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Jun. 5th, 2010 03:19 pm
You Have To Be In It... Deep In It...
Last Wednesday, I watched a man win half a million dollars by bouncing ping-pong balls into beer glasses.
I'm not at liberty to give details, of where I was and what incentives had brought me there. I can say that you too will be able to witness this on Channel Seven in the near future: it's a new game show, in a format that has apparently already done well in the USA. I can also say I spent most of the proceedings in a light trance state. I sat up and started paying attention when I realized this fellow had just won more than David and I paid for our apartment by bouncing marbles into shot glasses. The ping-pong balls came about half an hour later. Yes, they had to go in simultaneously; yes, the trick had to be performed one-handed. I do not begrudge him his good fortune or his manual dexterity. But he can now afford to buy a house outright.
I know this show is ad candy. I suspect it will be successful due to the very circumstance that has floored me: a person with no relevant profession can win half a million dollars by performing party tricks - don't for one moment think these are circus skills. In fact, I think there are going to be some very irate jugglers, acrobats and magicians out there when this goes to air. I understand the Everyman narrative, the escalation of risk and reward that is the basis of the game show, and the weird appeal of the unscripted that was picked up on by "reality" TV. I get it!
Some activities receive financial renumeration, some do not. There is often a clear if unpalatable reason for why this is so, but not always. Sometimes it's down to fashion, or morals. But here we seem to pass into the realm of the completely arbitrary. I mean, this is Lottery in Babylon territory. To put it another way: why have roleplaying games never gone professional, even in their LARP form? That's visible, it requires problems to be solved, it has cards, dice and little hero narratives, and I have a box of trophies down in my garage, none of which came with any cash chaser.
Or have I in fact got it wrong? Being able to occupy our increasing spare time has been earmarked by some as the essential skill for this millenium. Clay Shirky (author of Here Comes Everybody) uses the phrase "cognitive surplus", which I personally find hard to square with throwing bean bags at touch-sensitive lights, but I may be biased by my classical education. I have also read that as a species, the brain capacity of cats have shrunk since they were domesticated, as they are no longer called upon to engage in the same challenges as they once were, such as finding food and patrolling a large territorial area. The question is, does this game show represent a cognitive defence or the start of the decay? As usual, watching someone else do on television what you could do yourself if you wanted to will probably not help either way.
I'm not at liberty to give details, of where I was and what incentives had brought me there. I can say that you too will be able to witness this on Channel Seven in the near future: it's a new game show, in a format that has apparently already done well in the USA. I can also say I spent most of the proceedings in a light trance state. I sat up and started paying attention when I realized this fellow had just won more than David and I paid for our apartment by bouncing marbles into shot glasses. The ping-pong balls came about half an hour later. Yes, they had to go in simultaneously; yes, the trick had to be performed one-handed. I do not begrudge him his good fortune or his manual dexterity. But he can now afford to buy a house outright.
I know this show is ad candy. I suspect it will be successful due to the very circumstance that has floored me: a person with no relevant profession can win half a million dollars by performing party tricks - don't for one moment think these are circus skills. In fact, I think there are going to be some very irate jugglers, acrobats and magicians out there when this goes to air. I understand the Everyman narrative, the escalation of risk and reward that is the basis of the game show, and the weird appeal of the unscripted that was picked up on by "reality" TV. I get it!
Some activities receive financial renumeration, some do not. There is often a clear if unpalatable reason for why this is so, but not always. Sometimes it's down to fashion, or morals. But here we seem to pass into the realm of the completely arbitrary. I mean, this is Lottery in Babylon territory. To put it another way: why have roleplaying games never gone professional, even in their LARP form? That's visible, it requires problems to be solved, it has cards, dice and little hero narratives, and I have a box of trophies down in my garage, none of which came with any cash chaser.
Or have I in fact got it wrong? Being able to occupy our increasing spare time has been earmarked by some as the essential skill for this millenium. Clay Shirky (author of Here Comes Everybody) uses the phrase "cognitive surplus", which I personally find hard to square with throwing bean bags at touch-sensitive lights, but I may be biased by my classical education. I have also read that as a species, the brain capacity of cats have shrunk since they were domesticated, as they are no longer called upon to engage in the same challenges as they once were, such as finding food and patrolling a large territorial area. The question is, does this game show represent a cognitive defence or the start of the decay? As usual, watching someone else do on television what you could do yourself if you wanted to will probably not help either way.
