Minisode - The Medium is the Message

[@sameash3153]

Neil Postman once pointed out that the invention of the mechanical clock had defeated the all encompassing supremacy of god more than any enlightenment thinker, as the clock turned us from time keepers, to time savers, to time servants. The clock introduced a new reality of the world as a system of abstract mathematical units that one could observe from a distance, where entirely new manners of human thought were able to develop, as humans no longer had to rely entirely on the seasons, weather patterns, and the position of the sun itself to arrange their social and political institutions.

[@luckyc4t110]

Who would win: An all knowing, all powerful being? Or some interlocking gears that make sticks spin in circles?

[@chrisrandall84]

@@luckyc4t110 The question is not who would win, but who has already won?

[@tyblazitar]

There's a pretty good chapter on the clock in McLuhan's Understanding Media too.

[@sameash3153]

@@tyblazitar based. Lewis Mumford is also probably the definitive media theorist about the clock.

[@oozekip]

I get the point that's being made, but I think it's flawed in the framing of both the human understanding of time and mistaking cause and effect. First off, humans have always been slaves to the concept of time. Like you pointed out, days, years, and seasons are all very real physical characteristics of our world that are for all practical purposes immutable regardless of if we think it's caused by a god or the revolution of earth around the sun. People have always needed to track the passage of time to survive, all the notion of "time" does is quantify that reality. Second, we had hours, minutes, seconds, etc. long before the invention of the clock. When we built the first clocks we made them explicitly to align with our pre-conceived notions of time. What the invention of clocks did wasn't make us slaves to time, they just made us much more aware of it at any given moment and that in turn made us much more anxious about "wasting" it. I think it's an important distinction to make, because the way you framed it it seem as though if we just suddenly eliminated clocks from existence we would return to a sort of limbo where we lose all understanding of the passage of time. It ignores the physical reality that clocks were invented to represent, and that things such as calendars have existed for millennia and across pretty much every culture in some form or another.

[@mandarinduck]

I've just sat through the 10th Folding Ideas video and have come to realization that this is an educational lecture and am wondering why this is my entertainment now when I could not have cared less in high school.

[@altertopias]

Because learning is cool, but the only thing school teaches you is to obey and be compliant.

[@sirpikapika1129]

Because you aren’t forced to watch it by law :p

[@LochNessHamster]

Because you get to be educated ny this, you don't HAVE to be educated by this. Also, Dan as a teacher is someone who is genuinely passionate about what he does, and actually has strong grasp and respect for the material that he's talking about. That's way more than I can say about most professional educators.

[@anthonynorman7545]

It's designed to be consuned and you don't have to demonstrate that you've actually learned something

[@googlygoo9472]

You are likely much more mature and finally understand the value of knowledge. You'r also less distracted by every new hype all the school kids are about. You begun your quest for self improvement.

[@ImJonnay]

This is especially true in software engineering. The medium (Programming Language) tends to shape how the code is written, and even how the developer writes code. "He thinks like a lisper.", "He codes like a rubyist", "He drools like a PHP dev". Certain languages are well known to be ones that "forever change the way you look at or write code". How you solve a problem in Java is going to be a lot different from how it is solved in Scheme. Each language has certain core ideas and methodologies that are not as easily expressed, or even appropriate for other choices. The language choice has a lot of implications for stability, scaleability and maintainability amongst other 'ilities. It's no wonder the old saw "If all you have is a hammer" gets a lot of traction amongst software developers. Anyway, thanks for this one. It was particularly tasty!

[@vlogerhood]

I'm Jonnay Speaking of language, you don't engineer software.

[@ImJonnay]

No, I'm Jonnay. And yeah, I probably should have said "Software Development".

[@vlogerhood]

Love it.

[@HeavyMetalMouse]

Definitely can relate this in the world of Programming. There's something intrinsically different when writing in, say, Forth, elbow-deep in the Reverse-Polish/Stack based manipulations, compared to something like C family languages where you're assembling data and passing it into operators. Your ability to implement even basic things, to 'make simple statements' in analogy to language proper, is confounded by the medium you must use.

[@ДмитрийМ-ц5м]

No, you do. Just like in engineering a car or plane, you create modules that are not only functional, but also maintainable and enterchangeable. Software development is about solving the problem with given tools, just like in civil engineering.

[@DungeonMasterpiece]

I've watched KZbin since high school when it first launched. This is, by far, still, my favorite video on the platform. And I watch it at least once a month to make sure I still understand it. I've read McLuhan's work, but nothing else distills his ideas so perfectly into five minutes.

[@johnclavis]

This was really well explained. Or maybe it wasn't, and I'm mistaken. It doesn't matter, I'm simply leaving a message to let KZbin know that I am an Engaged viewer. This message is the medium.

[@quiroz923]

Take this idea to the most abstract point and you have "language as medium". And language shapes EVERYTHING. It allows us to think about the world in a complex way, it allows us to organize a society, it allows us to consider ourselves. Yeah, I know, this is old news and well known ideas, but I still wanted to comment becuase this video reminded me.

[@LayneBenofsky]

+quiroz923 cool observation. I'm immediately taken by the notion that a single phrase being spoken in different languages could carry subtle differences in meaning based on assumptions or stereotypes the hearer has about those languages / speakers.

[@ConvincingPeople]

This feeds into the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, which may interest you if you are not already familiar with it. The strong form of the hypothesis is generally discredited, but the weak form is still pretty important in sociological theory.

[@quiroz923]

ConvincingPeople Thanks ^^ I am quite familiar with the hypothesis. I was gonna start there originally but I didn't really have the energy at the time to get all technical in a youtube comment :P

[@CommissionerC]

This is what Umberto Eco for example disliked about McLuhan: The latter considered language as something new technology will move us past. McLuhan's opposition, like Eco, are the "language shapes everything" camp. Neither consider it as much a medium as a code though,- speaking or writing are the media.

[@maciej.ratajczak]

@@CommissionerC Interesting- thanks for that. I'm an English as a foreign language teacher and pride myself on my ever-expanding vocabulary. I wonder if visual emoji-ridden technology will ever supercede the uttered or written word and obviate the need for it, rendering my profession and vocabulary obsolete. The psychonaut philosopher Terence McKenna would often mention Philo Judaeus, who lived contemporarily with Jesus Christ and was an Alexandrian Jew who wrote volumes of commentary on the religions of his era. Philo Judaeus spoke about the Logos, which was an interiorized teaching voice, which Greek ecstatics sought to contact. Philo sets up a little dialogue and the first speaker says, - What would be a more perfect Logos? A more perfect Logos than the informing, teaching voice? Philo answers, - The more perfect Logos would go from being heard to being beheld without ever crossing over a noticeable moment of transition. Writing (as is speaking) is itself transcendent as it enables one to 'see' language, but the emoji, somewhat like a logogram or hieroglyph, takes it one step further by obviating the need to decode phonologic characters. The psychedelic experience allows one to see words and even, in joint ceremonies, communicate to others through visual language. Anyone serious about investigating such philosophical communication questions ought to undergo the high-dose psychedelic experience and literally witness for themselves the underpinning framework of communication. In its hyperspatial dimension, communication is both dissolved and deconstructed as one bears witness to the holographic matrix of informational totality. Brings a whole new meaning to "The medium is the message".

[@JediBearBob]

"Tropes are tools" goes the TVTropes mantra. The connection between "the medium is the message" (which is ultimately less than clear) and "when all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail." is brilliant. The latter is a statement about how the lack of tools shapes our worldview. But our world is bursting with tropes, and each trope has many uses -- they're not merely hammers, but claw-hammer-screwdrivers and halberds. So how does the existence of a given trope shape our worldview, or does it merely give it room to expand?

[@Khrene]

Tropes do at least two things: Allow for content creators to use shorthand, getting across complex ideas with few words or few images. Like you know more or less what character I'm gong for with a Knight Templar, or what kind of story beats to expect with a save the girl/princess plot. Give the audience/critics a point of reference for how thoroughly a single idea has been explored.

[@ravenofroses]

this video makes me happy. it't a much more clear explanation of this idea than most i've seen. for what little it means, i think you did a damn good job with this.

[@andrerenault]

“Marshall McLuhan, casual viewin’, head buried in the sand”

[@Ocrilat]

When I was first given a beeper for work, I remember how resentful I was that I could be (eventually) contacted at any time. Now I get anxious if I leave my cell phone in the kitchen.

[@DANLESAC]

I'm a bit late to this video BUT I'm wondering how the medium (aka Spotify) affects music, with the thought that, as you don't get paid for a stream until someone hits the 30 second mark, does that change the way a musician approaches that first 30 seconds... do you draw out the intro to stealthly hold people there? Do you make that intro overly bombastic to grab? Or do you skip the intro altogether and get to the meat of the verse?

[@carolcyr8553]

I saw a video here on KZbin that explained how pop music writers are now getting to the "hook" of the song, the part that really grabs you, within 30 seconds, instead of saving it for the chorus later on in the song. It's here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/pYewdpKiaa6qf6s&app=desktop The video said the purpose of this was to grab listeners' attention quickly on streaming services where there is a lot of choice available. But you added a financial dimension that makes it make even more sense.

[@aaronlittle5478]

"Huh, that's an excellent example. I wonder if artists mostly see this as a challenge to overcome or a constraint on their work's ability to reach listeners. Good question, Dan le ... DAN LE SAC?? RAPPERS WEAR BLING 'CAUSE THEY WANNA LOOK PRETTY!"

[@julianlawrence1648]

Julian Lawrence I don’t think Spotify is a medium. According to McLuhan, Spotify is merely one facet of the medium, that is to say it is part of the content. In this instance, I suggest the medium is digital technology.

[@secretlobsterclawsandother2060]

@@julianlawrence1648 I think Spotify can be a medium, depending on how you look at it - certainly it's a subset of the medium of digital technology, but I think media can be nested within each other. For example, Bluetooth speakers are a subset of speakers, which are a subset of audio transmission/broadcast equipment more generally. Bluetooth speakers interact with our lives in a way that's materially different from speakers as a whole, which is different from audio broadcast equipment as well. In that same way, I see Spotify as a medium nestled in digital technology. At this point I can't think of the concrete ways in which it functions as a medium, but I'm convinced that it is one.

[@aidanwarren4980]

It may not shape how most songwriters consciously write songs, but it undoubtedly determines which songs Spotify will promote and therefore shapes the musical landscape.

[@jacksonoakley2264]

In addition to genres being mediums in and of themselves, I also think that non-genre mediums have an interesting effect on the development of new genres and meta-genres, and open up new methods of storytelling, particularly for those with limited access to the established methods. The popularity of MP3 players paved the way for podcasts, which in turn inspired pastiches of old-timey radio shows (Thrilling Adventure Hour) and community radio (Welcome to Night Vale). Adobe Flash offered a new way for animators to produce and distribute their content, which eventually became a separate genre of animation unto itself. KZbin's distribution model has led to the development of a whole range of new documentary genres, from Let's Plays to makeup tutorials. I think one of the most interesting examples is found footage horror. The Blair Witch Project (not the first, I know, but the first to be so widely popular) was released at a time when VHS was still the most widely proliferated video recording technology, so the idea of these tapes being recorded and then found later carried a sense of verisimilitude unique to its time. Yet found footage horror remains a popular genre to this day, despite the fact that it's been slow to evolve with new recording technologies and new circumstances under which people record themselves--even Marble Hornets, which introduced serialized distribution through KZbin as a story element, still kept the tapes. Why is that? Is there something about the physicality of the tapes or the camera that makes the story work better despite their anachronistic nature? Is it possible to tell a horror story through a more contemporary documentary format like Let's Plays or vlogs?

[@00101001000000110011]

+Jackson Oakley i think the Tapes added to mystery and helped also ground the narrative, but it's just that, a tool and not a necessity. just a convenience. so a kind of trope if you will. i'd put my hand on fire as to the exorcism of tape trope can be done and would even argue it has been possibly. imagine a horror story where the bogey man is a digital entity or one that inhabits the world wild web instead of a magical supernatural entity. it's hard to believe for people nowadays maybe but in the past would be quite easy to pass off. if you take an idea from Ghost in the Shell, where a "virus" can be a part of a person digitized and still able to interact with material things by using possession of digital interfaces on both inanimate things and animate beings, you can easily create a horror script with a fair chance of being good without being forced to use the tapes. think of how the horror genre uses the fear of the unknown, despite being entirely possible and done to use horror with completely natural threats. like people. but horror is very dependent on culture so despite primal fears being eternal horror fuel that never will get old and stop working, if you want to deviate from stale tropes you need to find contemporary or even futurist elements to spice it up. until the get beaten like dead horses and the quest moves on to newer, fresher, etc-er..

[@jayatipalsokar6139]

I love this and it's so cool that you wrote this 5 years ago because with the COVID19 productions in cinema, I saw many making movies that mainly use screenrecording as a medium and the fact that you can do wholeass feature films with just screencaps is absolutely mind-blowing to me. There is an Indian movie "C U Soon" I watched recently that was made like this and although the plot lacked severely, the innovation left me quite happy.

[@Packbat]

Trying to see if I understand this: - Tumblr's architecture enshrines reblogging as the primary form of interaction between posters. 'Likes' are severely broken, being attached primarily to original posts as opposed to specific replies to those posts, and therefore prone to collisions (I want to like this new reply, but I already liked a different reply to a different chain of replies in another thread so I can't); and private messaging only exist through fanmail (which keeps no records of sent messages and which can only be sent to people you follow), with the alternatives of replies (which are visible on the post they reply to and in the notifications of the poster, but nowhere else, and which offer no way to reply) and asks (which are built to be replied to via public posts) both equally unsuited to conversation. As a consequence of this, the only measure of success that exists for a post is its ability to be propagated sympathetically through the social network: a post fails which is not reblogged, and a post fails severely if its reblogs are predominantly accompanied by negative criticism of the original post. This has the negative effect of chain-letter type posts being disproportionately successful on Tumblr, but the positive effect of encouraging users to promote visibility of good content. - Using your final example of genre as medium, I might say that superhero stories, by the nature of the genre, convey the message that dramatic, world-changing events happen through the action of people whose innate qualities grant them agency on this scale, and this agency will be exercised either towards a clear good or evil. This pattern can be subverted, e.g. in the ferry scene of _The Dark Knight_ (2008), but in the superhero normal _only_ superheroes and supervillains - people who, be they supernaturally powerful or not, do not and almost certainly cannot exist - can affect the course of events, and ordinary people are mostly powerless.

[@lankyjuggler]

Really, really good episode. I'll be thinking about it for a while, I think, as one of those slow-burn "oh, it's ALSO relevant here. huh"

[@leolencina8048]

That is basically my whole experience in college studying communication lol

[@rebeccajohnson7752]

Honestly thank you so much! I watched so many youtube videos on this topic because I just couldn't wrap my head around it, but yours totally put it in perspective for me way more than any other video. Thanks! :)

[@strizzyl]

Really thank you for demystifying this... By far the clearest interpretation i have ever i heard of this concept. I have gained a new tool of understanding Dan.

[@00101001000000110011]

i completely agree with this theory. i would even add that this is why imagination is so important and why there are some limitations to what a human can create in his mind in practice - since while you CAN imagine anything, you are limited by the concepts you know to work with to build said products of the imagination. but on a related note however, both to the topic i made above and the video's, people can be divided in 2 groups referring to their most intuitive train of though or the one they used in a given moment: - the 1st one is the "hammer is what you have so all you see is nails"; people have a set of tools with which they try to achieve and devise their ends for a given though line. moment or situation. this means, in an extreme, people who excel and thinking in a box. it's fast, predictable and clean much like the virtues of a computer or robot. but much like a bot or animal it comes with excruciating faults. mostly, limitations. - and then there are people who are most comfortable with searching for tools to achieve an end, regardless of what is available. this can sometimes blur with the creative process of solving a problem vs following passed down or basic knowledge to do the same. or even the 'thinking outside the box" mentality. so how is this dichotomy relevant to the topic in the clip? while the medium limits content, and content without a medium to expose it is impossible. the creation of new medium or the re-purpose of something to work as a medium occurs exactly when there is content but not the medium for it. it's exactly the opposite of a materializing a genre by creating a product, it's originality in it's purest form and the hardest way to communicate. like how twitter as a medium was created by a re-purpose and modification of an instituted medium, language. or animation with overlapping still pictures. with software, or mathematical/logical subjects of any kind, the language you are using or most used to will shape on you try to solve a problem, but then again, your mind can race to trying to solve a given problem in a way the language you most often use or even, any that exist, cannot accommodate. i remember in 12th grade physics before i even dreamed of radicals, i tried to "reverse engineer" a problem with exponentiation in movement subjects that was impossible at the time for me as i didn't know the mathematical process and the teacher didn't intent to resolve in such a way - as an example. but it was very much possible and i didn't even need to invent the wheel, however it wasn't the hammers i had that were keeping me from nailing that instance. as such i can speculate that it is possible for a piece of content to surpass a given medium even if that remains but a theoretical concept like an utopia. where in practice the medium also is greater and utopias don't exist due to human ego and evil.

[@zombielijah]

My art has always been, first and foremost- a simulator for all the things I wish I could be. It keeps my mind firmly grounded in my youth(staying curious of the world around me) while at the same time I become more and more knowledgeable and critical of the stories I play around with, and my medium of choice(Drawing). And with this knowledge I gain more respect for other mediums, and then I want to know how to use them to see my own from their perspective... nothing more than dabbling, but enough to respect the effort put into the product. Over the past year or two the mediums I've been clinging to are Movies, and to a lesser extent Books, only because I am more familiar with film, having watched so many movies in my life already and become so critical that even my favorites end up under the knife for the sake of understanding what holds up, and why. This is all because I want to be able to make a compelling graphic novel that neither holds the readers hands(with familiarity in archetypes and and cliches moments), nor alienates the reader(with nonsensical characters, and hard to follow story)... I've been racking my brain trying to build this story/world, and every time I come across a channel on here where someone obviously has a great love and understanding for these mediums I tend to binge a little because I am so fascinated by what fascinates them/you(If more of my teachers in school liked their subject matter this much, I'd probably be a lot better off right now).. I've been watching your channel for a couple months now and I find your videos immensely helpful. If this comment has found it's way to you(despite it being on an old video and you probably get a crap ton of messages a day) I just wanted you to know I really appreciate all the work you do, thank you.

[@neilsjmcmahon]

That, Sir, is one hell of a video. You brought it to life. Chapeau.

[@peterofworlds8635]

I just watched this in my media class!

[@calebmullan4593]

Absolutely brilliant video. The point on how Tumbler's tagging system could be said to impact its users really drove home to me the extent to which this idea can be used.

[@parikshithshashikumar849]

Thank you very much for your videos. Your tone, insight and more over interest, singular and poignant prove to be most educating.

[@gfklug]

HE'S SO SMALL love seeing youtubers change troughout the years by going back to older videos

[@rafaelrubio4443]

I feel particularly satisfying watching and understanding your videos, as if them made me feel like I just ate something particularly delightful, but I havent physically consume anything. I really find this type of content "delicious" in a non food related matter.

[@NadiaAtmaji]

I think this is the most palpable content about Mc Luhan's "The Medium is the Message" theory that I have ever watched. Thank you!

[@ladykatsa4419]

"Is a genre not a type of medium?" Thank you! This is just what I needed to be thinking about for my assignment :"))

[@NadiaAtmaji]

I don't understand the genre part honestly

[@ThorfinnMacbeth]

​@@NadiaAtmaji think of "medium" as a mechanism and or a framework and or an arrangement of possibilities- of avenues by which to traverse a space and relate one thing to another- in this way a genre is a medium - its a tool, a framework, a delineated space. medium is the message could be reformed with similar alliteration to "the capacity is the content"

[@ThorfinnMacbeth]

(which is just made up and im pretty happy with)

[@kristian1650]

This was phenomenal take on this theory which helped me to finally understand it properly. Thank you for that, sir.

[@ChessskillBlogspot]

Well expressed. Watched several efforts to explain this concept today. Yours does the best job. Thanks.

[@middayz]

If I'm really aware that "the medium is the message", I hope to find a way through that medium in order to let you know what was my idea behind the message... without distorting its value. Any way of expression is a medium of sort, I guess. Thanks for the explanation of the concept.

[@MANJYOMETHUNDER111]

God damn it, every time I forget about those heritage minutes...

[@shaun_rambaran]

"Those who know that they are profound strive for clarity. Those who would like to seem profound to the crowd strive for obscurity. For the crowd believes that if it cannot see to the bottom of something it must be profound. It is so timid and dislikes going into the water."

[@Altorin]

Marshall was actually my great uncle (my father's father's brother) so I've known about him my whole life, but only now in my late 30s, do I actually sit down and listen to his actual speeches and... holy fuck dude was insanely smart listening to him talk is like listening to a verbose time traveler.

[@DenkouNova]

"You've heard this phrase before, no doubt" I've never heard this phrase ever. And I'm in here to learn, so please no shaming : (

[@Fanta666]

small nit pick, but the plural form of medium is media. not mediums.

[@digitaljanus]

+Fanta666 "Mediums" is clearer. Most people equate "media" with journalism and news media specifically. Also, just because English gets most of its vocabulary from other languages, does not mean it's beholden to those languages' grammatical rules. (e.g., "The paparazzi's name was Jim; he was killed by three ninjas."; not "The paparazzo's name was Jim; he was killed by three ninja.")

[@Fanta666]

+digitaljanus and I mentioned it so "most people" have a chance to seem more well informed. this is the way the word is used in media studies. it's not mediums studies.

[@JediBearBob]

+Fanta666 mediums is an accepted English plural of media.

[@Fanta666]

Mediums is most commonly used to refer to more than one person who can [claims to] communicate with the dead. Use it in this context if you want to, I don't really care. But it's not the convention. The book is called Understanding Media.

[@FoldingIdeas]

+Fanta666 The subtle dialectic difference between "mediums" and "media" is the distinction between the part and the whole. "Mediums" is used strictly to refer to a plurality of delivery vehicles, while "media" implies not merely the vessel but also its contents. "Media" in modern usage is its own thing, a singular noun, referencing a holistic concept of both the medium, the content, the industry that produces the content, and the total sum of that cultural force. For this reason modern English resorts to the anglicized "mediums" when referring specifically to the technological component of delivery as distinct from content and industry.

[@zmarilu5016]

I love these Minisodes!

[@100PercentMilk]

Claude Shannon, the father of information theory, would call this "the transmitter." When thought of as information, culture suddenly becomes so much easier to study. Similar applications are George Zipf's principle of least effort. Great topic! You would be a great presenter at Anthropology/Archaeology conferences!

[@Hakajin]

On the other hand, what is the medium without the message? What would KZbin be without KZbin videos? Who would use it? I'd say that KZbin IS KZbin videos. Therefore... the medium is composed of the messages within it? They're one and the same. Which is not to say that any individual piece of a medium is the same as the medium itself, or that the messages within the medium aren't shaped by said medium. Just that you can't divorce the two at all; the medium cannot exist without the messages that compose it.

[@HotaruZoku]

Medium without message still exists. By definition all mediums begin WITHOUT story. If medium without message meant nothing, no interest in a medium would ever last long enough to communicate a message to begin with.

[@Halbmond]

This video was really theoretical and complex, I have to admit I had trouble really grasping it until you brought up the analogy to the famous saying of "when all you've got is a hammer…”. As a game designer, I find it really illuminating to look at how Nintendo designs games by coming up with a core mechanic first, and then designing everything else around it - because with video games, interactivity is the message! It's about the recipient doing stuff. Every medium has its own strengths and weaknesses, and movies for example have to compress their content into a rather short time window (in a way comparable to tweets), in difference to TV series or books. However, I'm not sure I understand the different messages of movie genres. Sure there are those that try to communicate certain information like historical events, but then we're at the content again. But whether I look at action movies, horror movies, or even romance movies, isn't the message just to be entertained? In detail, you're entertained by different things like being scared or empathizing with a loving couple, but what's the difference really? Only for family movies I could come up with a message of having a shared family experience by watching it together. But maybe I'm just still not getting it ...

[@123tadeus]

Your new hairstyle. I like it.

[@rl936]

Fascinating stuff. Incredibly succinct explanation.

[@IsaacMyers1]

This is very clearly seen in the meaning and metaphor of Sweeney Todd. The song sung when he finds his razors still there and pristine ends with a triumphant exclamation of “my arm is complete”!

[@SeeBillyRun]

This is one of the better explanations of "The Medium is the Message" theory.

[@TheRcanmeananything]

I'm taking a class on media and journalism, and we had to read McLuran's The Medium is the Massage. Can you come lecture the rest of the class haha?

[@rifkamiriam7721]

Seemingly, genre can easily be a medium, although it may be more useful to think of it as a conduit connecting writers to media. In any case, when genre plays such roles, it is more immediately apparent- because of our subcultural values and media consumption techniques- that the characters are characters reciting a script. Genre shows have a lot of utility; witness Gotham Knights navigating new sociopolitical terrain so precisely that it is almost shocking when characters express the teen angst demanded by the format, reminding us that yes, our anguish follows us from the mundane places of our masked identities' putative lives into the core of our being, how we relate to extreme social problems, and the fantastic- and vice versa. But it's one of only a very small handful of genre shows I actively enjoy right now and even still there is a higher barrier to believing that these are genuine or spontaneous interactions between personages.

[@john5111995]

When medium become more important(Like-internet), don't you think that people are consuming all the contents unintentionally? Asper Cultivation theory- unintentional use of any media can effect a person negatively.. So, do you think 'medium is the message' concept can affect the audience? If not, please explain.. thank you☺

[@mrnoirsunsortedgoods7874]

Damn. It took me twice, but I finally got it.

[@efrainlopez384]

Thanks bro you helped a lot.

[@ona512]

I needed you here because I've been given a week and a half to just read Chapter 1, and it is just so difficult to understand because the language is hard to settle in my mind. Ironically I could use his writing as an argument for his own idea as well. Or just "scholarly writing" as a medium. I think I'm getting it now?

[@ChrisMessina]

Epic.

[@faustine4624]

That was amazingly clear

[@keithleslieomiles1511]

thank you for this

[@JasonDowney]

This was fantastic.

[@desraelracelis2282]

Probably, when the age of internet began I think McLuhan's Theory was the right one to fit all the phenomenon happening now

[@MrNelsonThall]

McLuhan pointed out that the user is the content of the medium. The so-called content is the previous medium. (Former President of the McLuhan Center On Global Communications and McLuhan's Chief Archivist)

[@MusicFactoryFreedom]

Arguably, the scientific method is the most impactful medium ever discovered.

[@harrisjm62]

Your fingers and mouth betray you.

[@miguelcarrasco4263]

That's just a result of the most human discovery: the fonetic alphabet. McLuhan said that in "The Gutenberg Galaxy".

[@hamsterdancepants]

@@miguelcarrasco4263 using "human" as a quantifiable measure is super bad and you should stop it.

[@miguelcarrasco4263]

@@hamsterdancepants when i said that?

[@hamsterdancepants]

@@miguelcarrasco4263 You said "the [ph]onetic alphabet" was "the most human discovery"

[@EebstertheGreat]

1:31 This is a weird question. I feel like the sum total of all the conversations I have ever had is massively more influential on my life than the presence of my phone. After all, I have had more conversations in person than I have had on my phone, and those conversations have on average been more important. Moreover, some of the conversations I do have on my phone still would have happened in person if I didn't have a phone, especially the important ones. So the answer seems obvious. My conversations are more important than my phone; _far_ more important, in every meaningful way. The medium, in that case, is very much subservient to the message, much like the typeface is subservient to the novel.

[@toothlessdavid]

I've been trying to outline a screenplay the last month and my little eureka moments seem so effortless, but ultimately familiar. Is is because I am trained to think in three act structures? I've been absorbed with movies and games since I was ten to the detriment of my social skills. I think and talk in stories. I also have ADD and theirs a endless narrative flowing in my mind that my wife has to shake me when I'm driving as I sometimes get distracted with resolving an argument between two people in a small, confined space...like a car driving over 80mph on the 101. I don't understand conversations about nothing (also called small talk). When I do engage in this, it again does feel effortless, organic. Am I just endlessly repeating myself in every social situation or physical act? The spark, the setup, the debate, the journey, the depression, the submission, and resolution? I'm not joking! I need to explain to myself the story of how I will get dressed, go to Ralph's and get toilet paper before it can be done. All I want to do is write a stupid horror movie, but the same method is already applied ad nausea to daily life.

[@00101001000000110011]

+David Peddicord even if you repeat a structure you may have completely different content. but you can also maintain the very same content delivered though completely different structures. no situation in your life can be exactly the same as any other, this i will guaranty you. and it's very easy to ascertain why, it's the Schrodinger's cat dilemma. if you have experienced situation A, and then situation B arises that is equal to A in all except that you have experienced A, then you will be different as a result of having experienced A and therefor B will be different EVEN IF the results are apparently the same. think of Rock-Paper-Scissors, if you play the game a dozen times you will have experienced all scenarios it can muster but no time you play it again will be the same even if with the same people, etc. you are blurring repetitiveness with repeating, 2 very different concepts. some tasks are very repetitive, but no 2 instances are the same instance, rather just 2 equal iterations of the same cycle. and to finish it with a pretty metaphor: one could say that all elements from sub atomic particles like electrons, atoms themselves, and even molecules and so far as cells are all the same. so is your body just a bunch of parts or rather YOU, the sum? your life in the same way is a sum of parts, that even if 99% are the same, like your body's cells, make the body, you and life and very different thing. your need to tell a story to go through things is just a tool. you could use a different tool, like many people go through things with many different ways. that is not an issue. the only issue i see from your words is the obsessive nature you have as well as you describing ADD. those 2 disturbances i cannot begin to grasp an understanding of, if for no other reason due to lack of information. but you appear to be eloquent enough to at least begin to tackle them in a meaningful way should you expend the amount of effort needed.

[@Hannah_Em]

I've seen this ep quite a lot of times over the years at this point, and it's struck me that... we actually kind of instinctually understand this concept, or at least some of its implications, on some level. Just look at all of the books that get called "unadaptable" for TV/screen, or which common wisdom holds "just don't work" in other mediums

[@natalieissa2873]

very helpful! thank you

[@LiamSierakowskiHatrickPatrick]

I appreciate your video had no obnoxious background music.

[@henkkok9437]

I wonder, is Thought not a medium as well? WIth its own fantastic set of implications that shape the message? And by its vice or virtue, shape any medium? For example, how a story teller, or game designer, or user of any narrative uses the power of thought, directly stamps and shapes that experience. In a game, we have to take into account a persons thinking, and when we do, it becomes logical to make sure the player understands what to do, how to think of the world, etc. In a story, we have to take into account a persons thinking, and when we do, it becomes logical to introduce a gun in the third act, if we want a player to make (think) of the connection in the third act. I love this idea of the medium stamping the message with itself, regardless of content. Thank you for, what I thought was a wonderfully clear and explanation of this idea.

[@carlstereway4327]

So what I'm understanding is the Brand/Platform is the medium?

[@ShadowoftheDude]

Wow my high school media teacher had no clue what he was talking about.

[@MarlonOwnsYourCake]

I've NEVER heard that phrase before.

[@jessicabuchanan6472]

There are so many jump cuts in this video, which is a bit distracting from the ultimate message of the piece.

[@camillaassan]

если это смотрят студенты и это тоже была ваша домашка, то это во-первых капздец как сложно прочитать этого маклуэна и во-вторых спасибо этому челику за видос но ты так много раз сказал mediums and the content that they deliver что мой мозг просто отказался работать в один момент

[@Esor86]

thank you

[@tedankhamenbonnah4848]

Great analysis

[@tech2077]

This seems to be almost an abstraction of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, where I think languages would be the medium. Each language and it's structure present unique ways that they shape the ideas being expressed, with some languages having certain ergonomics to expressing certain ideas.

[@vinny1995]

in other words, the messenger, the form of communication, is more important than the message. How you say something is more important than what you say. Leaders and politicians have realized this since the beginning of time.

[@ramppappia]

and what you use to spread the message influences how you make the message in the first place

[@张墩子]

makes me think about the Ghost in the Shell

[@567Kriss]

nice video. very denes, but clear and simple understanding

[@yocosmo314]

What is "character" of the medium? English is my second language and I cannot make sense of this word choice.

[@bruceusername]

The qualities of something, essentially it means "how something is." Thinking about it in terms of the medium having "characteristics" might make it clearer. Hope this helps.

[@Macwill1985]

Woah, this is packed with knowledge and insight. Makes me wonder about the 2016 election cycle and the subsequent presidency, and how Twitter and other platforms like Facebook were used to communicate ideas, however, limited. Those limits created a breakdown of personal connection between humans via the poor quality medium.

[@qwertyman1511]

programming tools make me see the world as being "a new, programmed medium" away from radical, positive change.

[@pinecone606]

the medium of this message is the jump cut for every sentence

[@mahroonnisha8439]

I understood clearly

[@marianoarango]

Its been a while since I read this book in college, and though you have a point on acknowledging that the media is more valuable than the usual content delivered through it, in the end, it becomes a snake that bites its tail, because the knowledge required to create youtube had to be transferred through a previous media, implying that the content delivered outweighs the media through which it was delivered. To my understanding, what McLuhan meant was that the medium chosen to deliver a message is far more important than the message itself. Take your example of a bottle with a message. What do you think it means even before reading it? Also as an example when you break up with someone and care for their emotions, you tell them... We have to talk, and you would not consider texting that someone. But I can be waaaaaaay offffff.

[@WhompingWalrus]

The phrase, on its face, is easy to disagree with. The medium isn't the message, but its qualities are also worth considering, sure. How it may facilitate, limit, shape, or encourage the message in some directions or away from others, given the medium's own limitations & incentives.

[@WhompingWalrus]

"The medium affects the message" would be much better of a phrase to communicate the idea. Some absolutist belief that the medium drives the message 100% is just... not based in reality.

[@FrancoStrider]

To my mind, as a simple phrase, "Medium is the message" doesn't make a whole lot of sense. "Medium is the Messenger" might be a more helpful way of putting it. Medium dictates how we say the message. Are we using literary language or film language or video game language? When you decide on a medium you decide the language, not the message. Languages have their own way of putting things, even in numbers (French has a very round about way of telling the number 80 for instance). Books have an easier time delving into grey areas, where film has to be very explicit with everything it shows. Not to say that medium does not affect the message at all. Just say that it IS the message is a bit short sighted.

[@Vahnno1]

A video game needs a 'final boss'

[@GaylenOraylee]

+Vahnno1 Tetris

[@adams3627]

Using Twitter a lot has definitely made me a more pessimistic person. It's easy to pare bad news down to a tweet. Good news, except for the most banal "here are some puppies being cute" kind, seems harder to explain in brief, concrete terms. (Especially today, when good news of ANY lasting duration is hard to come by)

[@NoNameAtAll2]

I'm having trouble grasping what "medium" means

[@Feasco]

the means by which information is conveyed it's why newspapers and tv journalism are collectively called "the media" -plural of medium the classic spiritual medium is called that because they supposedly convey messages from beyond the afterlife

[@nataliereed4238]

Well, I happen to have Marshall McLuhan right here…

[@hamamathepotato8898]

YOUR OUTRO IS HILARIOUS ! XD in the name of like share and subscribe amen thats amazing !!

[@homa9811]

Hello my name is Pablo i need this video in spanish please 😀

[@SkollMX]

Sorry man, but this is driving me nuts. The plural of medium is "media". It was in the title of the book you quoted!

[@sabahfatema]

the comment section in this is a minefeild. the comment section as a medium

[@HoundDogBlue]

chalk another one up for the materialists 😎

[@Ma_ksi]

Wt why did I just now find this?????????????????????????????????????

[@edtechlounge]

the jump cuts.

[@flyingteeshirts]

Massage

[@Oldhandlewasabitcringe]

An the ideas are less imprtant than the medium. For example weather your video host is a person or a cardboard puppet free from consequence because its just a character

[@caricatureparty]

You know nothing of my work.

[@JaspersCampfire]

The internet is an extension of the mind itself 🤔

[@piedradelaselvados]

Honestly, this video fucked up my thinking as The Matrix did back in 2001 (when I first saw it). Congrats

[@onceappuonatime]

If you think about it, Bitcoin was also a message to the world

[@mnm1273]

And quite a poor one. The main message was just scamming.

[@somerandomchannel382]

Lets just watch the man (Marshall McLuhan) in action : kzbin.info/www/bejne/f57EeWhne5l7eNk Reading, btw, means to Guess . Reading news is Rapid Guessing. Comments thereafter is expressing and arguing these guesses. No wonder we all feel disinterested.

[@tadasdatys5999]

I hate to be so literal, but most of the examples you list are hardly mediums and definitely not messages. Do I not know what words mean any more? The theory seems to be "stuff has consequences", which is true but not a revelation. Is something lost in this simpler formulation?

[@FoldingIdeas]

The light and the train are examples right from Understanding Media. Go back and re-read the McLuhan quote at the start for further context. McLuhan viewed a medium as anything that extended the human body. The lightbulb (and the infrastructure that supplies it with power) carries the information of light. Light is the signal transmitted by the lightbulb in the same way "tv" (in the abstract) is the message transmitted by a television. Light is the message. But, McLuhan argues, it is the *bulb itself*, the system of delivering electricity to the home, the medium that carries the electricity that makes the light, that truly contains "the message". It is not the light that has reshaped our homes and lives, it is the medium that allows us to get that light.

[@tadasdatys5999]

The usual definition of "medium" is perhaps broad enough to include trains, but the one for "message" isn't. We can't expect to understand one another if we redefine words arbitrarily. Your "limitations of language" video is relevant here, but isn't there already a better, less obtuse way to generalize our observations about trains and tweets? What is lost by saying "mediums have consequences"? And what's the usefulness of making such ridiculously broad generalizations in the first place? As for "the bulb itself", I see a bizarre practice of taking a chain of causality (electric grid -> cheap easy light -> human behavior, for example) and attributing all of the result to one of the causes. Electric grid is important because it determines many properties of the light, besides the cheapness and ease of use, but it's also replaceable because most of those other properties don't matter. I can imagine a fictional candle able to support all of my light usage needs without any electricity - even the real candles of the past, while neither cheap nor easy, were used in many of the same ways that we use light bulbs. Why prefer "light bulb" over "light", and why is only one of them "the message"?

[@FoldingIdeas]

You have missed the point at such a deep, fundamental level that it's almost impossible to untangle your questions. "The bulb itself" as a phrase is synecdoche for the whole system. If you want McLuhan's arguments for how the electric light differs from the candle, well, it's a long explanation so I'd recommend you just go get a copy of Understanding Media and read it. I mean, I'd figure that the revolutionary advantages of the electric light over candle and oil lamp was pretty explanatory, the way that they re-shaped our lives pretty obvious, but apparently not.

[@tadasdatys5999]

While I'm definitely confused, my question about "message" versus "consequence" should be an easy one. When talking about the impact of trains on human civilization, the word "consequence" seems preferable. How could McLuhan possibly define "message" to prefer it? I define "message", most generally, as purposefully sent chunk of information, but that's clearly just me. Did I make my problem clearer? I'm not debating the impact of trains or light or youtube, I'm saying that if you must generalize them all under one theory, you're left with something vague and obvious. As for the second point, I did get the synecdoche. Yes there are many things light changed, but there are also many things it didn't. The practice of working late, made possible by light, does not care much about the source of the light. Working in candlelight might be harder, but I'm confident I'd still do it. In that sense the medium is not the message. From another angle, the impact of a medium may depend on the context including the mediums that came before it. Then, again, the medium is not the message. Note, the word "is", like most words, has a specific meaning, which is not really appropriate in this case (nor is your use of "far greater"), although this is a minor nitpick even by my standards.

[@LochNessHamster]

Damn, 2015 Dan was so bright eyed and bushie tailed. The sardonic wit was still there, but you seem less jaded and beaten down in comparison. Yeah, the last five years have sucked pretty bad in general, haven't they?