When Dinosaurs Lived With Humans: A Lesson For Progressive Communicators

 

Why do we do this?  Because in the age of iPads and Netflix, we don't want our kids to lose their sense of wonder and imagination.  In a time when the answers to all the world's questions are a web-search away, we want our kids to experience a little mystery.  All it takes is some time and energy, creativity, and a few plastic dinosaurs.

 

 

You can find anything you want on the internet these days - equally, you can find lots of material that reinforces what you already believe in/stand against.  The access isn't the issue - it's shaping how that access gets used.

 

To strengthen their brand, reinforce their base and in an attempt to engineer a national community of experience that is more conservative in nature, the Conservative Party of Canada has spent a great deal of time hammering home simple messages, denigrating their opponents and stifling facts that don't back their arguments.

 

Some progressive communicators have tried to copy this approach, hitting the fear button and relying on attacks to denigrate their opponents while relying on simple messaging and a low public profile to shore up their own defenses.  In doing so, these progressives are becoming pale shadows of their opponents.  In this tug-of war, it's ultimately the Conservatives who win by putting the breaks on progressive dialogue.

 

So what's a progressive to do?  If you can't beat 'em at their own game and aren't willing to join them, you change the rules of the game.

 

Whereas traditional conservative thought presents the unknown as dangerous and The Other as untrustworthy, progressives see new territory as laden with opportunity and disregard the concept of The Other entirely.

 

It's been easier for the Political Right to channel the current mediums of public preference (video) to their advantage, theoretically, because video is an emotional medium.  Progressives have this bad habit of seeing themselves as less emotional and more evidence-based; as we all know, facts tell, but stories sell.  When you present a fact, it sits on the table like a plastic toy; it has no resonance for the audience, because we understand the world through the lens of emotion.  Literally - we're hard-wired that way.

 

To assume that all emotions favour conservative thinking is to close the door on some pretty essential tools of communication.  Hope is an emotion, too, as are wonder, a sense of belonging and optimism.  In the same way media (not just visual but all sensory mediums) can be manipulated to favour negative, reactive responses, it can be channeled to trigger positive, proactive responses.

 

This is why context matters.  Meaning is derived from association - without context, a thing in and of itself has no value.  Art is like this - the content of a painting, a chorus in a song or a payoff built up to in a movie can all trigger emotional responses, positive or negative. 

 

Here's where Dinovember comes in.  By creating a mystery that has a touch of the taboo (they made a mess), a pinch of whimsy (interrogating a Teenage Mutant Turtle? This is about the new Bay movie, isn't it?) and an ongoing sense of wonder (could it be true? Do they come to life at night?), these folks have created something magical and engaging for their kids.  Is it hard to imagine those youth entering each day of November with the same sense of anticipation kids get leading in to Christmas? 

 

But there's more.  By creating something creative and clever, by giving it a brand but not a fixed set of parameters and by inviting others to participate, these parents have built a movement that other parents (and their kids) are going to want to be part of, like a meme.

 

You can't communicate the complex in one soundbite, but if you can keep your audience coming back for more, you can roll out complexity one frame at a time.  This is how TV shows like LOST (about finding community through acceptance of self) and BATTLESTAR GALACTICA (we're on a repetitive cycle of failure - can we become more than we have been before?) built and sustained audiences that debate their finales to this day.  Besides, if you want to expand your market, you need to offer broader sets of value that appeal to them.

 

Progress need not be seen as perilous, nor the Undiscovered Country feared as the end of the familiar.  With a bit of sustained hope, hard work and creative thought towards content and context, it can be something to look forward to.

 

Which is the whole point, isn't it?

 

99 Problems but the Snake Isn't One of Them

It's like God created this man for a busy day and he forgot to put fear in his hand.

We tend to view fear as a powerful tool.  Employers use it to keep their employees in line.  Governments, same - either by encouraging their people to be afraid of them or by blowing up external fears as a justification of "why they need us."  Terrorism, that nebulous activity against which nations have attempted to go to war with, thrives on fear.

In practise, though, fear is not a tool - tools are devices used to facilitate productivity.  Fear is a weapon that serves to end activity, be it speaking truth to power or living a life contrary to traditional dictates.  Fear is a glass ceiling that instinctively restrains us from taking risks, either positive or negative.  It's a firewall that keeps out the threat of change - or a flaming sword that banishes change from within.

So what happens when fear is not an issue? 

When you stop waiting for the worst to happen; when you stop waiting for someone to remove the thing that makes you anxious before acting - doors open.  The opposite of fear is wonder.

If fear is about closing doors, wonder is about opening them.  It's funny, that - how the end of one thing leads to the beginning of something else. 
 

Clearly, you can't walk through every door - but having the option matters.

 

When you pull back the veil of fear, the world seems a lot clearer.

Best of all - it's a meme, too.