This piece was written and performed for the Melbourne Writer’s Festival event, the Future of the Written Word.
Today we’re here to mark the occasion of the death of “Death of the Written Word”, which I hope we can all agree died after a long battle with relevancy-itis.
“Death of the Written Word” leaves behind many dependents, including Facebook Ops Manager Nicola Mendelsohn who said Facebook video statistics suggested the written word would soon become all but obsolete.
Included in the mourners are Mic, the millennial-focused news start up which laid off 25 writing staff as it “made the pivot to video” to become, and I quote, “the leader in visual journalism”. If you’re not aware of the term visual journalism, you may know it by its former name, which was “tv fucking news”.
Also among the mourning family are several sobbing futurists who can console themselves with the realisation that no one ever really took them seriously in the first place.
You’ll note Advertising is not here. Many predicted that Advertising would kill the written word by giving its life sustaining force (which is cash) to video instead. Advertising has informed me that it doesn’t favour video to the written word, but does what it always does – chasing people ready to lose all their money, whether it be to buy false magnetic eyelashes as seen on a Facebook beauty video or in the subscription deals for the New Yorker we all order in good faith, only to leave their long form essays and indecipherably dull cartoons wrapped in plastic and languishing down the side of the couch.
Let us celebrate the Methuslian staying power of the “death of the written word”, which rose and fell with the ebb and flow of civilisations. We knew “death of the written word” never stood a chance back in Sumerian times, when the first piece of recording writing was found – the 1750BC complaint where Nanni bitched to Merchant Ea-Nasir about getting his money back for a shit delivery of copper.
Of course the written word will survive when its earliest example is the Sumerian equivalent of a bad ebay review. It was at that moment we knew time was ticking for Death of the Written Word because as long as people need to bitch about others, they will need actual words.
Yet again it came back swinging, not unlike the German barbarians who razed Rome. This was a fine time for the “death of the written word”, hale and hearty from an illiterate populace who could not write. It was said then that all the scrolls and codexes were useless due to religious, military and political officials dying in a hail of barbarian steel.
Finally, it was the death of the written word’s time to shine.
Until it somewhat ironically came to light no one remembered to kill off the Irish monks carefully transcribing and retranscribing anything scribbled in Latin in a bid to distract themselves from the fact Ireland has never seen sunlight.
That and the fact that the written word was flourishing across Asia, parts of Africa not controlled by the Roman Empire, South America and many others but LOL whiteness.
Throughout it all, the written word and the death of the written word have been locked in deadly battle. From the first rude drawings painted on a cave lit by fire, to the Gilgamesh and King James’ Bible, to the invention of radio, the invention of tv, video killing radio, radio making a comeback due to podcasts, video dying to reality tv, to the internet killing everything, to phones dying from text messaging which was then slaughtered by instant messaging,0 to the internet reigniting video, to the internet dying due to emojis and subcutaneous wearable technology due to whatever it was Ben predicted. In fact, at this point it’s worthwhile noticing that the one thing we can’t blame millennials for killing are libraries, which they have brought back to life as they hoard paper books instead of ebooks, previously thought of as their assassin.
And here we are today – mourning the death of the death of the written word because somehow along the way we worked out that the written word will never die because the written word will always be the most incorruptible and dependable way for us to make connections with information and other people, adaptable like a cockroach to withstand each technological innovation and dropped vowel obscenity to where it is right now: which is still not dead.
Indeed, death is the worst but don’t be sad because the death of the death of the written word is a chance for us to come together and find new things whose death we can endlessly predict, including but not limited to religion, the author, god, marriage, morals and maybe even raw vegans. Naturally, we will completely ignore actual deaths that happen around us including, but not limited to, the sixth massive extinction event currently facing the planet.
This is a trying time for you so I want to borrow a phrase from your culture “sadface sadface cryface heart angry woman sadface sadface and whatever the fucking emoji is for the sky is falling”.
Thank you and good night.
The Death of Written Word
The Scourge of Electronic Books
By: Courtney Fletcher
With new technology come many advances in the way in which we live our lives. Perhaps it can be argued that the piece of technology that has most altered the literary world is that of electronic-books. The likes of Kobo Reader®, Kindel® and many others are seemingly replacing the need for tangible copies of books and novels. Recently there was a video made showcasing the bookstore, “Type”, at 833 Queens Street West, Toronto, Ontario. The creator Sean Ohlenkamp created the video, “The Joy of Books”, to showcase the books used in stop animation. The message at the end of the video is on the cover of one of the animated books, “There is nothing like a real book.” This writer is inclined to agree.
What do the masses think about this radical new shift toward Electronic Books? What do the people think about the closures of bookstores and libraries due to disinterest? This writer asked two students, both the age of eighteen about the state of the written word. Virgina Waterson and Kate Hillard’s answers differed in certain areas, but both are valuable insight into the issue:
Fletcher― Electronic-readers, such as the Kobo Reader®, have become very popular, what do you think of virtual books?
Virgina Waterson― I think they are okay for people, if that suits them but for myself…I don’t like them.
Kate Hillard― [Electronic readers are] useful if you travel a lot, but if you are not traveling. They’re cheaper, but I don’t buy books.
Electronic-books, could they replace real, tangible books?
Waterson― I hope not. I like looking at them [books] on the shelf. I like having a physical copy of each book I have read. I find them [books] easier to read.
Hillard- I certainly hope not. As useful as virtual books are, nothing beats a book with pages.
Were you aware of the recent closures of many libraries and bookstores?
Waterson- Yes.
Hillard- No.
Do you believe that electronic books are the cause?
Waterson- Maybe, maybe more so computers [are the cause]. With computers there is a disinterest in books and people don’t want to buy them [books].
Hillard- Partly yes, and partly people’s short attention spans mean that they can’t read books.
There is a sense that Electronic books are much harder for a person to read. Eye strain is a constant concern for any avid reader. Perhaps, despite the constant claims by companies that the electronic book readers are easy to read, this is nothing more than a marketing campaign. Most of us know how taxing it can be to deal with the glare from computer screens; then electronic-readers could be just as hard on your eyes.
What about the costs of books? Granted the cost of electronic versions of books are cheaper than buying the actual tangible copies. The initial outrageous costs of the electronic-readers are then justified by the small cost of the actual books being stored within the hard-drive. One question: When have you heard of paper crashing? When that electronic-reader breaks down-like the old “Pinto” we know it is-the costs would be enormous to replace the reader and all of the lost books. This is just something to think about when the aliens invade and destroy our electronics.
Now, what about the very nature of real books? There is the crisp smell that fills your senses as you inhale not only the scent of the pages but the anticipation of what awaits you in the words on the paper. Then there is the coarse yet smooth texture of the pages turning to the whim of your mind and your fingers grazing the pages. The real book that you read then is placed on your shelf, a reminder that you loved a piece of writing and something that someone else created for you to enjoy.
Best of all, a real book is a piece of the one who reads it. The pages are worn down by how many times you journeyed inside the books pages again. You can look upon the book sitting on a shelf and see the person who first enjoyed it, when you discovered what the writer created, the world you inhabit. A real book is a time capsule, a small fragment of your life. The pages are someplace safe to go when the real world is bearing down upon you.
I can rant that electronic-books are the end of literature, as I see it. The point is if you cannot feel what you are reading, how can you truly read it at all?
-Courtney
I predict that writing and reading will die within our lifetimes. The written word will continue to exist, and some people will still read. But it will no longer be a primary form of communication. Why? Because we’ve already replaced it. Writing, as a technology, was replaced in the 20th century with audio recording, film, and photography. Well, that began earlier. But in the 20th century, these technologies became available to everyone, both logistically and economically, and their quality rose to a level that could rival writing in terms of communication.
Think about it this way. If you showed me a black and white photo of an orange, you would still need to tell me that it’s an orange. You could make a recording of yourself explaining it, but writing it down would be easier. “An orange on a red rug,” written on the back of the photograph, for example.
Now, in 2017, we can shoot high quality videos and share them instantly. Let’s face it. We don’t really need writing anymore. We don’t need it as a form of communication or a way to represent the world around us. As a species, we prefer films and pictures. We probably would have skipped writing and gone straight to film and photography had it been feasible at the time that writing was invented.
Is this a bad thing? Why fight nature. If we prefer to communicate through sounds and pictures, and it’s easier, so be it. It has the advantate of bridging language barriers, which is important as we become more global, as the saying goes.
In 10 – 30 years, all of our signs will be in pictures instead of words. The fine print part could be a film that plays for you when a sensor detects that your gaze is fixed on it.
I’ve been thinking about this for a long time. I grew up writing tons of fiction and poetry. Six pages a day, minimum. Then I realized that it was sort of a dying art. People were turning away from reading and towards other forms of entertainment. So I started writing songs, and slowly got back into visual art. And some acting. Photography. All kinds of things.
It’s been about twenty years since I made that decision, and I’m about to read poetry for the first time since then. Tomorrow. It should be fun.
Whitman’s Beard
Conventional wisdom holds that YouTube, videogames, cable TV and iPods have turned us away from the written word. Glowing streams of visual delights replaced paper and longhand letters shrank to bite-sized Facebook status updates, the theory held.
Conventional wisdom, in this case, is wrong.
A large-scale study by the University of California at San Diego and other research universities revealed what some of us have long suspected: We’re reading far more words than we used to as we adopt new technologies.
«Reading, which was in decline due to the growth of television, tripled from 1980 to 2008, because it is the overwhelmingly preferred way to receive words on the Internet,» found a University of California at San Diego study (.pdf) published this month by Roger E. Bohn and James E. Short of the University of San Diego.
Americans consumed 3.6 billion terabytes of information last year, averaging 11.8 hours of information consumption per day. Video and videogames constituted 55 percent of those bytes, but on average, Americans read 36 percent of the 100,500 words they consume each day, according to the San Diego study, which analyzed more than 20 data sources. The study doesn’t cover writing, but a simple glance at Facebook feeds reveals that we’re almost certainly writing more than we used to, as well.
Admittedly, posting «OMG best pizza ever C U l8r» to a mix of strangers, friends and acquaintances is not the same as carrying on a lengthy epistolary relationship.
«The Internet is about the death of the written word as a means of exchange and a store of value,» writes Sam Vaknin, Ph.D., in a typical criticism. «As a method of conveying information, written words are inefficient and ambiguous…. Sounds and images are far superior … thus, textual minimalism is replacing books and periodicals.»
However, that «textual minimalism» sure adds up fast — especially considering that a decent percentage of status updates include links to longer blog posts and articles. No matter how you slice it, this San Diego study found text to be a bigger part of our lives than it was 30 years ago, when much of the internet was a mere gleam in Al Gore’s eye.
In addition, longer formats continue to be popular, despite increases in textual minimalism, competing sources of information and the general shrinkage of print magazines and newspapers — see Ars Technica’s 23-page review of Mac OS X 10.6 (1,447 Diggs, 142 on Reddit), or Glenn Greenwald’s lengthy opinion pieces (430 comments), neither of which would likely have been published by a print publication.
Meanwhile, Amazon, which seems to sell everything under the sun — including videogames, cameras and television sets — announced on Saturday that the Amazon Kindle, an eBook reader, became «the most gifted item ever in [Amazon] history» during this year’s holiday season.
The most gifted item during next year’s holiday season could well be Apple’s «iSlate» tablet, assuming rumors of its impending 2010 release are true. Say what you will about the literacy level of tweets or texts, but the position that literacy is on the decline is untenable when the most-hyped device of next year is said to be designed with free and paid-for electronic text — especially magazines — in mind.
The more I look around, the more I observe and the more that I interact with children and young people, I am faced with a reality that saddens me. So many youngsters have no idea of how to write their names, a simple sentence or paragraph, nor do they understand the importance of being able to write. I have had many a conversation with some children who tell me that they do not see the significance of being able to read, let alone write. Some of these same kids have no idea of how to use a dictionary. My, how times have changed.
Growing up, I always loved putting pen and pencil to paper, whether it was to draw, write or just doodle. I was encouraged to write, and always loved to read books. You know, real books with pages that you could use your fingers to turn the printed leaves with. This action alone is now a foreign concept to many of society’s members, young and old alike. Makes no sense to me if I am honest.
In my opinion, one of the factors that has led to this educational epidemic is the emergence of electronics, and the rise of social media. With all due respect to the passionate defenders of these tools, I view these so-called tools primarily as enemies of education and thieves of the mind. Nowadays everything is on a computer screen, a tablet, a phone, a notebook, netbook, etc etc. There is way too much technology that has stolen, destroyed and overshadowed the basics and simplicity of educational weapons like writing.
Society has devolved to the point where you no longer have to write with a pen, because now there are downloadable apps where you can use your fingers, or just speak into a microphone and it will type whatever it is you want to say. Don’t get me wrong, there are many advantages to technologies and social media, but on the whole, I truly believe that these types of medium have made the minds of people lazy, blasé, and just lack any type of motivation to do anything. Even the concept of cursive seems to be a thing of the past and dare I say it, seen as abnormal.
I remember that one’s handwriting was a great way to identify who the person was, for example, I always knew whether my dad or mum wrote my birthday card, or which friend wrote me a letter. It was such an exciting way to see into the reflection of our nearest and dearest. Handwriting was something that showcased one’s individuality. Not anymore. Everything is so robotic and monotone. Hardly anybody has unique handwriting anymore, nor do people know how to spell. Such a shame.
It is so terribly ironic that a country which self-professes to be the greatest nation in the world, a country which classifies herself as first world, has such a deficit of the mind. The children of this ‘great’ country have become so complacent with the privilege of learning, they see no value in going to school and see it as such an inconvenience. There are children who are in countries where resources are scarce, yet who have the intelligence that surpasses the minds of this so-called great nation. There are kids in these other countries who would swap places with the children who are in our schools right now and jump at the chance to learn.
From my own experience, the majority of kids struggle to write basic letters on a page and the only thing that brings any type of joy to their souls is an iPad and its relatives. I have even had parents who proudly profess that their child is playing with their iPad, and parents who are so thrilled with this way of life that their child is embracing. Darlings, this is nothing to be proud of or brag about. What on earth is happening? The minds of children no longer need to think because these apps are thinking for them. People, parents, guardians, adults, teachers, youth leaders, you all need to wake up and take action now. Not tomorrow. Now. It all starts with the adults. It starts and ends in the environment that the child is being exposed to.
Understand that the mind is a muscle that has to be exercised just like the body. If it isn’t, it will just get weaker and weaker, and just like the body will just waste away.
Our brains were not gifted to us by God to be wasted, our minds were not designed by the Most Wonderful Creator to be thrust into the dens of apps, social media and laziness. The mind is too precious to be discarded on an empty street corner waiting to be swept away. It is like being given an expensive jewel that you never ever wear and just leave in a box lying in your drawer to gather dust.
This is exactly what is happening to the minds of our children. I say our children because we all have a responsibility in raising children to be the best that they can be. We owe it to the generation of next and the generation of now to start taking them back to basics and teaching them, we have to start illustrating to them the beauty of the written word and all its added benefits.
If we don’t then I fear for the world and what it will become. Do we really want more adults who have zero intelligence and no common sense running the government? Do we actually want incompetent men and women performing operations on the sick and making decisions that affect the rest of us? Do we wholeheartedly want teachers who teach with no passion and no sense of the basics of education? Take a long hard think on this. Think about the direction that this world is going right now, and where it will end up if we don’t utilize the gifts that God has given us, in the way that it should be used, and not abused in a way that darkens our spirits.
Writing is truly a beautiful thing. It propels the mind into creativity, and charges it to think outside of the box. It engages and strengthens not only the mind but also the hand, builds the soul and releases artistry be it technical or poetic. Writing is an extension of who we are. Writing invites us to learn new words, and teaches us how to use things like the dictionary and as a result builds our spelling bank and vocabulary. Goodness, it can be a powerful cathartic way of expressing both the darkest and joyous moments of our lives. Writing should never be a thing of the past, but a thing of the present and future. It is a treasure chest that should always be open and free to all.
Let’s be proactive in being the change that we want to see and start bringing back the magnificence of the written word. If we don’t then we will continue to live in a world filled with such poverty of the mind and spirit.