The Media is the Massage

One passage from "The Media is the Massage" that really was memorable to me was discussing art in terms of changing media: how representations in art have followed the same rules since the Renaissance, focusing on the literal visuals and not on what the artist wants to actually show.

The other influence to my response has been the massive outrage over social media in the last two days over the bankrupt VFX company "Rhythm & Hues", as well as other struggling VFX companies. This is just the latest of many stories I've been seeing recently of companies in the entertainment industry closing, laying off huge amounts of people, or mistreating its employees.

These two things might not seem to have much in common, but here's how they've mixed in my mind: the idea of these preconceived prejudices as discussed in "The Media is the Massage"and the mistreatment of individual employees as I've been hearing about in recent news both are crushing to the individual. Lately, because of this, I've been feeling scared about my future, and depressed about my career path before I even have a real career. I tried to express this feeling in my response to the reading.

It's extremely possible that I completely misunderstood "The Media is the Massage" and that my response is not at all appropriate... I look forward to tomorrow's discussion to see if my ideas will change at all.

Crowd image: http://metalgeamonkey.deviantart.com/art/Crowd-319405950