Look At Me When I’m Talking To You

Jason Sperling, SVP/ECD at RPA in Santa Monica, is posting his new book, Look At Me When I’m Talking To You on Instagram. He adds one illustrated page a day, for 160 days.

– A Media and Content Explosion (continued) Between 2010 and 2013, content on the Internet tripled. Think about that. The population hasn’t tripled. While the population steadily increased, the rate of things being made has grown exponentially. These statistics caused my eyeballs to nearly burst cartoonishly from my head: Each day on YouTube, 5,000,000 videos are uploaded. Each minute—another 1,000 hours are added. And 27,000,000 pieces of content are shared every day. A flood of innovative tools has helped produce this biblical-sized flood of new content. Intuitive, simple-to-use tools like iPhones, GoPro cameras, iMovie, Photoshop and tons of other software and devices have given everybody the ability to make things without the help of that smart-assed techno-geek who lives down the street. . ———- In short, technology has democratized creativity. It’s now for all of us. Ten years ago, the thought of making a home movie, uploading that footage to an editing program, cutting it, adding music, then uploading it to a site was as daunting as a DIY home remodel. Now anyone from 10-year-olds to Peter Oakley, the Internet Grandad (Geriatric1927 as he’s affectionately known on his YouTube Channel), can shoot something and immediately upload it across the media channel of their liking. As a result, we’ve reached epic amounts of consumer-created content, clutter and enough Minecraft videos for two lifetimes (thank you very much, StampyLongNose).

A video posted by by Jason Sperling (@lookatmebook) on May 25, 2015 at 10:18pm PDT

“My goal is for the book to be a crucial tool in defeating ‘adpathy’—the unconscious disassociation and indifference toward marketing due to an overabundance of media and messages out in the world.” Sperling adds, “And the launch of the book will mirror the advice I’m giving.”

One of the writer’s arguments is “technology has democratized creativity.” I do not agree with his assessment. Creativity exists independently of technology. Plus, the tools (like Photoshop or iMovie) that are available to amplify one’s creativity take a lot of learning to master, a process which changes the amateur into a pro.

By the way, I tried to write a short story on Twitter many years ago. One of the things I learned is the tyranny of the timestamp and reverse chronology are impediments to narrative. Story relies on structure. In the best cases, inventiveness happens within the given structure.

"Nuclear really is the best answer for our nation in this hour of need. You guys know that, right?" asks Cakebread.

— toxictoxictoxic (@toxictoxictoxic) March 4, 2009