A blog entry I read by Derek Sivers describes a talk he once attended by the late Kurt Vonnegut in which the author detailed common story arcs.
Vonnegut compared Cinderalla stories, common disaster stories, and real life, as seen in the illustrations at the bottom of this entry — from Sivers’ blog:
Vonnegut’s conclusion, Sivers writes, was that because we have always been “surrounded by dramatic story arcs in books and movies, we think our lives are supposed to be filled with huge ups and downs! So people pretend there is drama where there is none.”
During that relatively brief period when that balloon boy was thought to have been floating away in a hot-air balloon, news outlets and consumers were perhaps justified in seeing drama. But once the kid was found to have been hiding in the attic, the drama was over. Except to the media. There’s plenty of real drama going on in the world, but the media obsesses over a nonevent that momentarily resembled the common disaster story arc.
I’m also reminded of this summer’s press conference on health care by President Obama. The president made important points about his healthcare reform plan, but the only part of the press conference that really grabbed the media’s attention was the last few moments when Obama said the Cambridge, MA, cops were “stupid” for arresting Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates in his own home. Suddenly … drama … and healthcare was quickly forgotten.
What do you think? Are we so steeped in dramatic story arcs in popular culture that the media feel they must keep feeding us drama?
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Intruiging questions, but I don’t think that culture has much to do with it. There is an all too simple formula describing what you and Kurt Vonnegut have observed that goes like this:
(a) Curiosity that shades to voyerism,
plus
(b) People who make a living out of watching,
plus
(c) Competition for easy money,
equals
(d) an entrenched social system.
For evidence see Papparazzi…
Actually I have yet to meet anyone whose life drama looks like that second graph! Everybody I have ever met has had huge ups and downs — to them.
Maybe it’s not so much a comparison our “real” lives as an instinct to be attracted to new big different shiny things. This instinct is pretty widespread in the animal world, as evidenced by birds who will incubate a fake giant egg while ignoring their own. It even has a name (supernormal stimuli) and also been called upon to explain several forms of human self-destructive behavior. I’d say it’s a fair guess that the “ooh! shiny” instinct applies to narrative and drama as well.
All of which, as Tony Joyce said, people who make a living out of watching don’t fail to notice.
Thanks so much for commenting. When I re-read the Vonnegut piece, Balloon Boy entered my head. You make good points. Thanks again.
Now that I think about it, I don’t know anybody whose life looks like the second graph, either. You make great points. Thanks for commenting, Cynthia.