THE ACHE

 (Image credit to Banksy)

In the last article, I asked you to track your media consumption as obsessively as you could. You were to write down every little piece of media you could possibly manage to watch. If you did it right, you should have a VERY large list of all the media you consume. A lot of you might be shocked at how long your lists are. Many of you might realize that some things snuck in to your days without you even noticing them, “Oh, wow. Those really funny ads after my favourite show really got to me...” or “Holy cow, the women in those perfume commercials look dead...that's kind of disturbing...” or "Why aren't there ever women driving the cars in those ads?" (this one seriously gets me. The only thing you see a woman driving in car commercials is a freakin' van or something...ugh!) These are all fantastic observations. I hope that you made some notes as to what commercials really triggered you, emotionally or otherwise. These will especially come in handy later on. Not this week, though!

This week, though, I'm asking you to do something different. This week, instead of obsessively compiling our media intake, we are going to try to completely cut ourselves off from it. That's right. NO media. None.

Now, you can define media however you want, but I want you to for SURE avoid the internet, magazines, and the television (yes, I have bolded them. It's necessary). Your list of media may also include the posters on the subway and billboards. It may include the radio. It may include ALL books. Or it may not. It may only consist of the three I listed (which I find are the major ways media gets to us in today's society). Feel free to add as you want. The less media you can consume this week, the better!

And cue the yelling.

Seriously, though. This notion is always one that garners a very hostile reaction from people. Almost always, there are tens of thousands of excuses “But I NEED to watch TV – I have a project due!” “How am I not supposed to look at posters?! There's nothing else to look at!” “But facebook...” 

NOPE. No media.

Take a step back and listen to the resistance speaking. Do you really NEED media? I'm not saying you need to leave it for the rest of your life – I only ask that, again, you aim to have at least ONE DAY media-free. It would be a lot more beneficial for you if you managed more than that (I suggest a week), but a day will suffice, if you really, really need that media back.

It's this immediate hostile resistance that we're looking at this time. Why is it that we react that way when our life-line to society's messages and whims is suddenly being threatened. We act as if someone is threatening to take away the very blood in our body. It's TV, computers, radio and posters, not your blood and bones, or your firstborn child.

Because really, it's simply a box. A machine. These things that we've become so attached to, so addicted to – they're simple machines, running off of electricity. The messages are what really draw us in. It's not the computer we want, it's the constant stream of chatter and obligations and messages that pull at us so strongly. We don't want to stare at a TV for hours on end; we want to get our daily fix of society telling us what's what and what isn't. We're addicts for the stuff!

(And please, please, PLEASE do not try to justify something. Do not just 'peek' at your dashboard on tumblr, or sit on the couch when someone else is watching TV because you didn't turn it on. Just...avoid media. Don't do it, don't watch it, don't. Please. Because if you do, you're the one who's going to have to live with the gnawing disappointment of not being able to give media up for a day. C'mon. You're MUCH better than that. I know it). 

So, I BEG you. This is one of the most important exercises that you'll undertake in this whole series. Please, please, please go at least one day without media. If you can manage that, go another. Aim, if you can, for a full week of as little media as you can manage. And I know you can manage a lot more than you think! There's plenty of things you can do instead of consume media.

-paint something

-paint your nails and your toenails (or trim them, if you're like me...whoops...)

-learn to cook a new food

-teach yourself a new skill (this week I'll be teaching myself the mysterious skill of guerrilla art)

-spend some time with someone you love

-dance

-go out on a date somewhere

-cuddle with your cat

-take a long, long bath

-clean that thing you've needed to...

-call that friend you haven't talked to in a while

-make some mail art!

-play a card game (I highly recommend magic: the gathering)

-learn a new language

-meditate for a while

-go on a real long walk, maybe go to a park

-go to a museum or gallery, if you can (unfortunately, I cannot, so instead I'll walk through the gallery mother nature has made for me, during a nice long walk!)

The ideas are endless! These are just a few of my seriously exciting ideas! Good luck!

THE FEED

  (Image credit to Banksy)

Do you notice that we 'consume' media? We don't 'experience' it, or look at it. We don't listen, read or understand it. We consume it. Like we consume food. Food, eating – something we cannot control. A human has to eat, right? So, in turn, we must consume media. It is necessary. Right?

I don't think so. Unlike food, we won't shrivel up and die without media. I think that we live in a society controlled and consumed by media. Advertisements have filtered their way in to our public spaces on the backs of buses, subway tunnels, billboards. Screaming out messages and ideals like angry gorillas you simply cannot ignore. They've made our way in to our houses, our kitchens and backyards, our bathrooms. It's almost like we can't get rid of it.

We receive most of our information in what is called a 'feed' now. Ironic, right? To be 'fed' media? Oftentimes, we don't have much control over what we're being fed, either. Newsfeeds that have a HUGE bias against them, little sneaky advertisements squeeze their way between posts that we're interested in (or maybe not so sneaky – I hate you, popups and flashy ads – ughh!). Sometimes even our favourite authors and bloggers sneak in 'sponsored' posts that end up being blatant advertisements for certain products**.

I'm hoping that through this series, we'll all be able to understand the media we're being 'fed' a lot better. But before we can do that, we need to take stock of what we're being fed right now, in this moment. We need to get a baseline reading on how much media we consume, while we're still trapped in it. This will be an invaluable resource for the later activities.

So, your assignment for this week is to take stock of what media you consume. Grab yourself a little notebook (or make your own here, or here) or even some scraps of paper – anything that you can fold up and carry around with you for a few days. And write, record down EVERY bit of media you take in (be it the sign of a store, to that weird billboard that made you uncomfortable, that one commercial you hate, or that song you LOVE). Write it down.

Do it for a few days. I want you to do it for at least a solid 24 hours (yes, if you remember something from a dream, write it down!!). I know you can do that. If you're keen, do it for a full week – it would give you plenty of material to work with. The more you write, the more helpful these observations will be in the future.

If you're having trouble with this exercise, here's a quirky tip to try: play pretend. Pretend you're a scientist, an alien, discovering your culture for the first time. You have NO idea what these people are doing. Observe it from an objective point. Do not let your mind chime in and say “Well, the radio isn't as bad as TV...” or “This poster isn't really media...” Take stock of everything like you're never going to see it again. LIKE THE VERY FABRIC OF THE FUTURE HANGS IN YOUR HANDS. Separate yourself from the media, and casually record what you're seeing, experiencing.I promise, it will be worth it.

Good luck! Stay tuned for the next article to come.

THE BUZZ

 (Image credit to Banksy)

I went back to my childhood summer camp a month ago. Walking around in the peace and quiet, the not-so-silence of nature, I felt a sigh of relief escape from my body and mind. I couldn't place it at the time, so I kept walking, taking in the scenery and laughing with old friends.

It wasn't until I got back home that I realized that silence, that feeling of relief, wasn't that of true peace and quiet (because we all know a forest is quite loud in reality) but of technological silence. And further than that, I consumed no media. No electronic devices are allowed at the camp. No cell phones, no TV, no electricity. There was nothing. What usually was an endless drone of words and thoughts and ideas and images was silence. Nothing. And it felt fantastic. 

There was no buzz. No electric hum echoing from the devices, from the news, from the posters and the billboards; no buzz was echoing through my head. 

Now, I'm not here to whine about how we all need to unplug and untangle ourselves from the technological mess we've all got going nowadays – I think we all know we do, plain and simple. I'm going a bit deeper here. Very few of us know just how much media we consume. Nor do we realize what we consume on an daily basis.

What do you mean, media?

Here's a nice simple definition I swiped from dictionary.com:

Media (noun, plural): The main means of mass communication (esp. television, radio, newspapers, and the Internet) regarded collectively.

So basically media is everything and anything send out to the masses. Be it a pamphlet, a commercial on the television or an article on the internet. Heck, even this article I'm writing is considered media.

So what? You ask. It's just media.

So what? The media we consume has morphed itself in to a machine. Our very society is dependant on us purchasing products we don't need. And to do that effectively, means promising (or selling) the potential customers not only a product, but an idealized lifestyle as well (well get in to this more later). This machine is not built for our benefit – in fact, it is built to our detriment. And the fact that we've grown so complacent to it, and that it has infiltrated every inch of our own lives (hello bathroom adverts – ew!) is quite a frightening concept.

I firmly believe that everyone should take a media awareness class. After taking in the first of many lectures and articles about media awareness, critical theory and media analysis, and they changed me. Suddenly everything that I watched, everything that I listened to, experienced, read, meant something. Suddenly everything that I took for granted, passively accepted as truth, was something much deeper, and in many cases, much more sinister.

Suddenly I could pick out biases. I could see when a commercial was trying to tell me something I didn't want to hear, or didn't believe in. I was noticing the pieces of media that really 'hooked' me, that got me intrigued and excited, and the media that made me feel awful and gross inside. After a large period of shell-shock from seeing all these messages hidden within seemingly innocent things, I became grateful.

I began to be able to understand why people thought a certain way. I began to understand that not everything represented in media is equal, or true. I learned to read between the lines, and at once sensitize myself to it, to understand and sympathize with the biases within media, and harden myself so that I wasn't as affected by it.

To put it frankly, I viewed media in a much more positive way, for myself and for, eventually, the betterment of the world.

And I hope that through this series, you can do the same thing. It's not always a fun process, nor is it an easy one, especially since almost all of us have grown up with a constant stream of media flowing through us. But I am almost positive that by beginning to understand, and later critique and pick apart media, you will not only be making a positive impact on yourself, but eventually on the world, too.

We live in a world that is constantly being force-fed media – so much that we don't even notice it anymore, or even fight against it when someone attempts to bring themselves and others away from it. So please, if you're feeling resistance to this, take a step back and look at how media has influenced you – today, a month ago, a year, your entire life. Look at how it affected you as a child, or your own children. By taking a look at how effective media is at getting us to do what it wants, and the mammoth-scale in which we consume it, it's paramount that we understand the beast we're dealing with.

Because those who can understand media, not consume it, will be able to rise above it.

Will you join me?