창의적인 사람

무언가를 찾아내고 발견해나가는 자기자신의 호기심과 소망이 없으면 인생은 언제나 똑같은 틀안에서 살아가게 된다. 내가 새로운 것을 시도하고 새로운 일들을 배우고 새로운 책들을 읽는게 중요하다. 지금 당장 코앞만 생각하면 절대로 원하는 창조적인 일이나 아이디어의 발굴을 해나갈수 없다. 오늘부터 더 내 자신의 장래성을 믿어보려고 한다. 창의성. 새로운 것은 가만히 있는다고 생겨나는 것이 아니라 매일 도전하는 사람들의 두뇌에서 생겨난다. 너무 틀안에서 만족해서는 안된다.

The brain is like a sponge, especially with pictures and images. It speaks directly to us. It absorbs and remixes in its own head. It’s easy to consume and see pictures. It’s another thing to make and create pictures. In a way, movies and pictures are a gift that jumps from one brain to another.

The Battle for Clout

Social media is devouring the world, especially vulnerable teenagers desperate for gaining more clout (likes and followers). We may still be underestimating the harmful effects of social media apps on the young. Joe Rogan had a great YouTube episode with a professor who showed a direct correlation in the steep rise of self-harm and depression/anxiety rates among teenage girls since the boom of social media (FB +Instagram) in 2011-2012, when kids started using iPhones. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CI6rX96oYnY.

The reason may be that social media has brought strangers and neighbors closer together than ever before. But that heightened visibility doesn’t always equate to making more friends or feeling closer to people. Oftentimes, it breeds envy and contempt. It’s allowing yourself to be open to all kinds of content from strangers and neighbors popping up your in face all the time. And what do most people want? Attention. Likes. Approval. Fame. Success. And in the pursuit of that, the Creators might have actually lost the “needs” of its audience in mind. I wish Creators were posting content that the people NEED … instead of just posting to get attention.

The line is blurring between what it means to be a passive “Viewer/Audience” of TV/Online Media versus an active “Creator” of content, due to the explosion of channels like YouTube, Instagram, TikTok and more. Back in the day, it was only those who were well-connected and handpicked by network TV execs that “made” it into the public spotlight through the power of media broadcasting. With the advancement of technology, “broadcasting,” literally the ability to broadly transmit your message, is becoming easier at an exponential rate. This is good news for some; not at all good news for others. With the power to be seen in front of thousands of people comes responsibility. The kind of responsibility rarely taught in schools or understood at all, because even adults often don’t grasp the neurological influence that visual media can have on you.

Take TikTok’s success as an example. I don’t just think of it as a fun app as they are marketing it to be. Isn’t it amazing how they are now everywhere in mainstream conversations with American teenagers? How were they so good at creating hype and gaining attention around its own creators? Perhaps the engineers designing its algorithms so that the videos that get the longest views and the highest number of views (addictive, provocative content) will get shown in front of people the most, to keep people coming back to TikTok everyday? Many teenagers, especially girls, are creating the kind of content that’s being exposed to people all over the world and actually suffering from hate comments, stalkers and more. Is that “good?” Is “TikTok Famous” a “good thing?”

In ancient East-Asian philosophy, there’s a saying that goes “a young kid who succeeds early will not die a good death.” It was known that when an extremely young person gains a prominent position in society (or perhaps in the “kingdom” at the time), that it’s very easy for them to become a target of hate, envy and detriment which derails their career later on. They end up creating enemies, making mistakes and stop growing, not fully grasping the preciousness of their success. Early success or becoming TikTok famous as a young person are seen as virtues here in the U.S, South Korea, and many other countries. There’s a problem there. Again, I hate to sound like a broken record, but the “definition of success” is being skewed because of these apps like TikTok.

I don’t think they had evil intentions in mind, whether it was Instagram, Facebook or TikTok. They were most of all engineers and tech entrepreneurs who made these apps. It’s not the fault of the “Technology Creators” that have made this possible. They are the last people who could have predicted that “bringing the world closer together” (FB’s mission) would not always be a good thing.

But the rules. The RULES and ETHICS of Responsible Media Sharing have to be rewritten and reenforced, even on social media. If you want to create on broadcasting platforms, every creator should know the responsibility to create the kind of content that people NEED … and will impact people in positive ways. And tech companies should not reward people for making addictive or shocking content just for the sake of gaining more attention or hype around it.

Because the content you share have an impact on the people around you. That’s not just for you to play with. To make yourself into a star. It means neurological impact for your audience. State of well-being. Self-talk. So We must provide the kind of story, narrative and visuals, that will improve people. Regardless of the number of likes and followers you gain from it.

What were we trying to achieve with Crazy Rich Asians?

“The actors, the producers and the director, all shared the same sense of pride and responsibility to properly represent Asians in mainstream media with this monumental opportunity. This was our chance to show the world that we are just as brilliant, just as good looking and just as funny as everyone else in Hollywood. This was our key to open the doors for all the amazing Asian talents in cinema.”

Yang, Jimmy O.. How to American (p. 213).

I recently read Jimmy Yang’s book and was very impressed by his life story (ended up writing an Amazon book review 5.0/5.0 stars) But this one part kinda gnawed at me.

In Jimmy Yang’s book, he mentions his experience in the movie, Crazy Rich Asians, as above. As proud as I was to see more Asian representation in the media, it wasn’t that clear to me what this movie was trying to achieve.

A couple years ago, one of my Caucasian co-workers told me that she wasn’t impressed after seeing the movie, I had actually been a little upset at her and thought, ‘Oh, another Asian hater.’ Then I saw the movie and was like “Huh…..maybe she wasn’t being mean. Just honest.”

Here’s the thing. Is making a lot of noise around crazy, rich good-looking Asians of the world going to change people’s perceptions? Is it for the kids? Is it for the future generations? It seemed very much “in your face.” (Like the whole scene with a 3-minute sequence of the male lead actor’s naked body in the shower) It was like an Asian kid in a predominantly white elementary school’s playground posing for the camera in a tuxedo with combed hair and saying “hey I can be good-looking and classy too!” It felt a little forced, self-celebratory, with a hint of backlash toward the existing Hollywood community.

Granted, Hollywood currently sucks in its Asian representation, so maybe this movie was a natural reaction from creative, artistic Asian-American moviemakers who wanted to desperately get other Asians out there. In a way, a step forward (the fact that this movie even exists). In another perspective, Asian-Americans still have a long way to go, not just in the amount of representation in the media, but the consensus we need to achieve to say “WHAT stereotypes do we want to challenge? What image should we communicate to the world?” Projecting “Hey! we can be rich, crazy and good-looking too!” is not enough. There’s no depth there. Nowhere to go from there.

If we really wanted to change people’s perception of the race, or the Asian-American community or the global Asian community in general, we can’t do that by just putting up good-looking Asian faces in Hollywood movies alone. Yes, it’s important for Asian children in the fact that they get to see more representation of role-models who look like them. But that’s missing the larger context. A movie with funny jokes and aesthetically pleasing images of Asian people alone isn’t enough to make other racial communities think “Oh yes, this movie changed my entire outlook on how I should perceive Asians. They are so much better than I thought they were.” You have to win people over. Slowly. Through values that we live by that will actually touch and help the world regardless of race. Just touting from the top of our throats about how cool we are is going to backfire. Asian people have so much history, culture, philosophy, legacy just being ourselves. That’s probably something we should highlight more.

Hollywood shouldn’t be a petty competition-land where people from different ethnic communities try to out-muscle each other in terms of better representation. Media is important yes, that’s why we are fighting for it in the first place. However, more we fight for a louder voice here, more we miss the point of winning the actual bigger war of “correct representation.” Just like Michelle Obama used to say, “When they go low, we go high.” No matter how badly we are depicted in the media, we don’t just fire back by trying to get louder with more media. We are certainly taking positive baby steps in media. But at the end of the day, we need to do more than just pushing media to change people’s real perceptions. It will be hard. But I sure hope we get there.

The War of Social Media Domination

Bill Gates was right in that “Content is King,” and that it’s not exactly the engineers who create new hardware, applications and messaging protocols that have revolutionized the digital landscape.

You would think so, but that’s not exactly how it works. Yes, the engineers get their kudos for introducing something brilliant into the world, as they should. But then a new game begins. It’s a game for dominion over the new game. Who will leverage the strengths of this new platform, and become king/queen? And the interesting thing is, the game is open to the whole world, thanks to the Internet, and thus open for anybody who wants to fight for a claim to that title.

Imagine that an innovative engineer invents a new tool, maybe a new axe. And this new axe is so good that it can cut down anything. So the inventor sells a ton of these axes to regular people. And you would think that’s the end of this story. But no. Among the thousands or millions of these regular people who now have this amazing tool in hand, they can do whatever they want with it. In fact, it’s the one who creates the best “Use Case” with the axe that will win the most.

Whether the person uses this new tool for selfish gain, self-promotion or the good of the public … now that’s up to the person’s ethics. But most of the time, people just are fighting for the top spot … to claim all the rewards that come from being the top dog in this game. Individuals play. Businesses play. Corporations play. If you asked me, it’s a tool that shouldn’t be wielded lightly, and definitely not something that should solely be used for monetary gain.

Once somebody creates a new social world, like Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok … it actually gives a whole new group of people “opportunities” to capitalize on the invention. And these people who create content don’t have to do anything with technology or messaging protocol or application development, or any of that nitty-gritty engineering details. They work with a different set of rules. And that game, to be honest, in essence is a game that has been played as long as we can remember. The game of “Impression Management.” The game of “Branding”. The game of Public Relations. The game of “Image Creation.”

It sure is interesting. The one that I wanna play and master.

Uniquely in my case, I do care about the impact of media toward its viewers, and am personally keenly aware of all the negative impact that can come from irresponsible movie producers and TV creators. That whatever people watch impacts them on a cerebral and neural level.

To create the kind of media that impacts people beneficially in all levels and guide them toward the path of truth, freedom and creativity