We Are Getting Dumber and Dumber (are you still with me?)

still famous…

In the future, Andy Warhol said in the 60s, everyone will be famous for 15 minutes.

Truer words were never spoken.

But now, 15 minutes of fame is a lifetime.

It’s more like 15 seconds.

Are you still with me?

Not bored yet?

So far, so good.

This morning, Scott Simon, host on NPR’s Weekend Saturday (who I admire enormously) gave sweeping praise to the #140 of Twitter.

“to be or not to be”… and still 105 characters left.

Isn’t that great?

“Ask not what your country can do for you, ask rather what you can do for your country’.

How many is that?

The problem with all this snappy #140 is that everything is decontextualized.

Shorter.

Faster.

We are a nation in the thrall of ADD, Attention Deficit Disorder, but we no longer have the attention span to even address the problem.

Boring!

Many years ago, Neil Postman wrote a wonderful book called Amusing Ourselves to Death.  In it, he said that the curse of television was that everything on TV had to be ‘entertaining’ to hold our attention. And as potiics began to migrate to television – where it is now 100% of the time, it too had to be ‘entertaining’.  And this was dangerous.

When Lincoln debated Douglass in 1860 (are you still with me?), the debates went on for 7 hours, each man laying out his case at great length then cross questioning his opponent.

Slavery and secession were complex issues.

Today, as anyone who watches Fox News or any other news for that matter knows, 7 minutes is a lifetime

70 seconds is about it.

And you better be snappy and funny to boot.

Now I read that Scrabble is introducing a new dictionary that allows words like ‘thang’, ‘grlll’ and ‘yessss’.

Draw your own conclusions.

(Still with me?)

Now Scott and NPR are all for the #140 character discourse.

When I was a kid we used to have Cliff Notes for Shakespeare.

Don’t want to read MacBeth – read the Cliff Notes

For the slower students you could buy the Classic Comics versions.

That was a long time ago.

Soon we will no doubt have Twitter Classics:

Moby Dick: Captain Ahab fixates, chases, kills White Whale.  Sinks own ship Pequod. Ishmael survives.

I mean, what more do you need to know anyway?

 

Michael Rosenblum

For more than 30 years, Michael Rosenblum has been on the cutting edge of the digital video journalism revolution. During this time, he has lead a drive for video literacy, and the complete rethinking of how television is made and controlled. His work has included: The complete transitioning of The BBC's national network (UK) to a VJ-driven model, starting in 2002. The complete conversion of The Voice of America, the United State's Government's broadcasting agency, (and the largest broadcaster in the world), from short wave radio to television broadcasting and webcasting using the VJ paradigm (1998-present). The construction of NYT Television, a New York Times Company, and the largest producer of non-fiction television in the US. Rosenblum was both the founder and President of NYT TV, (all based on this paradigm (1996-1998). The President and Founder of Video News International, a global VJ-driven newsgathering company, with more than 100 journalists around the world. (1993-1996). Other clients include Spectrum News, Verizon and CBS News.