Make Them Work!

Nah, I'm not going to fight you, Jonathan.  In fact, I agree with you.  I applaud you for making me think you were going in a total different direction.  I just thought what you had to say was actually very interesting.  So, here are my thoughts.

I've found a common link between attention and age.

Now, as the supply of time, or "age", if you will (the red line) increases, the demand for attention decreases (the blue line).

I'll elaborate a bit:

I know a beautiful person has already talked about it, but here's my experience with Cowboy Bebop.  When I first watched it I thought it was great, but it didn't hold my attention the whole way through.  It was a little too episodic for my tastes.  So, I never finished it.  However, now that I'm older, I'm appreciating much different accents of the show.  It's really got me glued.  It challenges me in some places and doesn't answer many questions.  It's beautiful, and for some reason, I have to be older to truly appreciate it. 

So, since animated shorts and movies were originally meant for adults, then obviously, they could be slower.  It made sense, since as adults, our attention spans are much longer and we can appreciate film as an art. 

Maybe.  

I know I can't speak for everyone, but for the most of us, we've all grown up with Disney.  Aladdin, Lilo and Stitch, 101 Dalmatians, Dumbo, Snow White.  Actually, a lot of those are painstakingly slow.  And, realizing this, I also noticed that I have a harder time now watching the classics than I did in early childhood.  

So what went wrong? 

I believe, as Jonathan said, it's modern media.  What came after Disney on VHS?  Spongebob, Kim Possible, Avatar: The Last Airbender, Fairly Odd-Parents (admittedly, some shows were fantastic).  Our media was made by creators who tried everything in their power to keep our attention.  Why?  To prevent us from clicking away.  Now matter how good the show, how much effort put into the art, in the end, a main worry was always entertaining the audience.  

Somehow, our children's shows (yes, this includes film, too) were made to hold the supposed "short" attentions span of a child.  If you got some memorable characters, careful art, and challenging plot, then yippie, but if it bores the target audience, or doesn't sell enough toys (cough cough Cartoon Network cough cough) then good-bye good show.  

Remember this baby?

Yeah, I didn't really explain it, but this is what those businessy people funding our crafts study.  It's a Supply and Demand Graph.  This is how they view attention.  Find the equilibrium.  Or, find the exact balance between action and down time.  Draw a dotted line and figure out how much action our age needs.  

Our craft has turned turned from an art to a graph.  I don't know about you guys, but I hate math. 

But, what would happen if we literally raised the bar?  What will we find if we push and challenge?

We literally get a surplus.  Drawing the line a little higher allows us to gain something from it.  If we keep giving ourselves only what we think we can handle, then we will never gain anything.  In fact, if anything, (admit it) during some impressionable years of our lives, we lowered the bar.  We grew accustomed to the shortage in our media.  

So, how are we all reacting now that the bar has been raised through the shorts we've been watching?  Now that more is demanded from us?  Sure it's more work, but we can get so much more out of it.  I think a better questions is where are we willing to draw the dotted line?  

Ha! Take that, math, I totally just used a graph against you.  Even though my high school Microeconomics teacher is face-palming somewhere.  Well, you know what, Tichenor, maybe you should have taught this class correctly.