Informed and critical

Image via Wikipedia

My kids continually amaze me with their internet-enabled awareness. A few recent instances of this show some interesting trends that affect how content providers should be thinking about making new content.

'It's like...'

My kids surf any available TV channels, looking for ones to watch (for about 5 seconds or less before flicking to another channel) AND ones to avoid (which are then studiously ignored forever, scorned and derided - you don't want to be on their 'tell everyone this channel is (insert current term of low esteem)' list). But their surfing is informed by their internet surfing - the internet is their source of pointers and critical thinking from their peers.

So 'How I met your Mother' is described as being 'Like 'Friends', but everyone is Ross'. Which is partly innate knowledge from years of watching repeats/reruns of Friends, and partly opinion from the internet: 'everyone says...'.

More surprising was the comment from my son about 'Being Erica', which is apparently 'like Quantum Leap'. Now this is more interesting because it is a late 80s / early 90s TV programme that hasn't been repeated/rerun in his lifetime... It turns out that my complete set of QL DVDs haven't gone unnoticed, but the internet acted as reinforcement.

So it may be no longer possible to recycle old media ideas and formats, secure in the knowledge that people will have forgotten the old version. My kids are very aware, and very scathing about re-use of ideas, unless, as with 'Being Erica' there is sufficient effort visibly expended in building on the old idea. So 'Heroes' was abandoned by my kids when they realised that once you have people who can do anything, anything can happen, and there's no consistency of storyline, explanations can be overturned, etc. Superhero stories work because of the limitations of the characters, not their powers, and with infinite possibilities comes infinite boredom and lack of motiviation to stay interested.

Finally, there's big categorisations - like 'Jennifer Aniston Movies', which I didn't think of as a genre, but which is increasingly mentioned in the same breath as 'What have they done since Friends?'. A youth that is connected and informed, and critical - maybe there is hope for humankind!

Related articles by Zemanta

• Heroes: Acceptance (tvsquad.com)
• On Being Erica (and Erica's sister) (network.nationalpost.com)
• The Time Traveler's Wife to be a series (tvsquad.com)
• 'Heroes' Stars on Season 4: Deathbed, Yes; Lesbians, Maybe (wired.com)