The following post was originally made in 2015 to accompany what was originally called "informative strips," now called Snacking Otaku.
To prevent readers from over-analysing this, some of the names in this graphic are completely made up.
How many of you remember teletext systems? I suspect many Europeans do (They didn't take off in America).
For those who have no idea what I'm talking about, a teletext system was a means of transmitting computer-generated pages of information to a wide population though TVs with special decoders via the analogue TV picture signals. It was an analogue internet (without the hyper-links, gifs, jpegs, and video streams).
They were first developed in the early-1970s and became widely-available across the globe by the 1980s, particularly in Europe. These systems were known under many names, such as Ceefax and ORACLE in the UK, Antiope in France, Televideo in Italy, Austext in Australia, and (after the demise of ORACLE) .... Teletext.
As they were carried by the picture signals, different TV channels can carry different teletext services from one another, which was truly the case in the UK. The BBC carried Ceefax while the independent channels of ITV, Channel 4 and (later) 5 carried ORACLE (which later became Teletext).
These systems were used a lot (as much people use the web services today). My dad regularly used it during the 1990s and early-2000s to check sports results. I did my self as a teen to check cinema listings. Many people did at the same time for various reasons, from checking the weather forecast to noting down recipes.
These systems only really came to an end in the last decade or so, with the transition to digital TV broadcasting. Ceefax ended in October 2012 (at the same time the last analogue TV transmitter in the UK was shut down).
The reason for this post was not to be nostalgic about teletext (mostly). The reason for this post is to celebrate a personal piece of investigatory achievement - I had finally found/worked out how teletext worked.
I bet many of you who have used such services in the past wondered how they actually worked. How did these pages of information got into your TV and where did they come from (and why you had to wait about ten seconds for your desired page to appear on screen). But when it came to finding out how it worked, most of you found only sources like this one....
(taken form my collection of old reference books)
From Reader's Digest How Is It Done? (1992 edition, p219)
It doesn't tell you much, does it. And with this level of information in regular reference books, you'll imagine that you had to study electrical engineering journals to find out more detail. Fortunately, the internet has made this of an issue, and thanks to this it was in 2013 that I finally found out how teletext worked... and discovered how neat an idea teletext was. How they actually worked is very clever. But its hard to understand using text alone. It'll help if we had pictures. That is why the subject of my next "informative strip" is teletext.
YouTube Channel Technology Connections has made a video about a related technology - Closed Captioning (and said in it about a future video about Teletext).
The one I used is edit.tf (I suggest seeing the tutorial video on the link above before you use it. Making teletext art is very fiddly. The final result (I admit) isn't that good, so I might change it in the future.
Over a month ago a relative of mine published a blog entry about a question that almost all parents today have asked themselves – Should I let my young child(ren) watch TV? She became a mother over a year ago and the post is on one of those blogs new mothers create to document and share her adventures in motherhood. They are a lot of them and (I’m guessing) that topic is in the Top 20 topics these blogs discuss. And I imagine that it’s a very decisive one, especially now where most of us get our daily news through screens than on paper. Is it OK to let my toddler watch TV? What shows are OK at what age to watch? What about violence and cursing? Is too much TV making our kids “dumb”? Should they just read books instead? …..
“...this discovery of yours [Theuth, inventor of letters] will create forgetfulness in the learners’ souls, because they will not use their memories; they will trust to the external written characters and not remember of themselves. The specific which you have discovered is an aid not to memory, but to reminiscence, and you give your disciples not truth, but only the semblance of truth; they will be hearers of many things and will have learned nothing; they will appear to be omniscient and will generally know nothing; they will be tiresome company, having the show of wisdom without the reality. ” – Socrates, from Phaedrus
Yelp, they were people in ancient times that thought writing was a corrupting medium. Put’s things into perspective, doesn’t it. With every new development come critics who prefer the old ways who nit-pick the new thing for “flaws” and reasons not for them to adopt them … and forcing it onto the children. “Will somebody think of the children?” From the printing press to mobile phones, it always happens. But it’s not the fault of the technology itself….
“All technology can be used for bad and good. It’s up to you how to use it.” – Vladimir Zworykin (an inventor of television)
It’s us that control the use of technology, especially when it comes to media technology. We (the consumers) have a control on what any medium shows. No printer would publish a story, unless it would attract readers. No broadcaster would make a programme, unless they knew they are people who would listen/watch it. It costs money to print a book or make a movie or TV show, and it’ll be a huge waste if no one read the book or watched the movie/show. All those hours at the keyboard wasted to compose the decorative words that make up the pile of paper that’s under your couch preventing it from rocking. Also, if no one watched a TV show how is a broadcaster going to make money when the advertisers pulled out before the next episode? Media-makers need to make a profit, like any other industry. And the most guaranteed way to do so is to make content the audience wants to see, read and hear…. regardless of truth or artistic integrity.
In short, we (the audience) have some control on what is shown on TV. But writing hundreds of angry letters rarely works. The most effective thing is to avoid the offending thing by switching channel or switching off the TV altogether. In doing so you’ll end up not discovering that new restaurant that opened up on the High Street you might have liked to try out. And you won’t be the only one. If many did the same thing, that restaurant will have lost a lot of potential new customers, which could have made the restaurant. And when it finds out why, they’ll reconsider where they advertise their business. And other businesses who advertised during the offending show may do the same, losing the broadcaster a lot of advertising revenue. Facing this loss of income the broadcaster might consider cancelling the offending show. Victory for “good taste”!
But, of course, this won’t work with every broadcaster (‘cough’ BBC ‘cough’ PBS). And you may be reluctant to switch off your TV, because you like the ambient sound it provides while you cook, hoover the floors, build model kits or other things you like to do while the TV is on. People don’t complain about the millions of adults doing this every day. But when children enter the equation the Socrates’ of TV (who, I assume, mostly don’t have children themselves, so you got to really question their credentials people) begin to creep in your life.
And this is where I come in.
From what I heard from adults over the years about the subject of kids learning things is that they think young kids are like animals. And most adults think animals are dumb. Therefore young kids are too dumb to tell the difference between fantasy and reality, leading them to the “classic” situation of them jumping off furniture thinking they can fly like Superman. A situation that is captured perfectly in a catchy saying - “monkey see, monkey do.” It has been proven scientifically that from birth to about 3-years-old, most children learn about the world from imitation. But, this is mostly because until about age 3, most kids haven’t had the full training in how to ask questions and understanding the meaning of verbal and visual media let – the traditional way we all learn things. A 2-year-old’s mind is capable of asking questions, like “Why is the sky blue?”, but the ability to say “Why is the sky blue?” and to process the excuse the adult they asked gives them (because they don’t understand Rayleigh scattering themselves) aren’t fully mastered let.
What I’m trying to say is that (despite appearances) young children are smarter than you think. They are not the “dumb” animals the “monkey see, monkey do” saying applies. By believing this saying you are underselling your species. They are the offspring of one of the most successful animals that the Earth has ever seen (and the Earth knows that, very well).
But the fact remains that most of their learning in their early years is in the form of imitating the actions of others.
However, exactly how this is a problem is a highly debated subject. Some say that kids will copy everything they see or hear. Some say they are limits. But the former do have a massive piece of armour – The Bobo Doll experiments of the early-1960s.
clip from The Brain: A Secret History (BBC, 2011)
In 1961 American psychologist Albert Bandura took 36 boys and 36 girls (aged between 3-6) from Stanford University’s nursery school and split them into five groups. One was the control group. The other four were individually shown an adult with an inflatable clown doll. Two of them saw the adult treat the doll nicely, while the other two saw the adult beat it up. These two groups were split by gender to see if the gender of the adult affected the outcome depending on the gender of the child. After seeing the adult with the doll the kids were individually taken to a room full of toys and a clown doll like the one they saw earlier. What was observed was that the kids did copy the behaviour of the adults. If the adult treated the clown nicely, the kids treated it nicely. If they saw the adult beat it up, they bet up the clown. Boys were more likely to be physical with the doll than girls and more so if the adult was a male. Girls were more likely to be physically violent when the adult was a female. Also, kids who saw adults who were nice to the clown were less likely to use a toy mallet on it than the control group (who had a mallet, but no clown).
In 1963 he did a follow up experiment. A group of 32 boys and 32 girls (aged between 3-6) were split into four groups. One was shown nothing (the control). One was in the presence of an adult beating up the clown doll. One was shown a film of an adult beating up the clown doll. And one was shown a person in a cat costume beating up the clown doll. Each individual kid was then placed in a room full of toys and a clown doll like the one they saw earlier. What was observed was that no matter what medium and whoever they saw do it, every kid who saw the clown doll beaten up exhibited nearly twice as much aggressive behaviour as the control group. Also it further proved that boys were more likely to be violent than girls.
These experiments (especially the latter one) have been the smoking gun in the debate that TV violence makes viewers (especially children) violent in the real world ever since. But some have criticised this experiment for a few reasons you should know about before you use this experiment to prove your point about kids imitating everything harmful they see on TV.
The kids used in the experiment were all from the same socioeconomic background (they were the children of Stanford students who were in their nursery (a rare luxury for most Americans at the time, except for white professions). But this didn’t stop Bandura concluding that the results applied to all children.
The kids were a bit older than they were when Bandura did his initial Bobo Doll experiments in 1961, so the kids may have had outside influences before watching the clown doll been bet up.
Between the kids watching the film and been left in the room with the clown doll, they were exposed to a mildly frustrating situation to elicit aggression. Also they were denied the chance to play with the toy for a while, making them agitated. In short, they were primed to become aggressive before they saw the clown doll.
And the clown doll in the experiment was designed to be hit in the first place. You can tell just by looking at it. (To remove this variable the experiments were restaged later with a real clown instead. The results were the same. What do people have against clowns, anyway?)
Also it assumes that every child is the same biologically.
Not every kid is the same cognitively so they are going to be kids who will develop slower than the average statistics most development charts show (which should have this fact included as a well-being warning for parents). This is especially true when it comes to children on the autism spectrum, which include me ….
“Children with autism exhibit significant impairment in imitation skills. These deficits have been reported on a variety of tasks including symbolic and non-symbolic body movements, symbolic and functional object use, vocalizations, and facial expressions.” - Brooke Ingersoll, PhD (The Social Role of Imitation in Autism: Implications for the Treatment of Imitation Deficits, Infants & Young Children (Vol. 21, No. 2, pp. 107–119, 2008))
This puts me in quite a unique position in this debate. Thanks to my autism I have a sort of buffer for the media I’m bombarded with every day. I am more aware of the psychological tricks the media uses on us than most people are aware off, and I do read up about them from time to time, which is one reason I am a cultural vandal. I have also nit-picked bits and pieces from stories and accounts everywhere, from books to online posts. With these (plus my childhood memories) I am going to tell you all a true insider account of a child’s mind in the hope of helping you understand how kids learn things and process media. I hope this would help finally clear things up and answer those questions you had regarding whether you should allow you kid(s) to watch TV.
And this fact co-insides with the observation that most of us rarely have memories from before the age of 3. Also, rather alarmingly, memories can be rewritten over time, like articles on Wikipedia. So if one decides to try to write an account of one’s childhood experiences of the world, please factor this in, as each time you re-examine your memories you are unintentionally altering them for your present purpose. And I am very aware of that, hence of nit-picking other people’s accounts – from adults.
Now, our main feature.
First off, we humans are mostly visual creatures. About half our brain is used to process visual information, more than any of our other senses. So it isn’t a surprise that people tend to remember pictures better than words, especially children. This is the reason slapstick comedy is timeless. When watching cartoons when I was kid I tended to remember the visuals more than dialogue. I have vivid memories of the design of cartoon characters from shows I watched, but for the life of me I can’t remember exact pieces of dialogue from those shows. Catchphrases and regular gags, yes. But precise pieces of dialogue, no. That part of my memory only developed later (say early-teens).
Because of my lack of recall for dialogue at the time, I could watch shows like Harry Enfield and Chums and Father Ted without my parents panicking about me picking up bad language (that only became a problem later when I first learnt about swearing at about age 9 (My mother hates it.)). I even managed to see Euro Trash at the time. I remember it more for its colourful cartoony sets rather than its content. (If you have no idea what Euro Trash is, be grateful you don’t.)
And on a side note, this also applies to music as well. As I remember from childhood, I didn’t pay attention to the lyrics of songs until well later in life (mid-teens roughly). I was more interested in the tune and sound. To me the words were just interesting sounds. I never processed them as words that have symbolic meaning, like the words from mum or teacher. And it’s not just me. A few weeks ago BBC Radio 6 Music had a program where listeners suggested tracks for a playlist inspired by their kids’ favourite songs. One listener sent in a suggestion and told this story. This listener’s toddler was in Tumble Tots and the organisers of it were staging a stage performance and the kids were asked to suggest songs to dance to in the show. This parent was bought to one side after that day’s session about what song this toddler suggested (which was also the song the listener suggested for the playlist) – ‘Psycho Killer’ by Talking Heads.
Now this track is a great example of what I’m explaining. If you ignore the program inside your head that processes the meaning of words as they are spoken to you, ‘Psycho Killer’ becomes a good tune you can dance and “bah” to. The young me would have done the same thing that toddler did if I had heard of that song back then. My older sister was well into Gothic rock in my pre-teens and played such music nearly every night. My room was next door to hers and the wall separating us was basically a sheet of corrugated cardboard covered with chipped wallpaper (on my side), paint and posters, so I heard her music and developed a taste for music outside the pop I was hearing on the radio. And those nights of muffled Gothic rock has had an effect in my taste of music since. The band Garbage is my music library, and I do listen to them occasionally, even though one song I like the sound of has lyrics that talks about self-harm.
You see, not everyone sees or gets the same message in one piece of individual media, neither that is a painting, a sculpture, a song or a movie. One person can see a work of art (say Andy Warhol’s soup cans) as the greatest example of visual delight highlighting consumerism while another person would see it as a meaningless image and wonder why this is considered art. I think this is something many people who complain about the media don’t fully grasp. Kids would watch a TV show (like The Simpsons) and miss out on a number of things only adults would get. For example, in “Lisa's Pony,” Lisa first sees the pony Homer buys her in her bed during the night. She screams at the sight of the pony. To a kid watching this she is screaming of surprise of finding a pony in her bed. Only adults (who have heard of The Godfather) will get this scene as a reference to the “horse’s head on the pillow.” In other words, it is possible for kids to like things, like gangsta rap music, without getting any “bad influences” from it.
In other words, it is possible for kids to like things, like gangsta rap music, without getting any “bad influences” from it. But, it is worth noting that kids will repeat the sounds they hear, including questionable lyrics. (I remember once reciting quietly to myself some lyrics from ‘Mister Psycho’ from Space’s Spiders album – during my mother’s Sunday school class.) But its worth reminding that they are not picking up messages form them let. Their just organised sounds to them - for now.
So kids (including the younger me) aren’t that good at recalling verbal language, but good at recalling visual things. Very young kids will act out scenes on TV, but only the visuals. It’s only later (say at least 3-years-old) they will try to recite dialogue of some form.
As a child I had a good visual memory. I was able to re-enact scenes of cartoons in my head all time (I was not idiotic enough (or strong enough) to really hurt myself and other people when doing so.). I even tried to construct models of the sets of shows, like Finders Keepers and How Do They Do That? (I tried to reconstruct the time they flooded the set, using Lego. I used a pile of blue bricks as the water.) It was only later (say about 12) that I “got” what people were saying on TV. I had watched a lot of comedy shows, like The Fast Show, Bottom, Shooting Stars and Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em and never listened to the dialogue. I just enjoyed the visuals. I still have the visual memory today, and I have since re-watched those shows on DVD to add the dialogue in my memory of them.
Now, some of you may be already thinking that letting kids watch TV a lot will give them too many ideas that could lead to the breakages of many ornaments. But I do have one last important thing to say about this.
A television set is a window to things outside your home or circle of influence. It can show you images from the other side of the world. Animals in the wild. Feats of human achievement, like iconic works of art or sports people trying to break records. If you value the idea that kids should be exposed to as much of the world as possible TV can do that - especially when parents aren’t able to take them far outside their home for whatever reason (budget, geography, politics been a few of them). But I do think they are a few things that should not be shown to kids too early, like Game of Thrones, political debate shows (because they can’t fully understand that stuff let) and most Religious programming (I’m okay with Songs of Praise).
However, there is a one very good reason you should allow you kid(s) to watch TV – it exposes them to many faces. Very young children are surprisingly good at learning new faces. In fact, it has been proven at 6-month-old kids are able to identify individual monkeys. (Something also all adults struggle with, even if they worked with them for years.) This is because the neuron connections needed to recognise faces have not been "pruned" let to just recognise human faces.
"Babies soon lose this skill: By 9 months, like adults, they’re no good at all at telling apart monkeys. That’s because as time passes, infants are able to see only what they already see in the world. This is a phenomenon called “perceptual narrowing” and it is best known for its effect on language acquisition: Very early on, infants stop being able to tell the difference between certain speech sounds that they’re not hearing. We have to hear these phonemes to know them. And we have to see the monkeys to know them, too. (This works the other way too: Monkeys exposed only to human faces prefer human faces.)" - Nicholas Day
But this pruning doesn't only effect a child's ability to identify individual animals. It also effect their ability to identify other fellow humans, as Nicholas Day will testify...
"My wife, studying in Nanjing at a time when there were very few white people in Nanjing, had her fairly cosmopolitan Chinese roommate ask her, “How do you people tell each other apart? You all just look the same.” She wasn’t being rude; she was genuinely bewildered. Hilariously, when my wife returned to New York, she kept mistaking people on the street for people she knew. And then she thought, My roommate was right: All white people really do look the same. After a year of just seeing Chinese faces, she was, at least temporarily, no longer able to differentiate non-Chinese faces. Of course, this is famously the case with Americans who never leave America, too: Hence, all [insert ethnicity here] look the same. This isn’t racism. It’s just perceptual narrowing. And it happens fast: At birth newborns don’t prefer faces of their own ethnicity; at 3 months, they do."
In short, if you want your child to be able to tell apart Mark Wahlberg and Matt Damon (or more significantly (for white folk, anyway), Samuel L. Jackson and Laurence Fishburne) you should expose your child to as many faces as possible. The more variety, the better. It'll be a great game for your kid to play. But it can be hard to find such variety in some locations (such as a countryside village), so if you happen to be in such a location find books, newspapers or magazines ... or switch on your TV.
You'll find a large variety of faces on TV today, especially on kids TV and entertainment shows, like sitcoms and soap operas. I can credit TV (in hindsight) for my ability to recognise faces many white people (sadly) have trouble with. My young eyes saw a number of shows with non-white casts, like Desmond's, The Cosby Show, and Goodness Gracious Me. One of the first regular faces I saw on TV was Andi Peters (when he was that broom cupboard with Edd the Duck). So, from the very young age I knew from observation that my pale-freckly skin was not the only hue people's skin could have. Also, I did have an Asian friend back in primary school.
(As a side note I only first learned what racism is from that episode of Father Ted. I think because I first learnt it from a comedy performance it helped me to "get it" without much difficulty. The concept was explained well quickly, when Ted put on that lampshade and pretended to be a cartoon china-man - and then getting a massive shock when three Chinese people showed up at the window seeing his "impression."
"I never would have done that if I knew there was a China Town on Craggy Island."
Although back then in 1998 I didn't know about the antisemitism the Nazis implemented (I just saw them as my country's opponents during "the war" and the bad guys in Indiana Jones), seeing Ted's shock of seeing Nazi memorabilia in his house (after making peace with the Chinese people of Craggy Island) first cemented in my mind the link between Nazis and "been a racist." From my experience of this example, I can say that comedy can be a great teaching tool for complicated thing.)
And that’s all I have got to say about the subject of allowing kid(s) to watch TV – except one thing. Kids learn more from real world examples than reconstructions made from lights behind a sheet of glass. Unless they have been left in front of a TV for marathon-amounts of time, kids are exposed more to the actions of real world people in front of them than people on TV, especially members of their family, but especially their parents. By worrying about the effect of the “electronics intrusion” on their kid(s) many parents have forgotten that they have the biggest influence on their kids’ upbringing than anything else. No aunt, uncle, sibling, grandparent, teacher, babysitter, robot, pet or medium has more influence on a child’s mind than their parents. It is said that the average person will spend about a decade of their life watching TV, but that’s about half the time the average young person will be under the influence of at least one parent. Parents, you have more power over your kid(s) than a TV set (For one thing, you can unplug it.).
And this has been proven by science in one crucial aspect. In a 2016 study published by BMC Psychology, it has been shown that caregivers will respond differently to baby cries depending on their pitch. And this response follows stereotypical gender roles. Other studies show further proof that parents are unintentionally-enforcing gender stereotypes on their children. In one experiment I saw staged on TV (on the 2014 edition of Horizon "Is Your Brain Male or Female?") a baby boy was dressed in the clothes made for girls and a girl was dressed in boy's clothes. When an adult was presented with one of these babies the adult was guiding the baby to play with toys that were fitting of the gender they thought the baby was (cars for boys, dolls for girls). The babies generally didn't care which toy they were given. The only one who (unknowingly) cared which one was the adult. To me, this suggests that their has been a parent-to-child cycle of gender stereotype enforcement. Adults force kids to do certain things (because its "tradition" and "proper") and those kids become adults who do the same thing to their kids, because they didn't know better.
By been aware of your own influence over your own kid(s) you can help them become more-rounded adults in the future. Adults who weren't subject to the gender stereotype enforcement cycle, because you didn't force them to play with certain toys and wear certain clothes (or worse). And if more parents do this the next generation will be free from been forced to behave in a out-of-date mould.
To sum up, TV (like any toy or person) can be a good influence on your child - you just got to apply caution on specific bits about it, like some TV shows, the size of the parts that make up teddy or the sweet tooth of the neighbour's kid. But remember, not everyone picks up the same message from the same artwork, especially children. Children don't process song lyrics in the same way adults do, but they might repeat lyrics int he same way as one repeats the melody of tunes. Kids love slapstick, but please teach them not to hurt themselves (the TV is (mostly) not going to do that). Comedy can be a great education tool in teaching complicated subjects (like racism and economics). Although what your kid watches on TV can be big influence, it is nothing compared to you and your actions. You have the power to shape your kid(s) destiny. With great power comes great responsibility, so use it well.
Well, that's everything (honest). That is all I got to say about raising children (for not, probably). I await your accusing, insulting comments (which I won't read).
P.S. At the time of writing I AM NOT A PARENT (May as well confess this fact (unlike others)). The closest I am to been one is when I'm with my nephew. As I stated at the start of this article, I was writing this using childhood memories and my knowledge of how media works on us. I am no expert on child anything. I have never claimed to be so, and never will.
Recently, I have been thinking about something about our current culture. We (in the 2010s) are in the mist of a cultural-mining of the 1990s. This has come in many forms, especially in the form of childhood nostalgia. Kids who grew up in the 1990s are now hovering about the age of 30, so its no surprise that many of the things kids of the 90s liked, like Pokemon and Sailor Moon, are experiencing revamps or revivals in recent years. But this cultural mining has also led to the creation of new culture that will become the defining features of our collective culture of the 2010s, mostly in the form of Seapunk and Vaporwave. (How many of you guys have heard of these genres until now?)
All of this has made me think about how we regularly mine the culture of the past. We Westerners have been doing this for centuries. I think this can go back to when the first farming communities began to think back to the days they were hunter-gatherers, before that pesky farming forced them to stay in one place and break their backs harvesting the crop.
But I have noticed a pattern in our attitudes towards the past and its cultural artefacts. And looking at our culture in the past 50 years this pattern has been quite regular. Here's the pattern I have noticed....
A meme (which can be any brand new thing, from a gadget to a work of art) enters our culture. If enough people like it and adopt it it'll thrive. If not, it'll become a fringe meme that only a few fans like. But some of the fringe memes do eventually break out and become "mainstream."
After a while (a few months to a decade) a meme's popularity begins to fall as it becomes "old hat" or "that naff thing we use to like."
After the "naff thing" phase the old meme enters a bit of a renaissance as it enters the "childhood nostalgia" phase. This period can start as early as 10 years after meme's birth, but it usually begins when a meme is 20-30 years old.
After the "nostalgia" phase ends a meme enters the "curiosity from the past" phase. This is when a new generation discovers the meme and explore it, usually to answer the question "Why was this a thing back then?" This period of a meme's life can happen between 20-50 years after meme's birth.
After the "curiosity" phase comes the most interesting phase in a meme's life. Depending on various things about the meme (it beauty, popularity in the past, association with noted people and so on), a meme can experience a number of forms of cultural appreciation. And this is possible because its during this phase direct examples of it become rarer. This is when things, like furniture and ornaments, start to become "antique." This is the ultimate test for a meme's long-term survival. If a meme proves to be a vital part of its culture of its day it'll last forever. If it proves to be more forward-thinking than it was thought to be back then it'll have some immortality. But if a meme proves to be just a trivial example of its time it may "die" - unless it gets rediscovered by chance and experiences a revival. If a meme proves to be very backward (even if it was very popular in its day) it'll just become a footnote only bought out in history lessons as something to laugh at or as something to scare people into behaving good. In short this is when nostalgia becomes "history" in the big sense of the word.
So that's the pattern I have worked out. But I guess you want examples of this pattern in action.
The 1960s style revival - Thanks to TV dramas like Mad Men, the styles of the 1960s have experienced a revival in the past decade. What is interesting is that back in the 1960s (in the UK at least), there was an revival of late-Victorian and Edwardian culture. This was when Art Nouveau was rediscovered and was finally recognised as a pioneering modern design style, proving the pattern I have discovered.
American Graffiti - When this movie was released in 1973 it had been a decade since the year it was set (1962). This film is credited for the creation of America's fascination for the 1950s and early-60s, leading to creation of Happy Days and the film adaption of Grease. It was also here when American cars from the 1950s started to become desirable collector's items.
1970s punks who wore Nazi stuff - These teens wore them because they wanted to shock their parents. At the time, World War II was something that happened over 30-35 years ago, so it wasn't something taught as "history" in history class at school let (unlike today). It was something their parents talked about and saw on TV as entertainment. They were not taught the reality of it. Until they were finally taught the facts (leading them to give up wearing them), the swastika was a curious artefact of a time before they were born, not a symbol of racially-motivated mass murder. This generational-divide is exampled by a famous 1978 episode of The Tomorrow People.
The Wonder Years- When The Wonder Years first aired in 1988, it was set exactly 20 years ago, beginning with the year 1968. By 1990 it had entered the 1970s, beginning TV's fascination with the decade, paving the way for....
That '70s Show - This show lasted eight seasons, compared to its "indirect" spin-off That '80s Show, which only lasted one season in 2002. Why was this? I think one reason it failed was because it was too early for a sitcom set in the 1980s. And I got proof - in the form of a family in Philly called The Goldbergs.
Curious about past tech - Right now technology from the 1970s and 80s have become curiosities. A prime example of this curiosity can be seen on the Techmoan YouTube channel.
The first episode aired on TV Tokyo at
7pm on Tuesday 1st April 1997 and began with the start screen we get when the
games are loaded - a battle between a Gengar and a Nidorino. This then transitions "live
action" revealing the battle is taking place in a stadium. This battle is
televised and is on in a TV in a small bedroom. In that bedroom we are
introduced to the 10-year-old Satoshi (or Ash Ketchum in the English dub (I explained
how he got his name back in the introduction.)). We know he is very
into Pokémon (in the same way the real Satoshi was into insects) just by
the fact his room is filled with Pokémon-themed stuff. He is fully-dressed
(gloves and everything) like he is ready to go... but his mother interrupts his monologue and reminds
him to go to bed. As he sleeps he dreams about himself been the owner of
one of the three starters. But in doing so, he throws his poke ball-shaped
alarm clock and breaks it. When he finally woke up (to the sound of the cockerel) he discovers he is late and runs
to Professor Oak's Lab (in his PJs). When he
arrives his rival Gary had just acquired his starter and was
about to head off (in a car?).
In the original games your rival (whoever he's called) is a bit of a
jerk. He has the relation with the Professor and he somehow always a few steps
ahead of you. So its no surprise that in the anime Okido Shigeru
(or Gary Oak as he is called in English) is
depicted as a cocky, privileged bastard (which is also why "Gary
F*&%in Oak" has become an internet meme).
Throughout the first few years of the series Gary was the bane of Ash's
existence. Been the grandson of the great Professor Oak, Gary naturally
developed some form of superior complex, making him think he is somewhat better
than other kids his age, including Ash. And his famous relation is something he
liked to boast about....
"It's good to have a grandfather in the Pokemon business, isn't it." - Gary Oak (from episode 1)
A brief note - according to the anime novelization by the show's main writer
at the time Takeshi Shudō, Gary Oak in the anime is not only
Prof Oak's grandson but also the grandnephew of the mayor of Pallet Town. His cheerleaders are in fact electoral
staff. So the next time you'll see Gary in this first series (the cheerleaders
disappear during the Orange Islands arc) or see a "Gary
F*&%in Oak" meme online, picture Freddy
Quimby from The Simpsons (another cartoon
mayor's nephew). Here's a visual aid I made to help you....
Back to the story. When finally faced with the choice of three poke
balls he discovers that they were all taken (Why were the empty poke balls
still on the table?). Ash was gutted, but Oak then remembered that he has
one Pokémon left, but was reserved about giving it to a new trainer....
"Think I should
warn you.There is a problem with this last one." - Prof Oak
"I have to have
a Pokemon." - Ash
Well... in that
case...." - Prof Oak (from episode 1)
Oak gave in and opened the poke ball.... resulting in a flashy-lightning
show that revealed the franchise's mascot - Pikachu. Their first meeting wasn't
harmonious (he shook him with a thunder-shock attack). A shockingly
funny start to the series.
Here's a thought. What if that alarm clock didn't get broken? What if
Ash woke up early and was able to select his first choice (Squirtle (Which Gary took)) instead of been lumbered with
Pikachu? It's an interesting thought. It's a question that is worth exploring
in revisionist fan-fiction. But its a question that get's more integrating when
you discover who Sam is in the fourth
movie. (I'm not going to tell you. Find out for yourself.)
After leaving the lab Ash is given a send off, where his mother
proceeded to embarrass him in front of a crowd (as all mothers do in such occasions).
After Pikachu refused to enter his poke ball and shocking the crowd after Ash's
mother described their relationship as "weird" (and the reminder to
wear clean "you-know-what" everyday), Ash's journey finally
began.....
And its here we are confronted with a truth our rosy retrospection cognitive bias has made us forget from
childhood - on his first day as a trainer Ash was a complete moron! He was
dragging a reluctant Pikachu along with him with a washing line. He didn't know
that Pokemon only spoke the syllables of their names (an anime-unique invention
- in the games the Pokemon speak with typical animal noises, which you might
have expected before watching the anime). And (because Pikachu refused to
listen to him) Ash's first ever attempt to catch a Pokemon (a Pidgey) was a disaster. It's very shocking,
compared to the Ash we know and love and travelling in Kalos in 2016. It will
even shock Ash himself if we were to show him a video of his first day as a
trainer.
But you have to remember that much of this early idiocy is because of
Gary "motherf*&^in" Oak. For a long time before their
journeys began Gary poked fun at Ash's "inferior" position, leading
to Ash to develop an inferiority complex and a will to beat Gary at his own
game. Also this is his first ever day as a trainer. He probably had little
experience before this catching and training Pokemon, so cut him some slack.
But we have to ask a few questions. If Ash was such a fan for Pokemon, how come
he didn't know about the language thing? Surely in this world they are
documentaries about Pokemon on TV (with a few where Professor Oak plays David Attenborough). I guess he didn't watch such
documentaries. I guess (knowing his nature) he preferred watching the battles.
But that's no excuse. He would have seen them in the wild outside his home (and
heard them speak). But all this is just speculation - created by the lack of
continuity. In the end of the day, Ash (on his first day as a trainer) was a
young idiot thrown into the deep end.
And (in the end) one final act of stupidity will change his fate forever
- when a rock he threw hit the head of a Spearow. That Spearow got mad (of course) and
because of their "jealousy toward's trained Pokemon" Spearow began
to target Pikachu. After Pikachu gave Spearow a shock, Spearow called out for
his/her friends and a chase ensues. Pikachu was attacked. Ash fended them off
to rescue him. He ran with Pikachu in his arms and jumped into a river,
where He was fished out by a red-haired girl.
Her name (in Japanese) is Kasumi. Her name comes form
"kasumisō" the name the Japanese give to the Gypsophila genus
of flowering plant. It's also a pun of the words "kasumi" (meaning
"mist") and "umi" (meaning "sea"), which is how
we get her English name - Misty. The name makes sense if you know these two
things about her - she loves the water (which is why she specialises in
water-types) and can get very angry very easily.
And we first saw this trait in her reaction to the state of Pikachu and
Ash's ignorance at that moment (which included a slap
in Ash's face, which 4Kids edited out in the English dub). After
suggesting getting Pikachu to a hospital, Ash (upon seeing the Spearow
flock approaching them) "borrows" her bicycle and rode into
the distance. But (as a thunderstorm began) they hit a bump and fall over. As
the flock come closer Ash begs Pikachu to return to his poke ball. But he still
refuses (despite his condition). What happens next has become legend. Ash stood
up and faced the flock to protect Pikachu and proclaims...
"Spearows, do you know who I am? I am Ash from the town of Pallet.I am destined to be the world's number one Pokemon Master. I can't be defeated by the likes of you. I'm going to capture and defeat you all! You hear me! ...... Come and get me!!!" - Ash Ketchum (to the Spearow flock, episode 1)
Inspired by his words, Pikachu leaped up into a bolt of lightning and
gave the flock a massive thunder-shock to remember. When the storm
cleared Ash and Pikachu looked at each other with loving eyes, and one of the
most iconic partnerships in history was made. Above them was a rainbow and
a golden bird that the Pokedex had "no
data" on. A cosmic blessing from the universe, most likely.... or a sign
that Ash has entered a coma.
In the next episode Ash runs into Viridian City with the still injured
Pikachu. As he entered Officer Jenny was announcing to citizens
through Tannoy on be on the look out for Pokemon
thieves. She mistakes Ash for said thief, until he provided his ID... and showed how bad Pikachu is. With the
help of Jenny's motorbike (which might need some work done, looking at its
exhaust) Ash is handbrake-turned into the Pokémon Center in front of Nurse Joy at the reception....
"We have a
driveway you know." - Nurse Joy (episode 2)
Pikachu was rushed into critical care. While he was getting treatment
Ash was in the waiting room thinking about his situation. He called his mother
to say he was okay. Although they say a lot at this exchange, the words that
sum up this conversation is these....
"Honey, you are growing up right before my eyes, spreading your wings and soaring like a Spearow." - Delia Ketchum
"I feel more like a fallen Pidgey." - Ash Ketchum (episode 2)
A minute later Prof Oak called Ash to confirm the news that he got to
Viridian City so soon after beginning his journey ... and that he lost
$1million to Gary for betting that Ash would catch a Pokemon by the time he
reached there. Right after Oak hung up Ash was confronted by an angry Misty and
her (now destroyed by the thunder-shock) bike. But she cooled down soon after
hearing of Pikachu's condition.
But as Pikachu was moved from critical care to a place to rest an
announcement was made on the public Tannoy.....
"Your attention please. Our Viridian City radar sensors have detected an aircraft belong to a gang of Pokemon thieves. If you have a Pokemon in your procession, you exercise extreme caution." - Officer Jenny (episode 2)
That said aircraft was a hot air balloon, and it was hovering over the
Pokemon Center. The thieves dropped two poke balls into the center through a
skylight, revealing an Ekens and and Koffing. A smoke screen engulfs the reception and
the thieves finally introduce themselves with their motto .... which we have
all heard a billion times since. I know they jazzed it up a bit a couple of
times over the years with new words and graphics, but its still the same
motto.But hay. It has become a habit that they have trouble breaking, after
doing it every week for the past 20 years. All they need is for someone to say
the trigger words "prepare" and "trouble."
Design-wise Jessie is a combination of an old girlfriend of Takeshi Shudōwhen he was at school
and Marjo from Time
Bokan, while James is a combination of Leonardo Medici Bundle from GoShogun(a
series Shudōhad written for previously) and Benten Kozō Kikunosuke from
the kabuki play Benten Kozō. There back stories are both
tragic and typical for villains. Jessie was the daughter of a high-ranking Team Rocket member, who disappeared when she was
about 5. Because of this most of her childhood was spent in a foster home that
was so financially poor that sometimes she had no choice but to eat snow. When she
was old enough she left home to study to be a nurse, before giving up because she
was no Chansey. James (on the other hand) was born
into a rich family, but had to run away when he discovered how Christian Grey she is. (Try to deny this
metaphor after watching this edition of PokeSins. I dare you.)
Both eventually meet as students
of Pokemon Tech (where they flunked) and
joined a bike gang, before (separately) joining Team Rocket. So with such devilish pedigree, you'll
imagine that these two are good at their job as Pokemon thieves ... and
you were right. They were terrorising Viridian City and had a cool
wanted poster ....
That was until that night when they encounter
Ash's Pikachu.
To begin with they didn't see him as anything
valuable.
"We're not interested in your electric rat." - Jessie (to Ash)
"We only seek rare and valuable Pokemon." - James (from
episode 2)
You heard them.
They didn't see Pikachu as a worthy prize back
then. So what changed their minds?
Well, we can assume that until that night they were undefeated crooks.
As the group try to defend the center's store of poke balls from
them (with embarrassing results), Ash takes Pikachu away from them
until the trio catch up with them at the reception. It was at this point a
dozen Pikachu (who were acting as the center's back-up generators) show up and
shock them - with Ash's Pikachu standing on top to proclaim his fine
health, asking Ash for "Pika Power." With the aid of the
dynamo on the ruins of Misty's bike, Pikachu got a power boost that increased
their hit power so much that Koffing began to release gas which ignited. The
building exploded. The trio were charred and frazzled floating away
dangling from their balloon as it glided across the moon.
"Great. A cat
losing to a mouse." - Jessie
"That Pikachu is
no ordinary Pikachu." - Meowth
"It's certainly
very rare. A perfect prize." - James
"Let's catch
it!" - Jessie
"Perhaps we
well." - Meowth (from episode 2)
And then their balloon develops a puncture and are "blasted
off" for the first time ever. And thus, the downfall of Team Rocket (and
the other crime syndicates) began. One imagines that Wile E. Coyote went through a similar moment
when he first saw the Road Runner. What would have happened to them if
they hadn't decided to hit the Viridian City Pokemon Center that night? Could
have they remained top agents, who didn't spend ever single penny on traps and
machines? Who knows.
For the next twoepisodes (in Viridian Forest) Ash catches his first wild
Pokemon (a Caterpie that later became a Butterfree) and Misty (after we find out
about her Entomophobia) witnesses a side to Ash that'll
become significant in the future - his selfless caring heart for his fellow
creatures. A side that'll later cause a lot of worry for his friends and loved
ones, looking at his record for risking his life.
By episode 5 Ash was in Pewter City to face his first ever gym leader. Called Takeshi in Japan (maybe
as a reference to chief show writer Takeshi Shudō), in English he is known as Brock - because he specialises in rock-types. Ash's first attempt to earn a gym
badge (as you may work out now) was a shambles. Brock's Onix proved too tough to beat for
Pikachu. When Onix was using bind on Pikachu, Ash (upon seeing his
extreme pain) couldn't bear it anymore and forfeited the match.
That night, feeling dejected, Ash meets a mysterious man named Flint, who decides to help him - by attaching
Pikachu to a small disused hydroelectric plant. The scheme was a surprising
success, when Pikachu overloaded the generator and lit the night sky with high
amounts of electric power. The next day Ash returns to the gym. Misty (been a
water-specialist) offered her Pokemon to use, but Ash refused the offer,
wanting the defeat Brock with his own team. The rematch began with Brock's Geodude knocking out Ash's Pidgeotto (which he caught in Viridian
Forest). Then Pikachu entered the ring. The charging session made sure that
Geodude was out, forcing Brock to call in Onix. Pikachu tries to shock Onix,
but it fails, damaging the gym instead. Onix binds Pikachu, but this time
Pikachu gave off a massive Thunderbolt attack, hurting Onix ... but it
wasn't enough to win. Pikachu was a bout to pass out. Brock offers to end the
match for his sake. Ash refuses. Then the sprinkler system was triggered (from
the previous attack) seriously hurting Onix (rock-types don't like
water).
And it is here we see for the first time a significant trait in Ash -
his sense of fairness. He recalls Pikachu. He had a lucky advantage with the
sprinklers, but he choose to stop the battle, because he wanted to earn his
badges by his own strength and strategy alone (much to Misty's disappointment).
That last bracket is a surprise, considering that a number of
badges Ash "earned" wasn't earned due to a battle with a gym leader.
A fact Misty would made light of in the early parts of the series. A
fact especially true when it came to Ash's second gym (two
episodes later) - the Cerulean City Gym, where we are confronted
by Misty's "sensational" sisters. Long
story short, the sisters were just giving away badges and were about to give
Ash one, until Misty entered the scene and challenged him for it (as she
was technically a gym leader of that gym). The battle
was interrupted by Team Rocket. Ash saved the day and was given
the badge as a thank you by Misty's sisters (to Misty's dismay!!!).
Back to Brock. Just as Ash was about the leave Pewter City, Brock ran to
him to give him the badge anyway - for his kindness towards Pokemon he showed
moments ago. Ash initially refuses it, but Brock's reason to do
so convinced him to take it. Afterwards Brock confesses his ambition to become
a Pokemon breeder - but
family commitments prevent him from leaving the gym. He gave him the
badge so that Ash can fulfil his dream. But then a development -
Flint appears to reveal that he is in fact Brock's dad. He had left the family
a while ago to become a trainer. While he was away, Brock's
Mum left for the same reason some time later (but in
the original English dub it was said that she died looking after the
family (a typical anime trope), but this decision by the dubbers would come
to embarrass them when (years later) she
appeared on screen pretty much alive and well. But some
English-speaking fans think that the woman on screen is Flint's new girlfriend
or second wife (to try to rationalise the error.)). Things didn't
turn out well for Flint, so that is why he is back. Now that Brock no
longer needed to stay home (to look after his nine younger siblings), he decided to travel
with Ash. And the classic trio we all love came to been.
A life of a gym leader is tough. According to one source gym leaders work on a "three
strike" system. Loss three matches in a row and your loss your gym leader
status.So imagine the stress that could cause. So its no surprise that
(according that same source) the stress is the reason
Misty and her sisters are running the gym (their parents ran away
because of the stress) and the reason Brock's mother
is regularly "on the game." That last bit is cited as the
cause of one of Brock's most noted character traits - he falls in love with
every pretty girl he sees (especially every Officer Jenny and Nurse Joy).
Despite the serious reasons for this, this trait has given us multiple bits of
comedy, usually ending with him been dragged away by Misty (initially).
For the next 200-odd episodes Ash (whether he liked it or not) had the
experienced hands of two gym leaders following him (although one of them may
had ulterior motives for doing so (guess which one)). Without Misty and Brock's
guidance, Ash may not have become the trainer we know him today and (according to this review) "probably still in
the forest throwing rocks at random monsters."
Of course they are some out there who are going to point out that this
is a kids TV show cliché and it reeks of the often mocked meme "friendship is magic." However, I have found
a piece of evidence that proves that this isn't unique to kids TV shows and
fairy tales involving creatures not from this world. It can be found in the
world of high-brow "modern" literature....
"When one is trying to do something beyond his known powers it is useless to seek the approval of friends. Friends are at their best in moments of defeat." - from Sexus by Henry Miller
Henry Miller could have written about Ash when he typewritten this back
in the 1940s. Who would have thought that it was possible to reference Henry
Miller in a blog post about Pokémon.
Box-ticking Plot (noun) - A story plot deliberately written to tick boxes in some form of checklist. Such check lists can be from a focus group or the demands of fans of a franchise. Such plots can feel "forced" upon the writing of a piece of media and the reader/viewer can notice it.
The term came to me when I saw Anime America's review of the 19th Pokemon movie - Hoopa and the Clash of Ages. I have seen the movie before seeing this review, so I had an idea what Robyn was going to say about it.
(I tried to find the video in question, but I suspect Anime America has been struck by another copyright troll (again!).)
I just recently completed making these graphics for my 20th anniversary special.
I am posting them here and (later) on Facebook to add them to the webmemesphere.
I hope you like them.
For some reason this stick figure next to text saying you to "be or don't be like him" meme has been trending in my neck of Facebook recently.
I do hope this one spreads.
You won't believe how much of an idiot Ash was when he began his journey back in 1997.
Look up the first ever episode.
For those who have not seen the anime recently, she is a serious challenge to the well established meme that is "Ash and Misty are meant to be a couple in the future". She has divided opinion in the fandom (in a similar way that dress did to everyone with the gift of full colour vision).
(And yes, the original dress in that photo was really black and blue.)
