Mimetics: Something I really got, tonight.

[wolven7]

IF you want a concept to get weight behind it, if you want it to reach people, and do well, and infect the mass consciousness, that discussions will be had, and real progress made, toward its world-wide implimentation (I think I see the ones who see where I'm going with this hanging their heads), the you need to make it into a television show.

Now, I'm not just talking random fucking show, on any old channel. No. You need to make it a network hit, something with character that are human, but who always overcome their troubles, in a way that people want to see; not in a way to which they can actually relate, mind you, but the way that they would like to believe that they would react. Take the twists and turns or intricate plot lines, and conspiracies and mysteries, and whatever formerly taboo thing you wanted to get in the door, and you weave them together, and you make wonderful television.

If it's a science-driven show, then make sure it's not too scientifically accurate, but enough to get the idea across. If it's a show about the occult, or various "Weird Shit" things, then you keep them vague enough to let people find what they want and need, in it, and pull things out of it.

Buffy

Angel

Heroes

Lost

The 4400

The West Wing

Dead Like Me

Evangelion

Lain

Farscape.

And I know there are others that aren't coming to mind. All broaching major philosophical issues, all wildly popular, and all with major fallout, in terms of people becomming interested in the topics, there-discussed, or, better, feeling more comfortable displaying an existing interest.

Television. People take it into their homes, their lives, they obsess, and talk, constantly about their favourite shows.

To quote Chiana, who just sasid, on the "Unrealized Reality" episode (mech_angel hasn't seen it, yet), "If you want to get him back, that's not the language you need to learn." Find the right language, communicate properly. Books are great, comics, wonderful, movies, games, poems, songs (songs, yes, much like television, without the pictures *wink*), but for the money, television gets you the Greatest Yield of minds, at any one time.

But quantity is not quality.

Comments

[mendori.livejournal.com]

deathnote
Ghost Hunt
Um...

Im sure there are plenty of others.

[wolven.livejournal.com]

Witch Hunter Robin, too.

[sadistic-apollo.livejournal.com]

i couldn't stay awake through a single episode of that show.

[wolven.livejournal.com]

It did move slow, but had a lot of really good points.

[sadistic-apollo.livejournal.com]

yeah i'm particularly fond of the moodily dreary part where nothing f'in happened all episode.

may I recommend Ergo Proxy?

[wolven.livejournal.com]

Already seen.

[momentai.livejournal.com]

Most of those were cancelled or are on their way out. How much weight did they actually have? And doesn't an idea have to be taken seriously to carry any of it's weight, regardless of it that was the creator's intention?

TV has never been taken seriously, no matter how serious the show was, so I am not sure where you are going with this.

[wolven.livejournal.com]

Do you know how many people are now interested in Human Genetics research, because of Heroes? It's why Cisco started funding them. And don't get me started on Lost.

With every show, every season, every half-formed idea, people are touched, and ideas are spread.

Television is not openly looked upon as what people rally toward, but this is true for the same reason that people with Nielson boxes turn the channel to PBS, when they aren't home. They want people to think they're smart.

I'm pointing out that, whether they admit it, Billions Of People Around The World flock to television to be Edu-Tained, and if we can put at least a Few thought constructs into people's heads, by those means, then it's something.

You seem to think that everything needs to be Everything, that if it's just a few steps in a direction, then it's no good. This is not an all-or-nothing game. You can advance by degrees.

[momentai.livejournal.com]

A research institution is not going to fund anything b/c of one TV show or another but only if they will be able to turn a profit with this research. Whether it is by selling intellectual or physical property, making money is the bottom line, not what new fad America is buying into. That only serves to create a new marketing avenue for the company, but it's not as if this research would never have been sanctioned if Heroes had never been greenlit. it would simply have come later and w/o no fanfare.

The people are "interested" in a lot of things, but those interests fade with the tide and never really amount to much action. These fads, whether it is TV or music, are negligble at best in their influence. I agree that the popularity might help facilitate a move in a new direction for science/politics/whatever, but only as a matter of convienence and advertising. The move would have happened eventually if someone truly felt it would be profitable.

I'm not trying to totally discount anything you said, just that TV is not that important to anything. Yes, it is rallied toward for edutainment so people can give an impression that they care abut s/t "important" when they make small talk, but the "tainment" portion of that slang is the meaty part. The entertainment comes first, and for the vast majority of the viewers, it's the only thing.

I'm not sure what you meant in the last part, but in the same vein, you believe that s/t is meaningful and important just b/c you like it and can imbue it with layered meanings that satisfy your lust for interconnected knowledge. On top of that, if it is popular work, you seem to think that this is why other people like it too when all they want is fun.

The masses are not as deep as you want to give them credit for.

[wolven.livejournal.com]

I don't really like television. I've simply found that, for a quick and easy way to get a massive influx of ideas, to be fleshed out, later, it is the most likely route.

I never said the masses were deep. In fact, I all but called the masses cud-chewers, just then. What the masses are, is easily manipulatable via mass marketing. You know how you can turn a profit off of it? Advertising; sprite and Sprint and Nextel tie-ins, with Lost spring to mind. Something that gets the consumer involved in the idea past simply watching it.

But they have to see it, first. Engage it.

You seem to be thinking that I think of what I'm describing as a side-effect, or concurrent coincidence, as, instead, a cause/effect kind of thing. All I know is, there is a lever, and a button, and pushing and pulling them give me something I want, and with that i can, down the line, rewire the circuitry, to do something else.

That's all.

[sadistic-apollo.livejournal.com]

it's a funny day when the most original, most thought provoking shows are the most acclaimed and promptly the most canceled.

i'd say it was for good old cost cuttin measures...

but ya know

fool me twice... shame on... well ... you can't fool me twice

besides, the daily show/colbert report are the modern jean paul whatsishinamisicists.

[wolven.livejournal.com]

Yes, but that's cable, and it's doing what it needs to do, but Slowly.

I recommend an ideological deluge.

[sadistic-apollo.livejournal.com]

acid in the water supply? that's a bit harsh don't ya think.

[wolven.livejournal.com]

No, because in today's climate, that's a recipe for more mass hysteria than help. Change ideaspace, first, then the meat-space interaction, therewith.

[sadistic-apollo.livejournal.com]

well, it was yer idea, i was just sayin that it was a bit... rough.

though, a forest will die if it doesn't burn on occasion.

[wolven.livejournal.com]

Nope. Never said the words. That was you, sir.

And while that may be so, many would recommend controlled brush fires, at optimal times, rather than unpredictable ones.

But why are we discussing ecology. I was talking about people and their ideas. *cough*

[sadistic-apollo.livejournal.com]

nah, not me. i'm a big fan of clean living.

yer datin an artist. (at least I think she's an artist.. what does she do?)

what? we're not part of the world?

[wolven.livejournal.com]

Nope. Wait... I mean... Nope.

[sadistic-apollo.livejournal.com]

though come to think of it...

half the state is on fire and yet the city fo Atlanta was still surprised to wake up and smell smoke.

mayhaps fires, literal and metaphorical, aren't the best ways to get attention these days.

[wolven.livejournal.com]

Hasn't been on TV enough.

[sadistic-apollo.livejournal.com]

aaaaahh

i see what you did there.

[wolven.livejournal.com]

*Ba-dump-CHA!*