Serial
Is everybody just a lying sack of shit?
Nothing’s organic anymore, everything’s being worked. The internet was supposed to kill the major labels and allow the unsigned to break through but the majors are more powerful than ever and the marginal are even more so. Marketing triumphs. Isn’t that the story of Taylor Swift? Not that the music is so revelatory but that she utilized social media and the new internet tools to get her message out, ultimately getting everybody to talk about her? I salute you Taylor, you won!
At the modern game of today.
But what about the little people? We’ve got a society so focused on winners that normal and average no longer cut it, everyone is a brand, everyone has an app, everyone is trying to not only be famous, but rich, as if it was easy. Did you read the Travis Kalanick article in “Vanity Fair”? Probably not, you were too busy building a shrine to yourself on social media, but what he says is having a successful app/business is extremely difficult, that there are more losses than victories, surprises at every turn. At first he was too worn out to even start Uber. Today everybody thinks it’s so easy that they don’t even believe they’re taking short cuts, just following the yellow brick road to success, ain’t that a laugh.
And that’s all to say that when I saw the WSJ article on “Serial” I was intrigued.
When I saw the “Guardian” article on the same show I was put off.
Obviously, NPR is working it.
That’s how low we’ve sunk. The bastion of unadulterated truth is now no different from the rest of the for profit game players, tilting the board so they win.
In other words, nothing is organic anymore.
But that does not mean “Serial” is not good, it’s FANTASTIC!
Because it’s all about story. And life is about story.
And it’s intimate.
And not black and white.
That’s what I hate about today’s world, there’s no room for nuance. If you’re rich, you’re great. If you’re #1 you’re unimpeachable.
But sometimes things deserve the hype.
It’s always those who live in the trenches, never those who are lauded. I had no idea who Sarah Koenig was. I’ve never ever listened to an episode of “This American Life.” But this podcast is so intriguing, it’s better than “Newsroom,” better than all TV, never mind movies, you need to check it out.
The story is a guy’s in jail for killing his high school girlfriend. He’s been incarcerated for a decade and a half, did he do it?
Maybe.
Maybe not.
Sarah is investigating the case. And it’s not a TV show building to a tied-up ending.
The “killer” changes his story.
The discoverer of the body went into the woods 127 feet to pee, and then didn’t when he uncovered the deceased, someone who was even hard to pick out in photos of the crime scene, she was that buried. Furthermore, he was a notorious streaker who called the cops to complain his clothing and cell phone were stolen from his car when the truth is they were nicked from the wide open by a female police person who he exposed himself to.
That’s right, he lied.
Everybody’s lying. All day long. They do it so they don’t pay the penalty, so you don’t dislike them, we live in a land of duplicity.
As the story unfolds you find everybody’s guilty, everybody’s changed their story. How do we find the truth?
And it happens every day in real life. People are not honest. They believe they’ll lose out if they are. Did you cut that fart? OF COURSE NOT! Were you at your girlfriend’s house this afternoon? ABSOLUTELY NOT!
It’s the human condition.
That’s what screwed up music, it lost touch with the human condition. Add movies to that pile.
But if you want to know what it was like in the old days, with families glued to the radio, listen to “Serial.”
You can go to the website, but it’s easier to listen to as a podcast.
If you’re unsure how to do this, just go to the Podcast app on your iPhone or iPad, it’s built in, search on “Serial,” and then subscribe.
But be ready to dedicate hours to the enterprise. You’ll be dying to, to employ a pun.
Because we all go to high school, we’ve all got friends, we’ve all been dumped, we’re all worried we’re going to get the losing end of the stick.
What is motivation for action? Why did a girl who was only a friend write letters exculpating the culprit and then deny what she said years later?
Why was the only evidence given for conviction done so by a friend who wasn’t much of a friend, in other words someone the convicted didn’t know so well?
And why is it that word of mouth, which ruled the internet only a couple of years back, has been trumped by marketing?
I don’t know.
But I do know we live in a phony world and we’re just looking for some truth.
And “Serial” delivers this.
