Watched a video recently that was talking about how media has become quite dominated by referential tropes at the expense of actual narrative construction. Basically the plot has become just a structure that supports the arrangement of references to well worn moments in other media. Examples would be stuff like Family Guy and later Simpsons, but it crops up in all sorts of stuff now. Instead of media literacy being about understanding the structure and dynamics of a story, the new discourse often focuses on tracing references across different media products. It’s much like “remember-berries” but across the whole of media culture, and it often can decontextualize effective storytelling into a collection of tropes via surface level discourse.
Early Simpsons was also packed with references, but the distinction was that the stories worked seamlessly even if the audience didn’t catch them. Catching the references was a bonus.
Exactly. The story still works fine without them landing because they are ancillary to it. They had something to say besides “remember this other thing?”.
It’s mostly about David Foster Wallace and Quentin Tarantino, but talks about how TV media culture in particular has brought this sort of channel surfing aesthetic as a form of cultural commonality in media consumption (as opposed to snooty deep analysis, etc). It’s kind of interesting if you are acquainted with their works, but overly long otherwise.
Watched a video recently that was talking about how media has become quite dominated by referential tropes at the expense of actual narrative construction. Basically the plot has become just a structure that supports the arrangement of references to well worn moments in other media. Examples would be stuff like Family Guy and later Simpsons, but it crops up in all sorts of stuff now. Instead of media literacy being about understanding the structure and dynamics of a story, the new discourse often focuses on tracing references across different media products. It’s much like “remember-berries” but across the whole of media culture, and it often can decontextualize effective storytelling into a collection of tropes via surface level discourse.
Early Simpsons was also packed with references, but the distinction was that the stories worked seamlessly even if the audience didn’t catch them. Catching the references was a bonus.
“Easter Eggs”, used to be the stories way of winking at the audience. Now the story is the got damned eggs.
Very excited to see “THE STORY IS THE EGGS” painted on a wall in the next episode of the Simpsons.
Exactly. The story still works fine without them landing because they are ancillary to it. They had something to say besides “remember this other thing?”.
Any chance you have a link to that video?
Sounds interesting
It’s mostly about David Foster Wallace and Quentin Tarantino, but talks about how TV media culture in particular has brought this sort of channel surfing aesthetic as a form of cultural commonality in media consumption (as opposed to snooty deep analysis, etc). It’s kind of interesting if you are acquainted with their works, but overly long otherwise.
https://youtu.be/7j0gj-UIo9g
It also gets some bonus points for calling out QT’s zionazi arc quite clearly early on.
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy: