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Top-level
 And even as I write that, I realize that I'm also wrong. The Medium is the Message is the first chapter in Understanding Media. The Medium is the Massage is the followup. Regardless, The Medium is the Massage is the pop-art version of Understanding Media, and one without the other is still silly. 10 comments
Spend less time reading theory and more time making shit (I say to myself as I read a book of theory instead of making shit.) But look, it's like this: I make a lot of shit. I'm making a lot of shit with a lot of people. I'm leading a group of people who are making shit, and I'm hoping to turn that group of people in to a movement of lots of groups of people making lots of shit. And that means that I need to read some theory sometimes, if only so I can try and avoid the mistakes or recreate the successes of the past. Nothing sets the time period in which this book was written more clearly than this: The book is talking about a zine directory called Factsheet Five. I'd never heard of F5 before, but it appears to have been very influential in the early days. I wonder if it (or a decedent) is still around? Sounds like I need to find some more info on this Lancaster guy. We fought hard to learn how to bind books ourselves. Lots of trial and error. I wish I had a tutorial from a 90s Zinester when I started down that road. Maybe there's still things I can learn. (I was supposed to stop reading a while ago, but I keep going because I'm fascinated. I guess that's the mark of a good book.) Now they're talking about a self published book called Cigarette Boy. I found some photos in this Adafruit blog review (even though I've soured on adafruit themselves, I appreciate the review) It looks Beautiful, and I hope to encounter a copy (or a reprint or a scan) at some point in the near future. Now they're talking about the Tape Beatles https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tape-beatles Their works make extensive use of materials appropriated from various sources through a process they call "Plagiarism®". Apparently their logo was the AT&T globe with mickey mouse ears. I can't find it online, go figure. |
Gregory's Server
And, ultimately, none of it matters.
Nothing the author says here is factually incorrect. It's a little reductionist, but it's not a scholarly work on the history of media theory, it's a quick survey of media theory before getting in to ideas about making media.
As a quick survey, summing up McLuhan as something like "yeah, the medium is the message, which means that the medium touches and transforms the message, which is why the book is called The Medium is the Massage" is fine.
There's enough meat there that anyone who cares can go dig in to the referenced texts in more detail, and there's enough actual summation there that most people don't need to go read McLuhan. That'll slow them down. They need to tell a story now, right now, using the tools on hand, regardless of the quality.
And, ultimately, none of it matters.
Nothing the author says here is factually incorrect. It's a little reductionist, but it's not a scholarly work on the history of media theory, it's a quick survey of media theory before getting in to ideas about making media.
As a quick survey, summing up McLuhan as something like "yeah, the medium is the message, which means that the medium touches and transforms the message, which is why the book is called The Medium is the Massage" is fine.