The science of selling out

One of my friends recently turned me on to Redlettermedia.  How's that for an opening paragraph?

Before speaking so glowingly about this site that you blindly go to it and then proceed to form the grudge against me because you feel that I misrepresented it, I will say this- it is definitely for grown-ups.  There is dark humor.  It is a little macabre at times.  The narrator swears.  Basically if you didn't like any part of the show Dexter, you probably won't like this site.

I love it though.  If I had to summarize it in one word, I'd choose 'brilliant'.  If I got a bonus word, I'd say 'really brilliant'.  If I somehow got an additional word that could utilize the apostrophe, I would immediately say 'It's really brilliant'.  Yeah.  It's that good.

Redlettermedia has some original movies and short cartoons that I haven't checked out (and probably won't)- what I have been soaking up are his video movie reviews.  Using a crazy, sarcastic, and creepy alternate persona, he goes through various movies and critiques them on a technical level.  Despite his bizarre tendencies, I have found these reviews to be well thought out, insightful, and hilarious.

But that's not really what I want to talk about.  Although, what I want to talk did involve the website, so I at least had to plug for it, so you would have some idea of what I'm talking about.  Of course, that's assuming that I know what I'm talking about, which is not an assumption we enter into lightly.

So I watched his review of Avatar this morning, and it was everything I had hoped it would be.  Not only did it make me laugh- but it made me think.  Lots of things can make people laugh.  Farting makes people laugh.  Faceplanting makes people laugh.  In the right context, getting hit by a car can make people laugh.  But people that can make you laugh and make you think- they are the geniuses.  And the ability to both laugh and think is what separates us from the Rednecks.

What really caught my attention was his breakdown of the process of  digitally creating the Na'vi.  The Na'vi did not just evolve from binary code- they were purposefully rendered to elicit maximum sympathy.  James Cameron gave them "Disney Eyes" (you know what I'm talking about, those big puppy dog eyes that just melt your heart into a little pool of warm fuzzies).  He showed the animal elements in their noses and ears- traits which served to further solidify the innocence of the Na'vi.  Then Cameron made them smoking hot so that we would want to hook up with them but not feel like we were horrible perverts.

I thought about this for awhile afterwards.  I know I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed, but I like to think of myself as a somewhat free-thinking critical observer guy.  Then I watch stuff like this, and I realize how easily that I can be manipulated.  And I was sad.

After hours of internal anguish and tearing down all my Justin Beiber posters, I still needed some help feeling better.  So I curled up on the couch with some Ben and Jerry's and watched Twilight.  Okay.  Life is better.

Before I begin, a couple caveats:

1. I am not suggesting that all the conspiracy theorists are right.
2. I do not believe that video games will cause kids to murder their parents, or that there are secretly encrypted messages that can be revealed when you play an audio cassette backwards.  And for my younger readers, I'll hold on while you go and Google 'audio cassette'.

What I'm talking about is how our brain processes stimuli, and how things that are barely noticeable serve to influence our conscious decision making subconsciously.  Dig?

See, it's not always the brazen, bold, out-there-in-your-face things that cause us to take certain actions- sometimes (or even most of the time) we are convinced by subtleties.  Because our super-duper computer minds are constantly working (even when we are on sleep or hibernate mode), we daily process I-Don't-Want-To-Know-How-Many gigaterrabytes of data.  Obviously we can't constantly act on every single sensation at every single moment- our brains would power down the minute we woke up.  Hopefully that scenario doesn't sound familiar to you.  So we have to be able to sort out what's important and what's not important.

Some of this sifting we do consciously- we decide what show we want to watch, what we want to read, what type of food we eat, etc.  By doing this, we are obviously playing an active role in what sort of information our brains take in.  But a lot of the sorting happens in our subconscious.  Take a morning commute to work.  There is no way your brain could possibly process all of the incoming stimuli in a manner that treats each one equally- not with the constantly changing topography, traffic signs, the drone of your car and passing cars, music (should you so choose), the smell of your air freshener, your clothing pressed against your skin, the taste of your delicious Egg McMuffin- your brain would probably explode.  And you would get a no call/no show.

Over time, our brains learn very quickly what needs to be focused on- and what can just be shoved off to the side.  The repetition of the stimulation helps our brain to become even more efficient.  Eventually, you stop noticing  the trees and buildings and such- because you've seen them so many times, that your brain has learned that it doesn't really need to process that information.  Because you don't need to really always know what your clothing feels like against your skin, your brain puts that info on cruise control (although I'm willing to bet after reading about clothing on skin, you start to become at least a little aware of it- gotta love the brain!).

So how do we get to auto-pilot?

It's by our conscious and subconscious working together.  Our subconscious mind picks up bits and pieces that are attached to the things our conscious mind is focusing on, and flags those things as objects of interest.  Take Disney Eyes, for example.  From years of watching Beauty and the Beast and The Little Mermaid, I not only learned that Disney has no idea how a real monarchy functions, but I also inadvertently taught my brain that big eyes are cute, innocent, and vulnerable.  My conscious brain was being fed things like plot, line delivery, movement, and music. 

Music is the truck that drives the plot...straight off a cliff

While my subconscious mind was associating 'big eyes' with 'vulnerability' and picking up things like this: 

Little Mermaid 2: Unleash the Sea Men!

Let me give you another example.  Most of my childhood memories of my dad revolve around his beard and musical escapades- either him practicing with the band, or going to see him play at different functions.  So through the process of frequently seeing my dad with a beard and playing music (which became linked with coolness due to conscious and subconscious associations), I came to believe that guys with full beards were cool.  It sounds weird, but I always perceived people with beards (no matter how creepy or freaky they might otherwise be) as cooler than they would be without beards.  

The interesting/scary part is that most of the time, we really don't think about the way we process things.  We just sort of go with the flow.  By and large, this works out okay.  We don't necessarily need to know how our brain works- just that it does.  But there are people that do think about this sort of thing, and make good money because of it.  They work in a little field you may have heard of, called Marketing.

Sara and I have started watching a show called Mad Men.  Actually, scratch that- Sara watches it, sometimes I'll watch it with her.  It's a show set in 1960s New York, and revolves around the lives of Sterling-Cooper ad agency employees.  It's a mini-dynasty at the Emmy Awards.  All the important people watch it...or at least they do sometimes, with their wives.  Anyways.  Aside from having a protagonist that is a selfish, low-life jerk face, the show is intriguing to me because of the whole concept of marketing and advertising.  I find it fascinating that there is an entire sector of our economy devoted to people sitting in rooms and coming up with ways to trick people on a daily basis.
 
I reckon most of us like to think that we're these forward-thinking intellectual savants that are far too powerful in the mind to be tricked by the kinds of marketing ploys that we are constantly bombarded with.  We scoff at the notion that someone else can influence our decisions just because of some crummy commercials.  We tell ourselves that we are our own people.  We decide what to buy.  We decide which soda to drink.  We our captains of our own cell-phone plan.  Right?  RIGHT???

The thing is, commercials aren't selling products- they're selling ideas.  And they aren't fishing for you- they're just throwing a net out there.  They are bound to catch a few.  They don't need a commercial to be successful for everyone. They just need to convince someone, somewhere to associate their product with the idea that they are pitching.  Then those people become salesmen.  I didn't buy a smart phone because Verizon made some awesome looking robot commercial- I bought one because:

• My wife let me (Merry Christmas, baby!)
• My friends had them, so not only did I get to see them in action, but I got to see my friends responses to them in action. 
• I had become dissatisfied with my old phone.

But why was I dissatisfied with my old phone?  Did it stop working?  Had some of the buttons fallen off?  Were calls being dropped?  Well...no.  My phone worked fine.  As a phone, it did what I needed it to do.  But the idea that a phone could do more...well, heck, I gotta get me one of those!  I have to find out for "myself" what this is all about.  And thus I was pulled in.

So how much of what we think is our own?
 
Our thoughts and feelings are heavily influenced by a number of outside sources- not just commercials and movies.  Even from the beginning, our basic template of who we are comes primarily from our parents.  Our initial belief systems come to us from our parents.  As we grow up, they largely guide us in (or out of) our passions.  At the very least, they control the flow of information. 

Over the years, parents become teachers, teachers become friends, and friends become something else- but no human being lives in a vacuum.  We are always surrounded by other people.  So we're always coming in contact with a host of different ideas, beliefs, values, and information.  Because of this, we are constantly evolving socially.  Sure, we have some deep held beliefs that are often extremely difficult to change- but many more that are ripe for the taking.

This is where knowing how to shape information comes into play.  When you look at the big picture and see that humanity consists of nothing but empty information vessels that constantly imprint on each other, it's not hard to see that there is a degree of power there.  If you know how to manipulate information subtly in order to create the impression of an original thought or idea...then you have taken control of that power.  This is how James Cameron was able to take an unoriginal story with some dazzling special effects and carefully crafted charicatures and create a product that grossed over $2 billion.

(Shudders)

What is the point of all this?  To make you all read my blog more (Yes)?  Well, If I would have been smart enough, I would have gone through and made this post a (read my blog more) subliminal message minefield.  But I wasn't (tell your friends about my blog).  I just wanted to get (post links to my blog on your Facebook wall) some thoughts rolling about why we think the things we think, why we like the things we like, and why we believe the things we do.  I hope to spark some critical thinking- self presently included.  Lastly, I wanted to give you a heads up that next time you feel like dating a 12-foot tall blue alien....well, it's probably not because you actually want to date a 12-foot tall blue alien.  It's because James Cameron told you that you did.      

PICS- http://edge.ebaumsworld.com/picture/Spetsnaz420/redneck.png
http://thumbs.mywallpapers.org/files/wallpapers/10/1048/The-Little-Mermaid-002.jpg
http://www.animatedbuzz.com/WB/images/coverart01.jpg

Phone again

So today was a very exciting day because our tax return was direct deposited and we are no longer uber poor! Naturally, we decided to go out and spend an extravagant amount of money on new phones! Well, actually, Sara spent a exorbitant amount of money on a new phone. I only spent a little money on mine.

Okay, okay, it wasn't a new phone- actually I didn't buy a phone today at all. I bought a phone accessory. Yes friends, a mere phone accessory convinced my college-educated brain that I somehow acquired an electronic device that I had not previously owned. When historians look back on this blog post, they will conclude that this is the day that I...oooooh look, shiny!!!

Let's flashback to October of 2010, when I got my new Droid phone as a super surprise Christmas present from my wife. It was amazing- I had probably spent the previous four years with a hand-me-down phone of some sort, so to be holding in my hands a brand-new smart phone- it was exhilarating. I couldn't wait to get home from work that night and try out my sweet new phone!

Flash forward just a tiny bit to right before I had to go to work that day. Delaney cut her mouth open, and I was distraught. Right before I left, I knelt down to give Shane a good-bye kiss- totally forgetting that I had put my keys and phone in the same pocket in my super duper tight jeans! Screen- cracked. Joy- depleted.

I spent the next few months wallowing in the anguish of my broken treasure. Sure, the screen still worked, and it was a smart phone. But there was an unsightly blemish on the starboard side, and every time I ran my finger over the distorted swelling, it stuck a knife through my warm fuzzies. I wanted to just cut ties with it, swallow the $90 deductible, and get a new phone...but the pragmatic side of me refused to part with a c-note over such a cosmetic deficiency. And so my internal civil war raged on for months.

Then, earlier this week, I remembered a scripture verse that gave me peace of mind and restored my hope. At least...I think it was a scripture verse. Maybe it was something that I made up all on my own. I think it was like 2 Dwayne, or something like that.

Jesus said to Nicodimus, 'Thou shalt not get a new phone except thoust phone come brand-new from the factory box a second time'. And thusly did Nicodimus then say 'But Lord, they are wrapped in cellophane and encoded with a special identification number per the terms of the cell-phone contract- how can it come brand new from the factory box again?'. Jesus replied 'Verily I tell you the truth, unless you buy a shiny blue hard case and replace thy olden screen protector, thy phone shall continue to bring shame to thee and thees household and thees households households'.

Sometimes I'm so frustrated that the Bible is such a cryptic piece of literature. I just wish it would speak more plainly on issues. So I filed this away in the back of my mind and proceeded to spend the rest of the week moping about the elephantitis on my phone's face, which at this point had also accumulated a fine layer of yucky dirt.

Anyways, today we went to Verizon to replace the phone that Sara had lost (and really, I'm surprised that this did not happen much, much sooner than it did). I was standing there, looking around, envying all of the paying customers who would be leaving Verizon Wireless with their happy brand new phones- when I saw it. It was in a clear plastic wrap- a hard case made of shiny blue. I decided to buy it. When I got home, I immediately put the case on my phone and became alive. Passion rising in my being, I tore the home apart, looking for the remaining extra screen protectors that I had laying around. Then, I found them.

And now, the moment of truth. I took the old screen protector off, expecting to find a huge gaping wound on the screen of my phone. What I found instead....was a barely noticeable nick. Really? REALLY??? I spent the last few months debating getting a new phone because of an unsightly blemish that was really just a natural reaction from air getting into the screen protector? AAAAARRRRRGGGGGHHHHH!!!!

Actually- that lasted for about .5 seconds, until I put the new screen protector on and got to experience the joy of having a new phone all over again. Seriously- it was like a second honeymoon today. My phone was lost, but now is found. It was dead to me- but it is alive again.

Oh happy day! Rejoice- and have another bean burrito, on the house!