Media

Alternate Steves: The Lost Empire

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com, Steve’s Tumblr, and Pillowfort.  Find out more at my newsletter, and all my social media at my linktr.ee)

I continue my series imagining different cultural, technical, and economic trends using myself as a lens. We’ve met a Steve who was in on the work-from-home craze of the early 90s, a Steve that watched Ohio’s high-speed rail boom of a similar era. Now let’s meet a very divergent Steve, in a world where big media empires crumbled – for the most part.

TRANSCRIPT FROM SAN JOSE STATE UNIVERSITY RADIO: Professor Steven Savage on “TeachMeet”

Hello everyone out there! It’s your favorite lecturer on media history and the law, and by favorite I of course mean the only one. And that’s even my entire job!

So let’s get to my big announcement, one that’ll appeal to all twelve of you that took my “Media Turning Points” two-hundred level course. Can all you dozen please tell your friends?

My friend Serdar Yegulalp – yes, the guy you see in Rolling Stone – is coming to campus to speak on his new book “The Empire Of Media.” It’s his latest novel, a noir-deco tale of an alternate history where five giant corporations control world media. There’s murder, mayhem, skulduggery, and rich people doing awful things to each other. Now as much as we enjoy a good alternate history that involves annoying people killing each other, there’s even more!

You may ask why you haven’t heard of this novel yet. Well, that’s because it got released on the East Coast by Penguin. It hasn’t made it’s way here yet because, well, we all know how that works. But it also lets me speak with him on my next book – because we wrote ours together. Plus I get to ride his coattails.

Yes, some of you heard because I can’t shut up, but my next non-fiction book (with less murder) is coming out via Omnipress. It’s “The Lost Empire of Culture” and it’s going to explore how we got here in the world of media, communications, and ownership. Not interesting you say? More rich people being horrible? Well stay tuned.

Serdar and I wrote our books together because one thing that people forget – besides you specific twelve students, thanks again – is that we nearly had a world where only a few oversized corporations owned most of the media. Yes, you may have heard it, but he asks what happens if that was real, and I explore how we dodged not so much a bullet but an atomic bomb.

Imagine Disney as a dominant economic and cultural force, instead of a cautionary tale and favorite political target of politicians before you were born. Not many people remember the Berne Convention walkout of 1993. Or perhaps you’d like to get back to skullduggery as I dissect how several media companies, while pretending to cooperate, ended up backstabbing each other.

As you’ve heard me say, we dodged a world where ownership of works was basically eternal and creativity at best optional.

Imagine a world without your regional publisher. Imagine a world where Kinko’s isn’t sued over a price-fixing scandal for books! Imagine Diamond being worse than they were! Yes, I’ll even go into the famous Paper Scandal of 2015 for anyone who cares about it – which honestly isn’t me, I just like to be complete.

Serdar will cover what could have happened in a world of megacorporations putting out cartoons. I’ll cover why Publishers and Copyhouses got so big and why lawyers got into fistfights in Sweden. Hopefully it also means our books sell on both coasts.

See you there! Look for details soon! And for everyone attending my “Zines in action class” tomorrow, please bring your homework!

This was a fun one. I didn’t want to spell out the world too much, but more explore it from someone’s point of view. What’s media like when big media powerhouses wore down and in some ways destroyed themselves? What’s it like when publishers and distributors gain much more power but are also regional?

Steven Savage

Dada And Empty Media

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com, Steve’s Tumblr, and Pillowfort.  Find out more at my newsletter, and all my social media at my linktr.ee)

Though i don’t discuss it as much here, I have an interest in the art movement of Surrealism and its origins. Surrealism is fascinating in its many manifestations, it intersects with politics and culture movements, and the many personalities and people are compelling. As I continue to learn about it, I keep finding new lessons, one of which I want to share here.

Surrealism’s origins are rooted in Dada, an art movement that appeared post World War I that was mistrustful of the supposed age of reason and the horrors of the time. Dada appeared to be art, in form of paintings or performances and such, but was intentionally nonsensical. Today it may seem amusing, but at the time people found it infuriating – imagine giving a speech made of nonsense words and angry folk rioting.

Dada laid the groundwork for Surrealism, something else I may discuss, but what fascinated me most about Dada beyond that was that it used the framework of existing media and filled it with nonsense. What an idea that the container of art can be abstracted from any meaningful content! Perhaps its easy to understand people angered by Dada, confronted with a play or a song or a painting that had the form of work but was filled with nothing

You can remove the art from art but still have a form we associate with art.

That idea has sat with me for some time since I had it, but I hadn’t done much with it – as my interests were in Surrealism and how the artistic framework was a vehicle for unconscious, almost spiritual expression. But lately I thought about Dada using a framework of art filled with nonsense and internet content and what we learn from it.

It’s hard to find anyone who won’t complain about nonsense, slop, propaganda, and low-effort content on the internet. I certainly do as any of my regular readers knows, and to my gratitude, tolerate. I’m sure you’re also used to encountering and complaining of such things.

We wonder how people can take such things seriously. How they can fall for propaganda or low-info listicles and the like? Well that’s because, beyond our vulnerabilities or ability to enjoy trash, it comes in the form of information. Internet dross has the shape of information or art or spiritual insight even if it’s filled with B.S.

No different than how Dada took the form of art and blew people’s minds by delivering rampant nonsense.

Think about how easily technology lets us have the form of something useful. It’s easy to spin up a website or a book or a video, pour anything into premade patterns, even go to technology or freelancers to pour something into whatever information container we chose. We have the tools to make nothing look like something, to make form so good we easily mistake it for solid value.

And, sometimes, it rubs us the wrong way. We know it looks like information but it’s not. Maybe it’s easier to understand people enraged over Dada, tricked by form. We’re in the Uncanny Valley of Communication just like they were.

This is why the history of art and media matter and why I treasure these rabbit holes I go down. The past has many lessons for the present. Come to think of it, maybe if we pay more attention to the past we’ll have a better present . . . one with not just form but form delivering real meaning and valuable information.

Steven Savage

Superman 2025: Take All The Swings

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com, Steve’s Tumblr, and Pillowfort.  Find out more at my newsletter, and all my social media at my linktr.ee)

(Yep, I’m taking a break from talking about technology to talk about culture, which I probably should do more . . .)

Superman 2025 was something I wasn’t enthused about, since I’m sort of tired of superhero blockbusters. Then I saw the commercials with Krypto the Superdog and had to admit I was going to see it because that was pretty bold. Superman, whatever it would be, clearly wasn’t as ground through the marketing mill as many of the recent Marvel movies. Again, dog in a cape.

And after seeing Superman I am pleased to say it is not only good, it is one of the most, if not the most comic book movie I’ve seen. It is, much like it’s titular main character, absolutely honest about what it is, without shame or irony – but also without apology. Superman is about a man who’s just trying to be a good guy, and it’s a film trying to be a good comic book movie.

The film opens both in media res but in universe res, with a quick text intro that manages to recap the setting in a few sentences then Superman shows up with the stakes already high. It tells you to hold on to your seats, because the film isn’t really going to hold your hand but just dive right in and keep going. This means we are spared the inevitable origin story, and the film also trusts you to pick up the details even if you’re not deep into comics lore (and there’s just enough the uninformed can get most of it).

And the comics elements come thick and fast and never let up. The movie takes a lot of swings with DC continuity, and the various characters and elements of the world keep coming until over halfway into the film. The film doesn’t hit out of the park every time, to continue the swing metaphor, but it doesn’t miss anything either. Some elements of this huge comic book movie work better or are done better than others, but nothing fails – and when the story connects it connects.

There is a lot. There are multiple superheroes. There is a kaiju. There is politics. There is romance. There are twists. There are robots. There is, once again, a superpowered dog. There’s also a lot that may seem painfully timely, but some of it is only timely because we have to keep relearning certain lessons.

This alchemical mix of comic book elements could not have worked without an absolutely stellar cast. Every single member of the cast is on, handling their roles with sincerity and enthusiasm and that sells all the dense elements of the movie. David Corenswet totally steps into the role of Superman/Clark Kent, he lives it. Rachel Brosnan’s Lois Lane is strong, passionate, undaunted, and there’s a bit of her backstory that she brings to life (no spoilers). Nicholas Hoult’s Lex Luthor glowers and chews scenery as a charismatic utter a-hole. Edi Gathegi as Mister Terrific is so good that he’s a man playing the protagonist in another protagonist’s movies. I could go on, but they’re all good.

Wait, I have to shout out Neva Howell and Pruitt Taylor Vince and the Kents, who are one of the most believable takes on the couple I’ve seen. One moment they’re funny, the other they’re deep, and in all cases they’re parents. OK I’m done.

Superman 2025 has the right people to pull off all of the wild elements it tries to incorporate, and that’s why it does it successfully, if not perfectly. The film can be slightly uneven, because comic books themselves can swing between the fantastic and the mundane, but it never loses balance. Like a juggler, it keeps a lot in the air, motion itself being fuel for the spectacle.

I am still tired of big superhero blockbusters and huge big-budget movies dominating culture. But Superman felt so honest, so sincere, it was a breath of fresh air. It was a vision of Superman that felt true to the character and the ideas behind him, and it’s worth seeing – and learning from.

Get the right people, take the swing, do the right thing.

Steven Savage