Those TVs that play high speed “craft” videos in bars and airports are deploying blipverts a la MAXHEADROOM and if this keeps going ima die of a seizure
@futurebird for me those are a good example of 'prediction or inspiration?'
A lot of #PKDick is that way, too. If you go to Technovelgy & browse the #PKD category it's a catalog of social-control #DarkPatterns. The world should be grateful he didn't go into advertising. He'd've still crashed & burned personally but been orders of magnitude more influential than Jay Chiat, who did more than enough damage with just his own deeply-limited intellect. http://technovelgy.com/ct/AuthorTotalAlphaList.asp?AuNum=13
@HistoPol
PKD is best not binged, IMO. Can take you to some dark places.
(Also w/very notable exception of A Scanner Darkly, I can't think of a single big-budget "based on a PK Dick novel" production that actually resembles the work on which it's allegedly based, so kind of ignore the films.) @futurebird
@HistoPol
I just commented somewhere else on the fact that PKD was a shrewd, manipulative person. I think there's a lot to be written about how (apart from skill & talent) he differs from, say, L Ron Hubbard - because he clearly does, but it's hard to put finger on how. One big factor, I think, is that Dick KNEW HIS OWN NATURE really well. He KNEW he could be a serious schmuck, & was not remotely proud of it - also, he mined that self-knowledge ruthlessly for narrative truth. @futurebird
PKD impressed me with his take on racism in America. He’s writing as a total outsider to “the black experience” and even dealing with some very white guilt but in a way that isn’t— even more dehumanizing. He could see something was being erased before he even knew what it was. “flow my tests the policeman said” is a terrifying story.
@FeralRobots@HistoPol@futurebird The audiobook of Scanner is also one of the best audiobooks I've ever heard. Paul Giamatti reads it, although "acts it" is probably a better way to describe it.
@futurebird You are the first person I've come across who seems to remember "blipverts." And I agree that seizure is much more likely than exploding -- there's a phrase for it in Japan: "the Pokemon effect", after kids all over the country had seizures one afternoon ... and they traced it to a special effect in the show.
I wanted to watch MAX HEADROOM so badly as a kid but my parents rightly thought I was too young for the movie. Snuck and watch it anyways— the blipvert sequence.., it scarred me 😨 I was just like 5 or 6 and scared that it could happen to me or to my uncle who loved to flip channels. I remember taking the remote and crying saying “but you’re gonna explode”
@futurebird@Retreival9096 the ABC version came on right after Moonlighting. Exposure to David Addison and Edison Carter back to back had a serious impact on my adolescence.
@futurebird@Retreival9096 What’s great about this story is that it’s such a “kid” thing. He was flipping channels: he was safe. Flipping is what blipverts were meant to STOP.
@futurebird it’s this (did I get this from you? I can’t tell, everything’s just a homogenous stodge since we all went into lockdown a few weeks ago or was it a few years ago who can tell)
“what would TV be like if all that mattered was keeping people watching?”
We have optimized and totally answered this question with science. The results are a nightmare. “maximizing” some variable is never the path to the art that we need the stories that nourish us— the chance to learn about the world and grow all the opportunities video presents — we have chosen to short circuit the brain and huff pure lies.
@futurebird Netflix is terrible about this. No time to digest or reflect on a touching film or emotionally devastating episode of Bojack Horseman (which is all of them), here watch Stranger Things and a bunch of prematurely canceled originals hurry binge now feed the algorithm enrich our executives consume for eternity
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