The Decision Strategist

It’s funny how much of a role movies play in affecting our imagination. Last night I was thinking about some new projects at work and how I was excited to work on them. That I actually had work, especially exciting work, made me pretty happy with the idea of walking in to work on today.

But in my imagination I wasn’t walking in to my actual office. It was in the same spot, but it was much more high tech, much like the scene of any movie involving the government trying to stop a terrorist. There were several people who worked for me, and I walked in saying “Alright, what have you got for me?” in a very self-confident and assured manner. I was wearing a suit.

In reality, my office is shared with a co-worker, my furniture is modular, and though my computer is pretty high end, there are no write-on screens or anything like that. No one works under me and I am generally the first person in the office. I also biked to work and walked in wearing jeans with my pant legs rolled up.

So my first thought was that it is pretty funny how different my imagination of what was going to happen was from how it actually happened. But then I got to thinking on how a lot of disagreements and disappointments happen because we envision a situation one way and it turns out to be completely different. I was inevitably setting myself up for disappointment when I imagined walking in the door to my office.

I wonder if visual media, particularly movies, have affected our imaginations so that they tend to vary greatly from real life, or if human imagination has always differed greatly from reality. Indeed, that is essentially the definition of imagination. Are romantic movies responsible for encouraging our imaginations to create scenes wildly out of proportion with reality? Do the thrillers make everyone imagine a job that is more intense and exciting?

While the link between violence in media and actual violence is tentative at best, there is some pretty strong evidence that inaccurate portrayals of car driving make people more risky drivers. In other words, visual media affects, at least temporarily, the models of physics in our heads.

Consider our imagination of how a punch actually affects someone. In movies it takes a fifteen minute fight to knock someone out, but most fights are over after only a few strikes at most. I don’t have a lot of real world experience with fights, so perhaps it’s natural that my imagination would take after the movie version.

The same is true with how a car responds when you take a tight turn at high speeds. Generally it flips over, but in movies a professional driver and special effects ensure that the car screams around the corner perfectly.

On the other hand, my girlfriend thinks I have the causality backwards. Maybe our imagination influences are visual media to be more unrealistic, rather than the other way around.

Most likely it’s more of a give and take: the imagination informs the media and vice versa. But if movies inform our imaginations, maybe that explains why homeland security is so keen on movie script terrorist attacks and why economists are so bad at forecasting.

Just some food for thought. What is your perspective?

-zot

Popularity: 49%

Vote for this post on: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.

It’s interesting how different our perceptions of the world can be. I had a conversation recently in which a friend of mine was lamenting the pop culture orientation of young people these days (compared to the early 90’s grunge scene of Nirvana et al.), but I’ve been consistently and pleasantly surprised by the active rejection of pop culture and mass media and an embracing of the obscure.

Somehow geeks and the socially awkward have become in vogue. I like to think that people are realizing that most people in high school weren’t in involved in sports and cheerleader activities, and that their stories are also interesting. Take for example both Superbad and Juno. They are the first movies I can think of in a long time (in truth ever, but there must be others right?) that accurately capture the awkward phase of being in high school and very unsure of yourself, but focus more on the rejects than the cool kids. The soundtracks for both movies are also notably devoid of songs by top 40 artists. I know the names of four artists on the Juno Soundtrack.

I think there have been lots of movies about the ‘rebel’ elements of teenagers, but few about the ‘normal people’ element.

But it’s not just movies. Music seems to be diversifying away from the big hits and toward increasing eclectic genres. It doesn’t seem to be happening to television, but that shouldn’t be surprising since TV’s supporters are advertisers and so want to cater to the biggest group possible. And younger generations seem to be more interested in watching videos on youtube than in following television series.

I think it’s more than just another reiteration of the ideas behind The Long Tail or the effects of the internet, though both are important here. It’s more of an active embracing of quirkiness with a touch of not taking things so seriously.

Of course, it also has a lot to do with each generation rejecting the views of the previous generation, so maybe ultimately nothing has changed and I’m just getting old enough that my alternative culture bias is becoming the norm. Either way I’m glad of the explosion in variety and tastes.

Oh yeah, and if you know of other movies, books, or music in the folksy alternative geeky genre, let me know. I’d like to broaden my own tastes as well.

-zot

Popularity: 43%

Vote for this post on: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.