Writer, Agilist, Elder Geek
(This is a guest post by Lauren Orsini. Thanks Lauren!)
When I was unemployed, my worst enemy was time. It was tough to shift from my identity as a constantly multitasking graduate student to suddenly being a part-time minimum wage cashier living with my parents. I suddenly had hours of free time, which you’d think would be a blessing. But a lack of routine just made me lazy and depressed.
I needed to find something to bring structure and purpose back to my life, and fast.
(Jason Sacks of Comics Bulletin recently offered to document how his fandom experiences helped him grow for his fellow fans in a series of blog posts. Thanks for guest posting Jason!)
It's weird, sometimes, how you don't notice how much you miss something till you have it back. And how once you have something back, how that items becomes a huge part of your life.
Let me explain what I mean, but first let me give you a bit of digression to give you some context on what I mean.
(Not done writing about originality yet. Regular poster Serdar noted that my ideas addressing originality suggested that highly original people can and should address using their ideas via gradual evolution, and that gradual evolution of media was an ideal. I want to address that).
I've been writing a lot about originality in media lately. This is entirely understandable because originality is a big topic in media – in an age of remakes and the shockingly innovative it's going to be something prominent in people's minds. It's also an important subject because people feel very passionate about it – as I noted there are many psychological/cultural factors to a love of originality.
My conclusions actually were that originality is actually not a prime driver in media consumption – socializabitility is. People's interests in media were often heavily influenced by what they can share with and enjoy with others. Originality, in turn, was most important when it helped with that social factor.