I'm a curious, creative, Southern boy working in Anderson, SC. My corner of the internet is brought to life thanks to friendly cowboys at Eleven2 Hosting. If you're new here, you might be interested in the RSS Feed or Archives. You can say hello via .
1. I am getting married in 55 days
2. I haven’t eaten lunch yet
3. Time keeps on slippin’ slippin’ slippin’ into the future
4. I have two hefty website bids to finish
5. I haven’t updated my timesheets at work. Since January.
I came across the Straight Dope Mailbag (“the official Internet home of Cecil Adams, World’s Smartest Human Being”) the other day and was greeted with a long list (hundreds!) of interesting reader-submitted questions. Here are a few personal favorites:
• What happened to the Emergency Broadcast System?
• Are the dots on McDonald’s drink lids Braille?
• What’s the origin of “hors d’oeuvres”?
• What’s in the briefcase in Pulp Fiction?
• What’s the story on perfect numbers?
The phrasing of each question is almost as interesting as the thorough responses Cecil (and guests) respond with. Yay for random knowledge.
“In an advertising campaign that began last week, Nissan left 20,000 sets of keys in bars, stadiums, concert halls and other public venues. Each key ring has a tag that says: “If found, please do not return. My next generation Nissan Altima has Intelligent Key with push-button ignition, and I no longer need these”…There is no selfish reason to bend down and pick up a key ring, but Nissan knows that we will bend without thinking because the impulse to help is bred into our marrow. Our best instinct will be awakened by a key ring and then punished by a commercial.” New York TimesI deal with this sort of thing everyday at work, and it annoys me every time. The advertising industry seems so consumed with the big, clever idea that they forget they’re advertising TO PEOPLE. And you can only piss people off so many times before they instinctively hate your brand and shut you out. They don’t have to listen. Now that consumers have tried their best to shut advertising out of their TV experience (thanks to Tivo) and to a lesser extent their web-browsing experience (thanks to pop-up blockers), the ad industry is becoming so obtrusive that out-of-home campaigns like Nissan’s still manage to manipulate their way into our lives. Most advertisers and marketers probably think this is a good thing because they’re exposing potential customers to their brand, but when I don’t give you permission to enter my personal space and you do anyway, I will hate you and distrust everything you try to say to me.
Knock it off, seriously.
Sick of pointless, poorly-executed corporate identity makeovers,
Joshua
The comments for the [Insert Site Here] is the New MySpace post got a tad derailed into the beginnings of some fantastic discussions on Christian art, media, etc. and I wanted us to talk about it more.
Here are a few choice thoughts I culled from those comments to get us started:
“Why must Christians desperately try to keep up with their secular peers?” — Noah Stokes
“You would think with God on their side Christian artists would produce amazingly kick-ass media. Sadly, that’s hardly ever the case (minus, of course, the High Renaissance era).” — M.A. Turner
“Don’t just imitate, innovate.” — Charlie Stout
“One of the problems I see is the lack of willingness and ability to engage melancholy, depression or just generally the darker side of things to generate artistic output.” — Benjamin Young
Full disclosure: I worked for a church for almost two years as a designer, art director, and sometimes creative director. The majority of my best friends still work there. I love that church and I love The Church. I love Jesus. I love art and the people who make it.
Point 1: I think Ben hits on something profound here. Most of what is deemed “Christian art” (I hate the term, but it serves the discussion so we’ll keep it) focuses on the top 99.9% of positive human experience - happiness, rampant selflessness, divine ecstasy, etc. - and completely ignores the bulk of life on Earth. Read the Book of Ecclesiastes; life under the sun is often not pleasant.
That exclusion, in and of itself, makes Christian art irrelevant and dishonest to all but a few (delusional) people. Most people do things like get depressed, have family and friends die, fight with their spouse, screw up their finances, have their cars break down, and so on and so forth. We don’t live in the 99.9% and we don’t know anyone else who does either, so why would we engage in art born out of a worldview we don’t connect with in the least bit?
Point 2: Christians have not been at the forefront of art and creativity since the Protestant Reformation which, if my time as an academic serves me correctly, started in 1517. We have neglected artistic expression, and demonized any art that isn’t expressly, explicitly about Caucasian Jesus™.
Point 3: Right now, in America, there are a number of churches who have made cultural relevancy and creativity a huge part of their planning and programming. That desire, in and of itself, is wonderful, welcomed, and certainly in keeping with the early church leaders (namely Jesus) who used cultural queues to discuss spiritual matters. The desire to be culturally relevant and create is GOOD; the way it plays out more often than not infuriates me. I’m going to paint with a big brush to make my point, so please forgive the generalizations. It typically plays out like this:
1. Determine a sermon topic or passage of scripture or t-shirt idea or product or website.
2. Parody an existing TV show, movie, cultural trend, brand name, etc.
3. Call it creativity.
First of all, it doesn’t take a creative genius to parody the Home Depot logo and make it say Home Work on a bunch of print materials. (That particular sin I was completely guilty of early on in my tenure at NewSpring Church.) Secondly, and probably more overlooked and vastly more important, it minimizes and makes light of the hundreds (thousands?) of hours artists and craftsmen in the marketplace put into creating recognizable and excellent TV shows, movies, cultural trends, brand names, etc. We don’t care about their work, we simply USE their work. Their artistic expression and craftsmanship is reduced to commodity.
When a church (or Christian organization, or Christian designer) takes existing art and media, makes poor parodies of it (that they probably made in a few days because refuse to plan well), and then distributes it under the guise of creativity it completely devalues the work and skills of the artists and craftsmen responsible for the inspiration. Worse, it just makes followers of Christ look BAD, which in turn makes Christ look bad, uncreative, and irrelevant. And then we wonder why there aren’t more artists in the church.
Point 4: If Christians are really smoking what they’re selling, shouldn’t the indwelling of the Holy Spirit (who offers divine understanding, guidance, inspiration, gifts, help) enable them to be as creative, if not more creative, than artists who don’t have a direct connection?
I hate to be all negativity and no solution, so what are some solutions? How can we educate the church? What resources exist to do so?
Everything is the new MySpace. Haven’t you heard?
Bebo is the new MySpace. TagWorld is the new MySpace. Tagged is the new MySpace (which oddly enough looks a lot like the old MySpace.) Buzznet is the new MySpace. Eons is the new MySpace (assuming you’re 50+). Heck, even Barack Obama is the new MySpace.
Now, of course some people are saying VIRBº is the new MySpace, but do we really want another MySpace? I just want a decent site where my friends are that isn’t overun with skanky banners ads and friend requests from “like… Becky, like… ok?”
I don’t want anything to be the new MySpace. Ever. I want everyone to forget it even existed.
1. Akon
2. Geddy Lee
3. Shakira
4. The skinny blond guy in Linkin Park
5. Springsteen