Comments on: Age of Profanity http://devin.reams.me/age-of-profanity/ Thoughts on life, business, and technology. Sat, 13 Mar 2010 15:32:36 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0-alpha By: Devin http://devin.reams.me/age-of-profanity/comment-page-1/#comment-321 Devin Thu, 30 Mar 2006 07:52:38 +0000 http://devinreams.com/2006/03/28/age-of-profanity/#comment-321 That's exactly what I was getting at: fuck oil prices... That’s exactly what I was getting at: fuck oil prices…

]]> By: Brook http://devin.reams.me/age-of-profanity/comment-page-1/#comment-320 Brook Wed, 29 Mar 2006 15:49:09 +0000 http://devinreams.com/2006/03/28/age-of-profanity/#comment-320 You put your finger on something. Profanity is thin sauce. It engages base emotions, and avoids reasoned thought. Since its emotional, it distracts the listener from looking for the content of the communication. This distracts them from seeing that the speaker/writer has little content to offer. Entertainment (as opposed to literature) appeals almost exclusively to the base emotions. One could define base emotions as the seven deadly sins of the bible and you'd have a working definition. These base emotions exist in all of us. Higher thinking (complex patterns), analysis, critique, etc. are less well expressed in the population at large. So, if the goal of entertainement is to sell advertising to 14 - 24 year olds, and to sell advertising you have to have their eyeballs and ears in front of the ad, which content do you choose, two people swearing, screwing, etc., or two people enaged in a debate about how China's economic growth impacts oil prices? You put your finger on something. Profanity is thin sauce. It engages base emotions, and avoids reasoned thought. Since its emotional, it distracts the listener from looking for the content of the communication. This distracts them from seeing that the speaker/writer has little content to offer.

Entertainment (as opposed to literature) appeals almost exclusively to the base emotions. One could define base emotions as the seven deadly sins of the bible and you’d have a working definition. These base emotions exist in all of us. Higher thinking (complex patterns), analysis, critique, etc. are less well expressed in the population at large.

So, if the goal of entertainement is to sell advertising to 14 – 24 year olds, and to sell advertising you have to have their eyeballs and ears in front of the ad, which content do you choose, two people swearing, screwing, etc., or two people enaged in a debate about how China’s economic growth impacts oil prices?

]]>