The Gutenberg Option

Here is where we began....

In 1452 Johannes Gutenberg first put paper to inked moveable type and set off a revolution that changed the world.

The revolution he set off was the liberation of mass media.

The world we live in today is the direct result of Gutenberg's new technology - the printing press.

The printing press made it possible for anyone to publish anything they wanted for a very low cost.

Prior to the invention of the printing press books had been written by hand.

The process was so long and laborous that very few books were every written, and those were generaly sponsored by the Church - the only people who could afford to pay a Monk for the years it took to create one hand-written bible.

After Gutenberg, the world was literally flooded with content.

And a lot more than bibles.

When I started in the TV business, making television and video was also an extremely expensive and laborious task.  It took a long time and a lot of money to craft a TV show - and television was the only place you could show video. And there were only 3 networks.  As books had once been controlled by The Church, now televisoin was controlled by The Networks.

In the past decade we have seen a technological revolution no less shattering than Gutenbergs - but this time in video.

And good thing, as we spend much of our lives watching video.  The average American spends 4.5 hours a day watching TV.  The average American buys one book a year.

We are a Video and TV culture.

But what do we watch?

Cupcake Wars.

It’s cupcake vs. cupcake in Food Network’s tastiest competition yet! Each week on Cupcake Wars, four of the country’s top cupcake bakers face off in three elimination challenges until only one decorator remains. The sweet prize: $10,000 and the opportunity to showcase their cupcakes at the winning gig.

It is almost incomprehensible.

This is how we spend 4.5 hours a day, every day, for our entire lives.

Cupcake wars.

We have taken the most powerful medium humanity has ever invented - a machine capable not only of transmitting stories and information with sound and pictures and graphics and music and text - but also of holding our attention for hours on end - and we have filled it with garbage.

Is it any wonder our culture is going down the drain?

Cupcake Wars.

This is what we have chosen to create with this vast and powerful machine for content.

This is what we have chosen to spend our days on this earth watching.

It is as though the ancient Greeks had decided to build a house of cards on the top of the Acropolis.

"Hey - watch what I can do with the Aces!"

It is as though Shakespeare presented Macbeth as a series of stick figures and doodles in his first portfolio. 

It's crap.

We have taken this machine with limitless potential and created a world of crap.

And why have we done this?

Because the people who make the decision as to what gets made and what gets produced and what gets aired are a tiny minority who site in windowless cubicles in office blocks and guess what it is people want to see.

And from where do their options come?

From the tiny minority who work for production companies in NY or LA and pitch this crap to them.

And that - that .00000001% of the population decides what the other 99.9999999% get to see.

And in their wisdom they have decided that the best use of this fantastic machine is ... Cupcake Wars.

This can change.

This can change.

You don't have to spend the rest of your life watching Cupcake Wars or all the other mindless crap that fills cable and slowly feeling your brains turn to oatmeal.

You can... we can... we all can change the content.

We can change what we spend our time watching and thus thinking about and thus acting one.

Television and video do not have to be a mindless mush machine filled with endless hours of crap.

It can communicate great ideas, interesting ideas, exciting ideas.

Martin Luther had some intersting ideas.

He saw the newly invented printing press and put two and two together.

See that camera?

That's the printing press for the 21st Century.

Go make something interesting.