"Mr. Obama may well be seeing the debt issues correctly. But he’s not seeing us."
So I'm not sure who all exactly this "us" is that Heffernan speaks of, but I'm pretty sure I'm a part of it? Even though honestly I feel a little gross about that? Because Heff is having herself one hell of a Pauline Kael moment if she honestly believes that "us"—as in, you know, We The People—are all "radically time-shifted" people who consume our media expressly by way of YouTube embeds on Gawker. For fuck sake, Obama interrupted The Bachelorette! Does Ginny have any idea how many of "us" didn't radically time-shift our viewing of The Bachelorette by torrenting it? Roughly eight million! And across the big four networks alone Obama reached 20 million viewers, making the meager 90,000 White House YouTube views she mentions nothing but a cheap red herring.
But what does she suggest we do? Make government more viral? Cats! Congress needs more cats!
In any event, being included among Heffernan's "us" feels a little gross mostly because I'd like to believe that a "digital native" is still capable of processing those "anachronistic conventions" she sneers at during moments that demand them. I'd like to believe that there's still a place for the sober and the grave in our daily media diets, that when the country is being driven off the fucking rails by a gang of fifty or so Tea Party lunatics who, in their refusal to raise the debt limit under any circumstances whatsoever, have demonstrated they're all actually so stupid that they're simply not fit to hold office—I'd like to believe we're still capable of hearing this message without it being splashed all over with childish witticisms in Impact font.
well, they have the same ethnic makeup, so really they SHOULD be grouped together. It would be stupid not to.
@IBentMyWookie Don't forget Barack's nightmare marriage to Tommy Mottola.
@keisertroll Haha, yes! And Mariah's time at those Indonesian madrasas.
"Mr. Obama may well be seeing the debt issues correctly. But he’s not seeing us."
So I'm not sure who all exactly this "us" is that Heffernan speaks of, but I'm pretty sure I'm a part of it? Even though honestly I feel a little gross about that? Because Heff is having herself one hell of a Pauline Kael moment if she honestly believes that "us"—as in, you know, We The People—are all "radically time-shifted" people who consume our media expressly by way of YouTube embeds on Gawker. For fuck sake, Obama interrupted The Bachelorette! Does Ginny have any idea how many of "us" didn't radically time-shift our viewing of The Bachelorette by torrenting it? Roughly eight million! And across the big four networks alone Obama reached 20 million viewers, making the meager 90,000 White House YouTube views she mentions nothing but a cheap red herring.
But what does she suggest we do? Make government more viral? Cats! Congress needs more cats!
In any event, being included among Heffernan's "us" feels a little gross mostly because I'd like to believe that a "digital native" is still capable of processing those "anachronistic conventions" she sneers at during moments that demand them. I'd like to believe that there's still a place for the sober and the grave in our daily media diets, that when the country is being driven off the fucking rails by a gang of fifty or so Tea Party lunatics who, in their refusal to raise the debt limit under any circumstances whatsoever, have demonstrated they're all actually so stupid that they're simply not fit to hold office—I'd like to believe we're still capable of hearing this message without it being splashed all over with childish witticisms in Impact font.
This article skillfully proves its own point, because I read the first two paragraphs and then stopped.
@davetar Oh now. Heffernan roolz. Also, over-and-above points for the — very gingerly applied — McLuhan reference.