Program scripts from week of June 2, 2013
(My apologies for the long silence. Life has been...complicated)
My name is Jay Phillippi and I've spent my life in and around the media. TV, radio, the movies and more. I love them, and I hate them and I always have an opinion. Call this the View from the Phlipside.
Parental Disparity
Well this is the week following Father’s Day which means I have listened to the entire inventory of Father’s Day and related advertising. Once again this year I must note that I am not overly impressed. Especially when you compare it to what goes on for Mother’s Day.
Now don’t get me wrong. I am not trying to take a single thing away from the Moms of the world. At the same time the 41% disparity between what gets spent for Mother’s Day over Father’s Day could probably bear a certain amount of examination. I’m just sayin’.
No the real problem for me in the disparity between parental holiday practice is quite simple. When Mother’s Day rolls around we are exhorted to buy Mom luxury items. Flowers, expensive dinners, fabulous jewelry, days at the spa or salon. Mom is to be pampered. Now let us take a look at what we are supposed to buy for dear old Dad.
Two words. Power tools.
I know lots of dads like power tools, heck I’m one of them, but seriously? Mom gets spoiled. Dad gets back to work. The other traditional gift is a tie. Ties are to Father’s Day what underwear is to Christmas morning. As I was driving on Sunday I actually heard a place say that the perfect for Dad on Father’s day was flooring. Flooring that he would have to install.
I mean, what did dads ever do to deserve this?
Think about this. What if you reversed the roles? What if on Mother’s day you presented Mom with a brand new shiny...vacuum cleaner? Sure some Mom’s would like it but let’s face it you had better sleep with one eye open for the next year. But somehow dad is supposed be head over heels, doing cartwheels around the living room because we got stuff so we can do more work.
Don’t even get me started on the whole category of stupid dad/idiot husband commercials. I’m really tired of dear old dad the amiable buffoon. Again, not something you’re ever likely to see a mom version of in advertising.
But hey, I probably should get back to work.
Stop Shouting
Back in the dark ages, when I first got started in radio I had a habit. I typed in all caps. I’m not sure why I did that. It’s not something that I was taught when I learned to type in high school. I certainly never did it for my term papers in high school or college. My best bet is that I started doing it when I started to study broadcasting at the then Edinboro State College. There are two reasons I can think of for doing it. First because when you’re trying to read quickly from your script on the TV set it was easier to see. Plus a lot of the older teletype machines that brought you the news from the wire services didn’t have lowercase capability. Everything was capital letters.
When I moved into professional radio and had to start writing commercial copy it was made very clear to me that this little habit was no longer acceptable. And I have to admit that normal typing with both upper and lowercase is much easier to read generally.
I suppose I could try and blame this on my dad. The problem is that I don’t ever remember him sending me something typed this way. Now he might have and that’s what brings the subject to mind. You see my dad was a Navy officer and the Navy has traditionally typed all official documents in all caps. They had a perfectly good excuse. In fact it’s one of the ones I’ve already mentioned. The teletype printers used by the Navy going back to the 19th century only had caps so all official documents were printed that way.
Until August of this year that is.
The Navy is responding to changing technology and changing society. If you spend any time on the Internet or with texts you know that typing in all caps is PERCEIVED AS SHOUTING. The current generation of Naval officers and enlisted have grown up with that understanding. Let’s face it, official orders can be hard enough to stomach without the feeling that they’re being shouted at you. The Navy also notes that this will save the service a million and half dollars each year.
There are a couple other branches of the service that are also looking at the changeover. By 20-15 or so the only things still shouted in the Armed Forces will the phrases “Are You Eye-ballin’ me?” and “Sir, yes sir”.
One of my younger friends told me the other day that he had seen a study that said something along the lines of - If a new technology came along before you turn 20 then it’s just a routine part of life for you. If it comes along between 20 and 40 it’s life changing technology. And if you’re over 40 the reaction tends to be “Do we really need this?”
Did I mention my friend is a young punk?
The first smartphone was introduced in 2001 by the folks at Palm and Kyocera. It truly took off with the debut of the iPhone. Both of which happened after I turned 40.
Of course I have owned a smartphone for some time now. To be honest at one point it looked like I was going to have to give up my trusty old iPhone. Tried it for a couple months. Hated it.
So let’s take a look at the statistics. 91% of all adult Americans own a cell phone. That’s right a mere 9% are cell phone free. Of those of us who are cool the latest study says that 56% of us own smartphones. That’s an all time high and I’m pretty sure that we can expect that number to continue to grow. You see the percentage is much higher in the 20-30 age demographic and much, much lower in the 65+ demographic.
So what can we deduce from all this? Well my friend might suggest that it just means that younger people are cooler than older folks but we’ll just ignore that.
For me at least the reality is that having quick access to routine information has moved from wonderful luxury to near necessity. The world does move quickly. I’m old enough to still actually make a fair number of actual phone calls but I also do a fair bit of texting. But you can do that on any phone. The ease of texting on a smartphone is a plus. Then add in things like quick access to weather forecasts, the news, my email and things like that just makes me more efficient. I’m not ever going to be a big fan of watching videos on most smartphone screens. Tiny pictures and tiny little audio feeds just don’t meet my needs.
But then I’m an old person.Call that the View From the Phlipside
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