I’m reading Steven Johnson’s Everything Bad is Good For You, and my students in English 30 are reading portions of it next term. In the book, Johnson argues that contrary to popular narratives that claim that popular culture is making us dumber, that much of popular culture is actually making us smarter by demanding a lot of cognitive work out of us. In fact, many of the most popular games and television shows are popular because they demand so much work. At one point, Johnson references how the Internet allows television to become even more complex, to demand even more complicated thinking, because it allows television to expand outside of its rather limited medium.
Liz Losh shares the story of the alternative reality game The Truth About Marika, which seems to exemplify Johnson’s point even more than many of the examples in his book. One argument that Johnson makes is that these popular and stimulating “commodities” are so popular because they are interactive, providing clues and not filling in all the blanks for viewers participants: participants must engage with the material to even understand what’s going on. Whereas older television shows, or current, less engaging television shows, used big pointing arrows to alert viewers of important information, now participants must decide what material is important and what is just filling in space. There’s a lot more cognitive work going on.
The Truth About Marika seems fascinating.
There’s a lot going on here, of course. Losh mentions the lines between fact and fiction being blurred, and some participants unsure of fact or fiction. This is, I think, interesting. But I also wonder about how authenticity (what is “fact” or “real”) is questioned — or perhaps even the questioning isn’t as interesting as the ways in which authenticity is appealed to. The way this show hooked participants through claiming there was an authentic Marika is fascinating.
