I've been reading a lot of
Advertising Age lately.
Don't look at me like that. I've always loved advertising -- it's like art, but with definite "win" and "lose" conditions. Advertising is the engineering discipline of the creative world. It's where all of our output has to go out and be judged by the unflinching physical reality of public opinion. It's a lot of fun because it is required to conform to reality.
And the theme at AdAge -- I don't know if you agree, but this is my impression -- has been that advertising and media as we know them are doomed. That things are falling apart; the centre cannot hold. And, you know, I think they're right.
The easiest point, though not the only one, is that advertising can't continue to be an annoyance that people tolerate in order to obtain media, because people are growing less tolerant. One of the points that I keep bringing up here is that there's this incredible shift in the way that we consume media, and the new reality doesn't allow for TV commercials or banner ads. Instead the sales pitch has to itself become the message, or else be ignored completely. I'm not sure whether I think that's good, bad, or indifferent. It's just something that we have to get used to.
I'm not -- good lord, am I ever not -- suggesting that an army of YouTube auteurs with Flip camcorders will take the place of the current studios. I'm saying that the nature of the work itself will change and specialize to appeal to an ever-more-fanatical, ever more distinct group of fans, until a few people can love it so much that they will support its existence singlehandedly.
This is, in other words, the upcoming era of the otaku. You knew we'd get to it eventually.
words from chris, 2009-03-27 02:09:21, los angeles
