The problem with today's media is that you reap what you sow, and you get what you pay for.

Today's media has moved farther and farther away from being an immersive experience and into a new media paradigm. It's now all about removal and distance.

It's easy to blame Maxim or InTAKE for their three-page articles that are collections of photos and captions and only 300 words of text, but it's not really their fault.

It's our fast food culture. We want to go to a drive through instead of a sit-down restaurant.

We want the internet instead of a library.

We want reality TV.

Think about that. Reality television, the ultimate instrument of our "escape from reality" is now made from the whole cloth of other people's reality. Are our lives so dull that "Margarite the church lady" is our escape? Christ ! You want her? I'll bet there's a dozen of her at Indianapolis Baptist Temple right now.

I'm reminded of my boys playing XBOX one hot summer day last year. Alec said to Adam that he heard they were working on controllers for basketball games that you wore as gloves. The gloves were to have little bladders in them that inflated and deflated to give you the sensation of dribbling the ball.
I chimed in and said " You know, there's a 3D basketball interface available, where everything is viewable in 3D, you can feel the ball in your hand and even smell your opponent's sweat. It's not called virtual reality. It's called actual reality."

I don't want to pooh-pooh TV. It's not the monster in a box its detractors make it out to be. Neither are video games. I understand the need to blow off steam while killing zombies. Or watching a movie about killing zombies for that matter.

But are we such fucking dull couch potatoes that we'd rather play a sports video game than play an actual sport? The same with TV--I understand the attraction of some reality TV shows like Cops or news magazines, and maybe even Court TV footage. These are experiences we can't live or immerse ourselves in.

However, anybody can remodel a room, organize a closet, go on a date or watch live music. Yet American Idol is a ratings powerhouse while live music is in decline.

Maxim and InTAKE? Yeah, it's the same thing. We want our media shorter and quantified now. We're too lazy to commit to a sea of text in a full-sized article. We scan these rags (and others, like People or In Touch) and read the captions under the photos, and the "pull quotes." We are content with soundbytes when we could have the full thing.

We don't have time for reading. We don't have time for reality. We'd rather bitch about the cost of gas at $2.50 a gallon when we regularly swill Starbucks at $40 a gallon. $40 a gallon! I'm serious--do the math.

Our culture needs to wake up and get its priorities straight.

Turn off the NBA Jam, and pick up an actual basketball.

Turn off Trading Spaces and redecorate your own room.

Instead of picking up InTake or Maxim, grab the newest issue of Radar, Wired, or Time.

Shut off the American Idol and go out and enjoy the music and culture that is ours. One day, it might not be there.

Posted by wayneb at November 23, 2005 09:16 AM