i can be the future, too!
Feb. 2nd, 2011 11:36 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jlhI'm hoping my friends who are also older than 35 will chime in on this post! Because this is the thing: when you're young, and you aren't up on the latest hippest new thing, it can be sort of charming. You can choose to be a luddite and people might find it either tiresome or cute. But once you're over a certain age, you just look like you're out of the loop, grandpa. And I fully admit that in the last couple of years I've been worrying about that. I mean, I spent most of my youth in an industry that is relentlessly about the latest hippest new thing, and now I find myself with a lot of fandom friends who are 10-15 years younger than I am, never mind how cutting the internet is generally about middle-aged women.
As I remember some of the buzz about Inception was that it was the "future of narrative" because, some said, the film was video game-like with its complexity and nested levels and that sort of thing, and that older people tended to get confused while younger people were able to follow it just fine because they played a lot of video games. (Around that time I also listened to this excellent episode of On the Media about the video game industry.)
Now, I don't play video games. I never really got into it, never lived with anyone who had any kind of video game system, and the ones that I end up hearing about or observing people play don't interest me much. (I'm not really into sports or combat-based play.) But I understood Inception perfectly fine when I saw it, and while you can't wander out in the middle for a box of popcorn and then expect to know what's going on when you get back, I was surprised that people found it hard to follow. I can't help but think that this age-based video game theory is over simplified, particularly as many people my age play video games; I just don't happen to.
(Note: I am planning on buying a used PS3 so I can play blue ray discs and Netflix Instant Watch on my TV, so I might ask for game recommendations at that time. I dunno, saying you don't like video games is like saying you don't like movies or manga; it's a medium, not a genre. There have to be games I'd like, even if they are deeply unpopular and nowhere near the center of what people who talk about games are talking about, right? I know they won't be the ones that show up on Fandom Secrets, anyway.)
(Also one of the people on that On the Media video game special pointed out that everyone on FB playing Farmville is playing a video game; they just don't think about it that way. They also called them middle-aged women, so there was a level of condescension there.)
On a related note, some friends of mine are gonzo over Homestuck, which I have been very specifically told I wouldn't like much. And to be honest, what I've seen of it hasn't particularly interested me, nor has the way that people who like it talk about it. That said, people are all excited about it being the future of narrative or something and now I'm thinking, is this another thing that I should go ahead and consume even though I hate it because if I don't I'll never be able to read anything else on the internet or understand narrative because it will all be like Homestuck and I'll have missed the train?
Or is it like BSG in that not only is it something that I wouldn't like anyway, but it also isn't something that I need to torture myself with for hours and hours because ultimately it won't matter?
Or is it not actually the future of narrative and that's just a phrase people use to freak people like me out?
These are the things I worry about when I'm trying not to worry about actual things in my life I can't change right now. But I don't know, it's like: Is it just the way of things that ultimately we will be left behind in the dust of culture, clinging to our antiquated ways? Is it pathetic to bother to try to keep up? This is definitely one I am having trouble negotiating.
In appreciation for your reading this, I give you Boomer and that guy from Ocean's Eleven in swimsuits:
Kono and Danno thank you for your time.
As I remember some of the buzz about Inception was that it was the "future of narrative" because, some said, the film was video game-like with its complexity and nested levels and that sort of thing, and that older people tended to get confused while younger people were able to follow it just fine because they played a lot of video games. (Around that time I also listened to this excellent episode of On the Media about the video game industry.)
Now, I don't play video games. I never really got into it, never lived with anyone who had any kind of video game system, and the ones that I end up hearing about or observing people play don't interest me much. (I'm not really into sports or combat-based play.) But I understood Inception perfectly fine when I saw it, and while you can't wander out in the middle for a box of popcorn and then expect to know what's going on when you get back, I was surprised that people found it hard to follow. I can't help but think that this age-based video game theory is over simplified, particularly as many people my age play video games; I just don't happen to.
(Note: I am planning on buying a used PS3 so I can play blue ray discs and Netflix Instant Watch on my TV, so I might ask for game recommendations at that time. I dunno, saying you don't like video games is like saying you don't like movies or manga; it's a medium, not a genre. There have to be games I'd like, even if they are deeply unpopular and nowhere near the center of what people who talk about games are talking about, right? I know they won't be the ones that show up on Fandom Secrets, anyway.)
(Also one of the people on that On the Media video game special pointed out that everyone on FB playing Farmville is playing a video game; they just don't think about it that way. They also called them middle-aged women, so there was a level of condescension there.)
On a related note, some friends of mine are gonzo over Homestuck, which I have been very specifically told I wouldn't like much. And to be honest, what I've seen of it hasn't particularly interested me, nor has the way that people who like it talk about it. That said, people are all excited about it being the future of narrative or something and now I'm thinking, is this another thing that I should go ahead and consume even though I hate it because if I don't I'll never be able to read anything else on the internet or understand narrative because it will all be like Homestuck and I'll have missed the train?
Or is it like BSG in that not only is it something that I wouldn't like anyway, but it also isn't something that I need to torture myself with for hours and hours because ultimately it won't matter?
Or is it not actually the future of narrative and that's just a phrase people use to freak people like me out?
These are the things I worry about when I'm trying not to worry about actual things in my life I can't change right now. But I don't know, it's like: Is it just the way of things that ultimately we will be left behind in the dust of culture, clinging to our antiquated ways? Is it pathetic to bother to try to keep up? This is definitely one I am having trouble negotiating.
In appreciation for your reading this, I give you Boomer and that guy from Ocean's Eleven in swimsuits:
Kono and Danno thank you for your time.
no subject
Date: 2011-02-02 07:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-02 08:00 pm (UTC)What I'm talking about is more edgy, more about not being like, Nora Ephron dismissing Jay-Z, more like all the stupid generational talk about digital natives when my parents always read in front of the TV set and Dad would have been in his 80s now. I'm talking less about what remains--which is everything; nothing is replaced entirely as we add media, we just spend more time consuming media--and more about what gets added and whether what gets added will be comprehensible.
And anyway, the people who've been using the phrase in relation to Homestuck in particular are friends, who weren't trying to freak me out at least on purpose.
no subject
Date: 2011-02-02 08:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-02 08:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-02 08:32 pm (UTC)Also - videogames are kinda hypertextual, when you really get down to it, and what gives better preparation for handling hypertextual narratives than being in fandom? So seriously, you are already on the cutting edge of that curve anyway.
And thanks for the Boomer picspam. Grace Park is normally too far on the skinny side of the spectrum for my tastes, but this pic = yum.
no subject
Date: 2011-02-02 08:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-02 08:48 pm (UTC)So yeah, it's more about being like, Nora Ephron. She gets along fine ignoring Jay-Z, but I wouldn't want to do that, myself.
no subject
Date: 2011-02-02 08:56 pm (UTC)The Internet has been making me feel monumentally stupid for finding Inception difficult to follow. It was difficult to follow! There's some sort of special research into lucid dreaming, some guy's got a suicidal wife, ooh look at the special effects, everyone needs some special doodad to ground themselves, where on earth are they, and what happened to the gravity?... I went with a friend, and I enthusiatically agreed that it was a good film afterwards simply because I didn't want to admit I'd been thoroughly confused. It was entertaining, but I gave up trying to follow it after the scene where the dream-city folds in half.
(Honestly? I think I've just got the sort of intelligence to handle Dr. Dan Streetmentioner's Time Traveller's Handbook of 1001 Tense Formations, but plot and symbolism in novels and movies just passes me sweetly by. Different intelligences and all that. It would explain why the proportion of non-fiction books on my shelves is so high, and it also acts as a useful filter - if I'm WTFing at a TV show, it's probably really, really bad.)
What I don't get is how one movie, released in 2010, is possibly going to change the whole face of narrative. It's not like it's the 1940s any more: there are lots and lots of movies released each year, and I suspect I'm not the only person who finds plots difficult to keep up with. (Or the only person who doesn't pay 100% attention in a cinema for very, very good reasons.) I'm going to spend my money on movies based on books I've already read - or movies with plenty of explosions, they always do well.
I hope I'm still young enough that my interest in 200-year-old music, and my innocence of pretty much any video game more taxing than Pokemon, is "charming". In my experience it's just been ostracising, at least amongst people my own age. At best, I'm charmingly eccentric.
no subject
Date: 2011-02-02 08:59 pm (UTC)XKCD, I just, no. Even Penny Arcade. It's funny because there's the idea of a nerd as a collection of interests, and then the idea of geeking as a thing you can do about anything. So I'm totally geeky about certain things; they're just rarely actually geeky things. And that can get problematic in geek communities sometimes because people identify so strongly with what they consume, and the references they understand, and judge others by the same things such that quotes of certain things become secret handshakes or something. That's always been a struggle for me in trying to move around in larger geek communities, the ones that aren't just fandom.
I don't mind interactive narratives that start out that way, but when you already have a TV show and then you add all this other stuff on top of it that's canon, that feels unfair, like the game for Lost or the webisodes for BSG that stood separate from canon but people talked about, etc.
Anyway, yes, the way this gets talked about gets highly simplified, and then I get a little worried because I'm now on the wrong side of the divide, man. But Ivy wandered into my LJ post and said 'digital natives my ass' which did tend to make me feel a little better!
no subject
Date: 2011-02-02 09:07 pm (UTC)That's the thing! I've always been more of an early majority type than an early adopter or even an innovator, and that's fine when you're young, as it marks you as being a little removed, a little skeptical. But when you get older it's like being anything other than an innovator really means you're a laggard. I look at the whole stupid iPad mess and how I was like, "okay, it looks cool, don't know if I need to spend $300 on that today" and god, that sentiment, people were freaking the fuck out.
It might also be the endless, hyperbolic, binary way that people talk about shit on the internet too, though. It's like everything is either THE AWESOMEST THING THAT EVER AWESOMED or A TOTAL PILE OF STEAMING DOG CRAP and can't be just, "that was pretty good" or "I enjoyed that." I keep finding that this sort of speech I have a lot of trouble navigating because it's so OTT and I always seem to take it seriously.
Which is another sign of my age, I think!
So I think the pic of Boomer works because you can see how muscled and fit she is, as opposed to being just slender. And then ALSO I do love short, stocky, muscled, hairy-chested men. It's a whole THING. If he had dark hair and a beard and possibly glasses he would be my actual physical ideal. It's kinda crazy. (Also, obviously, a type rarely featured in filmed entertainment these days.)
no subject
Date: 2011-02-02 09:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-02 09:42 pm (UTC)This might be my time-tested inability to deal with hyperbolic speech from people I actually know rather than hyperbolic speech from like, the media or something which I tend to dismiss out of hand. I don't really care if some jackass writing for Wired thinks I'm a luddite. I would rather not be thought of as a luddite by my friends. Unless it's something I'm deliberately lagging on, like loving old movies.
I think if you're way back, like 200 years, then it's always charming. And you do go to movies and read books and watch television. And as you get older and people get more settled in stuff they like it will probably be less ostracizing.
Inception was absolutely an intricate narrative, and you had to actually be paying attention the entire time. I really loved it? But there were puzzle elements and that tends to get me going. It was seriously not for everyone.
I guess the whole future of narrative thing that I was reacting to was the "narrative will be heavily influenced by video games" thing, but I think that will never work the way people like to project it will. Maybe you needn't have actually played the games, just paid attention to what's going on, to get it?
no subject
Date: 2011-02-02 09:46 pm (UTC)Anyway network television is always on the wrong side of the divide. It's too mainstream to be truly innovative. It can be innovative television, but there's rarely TV that's more innovative than film or books or anything else except possibly in exploring long form narrative. And even then book series have generally gotten there first. And even then, Community doesn't have that large an audience because it's a little different. It's not Two and a Half Men.
no subject
Date: 2011-02-02 11:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-03 08:17 pm (UTC)But you're totally right, it's more the way that Community makes the references, in that meta textual way where the characters are knowingly making the references themselves most of the time, like a Tarantino movie, and then on top of THAT are even more references made by the text itself. The meta is both diagetic and non-diagetic, which makes it incredibly satisfying.