3 ms·

Loved this article. Many seem to be missing one of the points of the article, which is that there is little separation between "informative" and "entertainment"

by gochi 3y ago

Loved this article. Many seem to be missing one of the points of the article, which is that there is little separation between "informative" and "entertainment" anymore. You are the performer-teacher. You are the performer-welder. You are the performer-chef. I think about people after the Minow speech, the likes of Julia Child who were on a public station educating people but also the entertainer. You tuned in not just to understand how best to make your next meal, but because of Julia Child. So I don't believe that it's worth trying to dissect the two apart in the modern age, but rather focusing on advertisement. We need far better regulations to address the modern usage of content, and a complete eradication of "native" ads that attempt to mimic the platform's programming. A silly sponsored label tag isn't good enough.

hirundo 3y ago
My best high school teacher was the best entertainer. He traveled the world in the summers and took pictures of the stuff we were studying, and showed them to us as part of long involved stories that had the whole history class silent. My friends from that class still remember things he told us forty years ago that we would have forgotten before we walked out the classroom door if transmitted in a dry lecture.
- Michelangelo11 3y ago
  I think this is totally different. From what you describe, I get the sense your teacher showed you things that made the stuff you were studying more real to you (and in the process taught you more about it, too), which is absolutely great. That's way different from, say, some YouTuber or TikToker who always has to stay bouncy and high-energy, and has to keep telling barely-related jokes and stories, just to keep their audience from clicking through to the next thing -- all that waters down the informational content instead of adding to it.
  - dvngnt_ 3y ago
    i would still prefer that than a dry lecture in which they're reading from a powerpoint
    - brnt 3y ago
      The point is that it is a false dilemma. Something superior exists, choose that.
tempodox 3y ago
Relevant passage from the article: In his seminal 1985 book Amusing Ourselves to Death, Neil Postman observed that television makes entertainment “the natural format for the representation of all experience.” Even though Postman was writing before reality TV and social networks, his breakdown of television’s rhetorical rules—that “simple messages are preferable to… complex ones,” that “drama is to be preferred over exposition”—are more relevant than ever.
Michelangelo11 3y ago
> Many seem to be missing one of the points of the article, which is that there is little separation between "informative" and "entertainment" anymore. You are the performer-teacher. You are the performer-welder. You are the performer-chef. Exactly right, and that necessarily means the informational content suffers, because the entertainment takes up so much bandwidth. And if you want a big audience, you absolutely _have_ to be a performer too, because people will tune out and start watching / playing / consuming something else if you lose their attention. All of which means that mass "educational" media today, of any kind, is guaranteed to be to be one of the lowest-quality options for learning about any given subject.
- xk_id 3y ago
  > All of which means that mass "educational" media today, of any kind, is guaranteed to be to be one of the lowest-quality options for learning about any given subject. That makes it sounds like a failure of the system, but in fact it works as intended. The point of consumer culture has never been whatever was being overtly advertised. It emerged as the attempt of atlanticist nations (lead by Amerika) to manage society’s violent, repressed urges (the only alternatives we knew of were nazism and communism). It is a mechanism to keep the primitive human mind distracted, with fast paced entertainment that destroys the attention span, rat race competitions, libidinal associations in product branding, and a fantasy world of happiness and comfort promoted through advertising campaigns – while the unavoidable grim reality (like third world exploitation which makes the whole system possible and the corruption in the incumbent systems of power) is being obscured from sight. Tiktok is just designed to reward the most effective agents of the system.
  - hotdogscout 3y ago
    This seems like a conspiracy theory being strung by linguistic aesthetics. Capitalism is not a centralized ideology, it's perfectly fine to loathe liberalism and individual freedoms and still enjoy the economic prosperity that can come from a free market. About the "third world exploitation that makes the system possible", could you please substantiate this claim? Working at factories in the third world is not demeaning as you imply, it's a good way to make enough money to build a life on and most of the third world (ironically not China) has unions to negotiate decent pay. TikTok is also owned by the Chinese government which is not capitalist at all, we have extensive proof one of it's main objectives is destroying democracy and capitalism as a universal value. [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Document_Number_Nine https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Document_Number_Nine] You seem to parrot things that seem aesthetically true (hard work is important) but aren't at all through inspection.
remarkEon 3y ago
>We need far better regulations to address the modern usage of content, and a complete eradication of "native" ads that attempt to mimic the platform's programming. A silly sponsored label tag isn't good enough "Better" regulation isn't going to change anything. We just need outright bans. We can perhaps debate what types of add content and usage should be banned, but ban them nonetheless. The article is well written, yes, but there's a tone in it that allows the reader to come away thinking that some of these quirks with TikTok are endearing or maybe funny (the millennial "pause"). The kinds of intentional dopamine hijacking that is how the company makes money (ice cream so good gang gang) is a little more nefarious than that.

by gochi 3y ago

hirundo 3y ago

My best high school teacher was the best entertainer. He traveled the world in the summers and took pictures of the stuff we were studying, and showed them to us as part of long involved stories that had the whole history class silent. My friends from that class still remember things he told us forty years ago that we would have forgotten before we walked out the classroom door if transmitted in a dry lecture.

Michelangelo11 3y ago
I think this is totally different. From what you describe, I get the sense your teacher showed you things that made the stuff you were studying more real to you (and in the process taught you more about it, too), which is absolutely great. That's way different from, say, some YouTuber or TikToker who always has to stay bouncy and high-energy, and has to keep telling barely-related jokes and stories, just to keep their audience from clicking through to the next thing -- all that waters down the informational content instead of adding to it.
- dvngnt_ 3y ago
  i would still prefer that than a dry lecture in which they're reading from a powerpoint
  - brnt 3y ago
    The point is that it is a false dilemma. Something superior exists, choose that.

tempodox 3y ago

Relevant passage from the article: In his seminal 1985 book Amusing Ourselves to Death, Neil Postman observed that television makes entertainment “the natural format for the representation of all experience.” Even though Postman was writing before reality TV and social networks, his breakdown of television’s rhetorical rules—that “simple messages are preferable to… complex ones,” that “drama is to be preferred over exposition”—are more relevant than ever.

Michelangelo11 3y ago

> Many seem to be missing one of the points of the article, which is that there is little separation between "informative" and "entertainment" anymore. You are the performer-teacher. You are the performer-welder. You are the performer-chef. Exactly right, and that necessarily means the informational content suffers, because the entertainment takes up so much bandwidth. And if you want a big audience, you absolutely _have_ to be a performer too, because people will tune out and start watching / playing / consuming something else if you lose their attention. All of which means that mass "educational" media today, of any kind, is guaranteed to be to be one of the lowest-quality options for learning about any given subject.

xk_id 3y ago
> All of which means that mass "educational" media today, of any kind, is guaranteed to be to be one of the lowest-quality options for learning about any given subject. That makes it sounds like a failure of the system, but in fact it works as intended. The point of consumer culture has never been whatever was being overtly advertised. It emerged as the attempt of atlanticist nations (lead by Amerika) to manage society’s violent, repressed urges (the only alternatives we knew of were nazism and communism). It is a mechanism to keep the primitive human mind distracted, with fast paced entertainment that destroys the attention span, rat race competitions, libidinal associations in product branding, and a fantasy world of happiness and comfort promoted through advertising campaigns – while the unavoidable grim reality (like third world exploitation which makes the whole system possible and the corruption in the incumbent systems of power) is being obscured from sight. Tiktok is just designed to reward the most effective agents of the system.
- hotdogscout 3y ago
  This seems like a conspiracy theory being strung by linguistic aesthetics. Capitalism is not a centralized ideology, it's perfectly fine to loathe liberalism and individual freedoms and still enjoy the economic prosperity that can come from a free market. About the "third world exploitation that makes the system possible", could you please substantiate this claim? Working at factories in the third world is not demeaning as you imply, it's a good way to make enough money to build a life on and most of the third world (ironically not China) has unions to negotiate decent pay. TikTok is also owned by the Chinese government which is not capitalist at all, we have extensive proof one of it's main objectives is destroying democracy and capitalism as a universal value. [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Document_Number_Nine https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Document_Number_Nine] You seem to parrot things that seem aesthetically true (hard work is important) but aren't at all through inspection.

remarkEon 3y ago

>We need far better regulations to address the modern usage of content, and a complete eradication of "native" ads that attempt to mimic the platform's programming. A silly sponsored label tag isn't good enough "Better" regulation isn't going to change anything. We just need outright bans. We can perhaps debate what types of add content and usage should be banned, but ban them nonetheless. The article is well written, yes, but there's a tone in it that allows the reader to come away thinking that some of these quirks with TikTok are endearing or maybe funny (the millennial "pause"). The kinds of intentional dopamine hijacking that is how the company makes money (ice cream so good gang gang) is a little more nefarious than that.