Chapter 3 covered by Chris Ames as part of our Group Blogging Project discussing the book Flickering Pixels by Shane Hipps. If you need a quick overview to what Flickering Pixels is about, please go here.
Sucker Punched
Immediately upon finishing this chapter I began to struggle with what to write here. I had information, but I wasn’t terribly excited about imparting it to you. So I went back and read it again and that’s when I was sucker-punched by a gem I had somehow missed the first time through. In one section, Hipps contrasts two stories from Greek mythology in which a common, rudimentary piece of technology was a significant influence in the ultimate, and contrary, fate of each main character. These seemingly unrelated stories belong to Narcissus and Perseus.
A Fundy, Snake-handling Christian’s Dream Date
Narcissus was a beautiful young boy who left a devastating trail of unrequited love in his wake. We all know Hell hath no cumulative fury like a gaggle of Greek women scorned so, inevitably, the gods grew tired of hearing them whine. They put a serious harsh on his mellow by cursing the young stud. While strutting through the forest one day, Narcissus came across a deep pool of water and noticed his reflection for the first time. He instantly fell in love with the reflected image and stayed there at the pool, staring at his bad self until he died.
Perseus was a young hero and an illegitimate love-child of the god Zeus. Medusa, who I like to think of as sort of a fundamental, snake-handling Christian’s dream date, was all up in the king’s kool-aid turning everyone to stone and whatnot. That is until Perseus shows up on the scene with a new piece of epic loot: a Shield of Mirrors (+10 Reflection, +8 Intellect, -100 Durability). Instead of looking at Medusa directly and perishing, Perseus protects himself by looking at her indirectly through the shield’s shiny, reflective surface. Then he lops her head off. Rawr.
Leverage
The common element in both stories was that victory or defeat hung in the balance, and the instrument, or medium, by which the story takes an unexpected turn is the article of ancient technology known as the reflection. The gods leveraged this technology to deal with Narcissus. Perseus leveraged this technology to deal with Medusa.
The previous chapter ended with Hipps doing a solid job of deconstructing the false belief that a message is always neutral with respect to its method of delivery. I agree with him on this point. A message is rarely neutral to its medium. This chapter takes things a step further and begins to skirt around the idea that technology is a medium, oh and by the way, it can be leveraged for good or ill.
For the remainder of the chapter, Hipps dissects what he refers to as the “4 Dimensions of All Media”. If, indeed, a message is interdependent with its medium, and a message can be influenced for good or ill by it, then it is positively foundational that one get a thorough understanding of media in general in order to better anticipate, and calculate, the influence it has on our messages. But that’s not what gave me pause as I sat there rereading the chapter.
Big, Sweaty, and Breathless Like a Prank Caller
What occurred to me was that my blog is a reflective surface.
It is a reflection of myself, sure. But it goes deeper. I spend an obscene amount of time priming and pruning and posturing in order to look like a “young beautiful boy” to the Internet at large. If my blog or your blog or even your organization’s blogs are collective reflections of ourselves, then we’re left with one big, sweaty, prank-call-breathing question. In two parts.
As Christians, are our blogs deep pools of water in the forest, used to make us drunk on ourselves, isolate us from the world, and curse us to a slow, absurd death? Or are they mighty shields that we use to defend ourselves, neuter dangerous monsters, and liberate others from a fate of eternal stone?
andydarnell says
FANTASTIC Post dewde. Wow. I gotta go back and read the chapter again 🙂
human3rror says
it is the “clean” version. still fantastic though.
dewde says
Just don't be suckered by the punch.
peace|dewde
Paul Steinbrueck says
Good post dewde. Love the contrast of the 2 Greek myths. The "4 Dimensions of All Media" are definitely worth more thought.
dewde says
That they are. I probably should have given a more direct prompting to the readers to grab the book and dig-in. The 4 dimensions was Shane's "secret sauce" for the chapter.
peace|dewde
dewde says
That they are. I probably should have given a more direct prompting to the readers to grab the book and dig-in. The "4 dimensions" bit was Shane's "secret sauce" for this chapter.
peace|dewde
Paul Steinbrueck says
re: secret sauce. I agree. I haven't read past chapter 3 yet, so I'll be interested to see if he goes into more detail about each of the 4 dimensions.
My initial reaction is that it's not so much that the medium is the message or the the medium affects the message as much as that the medium has an impact of its own separate from the message.
dewde says
This is true. But, talking about it this way is still a bit ambiguous. Here is how I summarized it in the comments of the Chapter 2 post. Be sure to go look and read Adam's reply. It was terrific.
"Messages don't move, they're copied.
The position that the actual, original message changes is not accurate. The source is still the source. However, when one person evangelizes to another, the entirety of Jesus' body of work (message) is not *moved* from Person A to Person B, a fragmented portion of His message is *copied*.
The medium influences the fragmentation process."
peace|dewde
Paul Steinbrueck says
That's an interesting point. When it comes to personal evangelism, "the medium is the message" is even more applicable. That is the medium – me and my life – is not only inseparable from the gospel I speak about but in many cases stands out above the words I use.
Josh Wagner says
Knowledge is power. And knowledge of the way your medium works is the power to convey the message well.
Great post dewde!
dewde says
Thx!
SCBubba says
I love your writing in this post, Chris. I just about spit coffee on my keyboard at "fundy, snake-handling Christian's dream date"…
Hipps use of these stories to contrast the use of a technology/medium for "good or ill" is good. I like the way you used blogging to bring more practicality to the concept. There are a few examples of the blogging platform being used for good and noble purposes. There are a whole lot more Narcissus blogs out there…
I found the placement of this chapter a little interesting. In this one, Hipps is showing how the technology or medium can be used send different messages. Coming on the heels of the previous chapter – the medium is not neutral to the message – it almost undermines his previous premise. Hipps makes up for that in the following chapters, but the 1st time I read it, I felt like the two chapters didn't work together.
Great job on the group blog review. Can't wait for the next ones…
dewde says
With regards to "fundy, snake-handling Christian's dream date"… let us just say that's the G rated, churchy version of what I originally submitted. John edited (read: censored) me. With malice.
If I'm being honest, and John knows this, it was my goal all along to get edited :-).
peace|dewde
Adam_S says
I did like the original, but this was a good compromise. :p
Phillip Gibb says
The reflection idea for both Narcissus and Perseus serves as a kind of warning for us – that your reflection destroys you. Somewhere there is a happy medium, (yeah pun intended) that does not reverse on itself in either direction.
dewde says
"your reflection destroys you."
…or a reflection destroys the thing being reflected.
peace|dewde
Phillip Gibb says
rofl
johndyer says
Paul, you're right that McLuhan/Hipps' point is really, "the medium has an impact of its own separate from the message" but that doesn't really get anyone talking 🙂 Hipps will occasionally mention that McLuhan uses catch phrases and strong language to get people thinking – He understands that he needs to package his message into a medium that has an effect beyond the mere words.
Paul Steinbrueck says
So, you're saying that the medium is affecting Shane Hipps' message. And he knows it.
lon says
Really great post Dewde, you really got to the heart of it, especially with our online 'fronts'. If the medium is the message, we're going to care about the way things are presented and communicated… it's just incredible how easy it is to get ourselves wrapped up in it all once we realize that truth.
dewde says
You're right, it's soooo easy.
peace|dewde
Steven Rossi says
I liked this chapter. Although I know he was focusing on the idea that technology is an extension of ourselves, I liked most his push for us to understand the medium so that we might best use it. I think this is something with which I am constantly wrestling as a college student. Lots of times it's easy to get discouraged and think that I'm just chasing the wind or something by learning tons of pointless information. I think, though, that learning about and beginning to understand the media (plural of medium, not the media like Hollywood…I like to pluralize medium whenever I can) through which we communicate will lead to a better communication of the message. At least, I hope it will…otherwise I'm wasting my time.
Ron_Tuffin says
All the others have said everything I can think of except to praise you for your epic loot description 🙂
dewde says
LOL I calls it likes I sees it.
peace|dewde
dewde says
Good points.
peace|dewde