Last week, a friend and I were discussing "Family Guy." Though I enjoy the show thoroughly and am familiar with enough episodes to understand offhand references to episodes and characters in casual campus chatter, I have actually never watched an episode in prime time. In fact, most of the shows I now consider my favorites are ones my friends and I watch on DVD. At this mutual realization, my friend wondered out loud, "In a few years, will new shows go straight to DVD release?"
My response: "But then what will show on TV?" The obvious answer: "Reality TV, which is already taking up most of prime time television." I laughed and turned back to my homework, rather than ponder the prospects of one day turning on the tube to find "American Idol" and its equivalents on every channel, all the time.
But such a scenario might not be all that surprising in five or 10 years. Television shows now count on audiences devoted enough to want to own and re-watch favorite episodes. Fifty years ago, even syndicated re-reruns were inconceivable; today they are commonplace.
I am reminded of the 19th-century transformation of the novel from frivolous serials read by bourgeois to a recognized form of "high" art. Housewives read these books once for their dramatic plots and shock value; book collectors cherish language and character and intend, usually, to reread. The press, in the meantime, has become the place for "reality." We expect at least as much truth from the better news outlets as we do from MTV's "Real World."
In part because I'm a stodgy antiquarian, I am somewhat afraid of such hyper-technology. Browsing last week's Chronicle of Higher Education (my favorite resource for taking the temperature of the collegiate universe), I found two stories that realized some of my worst fears: a University of San Diego professor's essay about his students' declining vocabularies (they asked him the meaning of "pessimistic" and "prig") and Stanford University's announcement that it will distribute iPods to students.
I envision with horror a future where the youth of America might think only in pictures and not in words. What will become of literary connoisseurs, like the writers and readers of this page? Will the 2020 Herald Opinions section be composed exclusively of cartoon images? Shopping for classes via coursecasting? A history final exam asking for a diagram of the French Revolution? I cringe at the thought, mostly because there would be no place for a writer like myself in such a world.
I am reminded of John Stuart Mill's description of the 19th century public sphere, "On Civilization." Traumatized at the thought of a serialized press suddenly opened to the masses, in which his brand of high-minded philosophy might have no place, Mill panicked about the state of public thought itself. And while Mill was right about the times-a-changing , he and his peers were unable to prevent the tide of modernity. I too, am resigned; what alarms me is that at age twenty, I feel old at the sight of what appears to be the cutting edge.
Sometimes, I am conscious of a mini generation gap between my younger sister and me, even though she is only five years my junior - hardly a generation. Yet she cannot remember life before the Internet or cell phones. She knows recent prime time staples like "The Cosby Show" or "The Wonder Years" only in syndication - they air right next to "I Love Lucy."
Am I really that old? Are we, Generation Y, that old? In a column earlier this semester, I remarked on our capacity and seeming desire to stay young and irresponsible as long as possible. At the same time, I find that by age 20, we are no longer the age bracket determining cultural shifts or paradigms.
We communicate and understand through film, through music and in abbreviated text messages, but we have no time for the well-formed sentence. Is this the paradox of our generation, the seeming contradiction that has made us so perplexing to cultural scholars and opened us to frequent criticisms of being culturally barren or unproductive? As our desire for youth grows more intense, our ability to wield youth for cultural power is increasingly fleeting.
We want it all and instantly: a whole season on DVD, a whole course of lectures on podcast - preferably without the big words and inflated significance of a Herald columnist.
Maha Atal '08 thinks a word is worth a thousand pictures.
