Media musings

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I find most alliterative titles, like “Media musings,” to be about 40% cute and 60% annoying, but in this case, it’s a good match for the headline that inspired this post: “Ellen’s Oscar ‘selfie’ a landmark media moment.”

“A what moment?” I mused.  “A landmark media what?”

Because the media is falling over itself to celebrate Ellen’s tweet, and because nature abhors a vacuum, it has fallen to me to be the curmudgeonly voice of this “event.”  One of the first things a curmudgeon does is reach for the dictionary.  A “landmark event” is “an event, discovery, etc. considered as a high point or turning point in the history or development of something.” 

At first I thought it must be the high point of product placement.  The picture in question was taken with a Samsung phone, Samsung was a big Oscar sponsor, and the Academy Awards are the biggest post-Super Bowl marketing event.  But that’s not really new news.  Reading on, I realized the article referred to a landmark social media event. Since tweeting about TV isn’t new, an expert, in this case an Oscar co-producer, had to explain it to the likes of me:

“What it’s all about right now is creating a conversation, and social media allows for the conversation as it’s happening.”

Oh thanks, now I understand.

The dogs don’t like me being a curmudgeon, so while I was writing this post, Kit grabbed my (non-Samsung) phone and snapped a selfie, hoping to create a new conversation.

Kit snaps a selfie

Kit snaps a selfie

“It’s all about what’s happening now,” she says, explaining why she wants to establish a social media presence.

So the price I pay for being a curmudgeon is having to ask all you loyal readers to give my dog a tweet (she accepts treats as well).  After all, she is cuter than Ellen’s crew, and she hasn’t been real annoying since puppy days when she chewed up my wife’s phone.  That really happened, but it’s a story for another day, and right now I need to let you log onto your twitter accounts.  Don’t forget – it’s all about right now.

8 thoughts on “Media musings”

    • Oh, Amy, now you’ve revealed the details of my plot! Kit is not only cuter than Ellen, she’s cuter than me, so I was going shamelessly use her to establish myself as a “happening” kind of guy.

      Actually, I’ve done some preliminary investigations of Tumblr, and though I am still in the scratching-head mode, I see you can spawn a number of sub-blogs, so my dog may very well get a place of her own to post…

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    • There is one phrase from the AP article I referenced that I can’t get out of my head – when the self-appointed spokesman for the event equated following a celebrity on Twitter with “having a conversation.” I know I’m not the only one who thinks that is the most absurd statement to date in 2014!

      The scary connection to that is that I’ve seen various studies on social media indicating that excess usage (which I guess everyone needs to figure out for themselves) does not lead to greater connections but to increased feelings of loneliness and isolation.

      I guess it’s like every other tool humankind has ever invented – both positive and negative ways of use. Thinking about it just makes me grateful I have better things to do than follow Hollywood tweets!

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    • Even the phrase is obnoxious, but like I said in another comment, even more so, to me, is the idea that following celebs on Twitter constitutes having a “conversation.” We were without TV for several weeks due to come home construction. That’s over, but we both find our appetite for it greatly reduced. Don’t think I mentioned that we didn’t watch the Oscars, just read about it secondhand. Sounds like the program would have overloaded the BS filters!

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  4. Unfortunately it’s same here!{ Australia] We follow investigative Journalist’s of which their are few, as you say the rest is filtered BS. By the way Kit is a delightful looking dog.

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