From the cave walls of long ago, via digital content creation, 'Batman Begins', 'The Dark Knight' and Apple, to the ideal at the heart of our perceptions and preconceptions of the world.
Here I consider the digital age's contemporary updates of the spectator and the spectacle - 'consumer' and 'content' and ask what these two commonplace terms can tell us about our relationship and understanding of our world and of the cultural artifacts we have created therein...
This post builds on the previous post, Spectatorship Redux: Why we need to re-understand the Spectator and the Spectacle, in which I looked at the 'spectator' and 'spectacle' terms and what their inherent vision-centric meanings can tell us about the interface of the user (spectator) and the useable (spectacle).
Here I consider the digital age's contemporary updates of the spectator and the spectacle - 'consumer' and 'content' and ask what these two commonplace terms can tell us about our relationship and understanding of our world and of the cultural artifacts we have created therein...
This post builds on the previous post, Spectatorship Redux: Why we need to re-understand the Spectator and the Spectacle, in which I looked at the 'spectator' and 'spectacle' terms and what their inherent vision-centric meanings can tell us about the interface of the user (spectator) and the useable (spectacle).
"The spectator and the spectacle are conceptual shortcuts that, like human sight, rarely ever tell the full truth of what we perceive... in the field of spectatorship studies as a whole, when we discuss the spectator and the spectacle, we need to set an example by discussing them in relation to a bigger reality. A reality that incorporates vision, but ultimately transcends it. "
Here, I would briefly like to extend that same line of argument in relation to the much more contemporary conception and identifiers of the spectator and the spectacle - consumer and content.
- I will present the definitions of 'content' and 'consumer.'
- Discuss what their definitions and what their contemporary proliferation in use tells us about the changing conception of the spectator and the spectacle in relation to academic spectatorship studies and of the general humanistic concept of the user and the usable.
- Then I will transition to consider the concept of the IDEAL and how this is very much represented more so in the 'content' and 'consumer' conceptions of the spectator and the spectacle, the user and the usable.
- Conclude by focusing on the concept of the IDEAL which is at the heart of understanding the interface and the interface process between content and consumer, spectator and spectacle, user and usable.
Consumer
NOUN
1. A person who purchases goods and services for personal use:
[AS MODIFIER]: consumer demand
1.1 A person or thing that eats or uses somethingScandinavians are the largest consumers of rye
a.k.a.
buyer, purchaser, user, end user, customer, shopper, enjoyer
Unlike the spectator, where sight was the dominant human sense associated, 'consumer' immediately has associations of eating. However, the term is not restricted to the sense of taste and can just as easily be used to refer to any and all human senses. Therefore, already consumer is more promising than spectator.
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Consumption through the mouth. Consumers love Ben & Jerry's!
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Additionally, ownership or potential ownership associations come to mind; it is very much associated with the end user, the targeted audience, the customer. If the spectator has a very academic feeling to it, then the consumer is very much an industrial and marketing conscious term.
The wide-proliferation of technology and the rise of the internet have been very much been responsible for bringing this term into everyday usage. Consumer or the closely associated user is very much how the spectator of today's technologically-and-web-centric world is described.
The wide proliferation and use of the consumer term is representative of a spectator who now has access to a wider-variety of experiences and products for practical and entertainment purposes.
However, like a spectator, the consumer suffers from the same problem of being a passive entity, an objectified generalisation not actually representative of a living and breathing conscious agent.
"The "consumer" term assumes that users (aka buyers) accept whatever is given to them, eating it up. It's a business fantasy that has taken root in our increasingly marketed culture, where companies come up with a manufactured need, then set about convincing us we can't live without it. We people are passive receptacles of whatever they manufacture and sell. It's a pernicious term, especially if you're old enough to recall when businesses called us "customers," a term that implies the buyer is to be treated at least as a junior partner in the transaction, with his or her views accounted for during the development and sales process."
- Galem Gruman, Don't call me a 'consumer' or an 'end-user', 2012
"What is the difference between Consumer and User?
- Both the words consumer as well as user refer to the last person who utilizes the product or services after paying money.
- However, consumer is a broader concept as it refers to all members who use the same product or service though one member of the family has bought the product.
- Consumer may or may not be actual user of a product or service as he may avoid a particular product after hearing poor review from others.
- A consumer may be a person absorbing some aspect of the product or service without actually making use of the product."
- Difference Between Consumer and User, 2011
"A USER is a person who uses your product or service.
A CONSUMER is someone who consumes your brand. For example, the consumer may be on different levels of the purchasing cycle, including pre-purchase. A consumer is not necessarily a user or a customer. They may just not be there, yet. The consumer absorbs some aspect of your brand, whether it's the product itself, your brand messaging, their sister-in-law's experience, general word-of-mouth, overall impression of brand, what charities you are involved with, some accounting scandal they read about in the paper, etc."
- Brewing Debate, User vs. Consumer, 2006
Ultimately, while consumer has broader associations connect to it in terms of entertainment entities and general products for everyday use, it is still very vague, easily confused and presents the spectator or user as a passive agent who only receives - something Ways 2 Interface is endeavoured to move away from.
However, things become slightly more enlightening and intriguing when we consider:
Content
ADJECTIVE
1. In a state of peaceful happiness:
he seemed more content, less bitter
1.1. Willing to accept something; satisfied:
he had to be content with third place
[WITH INFINITIVE]: the duke was content to act as Regent
VERB
[WITH OBJECT]
1. Satisfy (someone):
nothing would content her apart from going off to Barcelona
1.1. (content oneself with) Accept as adequate despite wanting more or better:
we contented ourselves with a few small purchases
NOUN
1. [MASS NOUN] A state of satisfaction:
the greater part of the century was a time of content
2. A member of the British House of Lords who votes for a particular motion.
- Oxford Dictionaries, 2014
a.k.a.
comfortable, contented, fulfilled, satisfied, willing, appeased, gratified, at ease, can't complain, complacent, fat dumb and happy, pleased as punch, smug
Increasingly we hear talk of content being the thing/material/substance that comprises the internet. However, when we look at the established definition of content, where is there a definition that is prevalent to content being, well, being a form of multimedia?
There isn't one!
"Here are just some of the types of content you can create:
White papers
Tip Sheets
How to booklets
Guidebooks
Resource Guides
Step by Steps
Product Profiles
Industry Application Profiles
Case Studies
Customer Interviews
Testimonials
Slideshows
Videos
Surveys
Q&As
Charts
Articles
Web pages
Blog posts
Tutorials
E-newsletters
Podcasts
Infographics
Forms & Templates"
Almost by accident, it seems that content has slipped in through the back door to act as a wide-ranging summation of the multimedia that makes up the internet and the entirety of what the spectator/user now consumes in the digital age.
How did this happen and what does it tell us about the changing relationship of the spectator and the spectacle?
Something you will almost always hear in relation to multimedia content is marketing
"What is content marketing?
Content marketing represents a new philosophy in marketing – a paradigm shift, if you will – that focuses on providing useful and engaging information for the target audience.
It is a marketing approach that is based on education instead of promotion.
When done right, content marketing can help you:
- generate more website traffic and leads
- expand your audience and build a list
- enhance your credibility and reputation.
Content marketing has not replaced traditional marketing approaches like advertising, direct mail and PR. But it has eaten into their budgets and marketers everywhere are making it a priority."
- Bob Macarthy, Content creation designed to build your audience … and your reputation, 2014
The advertising industry has been influential in embracing the emerging internet and in shaping the lexicon of cyberspace.
Additionally, content is pretty useless if no one sees it and this is where content marketing is called on to promote your content and/or to use your content to promote a larger brand or product or service, etc.
This is the reason for why I am orchestrating Ways 2 Interface online.
Additionally, content is pretty useless if no one sees it and this is where content marketing is called on to promote your content and/or to use your content to promote a larger brand or product or service, etc.
This is the reason for why I am orchestrating Ways 2 Interface online.
Everyone is a content creator today
Content - how that content moves about and is engaged with - represents the turning of the cogs behind the internet, without content the internet would just be an empty canvas. Therein lies the truth of why the wide range of multimedia that makes up the digital age has become identified as content -
Content - how that content moves about and is engaged with - represents the turning of the cogs behind the internet, without content the internet would just be an empty canvas. Therein lies the truth of why the wide range of multimedia that makes up the digital age has become identified as content -
The contents of the internet and the digital age is content.
Content is an umbrella term employed to refer to a wide array of different types of material designed to tempt users to engage with it.
"Think of your content as a gift you give your readers. Content creators need to include intriguing packaging to entice readers and make sure they will want to “open” it."
- Heidi Cohen, 5 Tactics for Content Creators to Increase Content Consumption, 2013
Content in and of itself is just an undated wide-ranging re-conception of the
From amateurs to professionals, content is crafted by content creators (producers, filmmakers, videographers, writers, photographers, bloggers, etc.) to be educational, promotional, entertaining and enticing spectacle material for spectators/users to consume.
This is where content really comes into its own!
In addition to acting as an non-vision-centric and unbiased term that applies to a wide array of multimedia, it also identifies something that is integral for producing good content, whether it is a feature film, a meme, a piece of music, or a blog post, and which directly identifies a concept that is integral in regards to Ways 2 Interface's overall endeavour.
This integral quality is immediately identified in the inherent and traditional meaning of the word content:
Content serves as a vastly superior updated version of the spectacle because, in addition to being unbiased, it directly identifies something that humanity has always striven to create in the external world and to attain within ourselves - the concept of the
This is where content really comes into its own!
In addition to acting as an non-vision-centric and unbiased term that applies to a wide array of multimedia, it also identifies something that is integral for producing good content, whether it is a feature film, a meme, a piece of music, or a blog post, and which directly identifies a concept that is integral in regards to Ways 2 Interface's overall endeavour.
This integral quality is immediately identified in the inherent and traditional meaning of the word content:
ADJECTIVE
1. In a state of peaceful happiness
he seemed more content, less bitter
1.1. Willing to accept something; satisfied:
he had to be content with third place
[WITH INFINITIVE]: the duke was content to act as Regent
Content serves as a vastly superior updated version of the spectacle because, in addition to being unbiased, it directly identifies something that humanity has always striven to create in the external world and to attain within ourselves - the concept of the
IDEAL
ADJECTIVE
1. Satisfying one’s conception of what is perfect; most suitable:
the swimming pool is ideal for a quick dip
this is an ideal opportunity to save money
2. [ATTRIBUTIVE] Existing only in the imagination; desirable or perfect but not likely to become a reality:
in an ideal world, we might have made a different decision
2.1. Representing an abstract or hypothetical optimum:
mathematical modelling can determine theoretically ideal conditions
NOUN
1. A person or thing regarded as perfect:
you’re my ideal of how a man should be
1.1. A standard or principle to be aimed at:
tolerance and freedom, the liberal ideals
- Oxford Dictionaries, 2014
a.k.a.
excellent, fitting, optimal, quintessential, absolute, classic, classical, representative, Shangri-la, archetypal, complete, consummate, exemplary, flawless, have-it- all, indefectible, paradigmatic, pie-in-the-sky, prototypical, supreme
Every piece of music, every piece of writing, every film, etc. every piece of content has been built from its creator's point of view to satisfy an idealised vision or intention they had for that piece of content; even if it is an imperfect idealised vision or intention. Every piece of content is built to satisfy a specific set of objectives.
Why?
Because then that content serves a genuine productive and/or entertaining and/or promotional purpose; it makes content more attractive to consumers and it brings a level of fulfilment to the creator.
However, "Satisfying one’s conception of what is perfect; most suitable" is exactly that, we can objectify it into different forms of content and "perfect" it all we want, but what is perfect is ultimately a hugely subjective set of preferences.
Everyone has their own heart of ideals.
Conceptual Simplifications: the IDEAL at the heart of it all
"If you make yourself more than just a man, if you devote yourself to an ideal... then, you become something else entirely - a legend."
- Ra's Al Ghul, Batman Begins, 2005
When I first experienced Batman Begins, I was so impressed with the film that I watched it through a second time straight after completing my first viewing.
I am a huge Batman fan and I had always been slightly let down by the previous Burton and Schumacher films, but with Begins, I saw a film that just got the character and his legend spot on!
The acting was first class, the writing was superb, every character was sufficiently utilised, the film form was something very difficult (however, now everyone has copied it), the psychology and the films study of fear was hugely intelligent.
The whole film just came together into an immensely satisfying whole and set things up nicely for the sequel.
I was very content while watching Batman Begins.
The acting was first class, the writing was superb, every character was sufficiently utilised, the film form was something very difficult (however, now everyone has copied it), the psychology and the films study of fear was hugely intelligent.
The whole film just came together into an immensely satisfying whole and set things up nicely for the sequel.
I was very content while watching Batman Begins.
I would go on to describe Batman Begins as being: "the perfect film."
However, I have not met a single person who has ever agreed with me. Whenever I have this discussion, everyone also gravitates towards the sequel, The Dark Knight, "that is the best film of the trilogy," they always say.
Subjectivity is at the root of this disagreement.
Batman Begins is essentially a film about a man overcoming his anger and his fear; he goes on a journey and learns how to use his anger and his fear for a productive and positive purpose: this message, this journey and this ideal had a huge personal impact on me and the course I would go on to choose in life.
Therefore, in addition to Batman Begins being a hugely entertaining film, it also served as an ideal that I Immediately gravitated towards because I needed to overcome my own anger; the film offered me an ideal to strive towards that helped me to do just that.
I still think The Dark Knight is a hugely entertaining film and, objectively, I do think it is the better film, but, subjectively, I rate Batman Begins higher because it had a huge emotional resonance with myself and an even bigger effect on my life.
I still think The Dark Knight is a hugely entertaining film and, objectively, I do think it is the better film, but, subjectively, I rate Batman Begins higher because it had a huge emotional resonance with myself and an even bigger effect on my life.
While everyone may have found Batman Begins entertaining, not everyone gravitated towards it in the same way that I did, because not everyone needed to overcome their anger.
However, the reason why most people gravitate towards The Dark Knight is because of the Joker - he is a character who embodies the ideal of the ultimate anarchistic freedom, something that we all, deep down, would like to indulge ourselves in - hence, why most people are subjectively inclined towards The Dark Knight.
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"A symbol can be everlasting." - Bruce Wayne, Batman Begins, 2005
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However, the reason why most people gravitate towards The Dark Knight is because of the Joker - he is a character who embodies the ideal of the ultimate anarchistic freedom, something that we all, deep down, would like to indulge ourselves in - hence, why most people are subjectively inclined towards The Dark Knight.
Here, then, is a clear example of the role subjectivity plays in the spectator/consumer and content/relationship.
Content/spectacles are built to embody idealised aesthetics, the spectator/consumer always gravitates towards the ones that they identify with the most and then, ultimately, create their idealised and subjective experience from it.
Like all superhero films, Apple is a major product and branded example of this - they have adopted this idealised philosophy as their essential aesthetic:
“To make a contribution to the world by making tools for the mind that advance humankind.”
- Steve Jobs, sometime in the 1980s.
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| My Apple iPad Mini enables me to take photographs, edit them and post them (if I have access to wifi). It saves me a great deal of time, I love it (to a degree) because of this. |
Apple offers a very popular simplified, but expansive infrastructure ideal for consumers to operate their lifestyles around. Apple understands that the end user is just as much as involved in the collaboration of the experience the user wishes to gain from an Apple product. Coupled together with its award winning innovations, it is this collaboration and focus on the end user that accounts for why Apple is so popular.
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While I do like my Apple iPad (to a degree), I do find Apple's aesthetic to be a bit rigid sometimes. Hence why I have an Apple sticker on my Toshiba laptop, it is a mark of defiance and an expression of my subjective point of view of Apple.
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It can be talked of as being transcendental and if we are talking about film experiences, as I did in Ways of Being, I referred to this as being the filmic experience:
"Ultimately, the spectator leaves the film with a unique filmic experience that is different to the filmic experience of any other audience member, precisely because the spectator would have been a collaborator in its creation; the filmic experience will go on to have a continued neurobiological and cognitive existence as part of a larger narrative, as the spectator lives his or her life."
- Ways of Being: The Spectator and the Spectacle, 2013:102
Ultimately, it is about attaining something bigger than either the user or the usable. Understanding this interface is understanding the ideals and states of content that we, as human beings, strive to gain from that interfacing process of spectator/consumer and spectacle/content.
"We mostly admit the information that makes us feel great about ourselves, while conveniently filtering out whatever unsettles our fragile egos and most vital beliefs."
- Margaret Heffernan, Wilful Blindness, 2012:3-4
The digital age offers us a very interesting space to examine the ideal at the heart of it all, because, now, thanks to social media and the entirety of user generated content on the internet, we are able to examine these internal and subjective ideals like never before - it gives us a much bigger picture to scrutinise.
Everyone is subjectively biased, whether we want to admit it or not. As much as I can criticise myself and remain objective, the Ways 2 Interface project is, ultimately, going to contain my subjective stance towards its explorations and, in truth, I see that as being one of the project's greatest strengths - presenting objectivity and subjectivity in equal measure (I hope). Therefore, in order to attain a thorough understanding of the spectator/consumer and spectacle/content, we ignore the study of subjectivity at our own peril.
Everyone is subjectively biased, whether we want to admit it or not. As much as I can criticise myself and remain objective, the Ways 2 Interface project is, ultimately, going to contain my subjective stance towards its explorations and, in truth, I see that as being one of the project's greatest strengths - presenting objectivity and subjectivity in equal measure (I hope). Therefore, in order to attain a thorough understanding of the spectator/consumer and spectacle/content, we ignore the study of subjectivity at our own peril.
"We are the stories we tell ourselves, the key to understanding the purpose of the interfacing process is in realising both the deceits of the abstractions in which we constantly immerse ourselves and the ways in which we constantly immerse ourselves in the truths of those abstract deceits."
- Ways 2 Interface: Welcome #2Interface, 2014
It is about understanding the humanistic endeavour for self-deception, both interior to ourselves and as manifested in our content and cultural artefacts.
"There is another way of looking at our capacity for deception and self-deception: as an expression of our defiantly creative nature - our refusal to accept that the world as it is, is all there is."
- Ian Leslie, Born Liars, 2012:334
When we begin to dissect the ideals we build for ourselves, we will understand why we employ conceptual short-cuts or simplifications, such as the spectator/consumer and spectacle/content:
"we've been doing studies of evolution using mathematical models called Evolutionary Game Theory and genetic algorithms. You can actually create perceptual strategies, you can create any world that you want in the computer; in fact, millions of them at random. You create perceptual strategies for organisms competing in that world. Some of the organisms see all of the truth of that world... and others are only tuned to fitness and you have them compete and you analyse them for costs: for the time it take them to get their perceptions, the information costs, computational costs... the bottom line is, in these computations, in world after world, truth goes extinct! It's not the most fit strategy... and when we do genetic algorithms truth doesn't even come onto the stage, it never evolves!"
- Donald Hoffman, Conciousness and The Interface Theory of Perception, 2013
Ideals and conceptual simplifications are just lies that we tell ourselves and that we aspire to, but they are productive lies, because adhering to these lies is required for our species to survive in the world, even if they can lead to disagreements among our species.
"The warm rush of certainty we experience when arriving at a definite point of view or reiterating a long-held belief is not to be trusted. It's something we are biologically programmed to feel but the programme, although intended to help us come to a decision - to act - has little to do with whether or not we're actually right."
- Ian Leslie, Born Liars, 2012:328
To this end, lies, ideals and conceptual simplifications actually make us more productive human beings in the human conception of reality, they are required. We have to believe in something simplified, it is how we retain our sanity and move from one day to the next.
In conclusion
What do the consumer and content terms tell us about the interface of the spectator and the spectacle and our relationship with the world?
Well, as with the 'spectator' and 'spectacle' terms that were considered in the previous post, 'consumer' and 'content' tell us that human beings like to employ conceptual simplifications to operate productively from day-to-day. The terminology we use is just an example of a much deeper cognitive habit we have of simplifying reality external to human perception and preconception.
As I commented with the spectator and spectacle terms in the previous post, the consumer and content terms are not something I am going to disregard or even stop using, but, once again, on their own, their conceptual simplifications are not thorough enough to understand the true underlying intricacies of the interfacing process of human consciouness.
Consumer, while being able to refer to any and all of the human senses, is still representative of a spectator entity that is just a passive receptor. Therefore, it is not that much better than the spectator term. It is still just a label and not a very good describer of the spectator's role in the interfacing process.
Content, is much more promising than the spectacle term, because it is no biased towards the sense of vision and it directly identifies the ideal at the heart of all forms of content and humanities continuing endeavour to objectify its ideals into cultural artefacts, so that it can attain those ideals. The content term is still not quite explaining what the spectacle's role is in the interfacing process, but it is broad step in the right direction.
As I commented with the spectator and spectacle terms in the previous post, the consumer and content terms are not something I am going to disregard or even stop using, but, once again, on their own, their conceptual simplifications are not thorough enough to understand the true underlying intricacies of the interfacing process of human consciouness.
Ultimately, any term that is employed to refer to the spectator/consumer and spectacle/content variables will in some way always be a simplification, but in order to understand the ongoing interfacing process that occurs between these two variables, we need to be much clearer from the outset about the cognitive and neurological complexity of the spectator/consumer/user and the larger pervasive influence of the spectacle/content/usable beyond its primary component.
It is important for our species to keep striving to dig deeper and to gain an insight into the bigger reality around us, because that is how we produce new innovation, it is how we better ourselves and, crucially, it is how we overcome the negative aspects of our tendency for self-deception.
"wilful blindness: we may think being blind makes us safer, when in fact it leaves us crippled, vulnerable and powerless. But when we confront facts and fears, we achieve real power and unleash our capacity for change."
- Margaret Heffernan, Wilful Blindness, 2012:5
Understanding the bigger picture is necessary for our evolution as a species. There is a reason we left the cave behind all those thousands of years ago and, unlike the common myth, it was not down to changes in our physiology:
"Physiologically, we are virtually identical to our acestors who painted images of bison on the walls of the Lascaux cave in France, among the earliest cultural artifacts to have survived to he present day. Our brains are no larger or more sophisticated that theirs. If one of their babies were to be dropped into the arms of an adoptive parent in twenty-first-century New York, the child would likely grow up indistinguishable from his or her peers."
- Joshua Foer, Moonwalking with Einstein, 2011:18
We finally left the cave behind, because on the walls of those ancient caves we painted ourselves something to admire and to look up towards, on those cave walls we painted our first ideals. We left the cave behind because we started telling ourselves stories of how things could better.
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In the follow-up to this post, Accuracy from the outset: the Perceiving Participator and the Spectacle Experiencing Situation, I will present an example of a reclassification for the consumer/spectator/user and the content/spectacle/useable, in endeavour to be more accurate when discussing the spectator and spectacle variables of the interfacing process.
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In the follow-up to this post, Accuracy from the outset: the Perceiving Participator and the Spectacle Experiencing Situation, I will present an example of a reclassification for the consumer/spectator/user and the content/spectacle/useable, in endeavour to be more accurate when discussing the spectator and spectacle variables of the interfacing process.
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