Viewer and Reader frustration…

Craig and I often get caught by different ads and commercials for tv shows. What looks interesting? Quite often it all is interesting, downright fascinating. The problem comes from schedules. How many of our parents and grandparents, and for years, us and our children had to make sure we were home by 7 or 8 for the beginning of evenings TV shows. And so many stories captured our attention, we would fill three or four evenings a week with shows.

Yeah. And our news is going nuts with tales of obesity and sedentary Americans. Which, there is a point, but having a limit on how many shows we watch had some really bad consequences.

We’d get into one show and when new ones came out, we couldn’t watch them because they were on at the same time on different channels. So the newer shows suffered a lack of viewership in the realms of numbers that made the producers happy and were subsequently canceled.

Now, thanks to TV on DVD, Netflix, Blockbuster, and Hulu, (not to mention all the other outlets), there are hundreds of unfinished stories out there. Thousands of finished stories.

For instance, we just got through John Doe. An engaging story, a mystery about a man who wakes up naked  in the middle of woods with no knowledge of who he is, but strangely knows everything else. It lasted for one season. 21 episodes and ended on one heck of a cliffhanger.

Luckily, in the case of John Doe, producers put out a statement of what was supposed to happen in the end. The answer to the riddle. Kind of. And while it is good to have an answer to the riddle, we lose the magic of the process. The growing characterization that takes place in each episode builds to that final answer, so it makes more sense, is more well-rounded and wraps up all threads.

But, the problem is each network wants ratings. And they aren’t happy with a few million people. They want everyone to tune out of their lives and tune into their station, all at the same time.

Really? Is this even possible? No. People have different interests. They want to watch different shows on different channels on their own time. When they don’t have work, school, sports and basically, life events deciding their schedule.

Intro streaming media. Any show at any time in any order. It’s all about the story.

But, how many of those stories are half done or worse, barely introduced? How many unfinished stories will we carry around, filling our heads with thoughts and questions?

What’s more, publishers do the same. They want ever rising sales numbers or story series  never end. And readers are left wondering. How would it have all ended?

The good news is that authors, who often have those same uncompleted stories in their heads, are now able to self-publish pretty easily and make their stories widely available. Now it’s just a matter of finding them amid all the scammers, pirates and lazy people who just want to string enough words together they can call it a book or be published “without ever writing a word”. Looks like readers will need to be educated buyers.

I realize there are some things I should not look at because it is guaranteed to piss me off. But there are times I can’t seem to help myself.

http://tinyurl.com/4465766

This is for the benefit of all the lazy, internet morons who believe everything should be theirs for free, even when it belongs to someone else. Thank you to www.dictionary.com and www.thesaurus.com.

pi·ra·cy: [pahy-ruh-see]
–noun, plural -cies.
1. practice of a pirate;  robbery or illegal violence at sea.
2. the unauthorized reproduction or use of a copyrighted book,recording, television program, patented invention, trademarked product, etc.: The record industry is beset with piracy.

cen·sor·ship: [sen-ser-ship]
–noun
1. the act or practice of censoring.

cen·sor: [sen-ser]
–noun
1. an official who examines books, plays, news, reports, motion pictures, radio and television programs, letters, cablegrams,etc., for the purpose of suppressing parts deemed objectionable on moral, political, military, or other grounds.
2. any person who supervises the manners or morality of others.
3. an adverse critic; faultfinder.

Censor
Part of Speech: verb
Definition: forbid; ban; selectively remove
Synonyms: abridge, black out, blacklist, bleach, bleep, blue-pencil, bowdlerize, clean up, conceal, control, cork, criticize, cut, decontaminate, delete, drop the iron curtain, edit, examine, excise, expurgate, exscind, inspect, launder, narrow, oversee, prevent publication, purge, purify, put the lid on, refuse transmission, repress, restrain, restrict, review, revile, sanitize, scissor out, squelch, sterilize, strike out, supervise communications, suppress, withhold

Notes: to censor is to disallow portions or the entireties of books, plays, etc. on the grounds that they transgress propriety, ‘to scrutinize, revise, or cut,’ expurgate or suppress; to censure is to criticize vehemently or harshly, or condemn

Piracy
Part of Speech: noun
Definition: robbery
Synonyms: bootlegging, buccaneering, commandeering, copying, freebooting, hijacking, infringement, marauding, pirating, plagiarism, rapine, stealing, swashbuckling, theft

So, people:

To Censor something is to take it away based on MORAL/IDEALOGICAL grounds.

To eliminate a pirate site is to take it away based on LEGAL grounds.

You steal, you get caught, you get prosecuted. That’s how the law works. Crying censorship is not going to save thieves.

Yesterday the family watched the movie, 127 Hours. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/127_Hours The movie is based on mountain climber, Aron Ralston’s autobiography, which I have not read. I didn’t really want to see the movie because I knew it would make me sad and sick, watching with that knot I get in the pit of my stomach. Kinda like Buried with Ryan Reynolds.

I was happily surprised. This wasn’t a movie about someone freaking out or dealing with their situation emotionally. And, honestly, I think that kind of understatement made the movie even more intense.

Even better, Aron is someone I can truly admire. He doesn’t give up, he doesn’t freak out and he doesn’t sit there acting helpless, like half the people in the Titanic movies. Or like Ryan in Buried. (Though I do understand that was his character.)

No, Aron falls and gets his arm trapped. He struggles to get free and when he doesn’t, he takes stock of his situation and supplies. He uses his head, step by step. He takes all those survival lessons he knew from his active lifestyle and he systematically applied them. Patiently, calmly, even though you know impatience, horror and stress are fighting wildly inside him, desperate to be released.

Iron control. Refusal to quit. Intelligent and capable. Yep. I admire him.