To no one’s surprise, Earth is not doing so well on Earth Day in 2020. Things are not looking up anytime soon, and there is no co-ordinated action to fix it. As custodians of this planet, we’ve truly f-ed this up. Whilst Elon Musk is looking to colonise Mars, and it has never been more apparent that we actually do need a backup, the cast majority of us are stuck with this one planet. What can we do to fix the mess? We know what we need to do, but it will required everyone to be less selfish, consume less, and think about the greater good of the planet. None of these things will be done in the foreseeable future, and there is no political will great enough to push through measures that work. The only thing that Earth can do is to take things into its own hands and stop humanity from consuming at the same rate as they were before and to stop pumping toxic fumes into the atmosphere and polluting its waterways. None of this is to say that the current crisis is good for the planet, but there is no way we can continue to live the way we did in the second half of last century and the beginning decades of this century. As the Native American saying goes:
YouTubers will be one of the few to survive this crisis Pt. I
We used to laugh at YouTubers. As recently as two years ago, people looked down on people making content in their own homes with a makeshift home studio setup. People moving their content to an online platform was something that we didn’t see as much value in a few years ago. Now it all seems to be a wise move. Moving to YouTube allowed many of these content creators to better engage with their audience and own that relationship. Traditional media scoffed at first and YouTubers continued to be looked down upon by the former, but this is changing slowly, and will only be accelerated by this crisis. Old media is dying, and those who sweated blood and tears trying to make it own their and divorce themselves from their employers in old media will reap the rewards of all that work in the future. Google, as a platform has provided many content creators with a way to own the relationship with their audience, but it remains precarious. A lot of content has been demonetised and some creators have even been de-platformed, especially for producing political content. The money will not flow forever, and for some, the money has already dried up. This has led many creators to more lucrative sources of monetisation such as Patreon, that allows the audience to directly fund the creator, which again helps to bypass the platform itself. YouTube will prove as suffocating a platform as their former employers, so some YouTubers are already departing the platform, and the lucky ones will be able to take their audience with them.
Jeremy Corbyn, Bernie Sanders, the simulation and screenwriting tropes
In screenwriting, there is a trope of making the heroes and villains opposites of each other. In the Marvel Cinematic Universe, this trope is reflected in the fact that the villains have the same powers as the heroes, but eeeevil. In The Dark Knight, there is the famous refrain by the Joker that he and Bruce Wayne were the same, and that the latter completed him, and why so serious, etc. The point is, the simulation in which we all live (because there cannot be an explanation for the narrative convenience it all) has thrown up the same characters, the heroes and villains being mirror opposites of each other, and sharing the same powers, and every other screenwriting trope we are all starting to see the simulation as it truly is. Are we to believe that it is just a coincidence that the UK and the US both have a blonde haired populist right winger supported by boomers and a white haired populist left winger supported by young people? Much like the end of Avengers: Infinity War, the heroes have lost for now with the departure of both Jeremy Corbyn and Bernie Sanders as viable contenders. You may argue about that but this is not a politics piece - I have avoided calling anyone villains and I’m going to argue that Thanos is the coronavirus instead of Trump, so that’s my attempt at political impartiality. This piece is more of a discourse on simulation theory and bad screenwriting tropes, and my hope is that I go on to become a better screenwriter than whoever’s writing the script for this simulation.
What is wrong with young people just wanting to be influencers?
There is this trend for media people and adults in general to describe young people’s digital landscape in dystopian terms. They talk about how dumb young people just want to be influencers now. They talk about the detriment to their mental health, of growing up in a social media landscape that forces them to be constantly exposed to the public, which forces them to prevent a front, and to create content to broadcast and that’s ignoring the more scandalous content that is often broadcast privately.
I could make a pretty solid argument that the choices teenagers make now with social media will stand them in good stead for the future. As I myself try and struggle to build and maintain a social media profile, I realise, as I should have known, that it is very difficult. The “youths’ are able to do this because they were born in it, or to paraphrase Bane from The Dark Knight Rises, people of my generation merely adopted social media, young people were born in it, moulded by it. So I struggle, but better late than never, I have begun what is an arduous journey to develop a personal brand, because if there is a truism that I have learnt, it’s this - if you don’t exist online, you don’t exist.
The other thing that I had to learn the hard way is the importance of personal branding, and building that brand, whatever it may be. In life, you want to be someone that people have heard of, someone people seek out, and much like earned media for companies, you want inbound traffic to your profile, your services. In short, you need people to approach you because the converse is so, so expensive. At a certain point, it becomes very expensive for all of us to spend our increasingly valuable time to seek people out, to find clients, to reach potential customers for our message and our services.
We all need to build a personal brand because you want people to seek you out, not the other way round, and this is the argument I am making for today’s youths. What is wrong with young people just wanting to be influencers? Influence is just another for of personal brand and gaining followers is just another form of brand building. In brand building, it is really important to have a head start in this, and the “youths’ of today have the benefit of that head start.
A generation before, millennials and people broadly of my generation dreamed of being professional footballers or professional sports people in general, and what’s wrong with that? Professional footballers continue to be paid more and more so financially, at least giving yourself a change to reach their level is worth a shot, and there is nothing wrong with becoming fit and healthy in pursuit of that dream. Being an influencer is, if anything, easier than being a professional footballer, there are more opportunities available, and the personal brand that is built in pursuit of being an influencer is invaluable.
There are many, many careers where the added exposure and a large following would be incredibly useful and I, for one, would not rule out hiring someone just because of the large following. There is a timelessness to personal brand building - it has always been useful, and it probably won’t be any less useful in the future. I only wish that I knew this earlier. So to those who say that the “youths” of today are growing up in a technological dystopia where they just want to be influencers I present my argument that influence is just another form of personal branding, and that will never not be useful.
A new PS5 Controller and putting away childish things
in Thoughts
Sony made a strange announcement about their new generation console, teasing us with a BMW i3 inspired controller, with a slick dual tone design. This, combined with the news of the release of Modern Warfare Season 3 in tandem has led me to the realisation of a simple fact: I couldn’t care less about video games any more. It’s a weird feeling, because there may still be a day when I want to pick up a controller (what will controllers look like in the future? What cars would their design be based on?) and play a first person shooter, idling in my living room, or training myself to get better in the hopes of being a Twitch streamer (if Twitch is still around…), but right now, I know that there are more productive ways to spend my time. Mine is a lost generation of gamers who spent a lot of our time playing first person shooters without the opportunity to get rich the way gamers today could. There were still wealthy gamers, but there wasn’t the same amount of money in the game, much like modern footballers, earning an order of magnitude more money than footballers in the past. There were millionaire footballers back then, but now even the worst premier league clubs pay their players seven figures. Simply put, video games did not provide me and other gamers a legitimate career back then and now I’m properly past it. There are better hobbies, and better ways to waste your time. Even making stupid TikTok videos would probably stand me in better stead for the future. So be it, then, it’s time to put away childish things, permanently, for now.
Cruising into recovery in the post corona world
in Thoughts
I haven’t been on a cruise for over a decade, because, you know, I’m not a retiree. Not that cruises are just for old people, there is actually a compelling case for why cruises should appeal to everyone, including young people. It’s like a much more comfortable version of a sleeper train, or the glamping version of backpacking.
Why carry everything on your back when you can just leave everything in your travelling hostel? Why go interrailing through landlocked Europe when you can just go to the nicest port cities around the Mediterranean? It makes even more sense if you’re in America, and you’ve got the ability to stay on a floating hotel whilst travelling around the Caribbean.
So it should come as no surprise that a company like Carnival Cruise will be able to make a case to young people in the long term, and should be able to recover in a post corona world. Yes, at the moment it’s a terrible idea to go on a floating hotel, with narrow corridors and spaces intended to be packed with diners and audience members. but hey, how’s that different to buildings on land?
I know people who works on cruises and it’s a close knit crew, so sure, having so many people working in close proximity is not a good idea, but people staying in their rooms? I mean, there are lots of balconies, after all. So Carnival stock will likely go back up because people will take cruises again. A lot of reputational damage has been done to the idea of the cruise, but I would make an argument that if airlines could recover, and they will recover, then so will cruises.
People will fly again, less people, sure, but it will survive. People will want to travel again, less so, but they will do it. Make sure everyone’s health is monitored whilst on a cruise, make sure only healthy people can get on, but you can’t fly without going through an airport, and security and health checks is not exactly perfect there either.
This is an opportunity for us all to ponder when industries, despite the conventional wisdom, will actually recover, and I can tell you that working in architecture, I worry a lot more about the construction industry as a whole than I do about the travel industry.
We all know how to use Zoom meetings now...
Human beings are endlessly adaptable, and we are able to learn new behaviours and new tools on a continuous basis long into old age. That is why, in this new world of working from home and staying home, we have all learned how to do Zoom meetings. Everyone from workers, family members and podcasts are using Zoom meetings to do what they used to do in person. The question I have, though, is how did this happen? In the past year, I have used about 10 different video conferencing applications. We’re talking Google Hangouts, Slack, Skype, WebEx, GoToMeetings, House Party and several others. This has led me to wonder how this happened, how did we go from a duopoly of Skype and maybe one other video conferencing tool to this fragmented, balkanised, world of video conferencing. There are so many options, and it feels like every month, I’m being asked to learn a new one. Now I pride myself on being an autodidact that enjoys learning new tools, but when even I forget where the screen share button is in the latest video conferencing tool that I have been sent a link for, it shows that there is a limit to learned behaviours. We know how the tool works, but the buttons are all in a slightly different place. The user experience for all these tools are similar, but just different enough to annoy us when we are sent that link to yet another new tool. This is a good reminder that UX designers are really important in the development of a product. An app or a website should be designed in such a way that people can just pick it up because that’s how intuitive it is. So I applaud the UX designers behind Zoom for making it as intuitive as it is, to the point where people of all ages, from school kids to their grannies, are able to use it for everything from classes to weddings; thanks to Zoom and its excellent UX, we are all able to do all these things and more, but please, please, can we just decide on one or two video conferencing tools, and stick with it? If we all know how to use Zoom meetings now, let’s just stick with it.
Quibi in Quarantine
in Technology
Quibi has finally arrived! I know it’s funny, but maybe it’s genius, maybe it’s not; maybe, it dies a death without anyone taking notice of it, but we have now. I first heard about Quibi via The Verge, and for those of you who don’t know anything about it, Quibi is meant to stand for “Quick Bites”. I know, that’s a bad start, but stay with me. These “Quick Bites” is meant to be consumed on your commute to work. I know what you’re thinking - how long does it take to walk from one’s bedroom to the living room? This was designed for a time before the coronavirus and our quarantine life, when you know, we went t these places called ‘offices’, a separate building that workers would go to just to be on their laptops.
Anyway, Quibi is a streaming platform for short form video content that lasts for about 10 minutes each, thus creating a headache for content creators who are used to creating what some would say is more traditional long form content that has enough breathing room for - let’s say - a story, or well-drawn characters, or a beginning, middle and end. That’s unfair, I know, short films exists and they are absolutely valid forms of content that tells a story in under 10 minutes. It would perhaps, have made more sense to have Quibi function as a platform for short film makers like myself, in which case this new short form video streaming platform would be providing a valuable service to all the under-appreciated short film makers out there, and I know so many myself. But then again, short films, even in this day and age, is not seen as commercially viable content and so what we’re actually going to get with Quibi are well produced YouTube and TikTok videos. Hurray!
I’m an avid consumer of YouTube content and there are so many talented YouTubers from Marques Brownlee to MrMobile (Michael Fisher) but I have never touched any of the content from the YouTube Original section, because I consume media on YouTube not just because of the production values but for the niche content that I’m personally interested in. YouTube is able to do this because it serves up User Generated Content or UGC. How a platform like Quibi intends to serve content tailored to individual users when all of its content is produced like a normal production with traditional talent and crews, I have no idea.
Apparently all content on Quibi will be filmed in such a way that it works on your phone in both portrait and landscape formats, which again, is a headache for traditional productions but does at least, sound kind of innovative. Maybe we go back to traditional square-ish formats like 4:3, so that scenes are framed in such a way it works for portrait, landscape and Instagram, that might be winner. For now, however, we get to enjoy quality content like Chrissy’s Court starring former model Chrissy Teigen in a judge show parody which does actually, sound like it could be quite good, thanks mainly to the talent involved and not because the idea is objectively good on paper.
Then, there is the question of whether it is a good idea to release Quibi when everyone is in quarantine, and everyone has all the time in the world to consume traditional long form content, but that may prove to be the ingenious move of all. When everyone is stuck at home consuming content, suddenly content is a blue ocean where every format has a place. When we are time rich and have no need to choose between different types of content, we are free to try everything - it’s time for us YouTubers and short film makers to try shooting vertical video.