Work brought me to the Upper East Side, and not really knowing how much time I was going to have, I picked up the latest issue of Wired magazine (Muppets talking about science? Yes Please!) and sat myself down in a nearby Starbucks to enjoy a few moments. However, there was a short article that tickled my fancy. It claimed that in a study, kids relied on the order in which search results were displayed more so than the credibility of the source when asked to search for something online. In other words, in these days where we are bombarded with information at every turn, kids were unable to grasp the important and sift out the unimportant, and correlated the order in which something was displayed with importance.
Of course, this caught me by surprise. Was convenience really trumping credibility? Do we live in a world where ignorance is not death, but ignorance is bliss?
The implications found here of course spans beyond the first page of any Google search. High schoolers all know the top 40 hits. But do they really know what these songs are about? I was driving with a family member a while back when they sang along with Katy Perry about streaking, skinny dipping, and having a ménage à trois. When asked if any of those terms could be defined, there was a blank. Would they really be singing about these things in front of their parents if they knew what these things meant? Perhaps, but how could they LOVE a song they dont even understand? Similarly, Rihanna's S&M. Is she really talking about enjoying Sadomasochism? After everything that happened with Chris Brown a few years ago? Maybe they were just having some fun at her request.
Beyond the music of the times, the TV networks are playing this game to fill their pockets. The "comedy" of The Big Bang Theory comes to mind. The reason I loved the first season of the show was because it showed interactions between people. Specifically, it allowed one to laugh at others trying to deal with very difficult people.
But somewhere along the way the creators of the show realized they were sitting on a goldmine. While the show was going on, Geek culture entered the zeitgeist, and it became cool to be geeky. After a while, the laugh track was cued after any science term that was uttered in a middle school classroom.
- a mere mention of schroedinger's cat= laugh track
- someone says the word neanderthal= laugh track
Now. please compare that with the work put into a split second on Futurama. Now I'm not gonna pretend that I understood EVERYTHING that went on there, but I'll be damned if its not appreciated.
Community recently aired an episode engaging Chaos theory, and of course, displayed the many multiple dimensions/universes that it referred to.
Therein lies the difference between saying that a rock is funny, and using the rock to add to the humor. Friday Night Lights did the same thing. It certainly was a football show, but you'd be terribly amiss if you said it was a show about football. It used the subject of football as a plot device, instead of a cheap ploy to get jocks to watch the show. Similarly, Arrested Development is the most incredible show in this aspect of there being more than just humor in your face. In an ideal world, everything shouldn't be taken at face value. There should be more than meets the eye. And the world should be more like onions. or parfait
Is curiosity dead? No. But the pursuit of the answers to our curiosity may be, simply due to the lack of convenience. People taking what's given to them and being content with it, judging a book by its cover, call it what you will, but shouldnt it be an essential skill to be able to go beyond face value and question what is easy?
Now, those of you wondering why there's a picture of G-dragon here... he wasnt essential to my point, and he was just there. Doesnt make too much sense does it? Nor does The Big Bang Theory's popularity.
No comments:
Post a Comment