Sunday, December 2, 2012

Is Story-Telling (and, other forms of media) A Form Of "Release", or, Possibly, A Way Of Changing the World?

The other Opiate of the Masses?
People love to read and wright stories, it is true. They immerse you into a new world, where virtually anything is possible. Every single page is a canvas for ideas, ideas that can captivate and change the lives of people. But can the power of these stories be used to help people become more... I guess you could say "in sync"? Allow me to digress; since books allow you to, like I said, put you into a new world, they can be used to take your mind off thing happening around you. So, in a way, I am saying that books are the "opiate of the masses". Now, of course, this is only an opinion, but if it were true, what possibilities could stem from it? I mean, maybe you could calm down Psychopaths with a short story; get over depression with a novel. And, there is some truth to this; stories have change the world, in some ways. For example, the song "Mary Had a Little Lamb" is based on a true story. That is write, a famous song (well, kind of famous) would not have existed if not for written word. Maybe things like radio is just the next step to showing the true power of books.
     Radio is basically books acted out into words, so it will probably have the same effect that books have when it comes to what were talking about in this article. I think, one of the best proof of this thought is the War of the Worlds (for some interesting information on the topic of War of the Worlds and some copycats of Orson Welles, click here) radio broadcast. It was Halloween 1938, and although most people figured out that the broadcast was just some silly joke, some didn't. And, yes, people died. If books can change so much in history, and radio, as well, then so can TV and films, correct?
      Cinematography and television have helped start up some big things in history, and they haven't even been along for a long time. Through film, your emotions and thoughts on things going on in your head and in real life can be expressed in both both realistic and surrealistic embodiments, and shown to people in a way that the creator envisioned it. And through television, information can be given or received, and the ideas that I expressed earlier about film can be perfected and fit together with other of these idea clusters in an amazing symphony of pure awesomeness*. And sometimes the books and writings that were the original topic of this article are so inspirational that one creator of film of TV is like "Oh, my god, I must make that!" and they make their own version of it and it just goes to show how things work out in interesting ways and how one inspiring thing can inspire another inspiring thing and so on.
     And, now, we get to the one very big clutter of media and communication and thought: the internet. Since I could rant about the internet and most of the other things I talked about in this article for a very long time, I am going to write articles about the internet and other things I talked about in this article later. Anyway, the internet is basically a giant brain cluster of countless hours of information. You can express yourself in anyway possible, in thousands of different ways, from videos to fanfictions, from blog posts just like this one to private Emails. You can read about the history of the Earth or watch a mutant pop-tart cat with an farting rainbows flying through a somewhat overrated version of outer-space while singing a somewhat obnoxious song (modern surrealism at its best). Basically, the internet is all of this stuff mashed into one.
     I hope you liked this article and please give me some feedback in the comments.












*Especially for shows like FRINGE and Doctor Who, in my opinion at least. Does anyone agree with me? Leave your answer in the comments.

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