories we tell. Right now, in untelevised reality, we are in the middle of an epic, multiseason struggle over the territory of the human imagination, over whose stories matter and why. For me, it started with fandom. | |
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While many millions of people out there felt that they had been written out of the future, not all of them agreed on who to blame. Some of us blamed the banks, blamed structural inequality. But some people don’t pay attention to the structure. For some people, kicking up takes too much energy, and it’s easier to kick down — to blame women and people of color and queer people and immigrants for the fact that they aren’t leading the rich and meaningful lives they were promised. | |
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But there are different kinds of love, aren’t there? I used to believe that there was something universal about fandom, that our excitement and love for our most cherished myths could bring us all together. This wasn’t the silliest thing I believed in my early twenties, but I had, at the time, swallowed a lot of saccharine nonsense about what love means and the work it involves. I had not yet encountered in my adult life or in my fan life the sort of love which is always, and only, about ownership. | |
All nerds love their fandoms. For some of us that means we want to share them and cheer them on as they grow and develop and change. For others, loving their fandom means they want to own it, to shut down the borders and police their favorite stories for any sign of deviance. | |
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Television and online streaming are driving the evolution of a new, powerful hybrid species of mass culture, one that can be collective without being homogeneous. As arc-based television explodes, becomes more diverse and more daring, the film industry is lagging awkwardly behind. Films are still hamstrung by their own format: They have to tell stories of a certain length that will persuade enough people to leave their houses, find a place to park, and buy a ticket on opening weekend, or else be considered a flop. This means mainstream cinema still needs to appeal to what the industry considers its broadest possible audience. So it’s superhero blockbusters, endless remakes and reboots, and sequels to sequels that dominate the box office. Safe bets. | |
Episodic narrative television, meanwhile, allows for many stories being possible at once. Intimate and intricate, it may be the novel form of our age — but to reach its true potential, it took the advent of streaming platforms. Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, HBO. Streaming technology changed one simple thing about the way we tell collective stories today: It made any show theoretically accessible to anyone, at any time. A TV writer is no longer obliged to appeal to a very large number of people at a specific time every week and hold their attention through ad breaks. Suddenly, TV became a medium that could find its audience wherever they were in the world, so long as they had broadband and someone’s login details. Nobody has to write “universal” stories anymore, because every show or series can find its audience — and its audience can engage on fan sites, forums, and various social media behemoths, in breathless real time. | |
— Laurie Penny | |
An excerpt from her article: “We Can Be Heroes: How the Nerds Are Reinventing Pop Culture“ | |
Appearing in: Wired Magazine | |
Issue: September 2019 | |
The article also appears online at: https://www.wired.com/story/culture-fan-tastic-planet-fanfic/ | |
[The online version of the article may be behind a paywall. In which case, you can probably find the hard copy at your local library. — KMAB] | |
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On This Day In: | |
2019 | Sounds Like #LyingDonald |
2018 | Start Building |
2017 | Woof! Woof! |
2016 | Cast Out |
2015 | Small Pieces |
Happy Father’s Day! | |
2014 | Uncertain Work |
2013 | Unpatriotic And Servile |
2012 | What Price Freedom? |
2011 | Particular Importance |
Three From Bette… | |
Posts Tagged ‘Television’
It Is Still About Sharing And Cheering
Posted in Philosophy, Quotes, tagged Amazon, Fandom, Films, HBO, Hulu, Human Imagination, Laurie Penny, Netflix, Philosophy, Quotes, Television, We Can Be Heroes: How the Nerds Are Reinventing Pop Culture, Wired Magazine on June 21, 2020| Leave a Comment »
I Wish This Were More True
Posted in Education, Humor, Quotes, Reading, tagged Education, Groucho Marx, Humor, Quotes, Reading A Book, Television on August 12, 2019| Leave a Comment »
I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book. | |
― Groucho Marx | |
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On This Day In: | |
2018 | Used To Rejection |
Day 16: Looking Ahead (Just A Little) | |
2017 | Tonight |
I Rejoice | |
2016 | Conscientious Courage |
Speaking Of Which… | |
2015 | The Beautiful Snow |
2014 | Nurtured By The Voices |
2013 | Précis |
2012 | Fear And Understanding |
2011 | Just Being Human |
One Trouble With Television
Posted in Poetry, Politics, Quotes, tagged Chicago, Edward R. Murrow, My Poems Page, On Television, Politics, Quotes, Radio-Television News Directors Association (RTNDA), RTNDA, Television, Wires And Lights In A Box on December 2, 2016| Leave a Comment »
Stonewall Jackson, who knew something about the use of weapons, is reported to have said, “When war comes, you must draw the sword and throw away the scabbard.” The trouble with television is that it is rusting in the scabbard during a battle for survival. | |
— Edward R. Murrow | |
From his speech to the Radio-Television News Directors Association (RTNDA) convention in Chicago | |
Given: October 15, 1958 | |
[Popularly know as the “Wires And Lights In A Box” speech. The link to the full speech is (also) available on my “Poems” page. — KMAB ] | |
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On This Day In: | |
2015 | I Am Lucky And I Am Grateful |
2014 | Future Envy |
2013 | We Do Not Want To Learn That |
2012 | Social Inhibition |
2011 | Studying Chinese Food |
Are You Bored, Too? | |
2010 | Rant, Pant, Deep Breath – Reality |
Similar And Different
Posted in Quotes, tagged David Foster Wallace, Quotes, Television, TV on November 27, 2011| Leave a Comment »
TV is not vulgar and prurient and dumb because the people who compose the audience are vulgar and dumb. Television is the way it is simply because people tend to be extremely similar in their vulgar and prurient and dumb interests and wildly different in their refined and aesthetic and noble interests. | |
— David Foster Wallace | |
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