Esteban Sez | 01

I have asked my friend Esteban Von Disco to write the occasional opinion piece for this blog. This is his first attempt.

Mr Trivia

Like most of you I have been a long time user of ‘blogging and social networking, but now these established forms of communication are being threatened by some new players.  Or are they?

Radiophonics once thought suitable only for the streaming of ‘spoken word product testimonials’ and the endless repetition of 1970s rock music songlets, has gone from being a crackpot concept like ‘ink delivered by a ball-point’ and has morphed into a more user-friendly technology. Believe it or not, some Japanese science boffins have added moving pictures to the sounds of the Radiophone.

The name of this invention – Television -  isn’t too promising and we think Cathode Viewer has a better ring to it.  As yet, the image one can receive on a Television unit doesn’t rival the quality of watching a video on one’s iPhone, but it’s not all about the sound and the pictures. There are some who claim to enjoy Television’s rigid schedule of comedies, dramas, documentaries and something called reality shows; they even seem to tolerate the frequent interruption of the schedule by short product presentations. I find it difficult to believe that anyone will ever accept a Television company telling an audience what it can watch, and when, but there are some who are doing this on a nightly basis.

Even more troubling is the so-called ‘print’ revolution. The cardinals and high priestesses of print reproduction communications or Paperists, make claims for their various distribution devices that, frankly, seem exaggerated. A folded sheet of paper printed with a thin film of static ink is called a pamphlet.  Paperists say great ideas can be disseminated this way, but I already get quick hits of information in clean, snappy tweets. The only way I see the pamphlet replacing Twitter is if I need to wedge something under a wonky table leg in my local café.

A manifold of nested pamphlets is apparently called either a newspaper or book. Some say they prefer this method of information payload deployment to the usual experience of using a Kindle or a laptop computer, but I suspect these people are early adopters – that is to say iconoclastic hipsters more interested in appearing ‘cutting edge’ than their humdrum neighbours and co-workers.

For those of us who are content with our time-honoured social networking and web surfing pursuits, these reports of strange ideas and technologies are concerning when they pop up on our favourite news sites, but these geegaws and novelties are the playthings of intellectual lightweights.  Who is really interacting with them? Teenagers. The very young. The same people who reject online gaming for organised sports and bushwalking. Who but teenagers would write and post letters to each other? I mean, Hello? WTF? You have a smartphone sitting in your pocket.

Newspapers. Cathode Viewers. Radiophones in automotive conveyances. It’s all kids’ stuff and will surely pass into history in the same way as the solar cell or milk in a glass bottle.

Mark my words.

Esteban Von Disco