“The View From the Phlipside” is a media commentary program airing on WRFA-LP, Jamestown NY. It can be heard Monday through Friday around 7:30 AM. The following are scripts which may not exactly match the aired version of the program. Mostly because the host may suddenly choose to add or subtract words at a moment’s notice. WRFA-LP is not responsible for any such silliness or the opinions expressed. You can listen to a live stream of WRFA or find a podcast of this program at wrfalp.com. Copyright 2013-17 by Jay Phillippi. All Rights Reserved. You like what you see and hear? Drop me a line and we can talk.
Programs from week of June 4, 2017
This Week’s Podcast
My name is Jay Phillippi and I’ve spent my life in and around the media. TV, radio, the movies and more. I love them, and I hate them and I always have an opinion. Call this the View from the Phlipside.
The End Is Coming!
I swear to you the following story is true. I have been doing some substitute teaching recently, mostly in middle and high school. Last week, I had to explain to a student how a rotary phone worked. That each number had an individual hole in the dial and you would turn the dial around to the stop and then let go. They were deeply puzzled and confused by the concept.
I am absolutely serious.
There is a lot that has changed about our personal interaction with the telephone over the last thirty years. What was once a device that had to be plugged in to work, meaning it was confined to a relatively limited environment, has become something that slips into pockets. It is an activity that can happen almost anywhere today. And cell phones are essentially throw away technology now. The rotary phone lost its place to touch tone pads. Now it seems that the old school landline is finally set to go the same way.
Nineteen states, mostly in the midwest and south, have passed legislation that will allow AT&T to stop offering landline phones. In Illinois, for example, only about ten percent of the former “Ma Bell” customers still have them. The idea is to free the company up to invest the money saved in more cellular and internet phone services.
While this may seem to be the inevitable march of progress, there are some sticky underlying issues here. There are some services, like security systems and medical alert systems, that require a wired phone connection. There is the ongoing issue of emergency calls in case of power failures. Those old school phones always work because they have their own independent power source, through that wire.
Consumer advocates also note that older demographics will suffer the greatest loss if landlines go the way of rotary phones. Senior Citizens make up the largest percentage of landline users.
Is there a good reason NOT to drop your landline? Well, there is a study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that links people who drop their landlines with higher consumption of alcohol, use of tobacco products, and are more likely to be uninsured. They haven’t figured out the why of that yet, but take it for what it’s worth.
It seems inevitable that the traditional wired phone system is going to change dramatically in the near future. Think of what that might look like.
Imagine a world where you have to explain the concept of a “telephone pole” to the younger generation. It may not be that far off at all.
Annoying Ads
Ask people what they find most annoying online and you’re likely to get all kinds of answers. Political posts, trolls, the “I will know who my real friends are by who shares this” memes, memes in general, all will show up on somebody’s list. Pretty much everyone will agree that annoying ads are definitely on the list.
One of my great annoyances is how the various algorithms used by various companies will latch onto pretty much anything that goes across my screen and decide that I should get a steady diet of advertising about it for a while. My personal favorite was when I did a quick check on some underwear. Nothing special, just plain old boxers. And spent the next month buried by advertising that featured men’s backsides. Yes, definitely annoying.
While that may be an extremely silly example, the problem of ads that are annoying is serious enough that Google has announced that starting sometime next year, their browser Chrome will feature a built in ad-blocker. While that may look like a beneficent move by the internet giant, there’s actually a little subtext we need be aware of. Remember that Google is not just, or these days even primarily, a search engine company. They make big time dollars selling advertising and related data. So they to make sure that they keep the advertisers and the consumers happy. That can be a delicate balancing act. So what’s the underlying issue with this new ad-blocker? It’s designed to replace the ad-blockers that a lot of us are already using. Why? Our ad-blockers tend to be rather broad spectrum in what gets blocked. Google will be able to set up the defaults to eliminate some seriously annoying ads, but also keep the money flowing from its core business partners. There will be ways to adjust the advertising filtering but let’s face it, most of us don’t want to work that hard. They’re counting on people just shrugging and going along. Almost certainly, if you don’t turn off your other ad-blocker, you will get annoying little messages reminding you that running it may have serious (if always unexplained) negative effects on your surfing experience.
I’ve said before, I have no issue with finding a way to pay for all the cool stuff that is out there on the Interwebs. I’m willing to put up with a variety of advertising models. And any solution that keeps me from having to endure the great underwear debacle again is perfectly acceptable as well.
With all the furor that’s popped up over online advertising this year, it’s important that they get it right. Let’s make sure we aren’t swapping one set of annoyances for another.
Stupid In Bloom
Good God, but the stupid seems to be running high at the moment. Not the usual trivial level of stupid, but a new super stupid that seems to be impervious to treatment. I certainly hope not, but then I’m not certain what the treatment might be except to shine the bright light of reason on it and hope it dies.
It was almost nine months ago when the biggest media flap in the news was whether Jimmy Fallon deserved criticism for his softball interview with then Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump. Do you remember that? It was the one where Mr. Trump allowed Fallon to rumple his hair. And there was much hoo-haw at the time. Fallon did what Fallon does. Why was anyone surprised?
Since then, however, the stupid has been in bloom. Steven Colbert stepped off the deep end with a commentary about now President Trump that saw him being investigated by the FCC. And, as predicted here, the investigation found nothing to be in violation of the rules, even if it was in violation of common decency and intelligence.
Then Bill Maher lost control of his mouth. In a moment that the HBO host refers to as “banter”, Maher dropped the “N-word” in a conversation with a Nebraska politician. It’s clear that he thought he was being clever in the moment. Both Maher and HBO have apologized.
And now we have comedian and self-proclaimed D-Lister, Kathy Griffin deciding that the obvious thing to do in the wake of the Colbert flap was to go big. Right about now she’s probably wishing she had taken the other traditional option and gone home.
I won’t go into the details of her idiotic “joke”. Let’s just say it suggested the violent death of the President of the United States. Which means her investigation will be handled by the Secret Service. I am expecting much the same result as Colbert’s by the way. The comedian has acknowledged that she made a mistake and apologized. Unfortunately, she now seems to think that there shouldn’t be any consequences for her decision. CNN has fired her from her New Year’s Eve gig, several other venues have dropped her as well. Given that in many countries around the world she would be in jail at this point, I’m really thinking she’s getting off pretty lightly. What she needs to do now is keep her head down and let it all die down. We’ll see.
I can only hope that this will be the flash of light that burns out this particular strain of media stupidity.
Oh for those simple days of yore. Before the stupid was in bloom.
Call that the View From the Phlipside
Copyright Jay Phillippi, 2017
Theme music for “The View From the Phlipside” and “TVFTP – Podcast” is “Hustle”
Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com), Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
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