Everything That Ever Was, Available Forever

Before reading this post, you should read this article written by Patton Oswalt.

Okay, read it? Now we can talk.

Oswalt is an interesting guy. I find his humor funny but also intelligent in a way that other intelligent comedians or writers often fail. He is an everyman but he's also representative of a very specific time and place. You didn't have to grow up with him to appreciate his experiences or where he's been, anyone who has had a few bumps in the road can relate to him. Best of all, he doesn't try to hold this data over people like he's bestowing wisdom upon them. He says what he thinks and if you like it that's cool. If you don't like it, so what? I don't agree with his political beliefs and, thankfully, he keeps his mouth shut for the most part when it comes to such topics, unlike David Cross who is also wonderfully funny but wields his opinions like a massive blade. Cross is similarly brilliant but I can't listen to him unless I know what to expect. For instance, on one of his cd's he has a lengthy rant on how stupid George W. Bush is, how stupid anyone who voted for him is and how awful he thinks the country is for letting him win the presidency. He does all of this while drunk. (editors note: first off, I don't have an editor so this is just me. second, the David Cross performing drunk statement isn't me talking shit about him, it's what I recall he wrote in the liner notes to the Shut Up You Fucking Baby CD. I'm going to re-verify this and if I'm wrong I'll remove the aforementioned sentence. sorry if that pissed anyone off.) People laugh along with his commentary, but I felt uncomfortable and not because I did or didn't vote for Bush. It was a really idiotic statement from someone who is smarter than that and it also probably hurt a lot of feelings. I'm not saying his opinion was wrong or right, and I'm sure he doesn't care if people agree with him or not, but I thought it was hateful and hurtful, nothing that needed to be said. Patton, thankfully, mostly avoids such things and it's a lot easier to enjoy someone you don't agree with when they aren't saying how awful you are for having your own perspective.

Anyway, that lengthy statement about opinions leads into Patton's article for Wired Magazine, Wake Up, Geek Culture. Time To Die. It's intelligent and well written, and again, if you've ever been outside of the "popular" crowd you'll relate to what he's saying, even if you don't recognize all the references he lists or even what the article's title is referring to. It's a fun read, but I can't say that I agree with his outlook on the future of geek/nerd/otaku culture. His main gripe is how we can inform ourselves with every detail of a complicated topic in a brief amount of time and become a pseudo-expert practically overnight due to the availability of the internet. I've thought about that too and it can be bothersome, leading me to occasionally recall when you couldn't read every detail about some amazing band, book, comic, movie or whatever within seconds of thinking about those details. That kind of mystery is what made me who I am and a lot of the reason for this site's existence. But I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing that everything is becoming available at a rate of speed faster than anyone could ever have imagined. It's wonderful that Rom can tell me to see Welt am Draht, I can Google it, find I can't rent or purchase it in America but download a very good rip of it with English subtitles and watch it later that evening or the next day. Back in the day I would have had to make an extra long drive to possibly find a copy, go to a hit-or-miss film convention, beg on a lo-tech message board via a service like Prodigy for someone to make me a copy of an umpteenth generation VHS bootleg, order from an overseas catalog that might just run off with my money or, heaven forbid, just find a copy out of shear luck! Yeah, I really appreciated my copy when I finally got it but why is it a bad thing that I can reduce that time from months or years to days, hours or simply minutes? "Everything That Ever Was, Available Forever" is not such a bad thing.

One point Patton hits on that I must agree completely with is the idiotic tendency of Hollywood or whatever organization(s) to rape old ideas for new profits. Sometimes a remake can bring new ideas to a forgotten concept (Ocean's Eleven), sometimes a retread or "reboot" (the asshole who decided that was a good buzzword needs to be shot) can breathe new life into something that was brilliant but has grown stale (The Dark Knight), and when these things work both the audience and producers should be very happy, but why beat a good thing into the ground? Why remake everything? Sometimes I wanna ask why they should make anything at all? I haven't seen the new Yogi Bear movie, but why in god's name would I want to? Do kids want to see it? Was there a consortium of Yogi Bear fans who started an international petition to have a well-known cartoon character resurrected in 3D with what is most likely a hack storyline and no concern other than profit? Here's another one, who in their right mind thought giving T.I. a chance in a feature film was a good idea? Not much of a rapper but he sold a lot of records, maybe he's a great actor? Did people see Takers? If a film or any artistic product is good, people will pay attention. Taken, an action film that came out in the US last year if I remember correctly, had been widely available through bootlegging channels due to it's having been released internationally long before being issued in the US and it was even officially available on Blu-Ray and DVD! It was still a success at the box office. Not saying it was a great movie or anything but it was fun and it didn't involve trying to make a no-talent a star or turn an old idea into money-making brilliance. Will it surprise anyone that I hope lightning strikes the theater where the Spiderman musical is playing and burns the place to the ground?

Back to Patton's opinions about everything being available and that being too much, from my perspective, the only way to combat an overabundance is to limit the information you're providing. I don't know what people would say to that but it's always been the way when you're promoting a product you want to be huge. You share just enough info about a movie to get people psyched to go. You play just enough songs from your album to make people buy it. You give just enough away to get people salivating. But why not do this more often? When you release your DVD or Blu-Ray, why not sell it cheap and give almost no bonus material? Tell no secrets, reveal nothing. Let people talk, monitor their chatter and decide when to reveal more. Have the stars of your film give NOTHING away in interviews. Make it very non-chalant, as though it doesn't matter, all the while putting more wood on the fire if not lighter fluid! Why not extend this perspective to every aspect of your product? Not everything should be like that of course, and if you're going to play that game you better be sure your product is a winner. Snakes On A Plane had incredible pre-release hype based entirely on the fact there was only one great trailer and barely any public info, but not even Samuel L. Jackson could save that plane from crashing. The other option is giving your product an unpronounceable name that can't be Googled and hoping that will either keep your fan base minimal and focused or it will get you mentioned by publications that want to look cool. Sounds promising, but I guarantee you Witch House will not catch on with the public, much in the same way Prince got mocked for changing his name to a symbol, so think long and hard before you name your product after the shape or a shadow that you took a photo of and altered slightly in Photoshop. I don't think I have to say it but that's a losing tactic.

Thoughts? Just for the record, no, I won't discuss my political beliefs, but you shouldn't worry about those anyway. Also, my nickname was Otaku no David back in 2001, a decent amount of time before you could purchase anything anime related at a Best Buy. And no, I'm not ultra obsessed over anything, although I'm sure my family will disagree with me on that point.