I get to be as self-indulgent as I want without wasting anyone's time. Guilt-free solipsism -- excellent!

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Over the next few years, each of us will have to develop the capacity to distinguish advertising from entertainment/art/whatever-you-want-to-call-it. There's no doubt in my mind that the current/forthcoming recession will accelerate the blurring of lines, as content providers fall all over themselves to offer media buyers even more for their money. The ascent of AOL -- who, unlike Time Warner, have no culture of editorial integrity to defend -- will speed things along as well.

By bombarding us with advertising, marketers have engendered a mutant strain of ad-resistant consumers. As a result, they're having to become either subtler, more entertaining, or more tightly entwined with the actual content in order to get people to pay attention. Seems to me that this is akin to an arms race that cannot be won -- at what point do marketers pull back from the brink? Each "innovation" in advertising has worked for a while, until consumers become immune and marketers have to find some new part of the culture to colonize. At some point, they'll run out of culture.

One last thought:

Computer industry: Internet, personal computing, networks, individual autonomy = Force For Good

Media/entertainment industry: one-size-fits-all, lowest common denominator, advertising dependent, create and control cultural bottlenecks, a cartel of 5 companies with identical interests = Force For Evil.

What the Entertainment industry hath taken away, the Computer industry hath restored, and then some.

The merging of the two is bad news. The good news is that self-publishing is a counterweight -- it's vital, written in a recognizably human voice, and does not even pretend to be objective. More than ever, it will be up to the individual to seek out information and perspectives beyond those beamed into their living rooms.

Thanks for visiting my site.
| posted by Alex at 9:50 AM