Thursday, November 16, 2006
The magic dumb-box helps me think
So, I’m aware that T.V. is nothing more than a device that keeps us from thinking too much, fucking too much, causing too much trouble (sort of like how the Romans used Gladiator fights to keep the masses off the streets) and I should just trash my second-hand big screen and read books, and use my mind, and be a genius, and yada, yada, dada (total Elaine from Seinfeld reference, those of you who got it – high-five, sex crime!), but I am a product of my generation (I want my MTV!), an innocent victim of latchkey-kid-ness, and El Diablo de procrastination has been sort of influential for me lately, even inspiring.
Below is a clip from this super-edited repeat of Sex and the City I watched last night on TBS. It’s a great episode, the one when Carrie tries to win back Aiden after she dumps his ass the first time (yes, she does it not once, but twice). The greatest thing about this episode is the underlying theme that all these modern advances in communication are doing nothing more than handicapping our natural ability to communicate with one another, a problem I think is overwhelmingly present in not only my own generation, but also the emerging and younger generations.
I remember before I left for my freshman year of college in the summer of 2000, my parents bought me (and insisted I use) a bulky cell phone. I was not only annoyed by the thought of having a portable leash where anyone at any time could contact me and infringe on my personal time and space, I was embarrassed to use one. Back in the olden times of the double zeros cell phones were used mostly by busy professionals – doctors, lawyers, stock brokers – and yuppie terds who wanted to look and act like they were important, i.e. Cher from Clueless and Zack Morris with his early 90’s dinosaur model that looks more like a modern-day portable home phone than a cell. So, imagine my shock when I took my first stroll down Landis Green at Florida State and saw more people yapping away on cell phones than students interacting with one another. I was shocked, and saddened, and disgusted when four years later a guy I was dating at the time preferred text messaging me intimate thoughts rather than whispering them in my ear.
Don’t get me wrong, I know these modern devices – email, My Space, two-ways – are great ways of keeping in touch, but really, how many of us have friends who live in Paris or Tokyo (I used these two cities, because I actually do have close friends living in both, AND I’M STILL making an argument against all this communication silliness) that so many feel that they have a serious need for a Blackberry? I mean, what is all this technology turning us into? A species that is so unskilled at thinking cleverly on our feet that we need to edit ourselves through the usage of texting? I just feel like all this overpriced junk – which is ultimately just material symbols of status – is making us socially retarded.
Don’t even get me started on World of WarCraft(although, I’ll admit that if I ever played, I’d probably become super-addicted)…..
Anyway, back to the episode. Carrie, a clever conversationalist with a well-developed personality, is technologically retarded and sets up an email account on AOL solely to passively communicate with her ex, Aiden, in hopes of slowly winning him back. After a deleted email from Carrie to Aiden (he had no idea who Shoegal@aol.com was), an accusatory phone call, and an awkward yet honest double date in which Carrie bluntly confesses she wants to get back together (with no avail) Aiden’s first instinct is to IM Carrie online. This shielded attempt at communication in which Carrie hysterically responds to the IM conversation box that pops up on her screen with a freaked-out “Oh my God! Can he see me?!”(directed to her friend Miranda who is on the phone with her during this incident) literally causes Carrie to put on her coat and march over to Aiden’s apartment to talk to him face to face, which leads us to my first clip.
So, watch the below clip, if you’re not unbelievably bored already.
The human interaction in this clip is bold, harsh, scary, possibly even scarring, and would’ve never occurred in a virtual environment. It probably would’ve been safer online, it would’ve polite. Yet because Carrie is not afraid of reality or natural communication the following clip occurs.
…but then again I am trying to make a point with a television show, which is a huge source of modern communication...haha...
Below is a clip from this super-edited repeat of Sex and the City I watched last night on TBS. It’s a great episode, the one when Carrie tries to win back Aiden after she dumps his ass the first time (yes, she does it not once, but twice). The greatest thing about this episode is the underlying theme that all these modern advances in communication are doing nothing more than handicapping our natural ability to communicate with one another, a problem I think is overwhelmingly present in not only my own generation, but also the emerging and younger generations.
I remember before I left for my freshman year of college in the summer of 2000, my parents bought me (and insisted I use) a bulky cell phone. I was not only annoyed by the thought of having a portable leash where anyone at any time could contact me and infringe on my personal time and space, I was embarrassed to use one. Back in the olden times of the double zeros cell phones were used mostly by busy professionals – doctors, lawyers, stock brokers – and yuppie terds who wanted to look and act like they were important, i.e. Cher from Clueless and Zack Morris with his early 90’s dinosaur model that looks more like a modern-day portable home phone than a cell. So, imagine my shock when I took my first stroll down Landis Green at Florida State and saw more people yapping away on cell phones than students interacting with one another. I was shocked, and saddened, and disgusted when four years later a guy I was dating at the time preferred text messaging me intimate thoughts rather than whispering them in my ear.
Don’t get me wrong, I know these modern devices – email, My Space, two-ways – are great ways of keeping in touch, but really, how many of us have friends who live in Paris or Tokyo (I used these two cities, because I actually do have close friends living in both, AND I’M STILL making an argument against all this communication silliness) that so many feel that they have a serious need for a Blackberry? I mean, what is all this technology turning us into? A species that is so unskilled at thinking cleverly on our feet that we need to edit ourselves through the usage of texting? I just feel like all this overpriced junk – which is ultimately just material symbols of status – is making us socially retarded.
Don’t even get me started on World of WarCraft(although, I’ll admit that if I ever played, I’d probably become super-addicted)…..
Anyway, back to the episode. Carrie, a clever conversationalist with a well-developed personality, is technologically retarded and sets up an email account on AOL solely to passively communicate with her ex, Aiden, in hopes of slowly winning him back. After a deleted email from Carrie to Aiden (he had no idea who Shoegal@aol.com was), an accusatory phone call, and an awkward yet honest double date in which Carrie bluntly confesses she wants to get back together (with no avail) Aiden’s first instinct is to IM Carrie online. This shielded attempt at communication in which Carrie hysterically responds to the IM conversation box that pops up on her screen with a freaked-out “Oh my God! Can he see me?!”(directed to her friend Miranda who is on the phone with her during this incident) literally causes Carrie to put on her coat and march over to Aiden’s apartment to talk to him face to face, which leads us to my first clip.
So, watch the below clip, if you’re not unbelievably bored already.
The human interaction in this clip is bold, harsh, scary, possibly even scarring, and would’ve never occurred in a virtual environment. It probably would’ve been safer online, it would’ve polite. Yet because Carrie is not afraid of reality or natural communication the following clip occurs.
…but then again I am trying to make a point with a television show, which is a huge source of modern communication...haha...
// posted by Whoreese @ 1:13 PM 
Comments:
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All true, but how else could we secretly and hysterically know what people from our past are up to without the wonderously wonderful borderline stalker/exhibitionist myspace? These clips are so obvously pre-myspace, otherwise there would've been a whole bit about "why is his highschool ex girlfriend in his top 8 but not me?!" or something gay like that.
# posted by 
: 12:35 AM
: 12:35 AM
Haha, or “why won’t he add me as a friend?” OR EVEN BETTER “why does his profile still say he’s ‘single’?”. I would HOPE a 30-something year old wouldn’t have a MySpace website to begin with…but MySpace is a generational thing…so I’m sure that in two of three years it’ll be as common for a 30-something year old to be on the ‘space as it is for a teenager, which will essentially open up a whole new can of statutory rape options.
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