Always Deny the Apocolypse

"Always deny the apocalypse, John. You’ll usually be right, and when you’re wrong, no one will be left to say, 'I told you so.’”

A brilliant quote in an article I read on the evolution of technology and how it will effect reading in the future of our society. 


It is called:


The Future of Reading: Don't Worry. It might be better than you think. By John Green

and is a very intelligent ramble that comes from many directions at once and addresses them equally and satisfactorily. He compares the future of books to Youtube, which I found strange at first until he used examples, such as "Charlie Bit Me", to scare the hell out of me. Basically he predicted that it is likely that there will be billions of books with very few readers and very few books with billions of readers.

If one has explored the world of Youtube in depth they will discover that this analogy is very accurate. But in no way do these numbers equal the quality of which these videos or books are! I know for a fact that there are a number of videos out there that are worth viewing and they don't have the recognition. This is true for a number of websites as to how they operate. It is hard to find good/interesting things unless you dig, and often the ones with the most recognition will always pop up first, leaving other works that are either equally deserving--or more--of recognition in their big black shadows.

And it's scary. To think that we will be reduced to reading books of equal quality as this:

This is cute. Really. But I do not look forward to reading books that are of...THIS...'quality.

John Green then went on to address the importance of a story in relative to how Video Games and Blockbuster movies.

He makes an excellent point when saying when you read the the written word, a story, you are in a way making it your own. Either with how you imagine the characters or in the way you relate to it. It makes me wonder about children's picture books.

Am I cheap for wanting to express something without words? Do I take away that something which makes a connection between the story and the reader that make reading worth while? In one section Green compare the The Very Hungry Caterpillar with a book about a really cute dog. The title described exactly that, and I couldn't help but grimace at the idea that that book might be real. My Puppy Is Adorable and These Illustrations Prove It. UGH.

But does that lower the quality of my book? Yeah, the story kinda sucks, I got that...I don't really like the idea of writing an actual story....Ah well. But was it bad I focused on the illustrations? Was I focusing too much on myself rather than if the reader could understand the story?

I guess I should just accept people are going to interpret my book in different ways since there is no clear cut definition. I hope that is good enough.

God...I look back on these journals and I'm like "what do these have to do with my project again?" And then I read and I'm like "Oooooooh~" So all this did have a point. :D