Unless you are one, a real clown, that is. Today many of us are amateur clowns, amateur entertainers.
I have seen this in myself, how I take on the role and costume of The Entertainer of My Friends. On Facebook and similar places.
“Yes! I need to post a great video now, or a fantastic article. This will raise my value in others´ eyes. Isn´t that what the “attention economy” is about…?”
Not only that, also the Attention Begging and Attention Whoring.
I am not condemning anybody since I see this impulse in myself. But I try to step back from it and reason with myself: Who gave me the role of entertaining my friends?
I will certainly try to do that when they come home to me or if I´ve invited them to a party. Without a doubt, and with much pleasure! But now I speak of digital entertainment at a distance (tele). There´s a great difference between the two.
In the analog world entertainment-energy is flowing to and fro, there´s conversation, instant responses, nobody is hiding their face or voice or body behind a computer screen.
In digital “entertainment” most everything is hidden, masked, non-obvious. Nothing is really flowing; the energy moves like an old car on a bumpy road, sometimes totally still, sometimes jumping madly like a locust: most of the information (tone of voice, the face with its myriad muscles, our gestures, etc) is lacking and is replaced with primitive utterances like LOL, ROFL, LLAH, PITA and inchoate symbols (smileys) that try desperately but without success to make up for the colossal lack of nonverbal information.
The stage if set for misunderstanding, confusion and stealth. “Entertainment” on that stage is a muddy, unclear affair, hiding all kinds of unobserved motives, like seeking (sometimes desperately seeking) popularity, wanting to show off, wanting to put other people down, wanting to steal other people´s time and attention, and so on.
With that kind of entertainment, who needs neurosis?
But who am I, diarist, to talk? Blogging has the same temptations and dangers. “Aren´t you going to write a new post soon? The last one came, let´s see… fifteen hours ago! Your readership is WAITING!”
And there we are again… in the Delivering Entertainment-business.
So how to get out of it? One way is to change audience. Horatius Flaccus wrote, wisely: satis est equitem mihi plaudere – it is enough if the Knights applaud me. The Knights can be our excarnated friends and mentors, our invisible consortium. Let THEM — not the Facebook-crowd or anonymous readers/ browsers of your blog — nod if they approve of what you do.
The rest should not concern you. As for the clowning, the pros´ do it SO much better.
Dear L!
I think I see your point. But hasn’t there always been one-way-communication around, and even more so in the good old analogue times? We are old enough to remember. I read your diary and can immediately respond to it. There’s really nothing wrong with that. If you sent me a snail mail or I read a book or an article it would take some time to react – maybe a good thing to have time to think over the reply and not, as I now simply respond spontaneously. I think the main problem with modern communication is that we are losing the dialogue face to face. To code and decode all those myriad of face muscles as you put it.
I have a Instagram account where I sometimes record, as a sort of diary moments that has a special meaning to me, purely for my own pleasure. If someone likes my picture, there is a resonance, and so much better! So as long as you do it for your own sake, and without any inner pressure to please someone out there, I cannot see anything bad happening there. Why make a painting, write a novel or a piece of music for someone you don’t have the slightest clue about? Isn’t it rather similar. It may or not be art but at least an impression of your palm in a modern day dimly lit cave.