Rural purge(en.wikipedia.org)
en.wikipedia.org
Rural purge
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rural_purge
94 comments
A nitpick orthogonal to your main point, but I would argue anecdotally that there's no way elite schools have an average undergraduate IQ "multiple standard deviations" above the mean - unless by multiple, you mean "two". Any integer over that, and at 4,000,000 students graduating high school a year, and 3sigma working out to ~1/1000, there literally wouldn't be enough smart kids to go around, especially considering a majority of those students probably don't go to T10 schools anyways due to the fact that college isn't an idealized market.
Having gone to an elite school for undergrad, I'd argue most students were around 2sigma or slightly below, but almost universally also had 2sigma levels of work ethic, self-discipline, and goal-seeking.
Having gone to an elite school for undergrad, I'd argue most students were around 2sigma or slightly below, but almost universally also had 2sigma levels of work ethic, self-discipline, and goal-seeking.
What I meant is that elite universities like Harvard and Stanford are capturing something like 90% of those 3 sigma high school graduates, not that all Harvard and Stanford students are 3 sigma. That was not the case 100 years ago, and in the 1970s it was a rapidly increasing trend. Thank you for calling out this ambiguity.
It seems pretty hard to believe for that Harvard and Stanford, or even just the more "elite" universities capture 90% of circa 3 sigma high school students. My experience is that desiring to go to Harvard, Stanford, or other "prestigious" schools is way more correlated to the socialization of valuing prestige than anything, and that many of the very smart folks I've met value particular interests or other concerns much more than status signaling. I'm also not sure the most common admissions tools have great usefulness or accuracy into measurement above 2 sigma. (Though I'm sure people are pretty smart at these schools.)
I did not go to an elite university though I have family members who did. The eye general attitude seems to be that “the smart kids at your high school were probably just as smart as the kids at [Harvard], but at [Harvard] all the kids are that smart”.
Only if Harvard's admissions don't work very well—for example, because intelligence isn't scalar or is hard to measure, or because they use the wrong measurements, or because they get turned down by a lot of kids they admit, or because a lot of kids they would admit aren't applying. My high school had 2000 students, which I think is typical to large in the US. If we're talking about multiple smart kids at an "average" 1000-person high school, then those are the top 1/500 or top 1/250 of the population. Harvard admits about 2000 students per year and enrolls about 1700 of them, about ⅞ from the US. That's about 1/2000 of the 4-million-or-so US graduates per year.
https://college.harvard.edu/admissions/admissions-statistics
So the average US high school has about 0.5 kids who get admitted to Harvard, about one every 8 years. So if Harvard is admitting exactly the smartest US kids (plus a smaller number of even smarter international students), all of them are probably smarter than any of the smart kids at your high school.
But they probably aren't. I didn't apply to Harvard, myself. If I had, I probably wouldn't have gotten in.
https://college.harvard.edu/admissions/admissions-statistics
So the average US high school has about 0.5 kids who get admitted to Harvard, about one every 8 years. So if Harvard is admitting exactly the smartest US kids (plus a smaller number of even smarter international students), all of them are probably smarter than any of the smart kids at your high school.
But they probably aren't. I didn't apply to Harvard, myself. If I had, I probably wouldn't have gotten in.
Foreign students?
Cognitive elite? Or cultural elite. Given that IQ scores purport to measure cognitive faculty but instead measure cultural fluency.
(Changed pretend to purport)
(Changed pretend to purport)
That's not as true as one would hope. There's not a lot of "cultural fluency" involved in matching squares, unless you're from the jungle and have grown up never seeing any squares. (The theory that people who grew up not looking at corners would be less able to perceive square shapes has received some attention, but we have to admit that doesn't have much relevance to people living in modern countries like America or India .)
Now, cultural fluency questions have appeared on IQ tests, especially in the past. However that's not so much an attack on the idea of "g" as it is a problem with antiquated methods of measuring it.
That's not to say that IQ tests are that accurate. The biggest confounder I know of is ADHD, which causes the tests to come out five whole points lower on average. I'm sure there are others.
Now, cultural fluency questions have appeared on IQ tests, especially in the past. However that's not so much an attack on the idea of "g" as it is a problem with antiquated methods of measuring it.
That's not to say that IQ tests are that accurate. The biggest confounder I know of is ADHD, which causes the tests to come out five whole points lower on average. I'm sure there are others.
> There's not a lot of "cultural fluency" involved in matching squares
There are a lot of cultural factors involved in believing a seemingly pointless exercise like matching squares is worth doing. You have to believe that something good can come out of it in general; and you have to believe that something good can come out of it specifically for yourself.
There are a lot of cultural factors involved in believing a seemingly pointless exercise like matching squares is worth doing. You have to believe that something good can come out of it in general; and you have to believe that something good can come out of it specifically for yourself.
Accurately measuring the performance of someone who is not interested in demonstrating their performance seems like an impossible task for anyone but GLaDOS from the Portal series. ;)
More seriously, random pattern matching questions are the best you can do to control for the not-caring factor, because they eliminate the advantage of test prep. The SAT has a significant test prep factor, which I agree is highly confounded by "culture" (a byword for how much your parents make you study) and the circumstances and opportunities related to test prep, including the motivation of the student, and the availability of a place to study and study materials. IQ tests are significantly more meritocratic than algorithms interviews or the SAT.
More seriously, random pattern matching questions are the best you can do to control for the not-caring factor, because they eliminate the advantage of test prep. The SAT has a significant test prep factor, which I agree is highly confounded by "culture" (a byword for how much your parents make you study) and the circumstances and opportunities related to test prep, including the motivation of the student, and the availability of a place to study and study materials. IQ tests are significantly more meritocratic than algorithms interviews or the SAT.
I've never taken an IQ test and never plan to. I took the SAT, but it has significantly changed over the years; my score today would not be translatable to my score then.
OT, but I really love GlaDOS and hope there's another Portal soon.
OT, but I really love GlaDOS and hope there's another Portal soon.
If you haven't seen it yet, check out "Portal Reloaded" on Steam. It's a fan-made game like "Portal Stories Mel" from a few years ago, but Reloaded goes as far as adding entirely new mechanics. It's about as close as we'll ever get to Portal 3.
That could be true, but it’s still a good measure of IQ. This “cultural” angle is a narrative that started from criticisms of SAT vocab tests and critics of IQ tests latched onto it and hope they can convince everyone that IQ isn’t real and everyone is equally smart in their own way
Colleges don't filter their entrants by matching squares. Even the SAT test could be said to be culturally biased in a way that discounts rural ways of life and their rich legacy of traditional knowledge.
Ironically, college admissions would get a lot more egalitarian if they switched to IQ tests, because the long list of confounding factors (or "privileges" as some people call them) like the availability of free hours to study in, have much less impact on matching abstract symbols in rows than they have on the SAT or other partially knowledge-based tests.
I'm not sure if we want to do that because the capacity for working hard is often more valuable than "g". One's capacity and willingness to work hard for a long time is impossible to untangle from one's circumstances including one's upbringing. Fairly testing for that is much harder than testing for g but it may be too crucial to ignore.
I'm not sure if we want to do that because the capacity for working hard is often more valuable than "g". One's capacity and willingness to work hard for a long time is impossible to untangle from one's circumstances including one's upbringing. Fairly testing for that is much harder than testing for g but it may be too crucial to ignore.
It probably wouldn't make much difference. There's pretty good correlation between SAT and IQ. See e.g. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6963451/
That correlation is not invariant to cultural factors. Your own link mentions some of these - namely, "epistemic belief of learning, performance-avoidance goals, and parental education", for which we can easily measure variation across ethnicity (which of course is a lot more visible and more easily operationalized that a more nuanced understanding of culture, including urban vs. rural).
The paper you linked doesn't report the correlation as far as I could see, but it did cite a paper that said it was 0.86[0]. That's great for a social sciences correlation, but not so great as a way to be fair. 0.86 leaves a lot of room for other processes - and in competitive scenarios at the top of the distribution, the confounders could make all the difference.
[0] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15147489/
[0] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15147489/
Is this true? Plenty of IQ tests are extremely simple pattern recognition. The science of measuring human cognitive performance is plagued by cultural taboos more so than process issues.
Sort of; even the non-verbal portions have different means across cultures, AND the neuropsychological abilities that predicted higher scores differed across cultures as well.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24055883/
So what exactly an IQ test is measuring differs between cultures (though it certainly is measuring -something- since there are other correlations), since even the separately identifiable and measurable abilities that lead to someone doing well on an IQ test differ across cultures.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24055883/
So what exactly an IQ test is measuring differs between cultures (though it certainly is measuring -something- since there are other correlations), since even the separately identifiable and measurable abilities that lead to someone doing well on an IQ test differ across cultures.
That is an important distinction (or at least the idea that IQ only measures a very narrow and not so significant part of a persons intelligence). I would surmise that a lot of those graduating with high IQs have also acquired the arrogance to believe that they should manage society, not just businesses. They can point to IQ scores and high salaries to prove their supposed superiority. In that way, IQ has become a cultural myth for reinforcing mandate to rule; we even have magazines comparing the IQs of different presidents throughout history, as estimated by pseudo-psychologists. The cultural elite have become something of a ruling/chattering class, more so than before, with greater and greater divides between different sectors of society. It is all quite ironic, since it could be argued that the elites today have less critical thinking abilities than our classically educated ancestors, many of whom expressly rejected a belief in elite rule. Fixation on IQ and wealth can be like the Cyrenians who wasted their wealth teaching their war horses to dance, then getting defeated when the enemy played flutes in battle, causing their horses to dance.
They who count their wealth to measure their worth are those that would measure the worth of their home by the piles of sawdust produced in making it.
-Thief 3, some Hammerite (paraphrased)
IQ is a meme, and once you get away from the ivory tower and see how everyone else has to make it, you realize just how jacked the entire thing is. The thing in this case being the prestige class. Noblis oblige is dead, the new money is stark raving mad, the old money couldn't give a shit more. Nobody has any more of a clue than anyone else, and the executable bad idea is valued over and above the good idea that just doesn't seem quite ready to crystallize yet.
The biggest curse in my opinion is to see and grok the magnitude and nature of the problems but to not be in a position to do much about them besides trying to explain it to a handful of people and hope a couple understand, are in a spot and mindset to do something about it, take it, and run with it. It's kind of like being a Chief or high level enlisted in the armed forces from what I gather. Too busy getting things done to keep the status quo moving, but also facilitating bottom up information propagation and nudging the command structure in the right direction via reality checks.
Oh... The dreams that have died from learning how the world really works. They are a plenty.
-Thief 3, some Hammerite (paraphrased)
IQ is a meme, and once you get away from the ivory tower and see how everyone else has to make it, you realize just how jacked the entire thing is. The thing in this case being the prestige class. Noblis oblige is dead, the new money is stark raving mad, the old money couldn't give a shit more. Nobody has any more of a clue than anyone else, and the executable bad idea is valued over and above the good idea that just doesn't seem quite ready to crystallize yet.
The biggest curse in my opinion is to see and grok the magnitude and nature of the problems but to not be in a position to do much about them besides trying to explain it to a handful of people and hope a couple understand, are in a spot and mindset to do something about it, take it, and run with it. It's kind of like being a Chief or high level enlisted in the armed forces from what I gather. Too busy getting things done to keep the status quo moving, but also facilitating bottom up information propagation and nudging the command structure in the right direction via reality checks.
Oh... The dreams that have died from learning how the world really works. They are a plenty.
>> Fixation on IQ and wealth can be like the Cyrenians who wasted their wealth teaching their war horses to dance, then getting defeated when the enemy played flutes in battle, causing their horses to dance.
Source for the story, please?
Source for the story, please?
It's the Sybarites, not the Cyrenians, and that's the origins of "sybaritic".
> But they had carried their luxury to such a pitch that they had taught even their horses to dance at their feasts to the music of the flute. Accordingly the people of Crotona, knowing this, and being at war with them, as Aristotle relates in his History of the Constitution of Sybaris, played before their horses the air to which they were accustomed to dance; for the people of Crotona also had fluteplayers in military uniform. And as soon as the horses heard them playing on the flute, they not only began to dance, but ran over to the army of the Crotonians, carrying their riders with them.
-- Athenaeus, The Deipnosophists
The Aristotlean source he cites is lost.
> But they had carried their luxury to such a pitch that they had taught even their horses to dance at their feasts to the music of the flute. Accordingly the people of Crotona, knowing this, and being at war with them, as Aristotle relates in his History of the Constitution of Sybaris, played before their horses the air to which they were accustomed to dance; for the people of Crotona also had fluteplayers in military uniform. And as soon as the horses heard them playing on the flute, they not only began to dance, but ran over to the army of the Crotonians, carrying their riders with them.
-- Athenaeus, The Deipnosophists
The Aristotlean source he cites is lost.
Thank you! That explains why I couldn't find it; heard it in a history of philosophy class ages ago :)
Thanks.
[deleted]
> we even have magazines comparing the IQs of different presidents throughout history, as estimated by pseudo-psychologists.
Which magazine / when? It sounds like this might actually contain some insight into the thinking of the magazine's editors, which could be interesting (so long as one is careful to assign no truth value to the content).
Edit: Googling has led me to a few, all citing this one paper from 2006. Political Psychology, Vol. 27, No. 4 (Aug., 2006), pp. 511-526 TLDR: The methodology is a bit loose, taking biographical achievements in earlier life and correlating them with people of known intelligence who did similar things. This leads to the perhaps-unsurprising result that they were all estimated at above-average IQ. I'm not sure why a 2006 paper would be turned into article fodder now.
Which magazine / when? It sounds like this might actually contain some insight into the thinking of the magazine's editors, which could be interesting (so long as one is careful to assign no truth value to the content).
Edit: Googling has led me to a few, all citing this one paper from 2006. Political Psychology, Vol. 27, No. 4 (Aug., 2006), pp. 511-526 TLDR: The methodology is a bit loose, taking biographical achievements in earlier life and correlating them with people of known intelligence who did similar things. This leads to the perhaps-unsurprising result that they were all estimated at above-average IQ. I'm not sure why a 2006 paper would be turned into article fodder now.
Thank you! That is even more info than I had. Odd how so many places picked it up in the last couple of years
IQ is highly correlated with reaction times.[1] It's extremely difficult to explain that result if you assume IQ is purely cultural, rather than neurological.
[1]https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5608941/
[1]https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5608941/
I'm gonna need a source that "cultural fluency" determines your ability to rotate weirdly-shaped little 3d objects around in your head
I think you’re half-right there.
To my understanding, IQ tests do measure generalized intelligence, and a lot of standardized tests correlate to them fairly well.
However, elite universities have been deemphasizing standardized tests for decades in favor of fuzzier admissions criteria. This, among other things, enables discrimination against minorities that overperform on standardized tests (historically Jews, currently Asians).
You’re right that the elite class is a self-selected cultural elite, but standardized tests are less of a tool and more of an impediment to their self-selection process.
To my understanding, IQ tests do measure generalized intelligence, and a lot of standardized tests correlate to them fairly well.
However, elite universities have been deemphasizing standardized tests for decades in favor of fuzzier admissions criteria. This, among other things, enables discrimination against minorities that overperform on standardized tests (historically Jews, currently Asians).
You’re right that the elite class is a self-selected cultural elite, but standardized tests are less of a tool and more of an impediment to their self-selection process.
That doesn't explain earlier network television. There was something of a push for high-quality stage drama, jazz, avant-garde comedy in addition to urban situation comedies (I Love Lucy, The Honeymooners).
My guess is that somebody does a successful show and everyone else jumps in the pool.
My guess is that somebody does a successful show and everyone else jumps in the pool.
That article (and a couple of articles/blogs it references) tries to coherently explain why TV changed like it did during that period. The better explanation is probably that network programming--probably even more so than other aspects of culture--was very much a fashion business. It may also reflect the personal preferences of a handful of network execs. Furthermore, the 70s were definitely not a back to the city period so its hard to use that as an explanation.
There's always the pachinko effect of network executive tastes, it's not unlike the music business, but I think that the article is trying to find patterns in clouds.
To refresh my memory, I just looked at a bunch of years of network programming. The 'rural' comedies don't seem to make that much of a footprint. If anything, a person could probably build a more convincing, invented-from-whole-cloth, essay about the birth and death of Western TV shows.
To refresh my memory, I just looked at a bunch of years of network programming. The 'rural' comedies don't seem to make that much of a footprint. If anything, a person could probably build a more convincing, invented-from-whole-cloth, essay about the birth and death of Western TV shows.
Or private detective--outside of British imports of course. Medical dramas. Etc.
I think I probably agree with you though that Westerns (both on TV and film) are probably the almost stereotypically American genre that used to be hugely popular and is largely non-existent today.
But I'm not sure I'd assign any great significance to the fact other than shifting tastes and, perhaps, sensitivities.
I think I probably agree with you though that Westerns (both on TV and film) are probably the almost stereotypically American genre that used to be hugely popular and is largely non-existent today.
But I'm not sure I'd assign any great significance to the fact other than shifting tastes and, perhaps, sensitivities.
I'm not getting into the whole IQ thing, but have you watched some of what was on TV in the later 1970s? Treat yourself to a binge viewing of "Love Boat", "Lenny and Squiggy", or "Three's Company" or even ostensibly serious stuff like "Marcus Welby" or "Lou Grant". When you have recovered, tell me again about the cognitively elite at the network executive level.
Basically the studios realized that catering to older audiences was not a good long-term strategy.
> Basically the studios realized that catering to older audiences was not a good long-term strategy.
Or perhaps believed instead of realized, but that conclusion was not necessarily borne out in the data.
Fox News' later success (absolutely dominating cable news both in the demo and out, more or less since its inception) seems to demonstrate that the demise of all of these shows at the same time left a vacuum for a certain type of programming that probably still persists to this day.
Or perhaps believed instead of realized, but that conclusion was not necessarily borne out in the data.
Fox News' later success (absolutely dominating cable news both in the demo and out, more or less since its inception) seems to demonstrate that the demise of all of these shows at the same time left a vacuum for a certain type of programming that probably still persists to this day.
Which would make sense if there's an X:1 ratio of younger to older audiences - probably relative to future potential disposable income rather than size - and the two groups prefer vastly different content from each other. The former group is large enough to support several large competitors but competing over the latter might have been a losing proposition for the major networks since none of them could get enough critical mass to turn a profit off that market.
For example, take major brands like Pepsi, Coca Cola, GM, and Ford that have tons of money to throw at everyone and a niche company like Lear Capital that sells gold and silver. Some content draws enough big advertisers to fill up 100% of the ad slots while running up the price but if Pepsi/Coca-Cola/GM do not think running ads during "Little House on the Prairie" is worth the marginal benefit, that leaves Ford and Lear Capital to make the show profitable. Before Fox cornered their market, Lear Capital might not reach enough eyeballs in their target demographic to be able to buy enough ads on "Little House on the Praire" to make the show profitable because its in the same time slot as "Antiques Roadshow". Obviously Ford won't pick up the rest of the tab for one show so the major networks end up dropping the older audiences' shows one by one when there isn't enough advertiser demand. All the while, bidding up the cost of ads on popular shows depletes the big brands' ad budgets even further.
Then, Fox comes along, and since most of the big brands need to push brand awareness their TV ad budgets grow (it's a new major network!). They buy their usual ads and all of those niche players who wanted to advertise to that demographic on TV but couldn't because it was spread too thin can come together on a major network that caters just to their needs.
For example, take major brands like Pepsi, Coca Cola, GM, and Ford that have tons of money to throw at everyone and a niche company like Lear Capital that sells gold and silver. Some content draws enough big advertisers to fill up 100% of the ad slots while running up the price but if Pepsi/Coca-Cola/GM do not think running ads during "Little House on the Prairie" is worth the marginal benefit, that leaves Ford and Lear Capital to make the show profitable. Before Fox cornered their market, Lear Capital might not reach enough eyeballs in their target demographic to be able to buy enough ads on "Little House on the Praire" to make the show profitable because its in the same time slot as "Antiques Roadshow". Obviously Ford won't pick up the rest of the tab for one show so the major networks end up dropping the older audiences' shows one by one when there isn't enough advertiser demand. All the while, bidding up the cost of ads on popular shows depletes the big brands' ad budgets even further.
Then, Fox comes along, and since most of the big brands need to push brand awareness their TV ad budgets grow (it's a new major network!). They buy their usual ads and all of those niche players who wanted to advertise to that demographic on TV but couldn't because it was spread too thin can come together on a major network that caters just to their needs.
The advertisers that paid for TV shows saw teenagers as a largely untapped market with a lot of disposable income.
They weren't wrong. The Baby Boomers were the first modern generation to enjoy economic determination at such a young age.
[deleted]
> Both Green Acres and The Beverly Hillbillies had dropped from the Nielsen top 30 by the 1970–71 season, yet both shows continued to win their respective time slots and had loyal followings, warranting renewal for another season.
Lotta editorializing here for a wikipedia article. Continually declining popularity seems like it could easily also be said to warrant cancellation.
Lotta editorializing here for a wikipedia article. Continually declining popularity seems like it could easily also be said to warrant cancellation.
Flipping over to the "Talk" tab, I think it's clear that this isn't a good example of a Wikipedia article. Multiple comments about lack of neutral tone, and it's been flagged twice for removal (the first time, the decision was keep; the second, the decision was "no consensus.")
I don't know that this article has a long life ahead of it.
I don't know that this article has a long life ahead of it.
That article doesn’t even convince me that “rural purge” is a phrase ever used outside it.
> Lotta editorializing here for a wikipedia article.
Wikipedia has changed a lot in the last decade.
Wikipedia has changed a lot in the last decade.
That text was added 11 years ago. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Rural_purge&diff=...
There are still networks (MeTV for example) that make a living off of re-airing those shows.
The popularity of all of the "Jane Goodall studying the gorillas" redneck porn on Discovery and National Geographic and History Channel, along with more prestigious dramas like Yellowstone or Justified or Longmire would indicate to me that this is still a very profitable demographic to target, albeit distasteful to the major television executives.
The popularity of all of the "Jane Goodall studying the gorillas" redneck porn on Discovery and National Geographic and History Channel, along with more prestigious dramas like Yellowstone or Justified or Longmire would indicate to me that this is still a very profitable demographic to target, albeit distasteful to the major television executives.
It helps that in the case of Justified and Longmire both where excellent shows that happened to have a country/rural setting - Yellowstone is merely a decent show by comparison.
Justified should be talked about like the Soprano's/Breaking Bad or The Wire - it really was that brilliantly done.
Justified should be talked about like the Soprano's/Breaking Bad or The Wire - it really was that brilliantly done.
Longmire gets a lot of credit purely for showing lots of beautiful New Mexico countryside! I also recall that the story was pretty good, but it's been a while.
The books are better than the TV shows, and the main character is not a "hillbilly" by any means.
Agree that Justified is a very well done show.
I have also been enjoying Wynonna Earp, which is kind of like Justified meets Ash vs Evil Dead.
Agree that Justified is a very well done show.
I have also been enjoying Wynonna Earp, which is kind of like Justified meets Ash vs Evil Dead.
I cannot recall exactly where it was mentioned, but I remember one of the producers saying that they purposely wanted to highlight the beauty of New Mexico.
Also, Longmire's cabin is located in Valles Caldera National Preserve[0]. It's a little outside of Los Alamos, and it's an amazing place to visit especially if you enjoy hiking. And don't forget the Bradbury Science Museum[1].
0. https://www.nps.gov/vall/index.htm 1. https://www.lanl.gov/museum/
Also, Longmire's cabin is located in Valles Caldera National Preserve[0]. It's a little outside of Los Alamos, and it's an amazing place to visit especially if you enjoy hiking. And don't forget the Bradbury Science Museum[1].
0. https://www.nps.gov/vall/index.htm 1. https://www.lanl.gov/museum/
I think this kind of thing is ultimately what I like most about new media. A Youtube series doesn't need to be concerned about skewed audiences or the network's branding: as long as it has a loyal following and an enthusiastic creator, it'll keep coming out. A lot of my favorite content probably wouldn't make it if they had to air on CBS.
> A Youtube series doesn't need to be concerned about skewed audiences or the network's branding
Is there a reason to think this is the case?
I find YouTube to be the land of copycats and homogenization just as much as anywhere else. If anything the desire to attract clicks, views, thumbs seems more immediate than TV.
Is there a reason to think this is the case?
I find YouTube to be the land of copycats and homogenization just as much as anywhere else. If anything the desire to attract clicks, views, thumbs seems more immediate than TV.
Because YouTube doesn't have to filter for slotting content into a finite amount of broadcast time, it doesn't need executives deciding what programming is worth investing a timeslot in.
... but the sum of all YouTube viewers still have a finite amount of time per day to consume the content, so the game flips from "elevator-pitching some executive your idea is worth risking a highly-valuable timeslot" to "pulling in hundreds of thousands of individual audience members to like, comment, and subscribe."
Much like there are multiple ways to convince an exec, there are multiple ways to attract an audience. While they can look like the same game if one turns one's head and squints, they're mechanically very different.
(... possibly worth noting: YouTube does have premium original programming, which is slightly closer to the old "elevator-pitch your idea" model. But that's more to build exclusive property for its premium offering than to fill timeslots, and one doesn't have to partner with YouTube to reach a broad audience).
... but the sum of all YouTube viewers still have a finite amount of time per day to consume the content, so the game flips from "elevator-pitching some executive your idea is worth risking a highly-valuable timeslot" to "pulling in hundreds of thousands of individual audience members to like, comment, and subscribe."
Much like there are multiple ways to convince an exec, there are multiple ways to attract an audience. While they can look like the same game if one turns one's head and squints, they're mechanically very different.
(... possibly worth noting: YouTube does have premium original programming, which is slightly closer to the old "elevator-pitch your idea" model. But that's more to build exclusive property for its premium offering than to fill timeslots, and one doesn't have to partner with YouTube to reach a broad audience).
I'm surprised it's a question, to be honest. My favorite Youtube series include:
* funny Mario Maker levels
* pop history comedy videos
* teardowns of random historical firearms
* cooking from reconstructed historical recipes
So it's hard for me to look at this and see homogenization.
* funny Mario Maker levels
* pop history comedy videos
* teardowns of random historical firearms
* cooking from reconstructed historical recipes
So it's hard for me to look at this and see homogenization.
I'm thinking homogenization across a given category / scene / community.
It seems like any group of similar videos are heavily influenced by each other and often copy each other if they see another creator got a lot of response from their video.
Are reaction videos getting views? Blamo, everyone does some reaction videos, and so on.
It seems like any group of similar videos are heavily influenced by each other and often copy each other if they see another creator got a lot of response from their video.
Are reaction videos getting views? Blamo, everyone does some reaction videos, and so on.
IMHO with YouTube niche content, it’s not so much the sort of “by external observation, that seemed to work out for them; so let’s cargo-cult it” that network television / movie studios do; but rather that content-creators within a niche are all part of the niche’s community — and the even-smaller community of “people who film themselves talking about that niche.” They might even all be personal friends. (Even if they’re not at first — someone who both shares your interests, and your videography side-hustle, is someone you’ll have a lot in common with! If you follow multiple channels on the same niche hobby, you’ll often find that they start to refer to one-another more and more, and then eventually there’s collabs, etc.)
As such, obviously, they talk with one-another a lot; and usually trust one-another enough to make each-other moderators/admins in their Twitch/Discord/etc. (I mean, often they attend one-anothers’ weddings. There’s a lot of trust there!) And so there’s a lot of “hey, this did work for me, and made me a lot of money! You should try it too!” advice going back and forth.
With the television networks / movie studios, the aping is the recipient’s idea. But with independent creators, it’s usually an external, unsolicited suggestion from another creator. The recipient of unsolicited advice will usually put a lot more thought into whether it really applies well to their situation, than they would if they came up with it themselves. (Unless they’re a channel whose whole “thing” is just copying what’s popular. But that doesn’t happen much in these niches, as you can’t really content-farm a niche.)
Mind you, within the “everyone in the niche is friends” paradigm, you do sometimes see newer creators seemingly aping others a lot — but what’s frequently happening there is that the creator has some experienced creators as patrons/producers for their videos, where the experienced creators have the goal of “bootstrapping” the channel quickly into success, and so are guiding the new creator into these cliche-but-popular video formats (and the new creator is going with it, because 1. they’re inexperienced and don’t know better; and 2. their channel doesn’t yet have a brand to tarnish — that’s something they can build after they have followers.)
As such, obviously, they talk with one-another a lot; and usually trust one-another enough to make each-other moderators/admins in their Twitch/Discord/etc. (I mean, often they attend one-anothers’ weddings. There’s a lot of trust there!) And so there’s a lot of “hey, this did work for me, and made me a lot of money! You should try it too!” advice going back and forth.
With the television networks / movie studios, the aping is the recipient’s idea. But with independent creators, it’s usually an external, unsolicited suggestion from another creator. The recipient of unsolicited advice will usually put a lot more thought into whether it really applies well to their situation, than they would if they came up with it themselves. (Unless they’re a channel whose whole “thing” is just copying what’s popular. But that doesn’t happen much in these niches, as you can’t really content-farm a niche.)
Mind you, within the “everyone in the niche is friends” paradigm, you do sometimes see newer creators seemingly aping others a lot — but what’s frequently happening there is that the creator has some experienced creators as patrons/producers for their videos, where the experienced creators have the goal of “bootstrapping” the channel quickly into success, and so are guiding the new creator into these cliche-but-popular video formats (and the new creator is going with it, because 1. they’re inexperienced and don’t know better; and 2. their channel doesn’t yet have a brand to tarnish — that’s something they can build after they have followers.)
I feel like it is almost like cockwork.
I see one person within a category try something, odds are the other 5 people I follow will do it. And these aren't new folks, they're the established leaders in views and etc.
I guess there's an advantage of iteration ... sort of there, but man it feels like homogenization none the less.
I see one person within a category try something, odds are the other 5 people I follow will do it. And these aren't new folks, they're the established leaders in views and etc.
I guess there's an advantage of iteration ... sort of there, but man it feels like homogenization none the less.
I'm always curious about what is featured in entertainment vs reality.
This was mostly because of my contact / travels with younger folks outside the US who I would talk to. I was supersized by how may other younger people seemed to have their view of America heavily influenced by imported TV shows / movies. A surprising number seemed to assume that everyone was a TV 'type', school life was like a TV show, and the assumption that most everyone was wealthy like the shows at the time.
This was well before the age of the internet.
As far as the actual media trends, I think it usually just follows fads and trends. I don't think there's a real 'motivation' behind it outside getting eyeballs on TV.
This was mostly because of my contact / travels with younger folks outside the US who I would talk to. I was supersized by how may other younger people seemed to have their view of America heavily influenced by imported TV shows / movies. A surprising number seemed to assume that everyone was a TV 'type', school life was like a TV show, and the assumption that most everyone was wealthy like the shows at the time.
This was well before the age of the internet.
As far as the actual media trends, I think it usually just follows fads and trends. I don't think there's a real 'motivation' behind it outside getting eyeballs on TV.
Anecdotally I've found this to be true when discussing the US with European friends I have. They think our schooling looks exactly like the sitcoms (e.g. Boy Meets World, Fresh Prince). They also seem to think we're all partially cowboys or at least like John McClane in Die Hard. They also take every bit of media coming from the major networks as absolute truth and tend to believe things that are really quite rare here happen on a constant basis.
It is sometimes hard to filter reality from fiction, when tv is the input. You have schools preparing for mass shootings and banks giving guns when opening an account. You have swat teams demolishing a home because someone breaks in. Tell me again how you're not all partially cowboys.
I have no idea how many guns an average American sees when walking around (excluding cops and soldiers), but I'd think at least 1 a year. In all euro countrys I've been to, my answer is 0.
I have no idea how many guns an average American sees when walking around (excluding cops and soldiers), but I'd think at least 1 a year. In all euro countrys I've been to, my answer is 0.
To be fair everyone makes this mistake with every culture they are familiar with yet not experienced enough to understand the variety and nuance. We go with the stereotypes because there's some truth to it. For example, there is still to this day a big cowboy subculture in America, it's just not everyone. And no not everyone in West Philadelphia born and raised shoots bball after school but quite a few do.
> They also take every bit of media coming from the major networks as absolute truth and tend to believe things that are really quite rare here happen on a constant basis.
To be fair, Americans also believe this.
To be fair, Americans also believe this.
Yes but Americans don't receive an influx of media from other countries. Conversely, American media is everywhere and has saturated the globe, so I think the stereotypes of Americans are far more common.
I don't really have any European stereotypes other than broad generalizations like Belgian people like chocolate and Germans like beer.
I don't really have any European stereotypes other than broad generalizations like Belgian people like chocolate and Germans like beer.
I meant that Americans believe, based on media reporting, that “things that are really quite rare here happen on a constant basis”. In other words, not only does American media give foreigners misconceptions about life in America, it also gives Americans those very same misconceptions about their own country.
Ohhhh ok, then yes I agree with your observation. Media thrives on sensationalism so things that are rare get biased reporting which skews perspectives.
> I'm always curious about what is featured in entertainment vs reality.
I always feel that way with the jobs that TV and movie characters are assigned. Entertainment jobs are vastly over-represented (as so much of art is somewhat autobiographical). Straightforward, well understood jobs like doctors, cops and teachers are pretty well represented. Then those jobs that often require further explanation whenever a stranger hears that job title are much less represented - how many actuaries or data analysts or logistics managers do you see in film? Approximately none, but I think more of them exist in the real world than all of the screenwriters you see on TV.
I always feel that way with the jobs that TV and movie characters are assigned. Entertainment jobs are vastly over-represented (as so much of art is somewhat autobiographical). Straightforward, well understood jobs like doctors, cops and teachers are pretty well represented. Then those jobs that often require further explanation whenever a stranger hears that job title are much less represented - how many actuaries or data analysts or logistics managers do you see in film? Approximately none, but I think more of them exist in the real world than all of the screenwriters you see on TV.
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MostWritersAreWr...
> "Bad books on writing and thoughtless English professors solemnly tell beginners to Write What You Know, which explains why so many mediocre novels are about English professors contemplating adultery."
> "Bad books on writing and thoughtless English professors solemnly tell beginners to Write What You Know, which explains why so many mediocre novels are about English professors contemplating adultery."
The dad in Christmas Vacation was a food chemist developing a non-nutritive varnish to make cereal stay crunchy longer, but the way that line is delivered makes it clear it's mocking the job.
I think the screenwriter was making a very obscure joke, not mocking the job. You can use varnish to preserve dry baked goods for display like in a bakery or for a Hollywood prop.
Lots of things went wrong in 1971: https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/
If you were to ask me the arrow should point at 2000. It's a much more interesting date than 1971.
You do have to admire the chutzpah of someone pointing bold arrows to the data points in 1971 when the graph in question shows a clear inflection point in 1980 instead (or in many cases near the end, no clear inflection point at all).
Says a company that wants to sell me Bitcoin and ends the data dump with a quote vaguely implying that the evil government is to blame.
In other news, smoking cigarettes is good for your health, says this old study I have here. Please just ignore where the data is from and who funded it, it's totally trustworthy!
In other news, smoking cigarettes is good for your health, says this old study I have here. Please just ignore where the data is from and who funded it, it's totally trustworthy!
I grew up watching Nick at Night, and I wish we still had shows like that today. They were idealized versions of Americana, but I think it was closer to what viewers wanted believed about America. I wish there were more shows today about rural communities, it might help us understand one another better.
I don't know that something like Green Acres (complete with climbing the telephone pole to make a call, and one of the most influential local citizens being a pig) is going to build bridges of understanding. It's a silly show that's more about putting a rational main character into a setting where nothing makes sense. If anything, the laughs are because the universe of the country rubes is so ridiculous, yet so readily accepted. (Similarly, my Appalachian grandmother really did not think the Beverly Hillbillies was funny.)
I agree, but when compared to Andy Griffith (the country rube sheriff?), and everything just seemed more "wholesome"; perhaps an idealistic tale of days gone by, but also perhaps an aspirational tale for those who might value the community sometimes found in small, rural places.
For some reason your comment reminded me of something I read about the Simpsons. Every single episode, no matter what, they're always a family in the end. I think what is missing is more television programing that aimed to be an aspiration to others in their community. The Jeffersons, Andy Griffith, even to include The Wonder Years.
Perhaps has another commenter noted, the writers would first have to understand that dynamic, and to do so would be a major shift at the moment.
Perhaps has another commenter noted, the writers would first have to understand that dynamic, and to do so would be a major shift at the moment.
They were idealized versions of Americana...
Idealized by city folk, maybe. As one who grew up in a rural area, when I watched the shows it was more "let's make fun of the simple country folk and their strange ways". There was no idealization, most of it were television shows that looked to be written by city people that have never been past their city's beltway, who imagine what country life might be like. Poster children include Green Acres and The Beverly Hillbillies.
I do miss Hee Haw, though. R. I. P., Messrs. Owen and Clark.
Idealized by city folk, maybe. As one who grew up in a rural area, when I watched the shows it was more "let's make fun of the simple country folk and their strange ways". There was no idealization, most of it were television shows that looked to be written by city people that have never been past their city's beltway, who imagine what country life might be like. Poster children include Green Acres and The Beverly Hillbillies.
I do miss Hee Haw, though. R. I. P., Messrs. Owen and Clark.
> I wish there were more shows today about rural communities, it might help us understand one another better.
You'd have to get TV writers that want to understand rural communities first, instead of painting dumb-shit broad strokes from fuzzy memories of watching Green Acres as a kid. Mostly, though, they just do this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4k9_N4k5IQI
You'd have to get TV writers that want to understand rural communities first, instead of painting dumb-shit broad strokes from fuzzy memories of watching Green Acres as a kid. Mostly, though, they just do this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4k9_N4k5IQI
There was Parks and Recreation, I guess.
Oh, this sounds like fun. It depends on how you define 'rural', but off the top of my head:
Parks & Recreation, Schitt's Creek, Breaking Bad, Ozark, Sons of Anarchy, Dallas, and that's without even looking at the Discovery Channel.
IMO we need to talk to each other more if we want to understand each other better, though. Not through dehumanizing screens, but in person and in good faith. When was the last time you had a meaningful conversation with a stranger in a train, airport, store etc?
Parks & Recreation, Schitt's Creek, Breaking Bad, Ozark, Sons of Anarchy, Dallas, and that's without even looking at the Discovery Channel.
IMO we need to talk to each other more if we want to understand each other better, though. Not through dehumanizing screens, but in person and in good faith. When was the last time you had a meaningful conversation with a stranger in a train, airport, store etc?
Breaking Bad takes place in Albuquerque and I’m pretty sure Dallas takes place in Dallas. Those are cities.
Yeah, they're not perfect examples, but those shows' characters live in the suburbs and spend most of their time even farther afield. The cities seem to serve as somewhat jarring juxtapositions to the places where the action and drama occur.
Most people in American metropolitan areas live in suburbs. Suburbs are not rural.
Dallas is not city show. They live in houses in the middle of nowhere. They are outside all the time. Like, you have to read wiki to know Dallas is city.
It seems like this was more driven by a desire to have television shows that addressed real world problems. "Rural" here is basically a euphemism for "sterile world where nothing bad actually happens." It's just easier to sterilize a cabin in the woods. Plus, the country has always been idyllic in American culture.
This was an era where pregnancy was a forbidden topic (among so much more) and where parents were shown sleeping in separate beds. It's not surprising that people eventually grew to hate this fantasy world.
This was an era where pregnancy was a forbidden topic (among so much more) and where parents were shown sleeping in separate beds. It's not surprising that people eventually grew to hate this fantasy world.
"[...]ratings indicate that the American public prefer hillbillies, cowboys, and spies."
This kind of correlation has always seemed specious to me. It's the streetlight effect—it's hard to quantify why a show is popular we'll just assume it's because of the genre, since that's easy to identify.
I remember when Desperate Housewives took off in 2004, and studio execs assumed that viewers suddenly wanted prime time soaps. And they released a bunch more prime time soaps that were lousy and flopped.
I think viewers want quality content, regardless of genre. Genre is just a heuristic device.
This kind of correlation has always seemed specious to me. It's the streetlight effect—it's hard to quantify why a show is popular we'll just assume it's because of the genre, since that's easy to identify.
I remember when Desperate Housewives took off in 2004, and studio execs assumed that viewers suddenly wanted prime time soaps. And they released a bunch more prime time soaps that were lousy and flopped.
I think viewers want quality content, regardless of genre. Genre is just a heuristic device.
Costs and returns matter to money people.
Could the rural purge have been the result of network executives alienated and at odds with the viewership they were nominally at the behest of?
Urbanization did not increase significantly at this time, so it seems cultural factors are the better explanation.