Today I happened upon a website called Threadless, which sells hipster t-shirts, including the one at the top of the screen featuring a seated bear with a big belly in a purple forest, lit only by the glow of a television screen. The design is called "Technology Ruins Nature".
Obviously, potential hipsters buy the t-shirt online. And in an interesting twist, the website enables readers to click a "like" button in order to share the product with fellow Facebook friends, potentially bringing more traffic to the company's online merchandise. Computer technology, in this case, is being harnessed to help expose the evils of.....um.......technology. (Diabolical laughter).
This is what social theorists might refer to as "using the tools of the dominant discourse to subvert and conquer". Or this is what my Mom would deem "sheer hypocrisy". It's also reminiscent of the "Kill Your Television" bumper sticker contingent that I must confess to being a part of in the self-righteous "I don't own a TV" days of graduate school.
So I'm not itching for a fight. I would just like to know: What makes television villainous, and computers, a kind of emancipating device? Why does television kill brain cells but computers will bring the information highway to the underdeveloped world, educate people, and eradicate poverty?
Help me out a little.
PS - The t-shirts are sold out. Tried to buy one.
8 comments:
1. Everything on TV is available on your computer.
2. Everything available on your computer is not
available on your TV.
3. Internet cafe vs. sports bar.
Most damning of all, TV has a laugh track.
Interesting ....
GTia
There's never interaction with your TV. It's always a 1-way medium. It's entirely passive.
Much of the content on the internet is also entirely passive, but there is the potential for interaction and participation that is new (at least to our generation).
If TV is bad, does that mean a world without TV (or technology) would have any significant issue resolved? Logically, if a system has similar outcome with or without the presence of a controlled factor, then...
I like these comments, very useful!
Jima: The passive nature of television has crossed my mind. It's also interesting to see the way in which people interacting with their laptops in the same room as a friend fail to interact with one another. GTia: I haven't thought about the laugh track in years (unless you count your "Talking Carl" app, which is hilarious).
WCC: your world without a television question has haunted me for days. I suppose everyone is looking for the "silver bullet" to understand the world's problems/possibilities.
Ciao!
PS - The comment above was from KB not KC. :)
Yea, we sit in the same room with our phones and text each other.
GTia
TV is a good thing, but not if you're relying solely on it for information (Or using it as a babysitter). It's best thought of as a piece of the puzzle, or a cog mixed in a machine. One part of the whole, if you will.
'Cause too much computer isn't much better.
Aye,
Scratch
Scratch hit the nail on the head!!!
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