We were talking about some aspects of our childhood with a client of mine today, in particular role models - which has been a bit of a topic of the week, as I have explored some of my own thoughts and assumptions on it with people. I am pretty lucky in some sense, as I have a broad network to speak with people about a range of topics to get a kind of cross-section view of how people feel about various areas. While far infallible, I am definitely not in a complete silo.
One of my clients brought up The Phantom Comic strip, which he said, "I have to admit, I still read it today", as if it is something he should be ashamed of. However, how cool is it that he has been reading the strip since he was a kid, and is now in his mid-sixties. And this brought to the fore another conversation.
When I was a kid, my parents didn't get the newspaper regularly, which meant that it was only on random occasions that I got to read the comics. Until today, I hadn't really thought much about this, but I didn't read The Phantom, because it never made any sense to me. Occasionally I would have a try, but it was just some random bit of a story that didn't connect up to anything else. But, I did enjoy reading Hagar the Horrible, The Wizard of Id, and later, Dilbert.
These were good for me to read, because while there were storylines that might have gone through the series, each strip was a standalone piece, so I could get something out of it without knowing what happened in the previous episode. They were a complete package.
But, were they?
No.
Because, while I was able to get some enjoyment, I missed the rest of the story arc. Just like reading a Tweet, I got a dopamine hit, but didn't actually get the full story. And, I think this is analogous with a lot of what is going on now in society, where people don't seem to have as strong friendships as they did in the past, spending less time with people who have known them for a long time. Especially in the younger generations, social circles seem to be "episodic" in the sense that it is for short periods of shared life, before moving on. And while this is important too, it is missing that shared experience of growing and changing together and apart, but still staying in proximity to each other.
I think that this can cause problems in a similar way it might for celebrities who become famous and wealthy, but don't keep the people from their past in their lives. Those people tend to ground us in many ways, because they knew us as we were, and as we are, and are more likely to call us out when we are behaving poorly. And yes, they can also hold us back too, but there are always pros and cons.
There is another interesting part to reading the comic strip over the space of fifty years, and that is how connected we can become when we feel we have invested ourselves into something, even if it is just a comic. And, if you think about it in terms of The Phantom, there is only a sliver of the story given at a time, which means there is space in time to mull it over, to let it ruminate a little, building expectation for the next, but also getting more connected with the story itself.
The journey, not the destination.
Right?
We now live in a binge culture, where everything is on demand, and there is a drive to be "the first" to see, hear, watch, buy whatever is popular. There is no longer the culture of building up the expectation and sipping, savoring the flavor of each mouthful. Content consumption today is, no story, all money shot.
Foreplay is dead.
And it is sad, because people who haven't experienced quality foreplay, don't really know what they are missing out on. And, while this is a metaphor for content consumption, it is also happening quite literally. From what some of my friends have told me, a lot of the younger generation don't seem to be that knowledgeable in bed, which might come down to the massively increased accessibility to porn. Rather than learning through trial and error and building their skills through conversation and shared experience, they jump to the end, without building a strong foundation first.
We are in such a rush to get somewhere, that we don't recognize that we aren't learning core skills that come from the journey. Patience is almost non-existent, investment mindset is shrinking, and curiosity in the unknown seems to be at all-time lows. Everything these days has to be complete, and it is being spoon-fed to us and we are eating it mindlessly.
There is an endless stream of content, and the speed at which it is flowing through our consciousness is increasing, meaning that we are getting "more" but spending far less time understanding it. We no longer connect with a topic long-term, it is all just a passing phase, no commitment, bite, spit out, take another bite - very little of nutritional value getting absorbed into our systems.
When we are in our mid-sixties looking back, we will probably realize that even though we had lots of happy endings, the journey didn't take us very far at all.
Will we find it comical?
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]
