Bloody Red Meat
When given nuances, they cried
out for bloody red meat, “Give us
bowels, hearts, brains and bones.”
“Give us a fountain of blood wrapped
up in flesh. We want to butcher and
gorge upon bloody red meat.”
“We will not receive your subtle gifts.
We will dissect them and find them
bloodless. Give us bloody red meat!”
He said, “Alright! Sacred cows must be
sacrificed to get what you want.” They
said, “What? Our sacred cows? Never!”
He said, “If it is bloody red meat that
you want, understand that our land is
cracked and dry from a lack of blood upon
our own shores. Yet, I will still deliver.”
When the sacred cows were slaughtered,
the people screamed and howled for their
losses. They said to him, “Yes, we wanted
bloody red meat, but we wanted it to be
taken from your skinny bones.”
He said, “I am afraid that this will not be possible, for you see… change has truly come.”
Red Meat 2009 (3:30)
This video is an example of the most basic kind of TV data aggregation.
I scanned for months across hundreds of hours of broadcasting to find this content. It is, however, what all TV late-night show and others like Jon Stewart’s The Daily Show now perform so easily and routinely:
But then, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart does not watch and study TV closely - ethnographically. Instead, they aggregate conveniently, letting scanners (SnapStream) collect the funny stuff for them. Does this help or hinder critical observation?
In short, empty comedy that simply lines up several similar clips and run them end-to-end for cynical ‘gotcha’ laughter. However, when done repeatedly this commercial style of parodic aggregation metastasizes and stupefies media understanding as much as it guarantees to entertain.
There are important differences between TV comedy/parody programming and Cultural Farming. For instance, no video joke on TV can ‘afford’ to be three and a half minutes in length. No TV program can ‘afford’ in-depth (theoretical) contemplation. No TV audience can ‘afford’ surreal, uncomfortable videos that stare back without punch-line or laugh-track... let alone videos that attempt to teach over entertain. And importantly, no amount of parody-joke watching on TV can equal the educational impact of creating something more important - made without preciousness, with simple media tools, anonymously, and for one’s own understanding...
