The Mediasphere

So I feel kinda bad.  I don’t know if you could tell or not, but Taiwan On has been contributing to mockable somewhat regularly of late as Jeff finishes his book and while I deal with the non-penis-related cancer scare of 2009 (more on that tomorrowish).  See, we have this Lennon/McCartneyesque rule at mockable where no one is credited…but it makes me feel kind of bad to not even tell you guys that there another non-guest mocker.  So…um…there’s another non-guest mocker, here’s Taiwan On:

I touched on this the other day, but I really think it needs more exploring. Because the mediasphere is raining down on this planet like an asteroid sized plate of baked ziti. What are we supposed to do? Order the side salad? 

The mediasphere rains down on us in the following forms:

– Newspapers (not so much anymore)

– Magazines (there must be a trillion of them)

– Broadcast radio (still alive)

– Satellite radio (pretty cool)

– Broadcast television (these guys are going down)

– Cable television (channel 990327 is my favorite)

– The Interweb (the main perpetrator of information overload)

– Other media forms that I either overlooked or that are being created in the lab as I write this 

Let’s start with the Interweb. I friggin’ hate it when the guy down the hall stops by my office and says something like “Hey, what about that GloboCom deal?” And I say “Who is GloboCom?”. And they just roll their eyes and say “It was all over the SnarkFarkoBlark blog site this morning.”. WTF? Just leave me alone and let me enjoy the ancient runes of The WVSR and ESPN.com. 

Now cable. How many channels can there be? They can’t all be making money. And they are certainly not all “quality hangs”. So what is their reason for existing? But they are there, and I can’t watch every one. Even with a DVR. I’d have to clone myself several times and then force my clones to overdose on methamphetamines. 

Broadcast TV. Most of their programming can be totally ignored. But the local news? Now there is a conundrum. 95% crap but always one or two tidbits that could prove useful. So do I watch the entire 30/60 minutes looking for that tidbit? I’m drowning here. 

Satellite Radio. As I stated above, some pretty cool stuff. Good for killing time in the automobile. Overall, I would say this is the least heinous member of the mediasphere. But still, there are so many choices. How to decide? 

Broadcast Radio. Again, automobile entertainment. Does anyone still have a home radio? 

Magazines. I love magazines. There is a bookstore slash newsstand near here that has, I think, every magazine that is being published on the planet. In twenty languages. I hate the fact that I cannot read every one of them. 

Newspapers. I love newspapers. But do I ever read any more than 10% of a newspaper? When I have the (ahem) spare time? Not bloody likely. 

Is it just me or is it truly overwhelming? My solution is to read the WVSR every day, and, of course, mockable.org. Some ESPN, Google, an occasional newspaper article, a random magazine on the airplane, and then fuck it. I’m sure the world will get on fine without my keen insight. 

And don’t even get me started on Facebook and Twitter……