No More Real Life, Hump Daaaaay! and Chasing Youth

 "The View From the Phlipside" is a media commentary program airing on WRFA-LP, Jamestown NY.  It can be heard Monday through Friday just after 8 AM and 5 PM.  The following are scripts which may not exactly match the aired version of the program.  Mostly because the host may suddenly choose to add or subtract words at a moments notice.  WRFA-LP is not responsible for any such silliness or the opinions expressed.  You can listen to a live stream of WRFA or find a podcast of this program at wrfalp.com.  Copyright 2013 by Jay Phillippi.  All Rights Reserved.  You like what you see?  Drop me a line and we can talk.

Program scripts from week of October 13, 2013


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. 

Chasing Youth                                                                                         

What are the kids doing?  That is the most often asked question in your life if you are A: a parent or B: an advertising executive.  For the parent the question is usually about whether little Johnny is eating dirt again or where Suzy and boyfriend have suddenly disappeared to.  If you’re in advertising the hope is that if you can keep up with what younger folks are doing you will be successful in your chosen line of work.

Those two groups usually have one other thing in common.  They get the answer to that question wrong more often than they like.

Sticking to the media side of the equation the biggest problem is that not only are younger media consumers hard to predict under the best of circumstances but also that we are living in a time period where they can change more quickly and move in more directions than ever before.

Facebook and Twitter are rapidly disappearing in the media rear view for many younger consumers.  Oh they’re still there but it’s no longer THE place to be.  Which means that by the time the media establishment has cranked up its machinery the target has moved again.  Expectations are different, needs are different.  Plus if you’re in the advertising sales end of the business you need to remember that a lot of this generation actively uses software to block your ads.

Here’s another place that the media is struggling.  A new longitudinal study done by the folks at Pew shows that the youngest consumers spend less time with the news than their elders do.  The post retirement generation spends over 80 minutes a day with the news.  The sub-30 generation is right around 46 minutes.  I wonder how much of that disparity is covered by the difference in media between the two generations.  If you’re getting your news mostly online you can scan through to what you want much more efficiently than waiting on radio or TV to deliver it.  My problem is that the media tends to focus on the lower time spent viewing rather figuring out to better serve that demographic in the time available.  Solve that question and you just might see growth.

The one thing that is guaranteed in this pursuit of youth is that there will continue to be as many or more misses than hits.  

But then any parent could tell you that.

Hump Daaaaay!                                                                                                  

There’s that wonderful, weird moment when something that was created for a specific purpose suddenly veers into the other lane and takes off.  Of course the general rule is that any public recognition is good recognition.  That doesn’t really work in real life.  So I always wonder what goes through the minds of companies who see something from their advertising plan takes on a life of its own.

Never forget the goal of advertising is to separate you the consumer from your money.  In the long run that is its purpose in life.  The short run may include things like changing your mind or convincing you of a certain point but in the long run they are there to get your money in exchange for some product or service that you probably don’t need.

So what do the folks at GEICO think when they find out that one of their ads has become a problem at schools across the nation.  First we have to sort through all the various GEICO ads.  The insurance company still amazes me because they are running so many different campaigns all at the same time.  My bet is you know the spot.  It involves the phrase “Mike, Mike, Mike, Mike” and the problem phrase itself “Hump DAAAAAAY!”.  That’s right, the GEICO camel spot.

Beyond the fact that it’s annoying, no wait, it’s BECAUSE it’s annoying that it’s a problem.  I will admit that I have a soft spot for this ad.  It pleases me deep down in that 9 year old boy part of my personality.

The problem seems to be with, well, 9 year old boys.  A lot of schools are banning that phrase.  I have no doubt that many Middle Schools and Junior Highs are disrupted every Wednesday when the boys break out their best camel imitations at the top of their lungs.  Funny once, maybe twice.  By the end of the day, following hour after hour of it, I’m quite certain that many teachers and school administrators are ready to slam their heads into the wall.

Which brings me back to the folks at GEICO.  You can’t REALLY be happy that your advertising is seen as a big enough disruption of the education system that it’s actively being banned.  How do you react when one of your ads has gone viral, has become a catchword in the culture?  

My bet?

They’re laughing all the way to the bank.

No More Real Life                                                                                                             

Why do you go to the movies?  That’s a serious question, by the way.  Why do you go to the movies?  I love the movies but why?  I love the epic quality of stories told on the big screen.  I love the relief from reality that the movies have always offered.  When I watch a movie I can be a superhero or even just a regular hero.  I can explore far parts of this world or leave this world entirely and explore other times and places.  Along the way I can be challenged, I can be amused, I can be moved.  I go to the movies because no other media can tell those stories in quite the same way.  Some other media do some parts of storytelling better and some parts worse.  I love movies for what they do well.

So let me ask you this - do you go to the movies to learn history?  If you answered yes I want you to seriously re-consider that answer.  The movies are about storytelling.  Consequently accurately representing historical events comes at best a distant second and more than likely a distant third, fourth or fifth.  Now at this point someone is going to say “What about documentaries?”.  Well let me ask another question and be honest.  In the last 10 years how often have you gone to the movies, meaning gone out to a theater because the essence of the theater experience, and watched a documentary?  If you’re like most Americans that’s probably what, once?  So that’s not really a significant part of the average movie goers experience.

I know when I go in that if the movie is “based on actual events” there’s going to be a certain percentage of the story that gets shuffled, edited or flat out dropped to advance the movie storytelling.  For example you don’t want to bring up last year’s movie “Argo” in Canada.  The movie focused on the rescue of some of the hostages held by Iran in 1979.  What’s upset the Canadians?  Simple, in real life they played an important part, a major part in that rescue.  You’ll never know it by watching the movie, because it got edited out.  This comes up now because folks are upset with some artistic license employed in the telling of the new Tom Hanks movie “Captain Phillips”. 

Here’s what I wish the bottom line could be.  I wish the movies would drop the whole “based on actual events”.  Be inspired by real life, tell the story that relates the important parts of the history, use the wonderful storytelling tools at your disposal and do that.

Then the rest of us can stop fact checking and just sit back and enjoy the movies.

Call that the View From the Phlipside

The Reality of Virtual Relationships, RIP Dear Abby, Cyber-bullying

 "The View From the Phlipside" is a media commentary program airing on WRFA-LP, Jamestown NY.  It can be heard Tuesday through Friday just after 8 AM and 5 PM.  The following are scripts which may not exactly match the aired version of the program.  Mostly because the host may suddenly choose to add or subtract words at a moments notice.  WRFA-LP is not responsible for any such silliness or the opinions expressed.  You can listen to a live stream of WRFA or find a podcast of this program at wrfalp.com.  Copyright 2012 by Jay Phillippi.  All Rights Reserved.  You like what you see?  Drop me a line and we can talk.

Program scripts from week of January 21, 2013



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. 

RIP Dear Abby                                                                                                         

Most of us went most of our lives without knowing her real name.  We knew her sister was in the exact same line of work.  In fact in their prime the two sisters were their only mutual competition.  Last week we lost a true American icon with the death of Pauline Phillips.  The world knew her better as Dear Abby.

A lot of people are called icons but I’m not sure all of them deserve it.  A quick check of my dictionary tells me that an icon is “A person or thing regarded as a representative symbol of something”.  Dear Abby is iconic for her representation of middle American common sense.  Her advice was honest but tempered by kindness.  Women’s advice columns before Dear Abby tended to be formulaic and safe.  There were some subjects that were not to be discussed.  Dear Abby took on them all.

Behind the pen name of Abigail Van Buren was Pauline Esther Friedman (her twin sister who became Ann Landers was Esther Pauline Friedman) born to a family of Russian Jewish immigrants who settled in Iowa and ran movie theaters.  Abby (let’s stick to that name since it’s the one most of us know here by) got started writing advice columns in San Francisco with typical blunt honesty.  She got in touch with the editor of the San Francisco Chronicle and told him she could write better than their regular columnist.  He gave her a handful of letters and a week to write up her replies.  She handed them back 90 minutes later and he hired her.  The column would go into syndication and become the most widely syndicated newspaper column in the world.

Dear Abby didn’t become an icon because she was famous.  She became an icon because she represented an awful lot of what is best and unique about Middle America.  A willingness to take on any subject, to have an opinion but to leave the mean spiritedness aside.  We could use more Dear Abby today I think.

Pauline Phillips, the original Dear Abby, was 94 years old.

Cyber-bullying                                                                                                        

If you work with teenagers as I do in my real life it is one of the top three topics of conversation these days.  If you’re a parent you probably hear about it a lot as well.  It’s called cyber-bullying, emotional and verbal abuse on the internet.  Because our kids spend so much time online we’ve begun to wonder just how emotionally dangerous it may be.  There’s no doubt that for a young person in the wrong emotional place at the wrong time it can be devastating.  None of us want to see the young people we care about being abused.  To that end a variety of states have passed laws against cyber-bullying.

The real problem is defining just what we’re talking about.  Is just being mean the same as being a bully?  I think most of us would say no to that.  Kids are in the process of working out who they are and how they interact with others.  That takes them to some mean places at times.  Virtually all of us have been mean to someone else at some point in our lives.  It doesn’t make us terrible people.

In pursuit of defining what cyber-bullying may be the folks at the Pew Research Center did a nationwide survey of teenagers and asked them about their experience online.  The results can help us parse this complex issue.

First people may be surprised by the overall positive experience most teens say they have.  While 88% say they’ve seen someone being “mean or cruel”, two thirds of those surveyed said that people are mostly kind online.  20% said they’ve been bullied (although the largest percentage note that it was in person rather than online) and 20% have admitted that they have joined in on cruelty to others.

What’s interesting to me is that most of the teens that Pew spoke with said they just ignore the negativity when it invades their lives.  They’re pretty good at using the privacy controls offered them to limit who can see their posts on places like Facebook and Twitter as well.  They also turn to friends and sometimes parents when they need support.

So in the end the Pew research gives a little better handle on the issue.  Cyber-bullying does exist, it can be harmful.  Our best reaction?  To continue to help our kids defend themselves by giving them the tools they need in life and on the web.

On the Reality of Virtual Relationships

Last week I was introduced to a concept called Catfishing.  If you missed it to “catfish” is to create a fake online persona for the purposes of a hoax, a joke or to generally deceive someone.  This is different than having an online persona for your own personal use.  Where it came up is with the story of Manti T’eo the senior linebacker at Notre Dame.  It appears that he believed that he had developed a relationship with a young woman online.  Turns out she was a catfish created by a young man who may done this to several other people as well.

I’m not going to get into the “what did he know and when did he know it” aspect of this discussion.  That will come out slowly over the next month or so as more of the principal characters come forward.  I want to talk about a response I heard several times from commentators about one media aspect of the story.

Several commentators have had great fun with the idea that you can’t have a “real” relationship just via the internet or phone.  That it’s not possible to have a relationship with a person you’ve never met in person.

I think those commentators are showing their age.

Let’s remember that T’eo is not quite 22 years old.  He grew up on the Internet.  Young people are much more comfortable, in fact often too comfortable, sharing large portions of their lives and thoughts on line.  Just the way you do with friends.  They’ve had long conversations with people who live tens, hundreds and thousands of miles away from them.  This is a normal and routine part of their social lives.  So why wouldn’t they make friends there?

And who is to say that romantic feelings couldn’t bloom as well?  Well lots of grumpy middle aged men for whom the Internet is a tool rather than an integral part of their lives have been trying to make that exact point.  There’s a whole new generation that says they’re wrong.

Virtual communications can miss a lot of nuance and can make this kind of hoax all too easy.  But before we simply mark this young man off as a fool for believing in a serious online relationship maybe we need to examine our preconceptions about the virtual world.


Call that the View From the Phlipside

The danger of not dealing in facts - Mr. Rogers is evil

I want you to watch the first segment of this video clip from Fox News.  That way you'll see what was actually said rather than relying on me:



So a couple points:

1.  There is a certain amount of tongue in cheek here but I believe two of the three commentators do basically agree with the essential point
2. One of the commentators does appear to argue with some emotion against the proposition
3. This is, in my opinion, one of the most idiotic conversations I've heard in a very long time.  Especially when you look at the facts.

Fact one: The professor at Louisiana State University did not in fact author a study.  Wouldn't seem likely for him to have done one on the effects of childhood reinforcement on young people SINCE HE'S A PROFESSOR OF FINANCE AT LSU!  (Article from the Wall Street Journal)  This was the result of a thought that dawned on him last spring.

Fact two: Thirty plus years ago when I was in college I remember plenty of people begging for extra credit or a little leniency to bump a C grade to a B or a B to an A.  So this is hardly new and novel behavior.

Fact three: According to "Pittsburgh Magazine" (as quoted in the Wikipedia article on Fred Rogers) at the peak of his popularity "Mr. Roger's Neighborhood" was seen in 8% of homes.  EIGHT PER CENT.  The man had an astounding influence given the fact that 92% of households didn't watch.

Fact four: There is a study on the rising levels of narcissism in college students done by San Diego State University.  I can find no indication that Professor Chance from LSU is associated with it in any way except he thinks Mr. Rogers is responsible at least in part.  The study itself apparently says that there has been a 30% increase in the number of students who score above average on a standardized test for narcissism (a self centered point of view).

Mr. Rogers comment that "You're Special" was a couple seconds out of each program.  The rest of the program dealt with topics like getting along with each, taking care of each other, going to school and how things worked.  Somehow all the rest of that gets pushed aside by the simple statement - "You're Special".

Amazing.

So let's take a look at this from the point of view of faith.  Created in the image of God.  Part of the divine creation of which, we are assured, God is mindful.  Important enough, valued enough that God sent his only son to die for us.

Not that you're special or anything.

There is a different between being special (which by the way is defined in part as "important in own way") and being entitled.  Every human being is special, beloved of God.  Every human being should be able to grow up with that feeling of specialness and uniqueness.  What message would be sent in its place?  That you are common, unimportant and defective.  That your primary goal should be making up for your shortcomings.  That at least seems to be the argument of two of the talking heads in the Fox clip. 

None of which is consistent with the Gospel.

Is there work for us to do on ourselves?  Absolutely.  It is to develop our gifts and to become the best expression of all that makes us special.  Because each of us is different (special) each of us will bring something slightly different to the table of life.  In exploring the specialness of ourselves we become more fully human and closer to the ideal that was created within us from our earliest days.

Is there reason to be concerned about our young people?  There always is and always has been.  So that's nothing new.  Am I concerned about the effects of "helicopter parents" and parents too intent on making things easy for their children rather than helping them learn and grow?  I absolutely am.  Our kids need to understand limitations on time and desire.  They need to know no limits on love.  They need to work for things so that they will understand the value of it better.  They need to be given opportunity and held responsible for their commitments.  That's what a parent should do in my opinion.

What our kids don't need is to hear us involved in this kind of badly thought out, poorly informed and borderline slanderous discussion of a man who is no longer around to defend himself.  They don't need to live under the lash that tells them only - "You're not good enough, keep working".

Fox News should be ashamed.

Peace