Tall Poppy Syndrome: Kony2012

(“Emotions recollected in tranquillity.” That was Wordsworth’s famous definition of poetry. Well, last night was a “spontaneous overflow of emotion”. Tonight is tranquillity. Cutting and pasting last night’s lines here does not make them poetry, that’s for sure. It just makes them unedited.)

Kony2012: Thoughts on Like

Form follows function.
Facebook gives us the option to ‘like’ or to ‘comment’.

What does this tell us about ourselves – after all, Facebook does not mould our behaviour; it’s just art imitating life, just reflecting what we are like already. And this is the way we think: Liking is simple. It’s easy. It’s one click. But those who are sophisticated, profound, literate. They comment. It’s no longer the chattering classes. It’s now the liking classes vs the commenting classes.

If you are sophisticated, erudite, or have delusions of being so. Or if you simply don’t want to be an Invisible Child, you comment. Scathingly. You like nothing. You think your simple act of criticism shows you’re somehow something more. You’re obviously a deeper thinker. You’re obviously more profound. You’re a wise old citizen of the world. You’re not just a naive, easy-to-impress liker.

And so we have the Kony 2012 campaign. A modern media phenomenon. And we all live our stereotypes:
* Those who view the YouTube early will passionately advocate it. The early adopters will champion the cause. They were there when the gold was discovered, and they will polish its worth.
* Those who discovered it later will come with more cynical hearts. If they, by nature, are of mass persuasion, they will take to it just because of its populist patter. The Bieber effect. If so many others think it’s good, it must be…
* And those who come to it last will be ever resentful. It shows them up. It is competition for their inherent value in a zero-sum world. If they can’t criticise the product, they will look for fault until they find it. And that is what they will trumpet. In Kony2012′s case, they can’t fault the facts, so they’ll say it’s a single story. Forgetting they’re telling a single story. Their insecurity will make it all about them: they’ll say it’s whites/Americans/foreigners/Westerners wanting to ride in as saviours. Without discussing whether there is an enemy to be saved from. They’ll say locals/Ugandans/Africans are not given credit for what they have achieved. Without themselves indicating whether anything much has actually been achieved, and by whom. (Never by whom.)
And then it will come back to money. Here on the poorest continent, it always does. They’ll complain that that organisation is not spending all its money here.
And that’s the real issue, isn’t it?
If all the money were spent here, without any question asked about what exactly we Africans are doing about the problem, we’d ‘like’ them a whole lot more.
But they’re not singing our praises, and they’re not simply handing us their money.
Bastards.
So we shoot them down.
They have no right to be here. They are the root of all evil. 

There’s a #1 enemy at the top of the list. And it’s not Joseph Kony.

PS: One notable exception stands out boldly: Greg Marinovich chooses to put his personal dislikes aside and to tell the real story in a column in the Daily Maverick. Kudos to him.

New school old school

One of the reasons that I am so excited about the arrival of digital in the publishing world, is that it gives all the old-fashioned values and hand-crafted treasures the breathing room they need.

If I’m buying a book for its content only, then I want that delivered immediately. Make it easy for me. To buy. To carry around. To refer to time and again. Digital has done that.

But there’s a different world of books too. One where it’s about the tactile experience. No, a full-five-sensory experience, actually. Where every little detail counts. And where the related pricing is not a race to the bottom that drives down quality and ups compromise.

Well done, Russell Maret, on truly taking your type to the nth degree.

Gremolata & Cancellaresca Milanese by Russell Maret — Kickstarter.

Hephaestus Books is a scam

Indie publishing. Still a concept that’s little-known here in South Africa, where I keep explaining to people that somewhere between self-publishing and mainstream publishing there might just be a rich, rewarding and authentic space for them. And quality is what I harp on about. Self-publishing, at its baser self, is that on-the-cheap product that Mom edits and the neighbour’s cousin proofreads and the margins are too small and the type all wrong… Mainstream publishing used to be so good. But now perhaps they can’t afford the best in the business. Those who stick around are too often harassed and stifled and forced to keep hand-winding the conveyer belt.

And somewhere in-between is Independent Publishing: where a business plan and production team are tailored to the product. Professional AND personal all the way.

Which is why Hephaestus Books totally pisses me off.

It’s clearly an automated production line ripping stuff straight off Wikipedia. No editing, nothing. Not even put into any kind of meaningful order. Hell, not even alphabetical order. This is the one I am holding in my hand. It cost US$13.85 on Amazon. No mention of what date it even came off Wikipedia, or who the team is, how the publisher can be contacted, or what criteria determined what was included in the book.

And on the title page, even the country ‘new Zealand’ isn’t spelled with a capital letter.

This kind of publishing is the way to make a very quick buck. This is NOT the future. This is NOT indie publishing. (Please don’t tar us with the same brush.)

Type for Photos

Simple is beautiful.

Love the use of type on the cover of The New York Times Magazine Photographs book.

A bold move for designers who had a great selection of images to play with. They chose counter-intuitively. And oh so powerfully.

 

Thinking, um ‘out the box’?

First there was the alternative approach to the print publication. And then a really neat (or not!) way of taking that to the electronic form without losing the essence. Great work, Visual Editions!

Check out the videos by John Pavlus of Fast Co Design: Composition No.1: An iPad Art Book You Read On “Shuffle”

‘Creative Combustion’

Take a look: 

The handmade issue of Wallpaper* mag. Collaboration, artistry, passion, perfectionism, ingenuity, humour…

the moonshinemedia weekly

Read this week’s round-up of what’s happening in the publishing world.