The Digital Paradigm Shift: A Tidal Force in Arts and Entertainment

The human being is an inherent story teller. From drawing on cave walls to sharing fireside tales and singing the bard’s histories through village squares, we have striven to pass on our experiences and the truths beyond their facts for as long as we could communicate one to another. Today, in this tradition, those compelled to tell, draw, paint, film, or sing the human tale have found new hope in the digital age.

In or about 1440 Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press. His goal was simple: to spread the gospels of the Holy Roman Empire throughout Europe. By 1500, more than 20 million volumes were said to have been published and distributed throughout the Continent.

This invention did much more, though. It brought the written word into the lives of millions previously unable to read, and ushered in a new way for storytellers to spread their work. It created a new industry, in printing and distributing the written word. The invention had one draw back, however, it was limited in it’s ownership, and writers and story tellers were rarely the owners, so publishers with access to the technology controlled exactly what was produced and marketed to the masses.

Visual art began as early as human beings could gather in small tribes, and arguably before they formed villages or communities on any large scale. By the middle ages, however, like the written word, art was oft paid for and limited to the aristocracy. Art patrons commissioned work, attended to artists and more often than not, enjoyed the art that was created as a perk of their investments. A similar history of music runs parallel to that of art. Once created at the fire side, by the time people gathered into cities under the rule of some aristocrat or another, great musicians, like artists were few and their work was distributed to only those with means.

The modern filmmaking can be traced to the 1890’s. Revolutionary in it’s early day, creators flocked to be a part of the new story telling medium. Equipment costs, filming locations and distribution, though, took a hold in the early 20th century and again removed the art from the artist and firmly embedded it in the hands of the business interests most able to afford the production and distribution of the art.

None of this is bad. Under the guidance of those with a vested interest in the arts and entertainment industry, the arts flourished, making its way into the hearts and minds of nearly every human being on planet Earth.

The invention of the television in the late 1920’s and its mainstreaming in the 1960’s, brought storytellers and artists into people’s living rooms. As before, however, the cost of doing so with such a new technology was high, and exactly what was produced and broadcasted depended on those industry professionals at the top of their fields and not always the artists who were creating the content.

It’s been 30 years since the mainstreaming of the internet. Beginning with such home services like AOL, and later ISPs, the internet, created in the 1960’s for scientists and engineers, the shift toward the masses has made the nebulous internet a commercial boom, and has had one seemingly open ended side effect, as well. It has given the arts and entertainment community a cost effective and accessible way to share, distribute and even create their various art forms.

The advent of "print-on-demand" publishing has put an accessible printing press within arms reach of writers. Music platforms such as Soundcloud™ and Reverb have put recording and editing tools at the fingertips of musicians. Youtube™, Vimeo™ and a host of others has given independent filmmakers access to distribution for movie and film projects.  All of these and so many more have had another welcomed effect. Each of these platforms, as well as the growing social media community platforms like Facebook™, GooglePlus™, Twitter™ and countless others from Instagram™ to Reddit™, give content creators and artists access to global audiences in a way never before imaginable.

As a journalist and a creator, while Amazon™ has become the world's largest retail distributor, and the number of Facebook users has toppled the 1 billion mark, it is impossible to dismiss or ignore this shift in the arts and entertainment paradigm.

Today, there are more than 50 million internet based content creators worldwide. Authors, artists, Filmmakers, special effects designers, artisans and creators of all kinds are flocking to the internet to share their hard work with an audience that seems hungry for greater and greater quantities of artistic media content, with no signs of their appetites slowing in the foreseeable future.

It doesn’t matter what one’s tastes are. It doesn’t matter if a creator is experienced, at the top or bottom of their profession, or if a type of art or literary genre is too obscure or fringe. There is an audience for nearly every kind of creative output.

No longer do existing matrixes for distribution and competition speak to the creative desires of the masses. The advent of “binge watching” TV shows and movies via streaming services such as Netflix™, Hulu™, Amazon™ and others, or via production company or personal “Apps,” has meant that one time competitors for attention can share the light on center stage. E-readers mean that writers aren’t competing for that $20 dollar bill for a hardcover book, but instead, 20 can share it through online e-book services. Artists no longer have to compete for limited gallery wall space to be discovered, but can post via social media or websites and be seen by a mass audience.

Of course, these shifts are not without drawbacks. To be seen in the growing seas of creative content on the internet, an artist or creator must learn new skills. These skills are those that were traditionally only known by insider industry professionals, and are essential to success. Production skills like layout and design, film and photo editing, copy and content editing for authors, and the daunting skills of marketing managers to help attract and grow audiences, must be acquired. As it has shifted the way art is made and distributed, so to the Internet has also become a kind of online school for arts and entertainment creators. One can find DYI videos on almost any subject to assist in acquiring the skills to succeed, or even target audiences with one’s work.

In the new millennium, the edges and boundaries of success have been pushed back and away from creative minds in ways never before possible. Today, it is most reasonable to tell a child to work hard and become any thing they desire to be, and it is becoming more possible than ever before in human history.

In the 21st century, it IS possible. Anything is possible. If you desire a creative career, outlet, hobby or a legacy captured in the increasingly digital record, don’t just dream, but do!

Create, Aspire and Inspire!

Finding Folklore

What is folklore?  When most think of folklore or folk tales they conjure unto themselves images from Grimm fairy tales or Hans Christian Anderson stories.  These certainly do, in fact, constitute the most recognizable of folk stories.  But, do modern novels or films meet the standard?  Are your stories folklore?

When the brothers Grimm traversed Europe they gathered local tales from communities and villages throughout.  They compiled these into a collection that has entertained and even frightened generations.  These European stories of valiant princes and noble heroines, heroic underdogs and monstrous villains have long been staples of what most consider folklore.  But this is not the measure of a folk tale.

Almost by definition, folklore is a story or collection of stories unique to the people, or folk, of a specific geographic region.  Folklore speaks to the hopes, fears and traditions of an area and helps to form a geographic identity.  In this way, the western world and even the United States has it’s own folklore, and these might include many modern stories.

In colonial and post colonial America, in the North East stories like Washington Irving’s The Legend of Sleepy Hollow or Rip Van Winkle or the fictionalization of the life and times of John Chapman, known to posterity as Johnny Appleseed, are examples of early American folklore. 

As settlers moved across the plains   From their observations and their shared experiences western tales of Cowboys, Pecos Bill being one such example, became dime store fodder.  Often depicting the Native American culture inaccurately and even vilifying them as well as sometimes glorifying renegade outlaws like Billy the Kid, western stories became some of the most successful folktales in the world.  These stories were even sold and told in the “old world” and came to solidify a world image of America and it’s people as fiercely independent. 

of the Western U.S., they created their own folklore based on the harsh untamed lands they settled, and the pioneer attitudes that often accompanied such an exodus.

Soon and into the 20^th century, America’s West Coast was settled, and like other regions before, they began to shape a geo-specific cultural identity.  Among the many genres that have come from this region, one of the most prominent is the detective mystery noir.  In Chandler stories or others, the American West Coast is as prominent a character as the protagonist or the antagonist.  Hard-boiled private eyes, defiant of traditional law enforcement, the iconic femme fatale and the stark city-after-dark descriptions unique to this region rapidly skyrocketed the genre. 

Since the inception of these staples of the American story, they have pushed and stretched the boundaries of folklore beyond the fantastical and into the almost surreal.

A new phenomenon in folk tales has emerged in the late 20^th and early 21^st centuries.  The geo-specific nature of folklore has been challenged.  The emergence of cinema and the worldwide web has helped shape a new kind of collective community.  This time, instead of geographic commonality, members of this community tend to be distinguished by age, experiences or other social standards.  In this way, subcultures have formed making stories of nearly all genres folksy by virtue of their distribution or popularity among a specific global social segment.

With all of the story components of traditional folklore, heavy drama, unlikely heroic characters, damsels or innocence in distress and the rise of underdogs to defeat sometime terrifying and melodramatic villains, as well as their proliferation of society’s pop-culture, it is arguable that the Harry Potter stories or Star Wars could be considered a kind of non-geo-specific generational folklore.

With this understanding of classic and modern folklore, do your favorite stories qualify as folklore?  

Do you write folklore? 

Don’t we all?

G.W. Pomichter's Lot 28 on iBooks

https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/lot-28-a-lucky-marks-mystery/id1019799220?mt=11

G.W. Pomichter on Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/Garrett-Pomichter/e/B00J8GRM2Q

Watch TV: It's not the "boob tube" any more (It's Literature)

Modern Fiction by Firelight

"Literature -- an expression and form, in connection with ideas of permanent and universal interest."

The tradition of storytelling dates back to the earliest human beings.  Those early homo-sapiens sat beside the fire and passed on their histories, their hopes, dreams and fears in the flickering orange hues and the creative juices of humanity began to flow.

Soon, these oral stories inspired visual representations.  Early people scratched their stories in stonewalls in caves.  Later, these caverns replaced by monolithic stone constructions, again adorned with tales from the endless creative depths of human consciousness. 

Born of this well of creative spirit, the rudimentary foundations of written language were formed, and from this, stones gave way to papyrus, and then modern paper.  Gathered around the campfire, carving in the flickering torchlight, writing under the candlelight and lamplight, still people created and shared their stories.

In all of these mediums, human beings poured out their collective dreams onto the page.

In the 20^th century new storytelling technologies were birthed into the industrial world.  The film projector poured light out over crowded theaters and soon one creator’s dreams were the collective observations of audiences.  From there, the sounds and voices of these creations filled the air between the streams of photons and immersed movie goers in imaginative and fanciful worlds flickering in hues of grey over the silver screen.

The advent of color in motion pictures blurred the lines between the creator and the audience, making images more lifelike and, when needed, even more fantastic.  But even as the fires of industry burned brightest for storytellers, a movement arose to bring the collected content of human creativity back to the tribe and family, where it was born.

In 1900 at the World’s Fair, the first television was introduced.  In 1937, the first television network was formed and by the 1960’s, the television was fast becoming a household appliance.

Although early decades saw largely the expansion of technology without true purpose, lending credence to expressions like “boob-tube” and “idiot box” because of its uses for pure entertainment and amusement, it wasn’t long before storytellers heard the siren’s song of those tiny boxes in living rooms across the world.

More channels and greater variety in programming soon became the ethos of the medium. 

In recent decades, the technology has led to larger, thinner flatter screens, donning the walls of multiple rooms in our homes.  Broadcast television, born in 1950, gave way to cable and then to satellite signals and today these paradigms of storytelling are currently shifting again to Internet delivery services connecting viewers of many cultures and geographic regions through the global tether that is the world-wide web.  But still, despite it’s reputation and it’s reach, these technological advances have returned the flickering light around which we gather to the fundamental social unit — the family, the tribe.

In all this, one thing remains a constant.  It is the desire, nay — the imperative — of human beings to gather beside the flickering embers, and whether as members of the family, or as citizens of the global tribe of humanity, listen to and tell our stories.

So many may lament the imagined loss of past “golden ages” of literature and then film or even radio, but for that longing and for the nostalgic harkening of lifestyles long past, there is in these changes some consolation.  It is comforting to think of those early human beings, so disparate than we in their struggles for survival, seated in the setting sun’s last rays, beside a flickering amber glow to share their stories of hope, their fears of what lay beyond, their histories and their dreams, so like we in the 1080p glimmer shown over carpets, couches and easy-chairs. 

So, before you judge that tiny box or massive screen, consider its implication.  It is the modern campfire.  Consider, if I might ask, that it is not merely the latest gadget, but it is your end of a thing string that tethers humanity to the first of us — today’s stories to the first stories — today’s truths to the first truths of our existence.

Just another thought "thunk" by a storyteller no smarter than you.