While enjoying a leisurely night drive I popped on a couple dated pop songs, but I’ll only reference this one below:
There were a couple more to follow, but the pattern felt so plastic. Maybe I’m quick to trivialize the content!
Nevertheless, every pop song had the same prevailing theme: relationship fading. Grasping at straws, hope in another being.
And when I think about the pop songs of past, back and back it’s the same content. Same theme repeatedly.
When you note this pulse and then listen, it feels as though it’s just sprinkled on, it’s just the same as adding the xylophone. It’s the same as any other instrument.
“You”
“Me”
“You”
“Me”
“We”
“I”
“You”
While the song plays you may highlight it over and over these words. Over and over. Repeatedly until the feeling leaves. It’s sprinkles now, on a melted sundae.
It’s a small surprise at best, seeing as the requirement to be a pop song means that it ripples throughout the masses. Seeking a common denominator, seeking a fat margin.
Well, after meditating on the pop song schematic, the blueprint to pull simple heartstrings among drive-by listeners… “how did they do that?” comes after. How did they know these vague words will fit best?
That’s because one of the largest potentials of interactivity is found in another being. i.e. “the more the merrier” - keyword being potential.
For interactivity is where the heart is drawn towards. It seeks the intricacies. It is taking an item and seeing what you can do with it which can find some grounding in McKenna’s novelty theory.
It is the promise found in another person. What can we do with one another, so many possibilities! But rarely actualized, which is the primary deceit.
It’s just the same interactions again and again dna niaga nda angai
There is a lack of complexity anymore! That’s the word that’s missing.
Complexity means there are a lot more parts, more potentials. More to the story.
And so these pop songs rarely highlight any complex relationships; it’s just a vague promise found in another person.
Rarely do any of us reach the complexity found in a marriage of 50 years. Or the complexity found in squads from war. Propping each other’s life up.
The lack of complexity in the song and only the vague promise of something interesting is why I found it amusing.
Because how desperately do some wish for some complexity, but that’s found in changing the interactions: what can do you do with one another?
Amount of Interactivity is the measure by which one determines if something is complex or if something is simple.
And so I title this “interactivity” because it is a simple question:
Although I approached this initially with an idea that the [insert] matters, it seems to be otherwise.
One can watch a TV show, and then be the same after.
One can call a friend, and then be the same after.
One can also watch a TV show, and then flesh out that interaction with questions, answers, depictions, conversations, experiences, moments, movements, mentions, pieces in your own schizophrenic puzzle. So many more interactions await.
One can also call a friend, and then start a trip, start a band, start a project, start a company, write a game, make two games, make a nation from a break-off village, etc. Gathering power. So many more interactions await.
What’s the point of relationships with only one type of interaction?
What’s the point of watching with only one yawn after?
What’s the point of writing with only one theme?
What’s the point otherwise?
The reason I find myself teetering between closing and opening these pages is due to this question.
What can you do with [neocities]?
The possibilities shrink.
What can you do with [internet]?
The same you’ve done for the last ten years. (Or…?)
What can you do with [old friends]?
The same you’ve done for your life. (Or…?)
What can you do with [these thoughts]?
Keep on thinking them, or find new ones. (Or…?)
What can you do with [things you have done]?
What can you do with [things you have yet to do]?
What can you do with [what you’ve learned]?
What can you do with [what’s to come]?
Interactivity as heuristic: poking holes in one’s own ability to CHANGE THE SCRIPT or poking holes in one’s pastimes, evolve it.
Reach!