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The Pete Best of internet animation
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Comments
dinosaur spaghetti
Some intriguing words, thanks for the blogpost!
I think it's a good topic to bring up. I remember taking a commercial arts class, and learning basically the little tricks like that in ads.
I'm not wanting to put down anyone, but for me, it's uncomfortable and something I wouldn't want to do.
Manipulation and coercion are just too thin of a line from abuse. // is similar to what those people would do.
But ya, nothing inherently wrong with learning them. But I think we can make things interesting and entertaining without psychological manipulation.
But regardless, analyzing what messages you put out, is a very good idea.
Hopefully this isn't a bother, best of luck in the future
I'm being a little provocative here, so maybe take the word "manipulation" with a grain of salt, but I would argue that every work of art ever made engages in some form of manipulation, of your senses, of your emotions, whatever. If you don't trust yourself to be able to pull peoples' strings without being abusive then it's probably wise to not to get good at pulling strings, but unfortunately that leaves us with a situation where the people with moral compasses step aside and get overshadowed by the people who are perfectly happy to be abusive.
(But to your credit, I'm aware that this is a very weird and vaguely evil-sounding idea!)
@Emrox no stress, I definitely didn't mean to call out, but that's what I felt in that class. Like big business intentionally persuading youth. But ya, I've also realized that my opinion doesn't make too much sense. As you said, everything has influence on others in some way, so there no way to really avoid it. I think about that a lot.
I guess how I'd explain it, I have my own morals and opinions. I'm happy to explain why I have them , but people should come to there own. When it becomes subliminal, they don't have all the information to form their own. They feel a way without knowing why. And I guess I don't trust myself to "know best". I wouldn't intentionally be abusive, I just think it's very complicated. Very, very challenging to do right.
I think it's a great idea to build up the indie side of things.
Ps, this is entirely how i feel about the topic. Not targeted to you, nor participants. Just trying to explain.
Thanks for the thoughtful replies. I had some similar classes in college and had a similar experience - it felt like it was good information to know (at the very least to help notice when someone is trying to use tricks on you), but it seemed like a power to wield carefully and responsibly, and the people teaching it didn't always seem very responsible!
I think the conclusion you've come to is something a lot of people come to - that it's better to just let people be and not try to exert influence on the world, because who knows who's right about anything when no one knows what the point of existence is in the first place. I guess my point in posting this is to target those people, who generally take a backseat because they're afraid of fucking things up, and to say "look, things are getting fucked up anyway, so maybe we gotta sink a little lower for the greater good!" I'm not really sure I even believe in any of this, but hopefully it gets people to think a little. (So thanks again for doing that!)
interesting Stuff you said
I appreciate your acknowledgement that art matters a lot and can be beneficial to the world because even if not many people would disagree with those points when worded like that, I think there's a natural tendency for people to underestimate the impact they can have on others with what they make. It's also a tricky sentiment to express because if somebody goes a bit too hard on making the point, then people would probably cry pretension, self-importance, etc.
I guess it depends on what's considered "manipulation," and I know people have different takes on that. For instance, anything dishonest or unfair is out of the question for me, but based on your response below, manipulation in this case would be pretty broadly defined, and I think I know what you mean. I think whether it's right or not boils down to intent and honesty. Even something like somebody putting sad music in the background could be seen as a form of emotional manipulation, but that's not typically hurting anybody, unless someone's doing it to promote a crypto scam or whatever.
The main problem is really that nobody can agree on what the "right reasons" for such a thing are, and most people think they are doing good things for the right reasons, even when they're not - but I also don't think uncertainty should always stop someone from trying to help. Openly discussing this sort of stuff always risks the possibility of some cartoon villain reading this and rubbing their hands anyway.
If someone wants to try this on a large scale, they'd likely have the largest possible impact and the most available resources if they're making YouTube videos that are probably at least ~8 minutes and don't take too long to make. I say that because there's already lots of information on maximizing retention out there that I think aligns very well with what you'd define as a sort of manipulation. For instance, one guy who directly helped MrBeast with his retentionmaxxing, Mario Joos, regularly posts on Twitter about strategies for this stuff. The artistic downside of this is that because YouTube likes longer, more frequent uploads, it'd be tricky to pull this off while also ensuring that the content in question is Art with a capital A.
I agree that there isn't much consensus on what the "right" things are... however, even if you have people on opposite sides of an issue both doing this, I would argue that's sort of better than having that discussion dictated by people who are primarily motivated by money or power, which seems to be largely the case right now when it comes to the big political stuff.
i think the real paradox here is that a lot of the famous tricks (such as playing sad music to underscore an emotional moment) sort of pull in the opposite direction of capital A Art (side note, just saw Jazza do a patreon launch video with a whole "emotional arc" complete with sad music at the beginning and triumphant music at the end) (sider note, he kept saying in that vid how he really didn't want to ask for money and anything helps and yet his price tiers are like 7$, 20$, 50$, 200$ - like bro what happened to three bucks) so to me the real "challenge" is to develop new ways of hooking people that don't turn off the people who are wise to the usual tricks.
I pretty much said this in the post already, but I think if you're being reality-based, the tricks don't have to do nearly as much legwork. Because a Mr. Beast-like personality has to convince you of something that's actually a little bit false, he has to lean harder into the obvious and offensive tricks (which is maybe why the money guys are so good at this stuff - they have to be to survive!) But if you're just making a unique observation about the world - something that just plants the seed of an idea in the viewer's mind, that will be validated as they live their own lives and notice subtle things that align with your observation, how much work does the sad music really have to do?
shark tale
I think I get your point, which is that if something is authentic, then a lot less work has to be done to make it marketable, but my counterargument would be that since attention spans are rotting and there is such an abundance of stuff online, that it would still be important to try to 'optimize' it for an audience, especially on an algorithmic platform where even a 2% increase could make a sizeable difference in the reach of the thing.
I'm also not sure if there are even new ways of hooking people - I think when it comes to making capital A Art, the best bet is probably to just go with things that already work but just trying to do them in a tasteful way so that it doesn't turn people off.
It would be interesting if more people started trying to employ this sort of stuff with altruistic intentions though, instead of just a pursuit of money and power.
Nice post as always, while reading this I was reminded how back during the early days of DEVO they would use the same ploys and gimmicks found in advertising and use it themselves (stuff like branding, self made merch, etc). Being both counterculture and apart of said culture, and I feel like that brand like identity is what makes DEVO still apart of the public conscious today. I forgot the quote exactly but one of the band members said that you can't really rebel in a society like this one, and subversion is really the best path to take if you want your voice heard/want change.
I feel like trying to balance that line between fine art and commercialism is something that can be difficult to really rationalize, certain alternative comics in the 90s were able to do this well, (being able to control merch, letter page, ect) but that sort of died out around the early 2000s, being an artist, to not sound melodramatic, is a fairly closed off art form, and because of that audiences and authors are still at some disconnection, even famous recluses like Watterson or Salinger did the occasional (though still ever so rare) interview, and with the advent of the internet it's easier to know more about a certain piece of work then ever before, so maybe one side isnt trying to reach the other halfway through, maybe this is where manipulation comes into hands? These are tough question but I'm glad that you brought it up instead of doing the common argument that trying to show off your work in anyway is selling out, you see that conclusion in most artists circle.
Emrox
on that note, go share this new videogame trailer with all your friends! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YyWcrDKg9hA