Holiday’s Over
Well, that was fun. I’ve achieved a lot since I last went to University. I’ve also spent a lot of time loafing. In the future, I’d like to work things so that I at least get paid for my loafing. Or do less of it. One or the other. Loafing is fun, but it’s only ever a safe sort of fun. I wouldn’t miss it terribly if I never did it again.
Does working on endless themes for grapefruit count as loafing? Well, yes. But then it’s tempting to switch back to one theme and change it whenever I wish to. What would be more rewarding is to come up with a nifty scheme for the EMS website, but ideas continue to elude me. It’s considerably trickier to design something for hundreds of people than for just one. But hopefully University will spur me onto it. Or people at uni, nagging me, more likely.
I saw Fahrenheit 9/11 yesterday. Decent, but naturally one-sided. Which is all very well for the people that agree with you, but surely you need to be more even handed if you actually want to convert people? I’m not sure. Certainly there’s a case to be made that some folks will believe anything they’re told.
We’ll see.
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Andrew
July 27th, 2004 at 10:11 am
I saw F9/11 the other week and also thought it was ok but very one-sided. For that reason I didn’t particularly like it. However I would disagree that the very biased nature of it would make it a less effective converter – at least for the style of conversion Moore wants. His only aim, at this point, is to ensure Bush loses. So all he needs to do is make the audience very angry – which is why I think he goes on about the Sauds/Bin Ladens flying after 9/11 for so long, even though it is largely irrelevant. Remember only 50% of eligible Americans bother voting, so just getting a few people who wouldn’t normally bother voting to vote could swing the election. And since these people aren’t that politically engaged, you don’t want a nuanced argument – just Bush=bad. Also, Americans aren’t generally known for their love of subtlety, and one-sided over-the-top arguments don’t seem to have harmed Mr Moore’s career.
But more generally, doesn’t the nature of advertising show that one-sided unbalanced arguments work? Otherwise instead of shampoo ads which claim their product will revolution our lives, would they say that their product is pretty much the same as every other shampoo ever made but comes in a different coloured bottle with ‘shampoo’ written in a prettier font?
Tom
July 27th, 2004 at 10:38 am
I suppose one can overestimate a person’s intelligence. You’re right, I had forgotten that there was a large, untapped vein of apathetic voters that could be seized upon. We’ll see how well he and others have done later this year. Should be quite exciting… I wonder if it’ll come down to the wire in Florida again?