If you look back in the archive, the last time I did a show on Friday the 13th was April of 2018 and I named the show Triskaidekaphobia. Nothing bad happened that day, as far as I know, so I did not worry much about doing a show this time. Now, I put the show together on Thursday, so it was not really Friday the 13th when I recorded. Maybe a lot of listeners drove off the road while listening or had men wearing hockey masks stalk them while they were enjoying the content. Happy listening today.
I did not do anything on the superstition this week, but I did spend a considerable amount of time discussing the nature of media. That is, the difference between watching content, listening to content and reading content. It is a topic I have thought about from time to time. In fact, whenever I watch a YouTube show I inevitably look at the views, the subscriber counts and start to wonder about the real impact of video. The same thing happens when I look through someone’s Twitter feed.
I’m one of the apostates on this issue. I think Twitter is a waste of energy. I think it is an echo chamber for the most part. The Left gets some benefit as their media, which is all media, monitors it for trends, but otherwise it is screaming into the void. I suspect YouTube is also a waste of resources. Video is a passive medium, so even though a video can get a lot of views, people forget what they saw as soon as they are done watching the video. As a result, video is the least effective medium.
There’s also the issue with the nature of the audience. My guess is smart people tend to read more than watch or listen. Dumb people make up the bulk of the video audience, which has been true of television since forever. Therefore, if you want to influence stupid people, video is the way to go. If you want to impact society in a meaningful way, then you need to persuade smart people and that means the written word. Those YouTube stars are just making money off dummies.
Now, there are exceptions to every general rule. There are smart and clever television shows and there are smart and clever YouTube stars. Stefan Molyneux and Paul Ramsey were pioneers in the field of internet video. They make smart and clever videos on important topics. They would be the exception that proves the rule. The vast majority of YouTube creators are not smart or clever and their audience tends to drool a lot. I doubt the fans of RamZPaul move their lips when reading.
That said, even smart people have been trained by the internet. If you want to influence the culture it means making your ideas consumable on a mobile devise. That’s not to say smart people consume ideas only through their phone. It’s just that like everyone else, their attention span has been diminished by the internet. Smart people are not reading one thousand page books that require hours of quiet contemplation to fully understand, which means a good writer needs to be pithy and economical.
Again, I could be all wrong about this. Whenever I bring it up, I get push back from people who insist we need to go back to quill pens and velum. Then there are those who swear the kids only watch short videos, so that is the future. Both points can’t be true and maybe neither is true. Maybe the reason the pamphleteer has been an indispensable part of politics since the printing press is that the most effective way to change someone’s mind is with a short explication of your position.
This week I have the usual variety of items in the now standard format. Spreaker has the full show. I am up on Google Play now, so the Android commies can take me along when out disrespecting the country. I am on iTunes, which means the Apple Nazis can listen to me on their Hitler phones. The anarchists can catch me on iHeart Radio. YouTube also has the full podcast. Of course, there is a download link below.
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This Week’s Show
Contents
- 00:00: Opening
- 02:00: Diversity
- 10:00: Medium & Message
- 23:00: Mexico
- 27:00: Good Writing
- 30:00: The Wammins
- 35:00: The CQ
- 39:00: Metal
- 45:00: Industrial Policy
- 49:00: No Principles
- 50:00: Thank You
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Check out the Z Man at thezman.com
