Concrete Academic

Who would have known that a brief rant on mass-production would get such an enthusiastic response, and not just on Concrete Academic? Yesterdays article turned out not at all what the editors here expected, and we’re currently in negotiation with Jeff Starr to drop his renaissance-man inclinations and oeuvre and write full time on furniture.

Why did this article generate so much heat? I think a couple of things played a role. Although Jeff wrote more of a personal reflection on a particular pet peeve (he himself seemed incredulous at the response), there is a grassroots visceral reaction to consumerism, waste, and artificiality, heightened by the economic recession, of which the now ubiquitous “Organic” labels are only symptomatic. He clearly hit a nerve, and this is a discussion that I hope to see tackled here soon. Although it seems prosaic, it touches on big ideological and even existential questions—notice that the title of the piece starts, “The Industrial Revolution….” Along with that are issues of economic philosophy with their concomitant political overtones, which are no less of a catalyst for argument.

Yet there was another, outside factor. Nurturing the growth of ConcreteAcademic.com, the editors often use “social-media” to help spread the word about the project. As an experiment, it was decided that this article should be “seeded” on Newsvine with a different, more catchy title, to see what would happen. Jeff’s title was fine for Concrete Academic. We had already hit rock-bottom on boring titles with Numerical Veracity and the Media. But it certainly wasn’t eye candy, and we thought we could come up with something better. So “The Industrial Revolution and the Death of Craftsmanship” was morphed into “Why IKEA Sucks and Is Destroying the World.” Pretty good, no? The Newsvine community ate it up and it went nearly viral by our modest standards, whereas my article the day before on Jazz—which I thought exceedingly interesting—got no play at all from them.

Now, there’s nothing wrong with this kind of creative and even brazen wording, and I like to have fun with what I write; I certainly meant the title of this post to be cheeky. But I can’t help but think this says something about our culture, and it surely isn’t flattering. The more vitriolic or asinine the bait, the harder people will go for it. It turns out that advertisers, tabloids, and TV editors really do know what they’re doing when they aim for our basest instincts. This is one of the reasons I stopped watching television years ago.

Let me quickly add that, though a number of comments had to be deleted, and I don’t know how many were filtered out automatically, we got thoughtful comments, too. It’s always good to see solid criticism, whether we agree with it or not. Jeff got called on a couple of points, and I personally would like to see further discussion, though a more irenic tone would be nice.

So, then. Out there it’s local news banter, award shows, gossip blogs, and celebrity sightings. We’re glad you’re here.