Mass phenomenon in popular media

Marshall McLuhan coined the term "global village" in response to the rise of widespread mass media. I have always taken that to mean that when media was slow (word of mouth, could only travel as fast as someone on foot or horse) our area of interesting information extended about as far as the ground local villages covered. If something happened to someone 100 miles away, you probably never heard about it.

Or cared. Because it was not relevant to you. Or important.

Consider numbers and proportions and statistics for just a second. A village has at most a couple hundred people. Often less. If something happens to 1% of those people, you will know about it. If something happens to .01% of those people, you probably will never hear about it. Further, that number is so small, that the significance of it happening at all is fairly unimportant. Logically, you probably shouldn't even care.

But now, our "village" is defined by the boundaries of a much larger communication range. We can cover the entire planet, but let's forget about that and think of just the United States. If something happens in Plunketvilleport, Maine (yes, I made that up - but doesn't it just sound like all the little puny towns on the east coast?) then we can hear about it within minutes on the west coast. Consider the visibility of small statistical probabilities now. We are talking about things that can occur to .000001% of the people, because the possible population we are talking about is the size of the entire United States.

"But wait," one might say "if it is that small a proportion of the population, why would it make it on the popular media?"

Because the media lives for spectacle. It makes more money, and the more unusual and the more bizarre something is, the more it rubs against people's sense of right and wrong or curiosity, the more the media desperately wants to pick it up.

Add to this another important factor. Consider the TYPES of people who work in popular media creation. These are people interested in popular media. It is just like computer software - the people that make it are into computers, and think EVERYBODY should be into computers as much as they are. Likewise, the people who film, write and report the stories think everybody should be fascinated with the same things they are. And what are they fascinated with? Well, just take a look. They are fascinated with Octomom, Jon and Kate, Britney, Michael Jackson, Paris Hilton, Oprah, Angelina Jolie, Madonna.

The end result of this is that the bulk of popular media fills up with an increasingly larger quantity of trivial material. These are events and occurences that 1> occur with very low levels of statistical significance, 2> are so far and distant from the people consuming the media to have any real impact on them, 3> are selected from a set of fetish topics chosen by the people who happen to be into those fetishes.

We are inundated with material that is unimportant and does not matter. Really - ask yourself the following:

• Is it important to me, and society in general, what Octomom does? If she makes any decision, will it actually affect me or society?
• Is it important to me, and society in general, whether Jon and Kate split up, or work it out and get their act together?
• If Oprah ever manages to get total control over her weight will society be the better for it? Will I be the better for it? What if Oprah continues to have weight issues, will that actually affect my personal health and well-being?
• Will my life change if it turns out Michael Jackson was murdered?
• Will my life change if Madonna adopts another baby from Africa? Will my life change if Angelina Jolie's lips grow wings and fly to Mars?

The questions above are rhetorical - the answer to all of them is "No". Increasingly, though, the media is portraying these events not as novel trivialities for sake of amusement, but as if they are somehow important. Somehow, Octomom's behavior raises issues that we need answers for. This is all just posturing by the media in an attempt to get more eyeballs - invent a bit of controversy and you get people watching.

I write all this knowing it will not change anytime soon. This like this happen when humans have built-in desires and proclivities that someone figures out how to exploit. It's like sugar, we have a built-in drive to consume it that developed during the 99% of human existence when food was incredibly scarce and hard to acquire. Now that sugar is easy to get, it's nearly killing us and as a population we cannot seem to stop consuming it. There is something about human behavior that clues into these things that did not develop when information could spread as quickly as it does now. In order for this sort of thing to change it must introduce an evolutionary disadvantage to those with the proclivity versus those without it. That disadvantage must impact successful propagation and continuation of the species. So, if worrying about Octomom's behavior means you never leave your house and therefore mate, well then maybe those who don't care will be the ones who lead us into the future. Or maybe fixating on Jon & Kate will cause a culture to ignore an invasion from a media adverse third world country that storms in and kills us all. I don't see those outcomes as very likely. I keep thinking of the movie "Idiocracy" that asserted the stupid people just have more kids and edge out the smart people, so in a couple thousand years we are inevitably headed toward a world of TV-addicted morons (dumb movie, but some of the humor in it is pretty funny).

What would Jesus do? taxes and freedom

There is a popular phrase among Christians today. "What would Jesus do?" While the phrase has some ludicrous implications that don't extend to the expectations placed upon Christians (such as establishing yourself at the right hand of God and declaring yourself to be the authority by which all humankind is saved, for example - although there so do seem to be a lot of Christians who act is if they were given that charter), it is often a good guiding compass for regular moral behavior. Say, when you want to spraypaint "jerk" on your neighbor's garage door because they play loud music at midnight, you think "What would Jesus do?" and put the can of red enamel back on the shelf.

So, the question: Should we fight to the death (other people's death and ours, both on the table) to ensure our own freedoms? - and the rhetorical response, "What would Jesus do?"

I love rhetorical responses, because you are implying the answer is obvious without actually giving the answer. In truth the answer is ambiguous, but the person offering the rhetorical response really only has one point in mind, and if you don't know what it is then you apparently aren't smart or informed enough to know, which immediately puts you on the losing side of the debate without even offering a position, because from here on out we can remind you that we demonstrated early on that your capacities for intelling argument are in question anyway, so anything you say from here on out is really just - well cute, but not worth considering.

Anyway, I don't know what Jesus would do. I can only guess. But my guess is that Jesus, when faced with his own lack of freedom, would not have killed anybody to secure it. We are talking about a man who in his own trial for acts of sedition against the state of Rome offered no defense. We are talking about a man who was the member of an oppressed population under Roman occupation, during a time when virtually every religious movement was about the return of a Messiah to throw off the Roman hold and re-establish the nation of Israel. This is what Jesus' apostles all thought was going to happen. You can imagine that Peter, when he grabbed the sword from the Roman gaurd and cut off the ear of one of the soldiers was thinking "This is it! This is the moment it starts!" And Jesus is the man who at that moment offered no resistance and healed the ear of the man Peter struck.

Now, today, when we talk about freedom in America, we are usually talking about far more trivial issues than occupation by a foreign empirical force. "Freedom" is frequently described in terms of "freedom to use my money without paying taxes..." So, when faced with the oppressive occupation of his native people by the Roman empire, Jesus didn't take up one sword, lead any riots or throw one stone. He did not instruct his people to do likewise. If under those conditions he did virtually nothing about freedom, then what would he say about the things that people get fired up about now?

Would Jesus get all fired up about higher taxes? Would Jesus get mad about a publicly offered health care plan?
Again, I don't know. I can only guess. I don't believe Jesus would care one bit about taxes either way. When asked whether or not people should pay taxes to Ceasar, his response was "give unto Ceasar what is Ceasar's, give unto God what is God's" Now, there is a lot of baggage associated with this statement, and you can read it many ways. Previous to this response, he had asked whose image was on the coin (hint: Ceasar's...) - so someone being really literal (don't get me started on literalism...) would say "Oh, so it is because Ceasar's face is on it... and since George Washington is dead we don't have to give our dollar to him anymore..." - but that obviously misses the point. Others might indicate that Ceasar had declared himself a god, and the people were asking Jesus if paying taxes was like a tithe, and that Jesus was only indicating that it was not. My personal take on this - Jesus was telling people "Just pay your taxes. Your concerns need to be of matters of a spiritual nature, and taxes are not among them." I believe Jesus would have paid his taxes without getting all worked up over it.

Regarding publicly funded health care, I am assuming he would be in favor of it. There was a popular religious belief at the time that people's misfortunes were based on misdeeds of their ancestors. Jesus' apostles even asked him concerning this once during one of his healings. This is not much different than popular American Christian post-Calvinist beliefs that rich people are well enough because they deserve it (higher virtue and such) and that poor people bring their problems on themselves and thus deserve their disadvantages. Jesus' response to his apostles was that the man being healed was that way to give evidence of the glory of God (I paraphrase). Remember that Jesus spent a lot of time hanging out with people that were considered the bottom of society - people of a criminal element. Think about that. That completely nullifies any idea of blame, or guilt, or why the person needs help. They just need help, and their plight is there to demonstrate that they can be helped. In modern Christianity, the glory of God, among other ways, is meant to be demonstrated through charity and love. So, regarding a publicly funded program, I think Jesus would say "Why are you fighting it? You should have faith and be glad that you live in a country where the government wants to use its money to help people instead of just building bigger palaces for its kings and heavier yokes for its slaves." But I am filling in the blanks here.

The stance I am trying to get to is that American values (I know, there is a mixed bag there) are not the same as Christianity. So many Christians in American try to smash the two together. Freedom to assemble. Democracy. How much/how little to tax people. Freedom of speech. Socialized versus privatized social services. None of these, as well as many other common American values, are really pertinent to Christianity. You could have a 100% communist society, sharing all labors, no private land ownership, all earned income going back to the government, and be a completely Christian nation (read the Bible, the first Christian churches were communes). You could have a total monarchy, with all land and possessions owned by the king, the labors of the royal subjects supporting the aristocracy, and still be a completely Christian nation. You could have a total libertarian anarchy (let's ignore the "anarchy degrades into might makes right quickly, which by definition is no longer anarchy " argument for a second) with everybody doing only what they want and perceive as right and be completely Christian. You could live as a slave in an atheist society, and still live a completely Christian life.

If we believe in God, then we have to look at history and acknowledge that God permitted every form of government so far to exist, often for millenia. Democracy has had the minority of time in human history. Whatever the "right" form of government is, God hasn't imparted on us exactly what it is, so it sure isn't our place to dictate its terms in context of Christianity (the closest God ever comes to this is in the Old Testament when God advises against appointing King Saul because he wanted the Isrealites to be a nation led by priests - but it is difficult to tell if that is meant for all people, or just the nation of Israel, and one also has to remember that the Old Testament written record was kept by the priests... so the point may be a bit skewed by the record keepers).

My belief - God doesn't care what government we live under. I believe God expects us to live the right and proper life no matter what context we are in. Getting fired up about taxes, how much to support poor people, whether or not to fund public education - none of this should be tied into religious discussions, and is not worth fighting over. Going to war and killing people to establish democracy elsewhere and fight other forms of government - I believe Jesus would call such acts dispicable and horrible.

Read aloud, the unnecessary stands out

I am reading my book to my daughters. They seem to enjoy it, particularly the parts where I poke fun at seemingly invulnerable adult characters. Seeing a gruff adult turn all sappy, or a scary villain trip all over himself is funny to them. They like hearing the story and beg for more. I enjoy reading it to them.

As part of the writing process, reading it aloud to them really helps out. The grammatical errors become glaringly obvious as my mouth trips over trying to say the sentences out loud. Even more glaring, though, are the writing indulgences which prove completely unnecessary to the book. In order to keep myself going, I force a free form "write whatever hits your head" approach. If I get an idea, I write it down on paper the way the words form in my head. If I think something is funny, amusing or interesting I just go for it right away before I lose it. Sometimes I will even skip several chapters ahead just to get something written out as it hits my skull, although usually I capture the idea in notes (as an aside, my inner geek shows through, as I use SGML style markup to do it... like this).

The problem with this approach is that many ideas are distractions which might have seemed fun to me, but that really don't play a part in the movement of the storyline. For the kind of story I am writing, sticking to the action is critical to keep the audience's interest. I have read whole chapters that on reflection should be removed entirely with just the bare stitching need to fix the hole they leave behind. Some chapters I want to keep, but maybe move to later in the story, as they deal with character development that become important points of the plot.

I'm not saying anything new or novel here. I have read several times in articles by other writers that reading the story out loud really helps in the proof reading. It is just interesting to reflect on it now as I am doing it.

Hey, advertising is free!

Really, all you need is the time to make a video. Then just post it on YouTube. Here are two of my own that I did for the book:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOjah2HWsGE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WkMSEaBvLuM

Obviously this isn't all. The desire is for the video to go viral. I have to admit to my own ineptitude at manipulating the interests and desires of the general populace. I really have no idea how to get something like this to go all over the place. I tend to lean a great deal on hoping the content itself will carry it, but as I have seen with other attempts at promoting my book, that really is not enough.

Other people seem interested in this phenomenon as well. Advertising companies are doing a great deal to get their ads on YouTube and the web in general. One of my friends, Dave Kindard, seems to be invest a deal of research into the viral tipping point, particular with his recent use of Twitter as a distribution medium. Maybe I need to start reading up.

I recently read an article by another author about Amazon detail page visits. He never published the article, but he sent me a copy because the idea for the technical hack making it possible came from me. I had suggested to him a means by which an author published on Amazon could track how many times their book's detail page had been hit, something Amazon doesn't tell you (the technique no longer works - Amazon's behaviors changed around May this year). He ran an experiment and found not only could he count his hits, he could tell how the person visiting the page had got there (Amazon keeps such information on the URL query string), which allowed him to catalog the effectiveness of different means of promoting books. The conclusion: personal websites, Amazon guides, Listmania lists and author blogs are ineffective. The most effective means are Amazon's "bought together" feature and placement in search results.

Its all part of the "what drives people to something" soup that is the Internet. I personally found that paid web-based advertising was completely useless for promoting my book. I set the account on a small budget (this is a hobby to me, not a business) - and got lots of clicks (I chose pay for click as the model). Not ONE of those clicks registered as a visit to my website. Again, to reiterate - not ONE SINGLE CLICK that I PAID FOR resulted in a web site hit. I believe I was likely a victim of clickbot fraud. This is when automated programs simulate clicks on advertisements to exhaust the advertisers budget, after which point that ad no longer runs. This leaves the ads the clickbot deployer paid for a greater amount of the remaining ad displays. The problem is so big that MS actually sued the daylights off a business in Canada doing precisely that.

You know what DID drive people to my website? Chest pain. Well, searches on chest pain. When I first created my website, I wrote an experimental blog post about having a heart attack. The article talked about how after a heart attack all the day to day little muscular pangs you get in the chest area scare the daylights out of you. I forgot about the article for about six months until after I had published my book and put a page about it on my website and ran some ads on Facebook and Google. I was looking at the site visit reports, and surprisingly I had traffic, but many months before I ever published the book. I followed through the referrer URL, and they came mostly from Google searches. Google? Why would people be searching my site on Google? I checked the tag terms, and they were for "pain in chest". Apparently calling Google comes before calling 911. Go figure.

But the point that is interesting is that in both cases, effective placement in search results seems to be an important aspect of website promotion.

Yet, I am not sure if that is works for viral media. I always get that delivered to me by someone in email, or on sharing sites like Facebook and Digg. I am wondering about the dynamics of social movement described by Malcolm Gladwell in The Tipping Point. There, Gladwell describes the necessity of three personality types to start a social phenomenon - the early adopters (the ones on the fringe who differ from the mainstream), the observers (these are people who understand the early adopters and see a fad coming) and the connectors (these are people who have a massive network of other people they either know and communicate with, or who hang on them for advice). I am wondering if viral media rely on the same sort of thing.

Correlations of stupidity explained with stunning charts

Why the other side is always stupid

It is just the law of numbers at work. In a standard distribution, average intelligence is at the top center of the hump. However, we really don’t count you as smart until you are substantially farther up the curve than average. Stupid, however, well, if you live anywhere below the top of the hump, then you get to own that dumbass badge.

This is why the “other side” of any argument always looks like it is highly correlated with idiots. That is because everything, no matter what side, is highly correlated with idiots. No matter your viewpoint, the standard distributions will apply, and by definition, at least half of those people will be below average intelligence, hence stupid.

Reading for early critics

I picked an easy audience: my kids. I've squeezed in two nights of reading so far. A total of four chapters. They seem to like it. I told them that the book was just all over the place and needed some serious editing before it was ready to be read aloud, but they didn't care.

I find myself correcting grammar, skipped and incorrect words as I read. Still, it doesn't roll off the tongue too badly, which seems to be a pretty good test of how it is going. At 8.5 x 11, double spaced 10 pt. font the book is about 150 pages long. It's about 340 pages long when reformatted for a typical kids paperback size. I want to get the book down to about 200 pages long, which might mean some re-ordering of the chapters and points of action, as well as some serious trimming.

At the moment, the second book ends right smack in the middle of the action where the third book starts. I have not been able to bring myself to begin the third book just yet. I am letting some of the ideas sort themselves out in my mind.

I just hit page 301... I celebrate with a table of contents, and title spoiler...

Okay, I just crossed the 300 page mark. I have hit the moment before the final, last scene of the book. So, to celebrate, I have decided to drop a few spoilers. Three, in fact:

1. The book ends with a cliffhanger
The second book does not wrap up and resolve itself. It dives right into the action of the third book. I dare not describe the action in the ending - because I really do believe it will be totally unexpected. I believe it works with the story, and make sense when viewed with the rest of it, but nothing leading up to this ending will give you any clue to how it is going to end.

2. Okay... here comes the title for book #2
Are you ready? I mean, are you actually ready? This is a legitimate spoiler. I have been wrestling with this one for a while, and it has taken a long time for this title to emotionally soak in, but I finally feel committed to it. So... the title of the book is: "Millicent Marbleroller and the Bear Monster Army"

3. And here is the table of contents... at least, so far...
The problem is that this book is too long as it is. It is all the way to page 300 by the time the last chapter starts, and that is just to leave it at a halfway point cliffhanger for the third book. I am anticipating doing tons of edits on this book to cut it back fifty to seventy pages or so. I might move some of the action and dialogue out of this book and to the third... but until I do, the chapter names and page numbers are as follows:

Prologue 3
Alone With the Music 5
More Music and Many More Bells 15
The Package 26
The Delivery 36
Jolly Good Toys 53
Work Begins 70
Bears in the Night 79
Investigations and Messages 87
Trouble Brewing 99
Interview with the Admiral 117
Back at Work 124
Into The Walls 132
Nobbins Story 153
The Orchestra In The Cellar 171
The Room In The Ceiling With No Doors 179
Back in the Kitchen 209
Civic Courtroom 15B 221
The Admiral’s Case 227
The Decision 237
Shadows In The Moonlight 246
The Other Way In 252
The Admiral’s Victory Gloat 262
The Clock Ticks 274
The Whistle That Saved The Day 282
The Roar of Engines 290
Standoff With the Admiral 299