Communication From The Other (Media) Side

Michael Hedges October 5, 2010 Follow on Twitter

The room was dark, foreboding actually. It seemed full of people but faces were unknowable. Along the sides were shadowy characters manning television cameras trained on a tabula obscura in front. Suddenly, they arrived.

Much has been made of a generational shift, parting actually, as media leaves the analogue for the digital. Those stuck in the past are doomed to a particular hell of dwindling importance if not outright rejection. Nobody wanted to be “road kill on the information superhighway.”

The other media ones – the term ‘new media’ is so last week – can fill time on a platform, so long as it’s carefully augmented with sound and video, toys and spotlights. It’s no surprise that they describe their heroes as “gurus” and “evangelists”. They have a message.

“Every generation throws a hero up the pop charts,” wrote Paul Simon, troubadour of the last generation. Today’s jeune première is Mark Zuckerberg. More meaningful than Facebook, its millions (users) and billions (dollars), Zuckerberg at 26 years is the subject of a hit Hollywood movie. “These are the days of miracles and wonder.”

Facebook – and Mark Zuckerberg – rants with metaphor. At this particular séance – better to leave time and place to the imagination – the other media ones held up the mirror and talked about themselves, complete with photos – Facebookesque – of their childhood. “Here I am at two.” “Here I am at six with my first newspaper.”

Superheros were a recurring theme. “Here I am as the Incredible Hulk.” Games are the new opera. More than one quoted Richard Strauss. The other media ones seek stardom over passion. Everything is staged. “All the world’s a stage” has become “All the world’s a game.”

We know how smart they are. The movie loosely about Facebook’s founding – The Social Network – portrays the fictionalized Zuckerberg as very smart, very driven and very dismissive of, well, anybody who doesn’t “get it.” One other media presenter used an allotted thirty minutes to describe learning to swim, Japanese and ballroom dancing, presumably within thirty minutes. Join the tribe, they said, and nobody will think you’re a dork. The venture capital people will find you, Ferrari’s and lots of girls to follow.

An optimist always finds opportunity and the other media ones gave up a few gems. The digital leap is a leap of freedom. Audiences are “uncontrolled.” They are “agile.” The US Marine Corps motto - Agile! Mobile! Hostile! – eerily comes to mind.

At the same time, audiences are “used to having their content everywhere.” Nobody is “waiting for upgrades” or episodes. For the YouTube generation, 30 and 60 minute programs are a “mere invention”.

With every generational leap there comes a need to construct a grand narrative. When television was young, one of its heroes summoned, “This medium can teach.” It was hopeful, true at times, often disappointing. Now even Big Brother is old.

The other media ones are throwing down a challenge. The message, amidst the narcissism and arrogance, is under construction. A very wise broadcaster once observed, “Nobody under 40 has anything to say.” We see the difference between the guys at Google and the guys at Facebook.

The lights never really came up, as it ended. It was all quite virtual.

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