Last rant in 2013 but I will try to leave with some positive thoughts. I was musing lately on two things.
One is the ongoing illusion people allow to be maintained. I refer to the great ‘fairy’ tale of The Emperor’s New Clothes by Hans Christian Anderson. The moral for me wasn’t that the tailors duped the Emperor into believing he had a new suit on – it was that the people in the crowd so wanted to follow what everyone was saying they all went along with it. Given someone who’s profession is in Marketing & Advertising should not say we must stop the illusion. But what bothers me is the ongoing need to follow and convince oneself that you are seeing something great just because others say so. And when the illusion starts to crumble be mad at those who created it rather than at ourselves.
Why is this childlike need to be liked and popular such a motivator in modern times?
Second musing was yesterday when I saw an interview with some pre-teens. Question ‘Do you think Amira is good’ (she’s fantastic by the way). Answer was she must be she’s had over 13 million views on Youtube. Again this does not say someone is good it simply says 13 million clicks. Any marketer worth their salt should tell you that clicks don’t mean a lot. How many people actually watched the video and shared ? But next to this false manner of rating ‘good’ they completely missed that this 9 year old has already done about 5.000 of her 10.000 hours. She had underlying talent that was nurtured in an environment to help her do this.
In 2014 I hope that true content, truth and hard work will reign.
Happy New Year.