Part of this blog is about the ever-present argument that there's not enough originality on this site. The other part is just something I've been wondering for some time. Let's start locally, here at ProgressiveU, shall we?
If you've been here for any period of time, you may have noticed a common complaint: Bloggers aren't being original enough! This goes for topic choice as well as argument strategy as well. Dead topics are being beaten into the afterlife by those who don't know any better...and by those who probably know they shouldn't but still don't care. If you need to know, dead/overused topics include abortion, the war in Iraq, Homosexuality, MySpace, etc. Not only have these subjects been overused, we also keep seeing the exact same thoughts being repeated. Just read some blogs and see what's been done! It's very simple, actually. If you write better, more unique blogs your ratings will go up. That's a good thing.
This can't be suggested enough: Visit the Forums (http://www.progressiveu.org/forum). There's a section that's tells you all about improving your blogging. It's called How to Blog a Better Blog. It's well worth a look.
Now I get to the second part of this blog. This is something random that I wonder every now and then, because that's just how my brain works. Go to the movie theatre. Read a book. Listen to a song. What do you see, read, or hear? Is it a little familiar?
Movies and books can get a lot of criticizm when they're too close to something that's already been done. But, at the rate that movies are made, books are written, and songs are produced, is it possible to simply run out of new ideas? As it is the typical movie, book, or song simply repeats something familiar. For movies, it's the basic structure that goes: problem, quest, hero finds solution. Music gets repetitive, especially within the same bands. How many times can you generate a completely new riff on guitar, or new chord progression?
Is it possible to simply run out of creativity and originality? If not then for sure we'll run out of titles for things. Soon movies will be identified by a vin number and songs will be characterized by the exact date they were produced. It's a scary reality if you ask me.
I wonder if that's the end of it all; if the end of the world is simply the end of creativity. Then life may begin elsewhere, or even on our Earth again, but then this new intelligent species will just repeat what we have done...
Maybe that's what de-ja-vu is all about.
Comments, ratings, and any other feedback are very much appreciated!
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
"There is nothing new under the sun."
http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/ediblewoman
I guess Shakespeare really did know what he was talking about.
~ *~
This is a signature, an automated thingy that pops up when I comment, not a demand to see my blog!
Mind Control is Easier Than You Think
All stories follow the same basic plot... there's little you can do to make the plot outline original. But do you really want something that original? Part of the thing that resonates about books is that there is something familiar in them. You can identify with them to some degree. If you made a completely original idea, how many people could identify with it?
~C
Check out the latest entry in the Between The Lines column!
Want the highest rated list to change? RATE those blogs, then!
That's true, but there's a certain extent you should be able to go to. Like say, if there's a book series that comes out soon about a boy wizard who's arch nemesis is many years his superior who gets into near-fatal trouble every year at school.....but then again, I think there is a series like this. The description for Charlie Bone sounded a bit like Harry Potter...
~ *~
This is a signature, an automated thingy that pops up when I comment, not a demand to see my blog!
Mind Control is Easier Than You Think
What? Is the world running out of creativity? What you've noticed is popular trends. If you go back in history and look at how long things have been around, you'll see that music isn't dying, only begining. You'll see that Books and Movies are just starting their existence on the earth! Every time period has a different pop culture, it just so happens to be that you noticed this culture you live in. Congradulations, but some day, the next Motzart is going to come along and change the popular music, the next hitchcock is going to show up and make a new trend in movies, the next Al Gore will out do the internet, however you want to look at it. -Just know that music and movies and books, and all the things of the world aren't losing the ability to be original, it's that our culture is so fixed on a certain style (which varies so much) that it seems like nothing new is possible.
"I am a very superficial person" -Andy Warhol
But it still feels to me like one day there will be no more "New" just repeated trends from yesteryear. Like bellbottoms, or those VW bugs.
~ *~
This is a signature, an automated thingy that pops up when I comment, not a demand to see my blog!
Mind Control is Easier Than You Think
I also think that creativity won't die. Maybe we're just stuck in a rut and no one is brave enough to stick out of the crowd. I think a lot of it depends on us too as the readers and viewers. If everyone started to tell the various artists that we are sick of the same old same old, we would see some new innovation. There are brillant people out there that have the ideas for the next big thing, but maybe our culture doesn't encourage them.
www.progressiveu.org/blog/americangirlinchina
About serial killers..I thought it was an original idea and a different concept I spent about 3 hours on the damn blog.
I believe they already have ran out of movie ideas. I wrote a blog about remakes. I compared remakes to movies already done...yeah boring...but it just expresses even more how there is no originality left.
With horror books or movies you can tell everyone what will happen. Evil things come they are killed and one person is left standing. I like movies and books with a twist. The movie the Hole. Had a great twist. I don't know why but my brain has gone blank I will get back with you on movies with twist.... Books I mainly read docum. type, not stories.
I like twists too. Sometimes twists can be predictable though, how sad.
Oh you wrote "serial killer looking past the image nature vs. nurture"? Well i'll have to go read that now.
~ *~
This is a signature, an automated thingy that pops up when I comment, not a demand to see my blog!
Mind Control is Easier Than You Think
Yeah it is sad that twist can be predictable. But some really aren't. Some movies really will piss me off because they randomly just end. It's like what. The ending can screw up a movie for me.
Books have done that to me also. And I am trying to go and look for missing pages but it is the end.
I look forward to creative and unique blogs from you in the future!
Change begins with the individual...
I wasn't doing that already?
*sigh* So unloved...
Just kidding!
~ *~
This is a signature, an automated thingy that pops up when I comment, not a demand to see my blog!
Mind Control is Easier Than You Think
I LOVE your new signature! It's very subtle...mind control via reverse psychology?
http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/ediblewoman
Hmmm, maybe? Because I would totally hate to win this contest....:)
I had to add the "automated thingy" part because newbies kept thinking I was asking them specifically to visit my blog! I didn't want to seem so forward.
....you are getting sleeeeepy....
~ *~
This is a signature, an automated thingy that pops up when I comment, not a demand to see my blog!
Mind Control is Easier Than You Think
At this point in human culture, you could point to pretty much anything and shout "derivative!" The play Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead (by Tom Stoppard) is very unoriginal, considering the author took the two title characters from Shakespeare's Hamlet and wrote a play about them. But it's one of the most original and refreshing things I've read in years. Originality is subjective, I suppose.
--
"He had decided to live forever or die in the attempt, and his only mission each time he went up was to come down alive."
Maybe we need a phrase like, "Originality is in the eye of the beholder"?
~ *~
This is a signature, an automated thingy that pops up when I comment, not a demand to see my blog!
Mind Control is Easier Than You Think
All we need is a big movie to stick it in and make it catch on like a wildfire after a drought!
--
"He had decided to live forever or die in the attempt, and his only mission each time he went up was to come down alive."
Lol. The movie shall be... Jaws 12, Attack of the Obviously Fake Shark. We shall make millions. Muahaha!
~ *~
This is a signature, an automated thingy that pops up when I comment, not a demand to see my blog!
Mind Control is Easier Than You Think