I remain quite fond of the term/concept ‘Garbage in, garbage out‘ which argues that the input data you receive serves as the basis for what is being produced. When my partner mentioned that my recent work has felt very “CW” it became clear that this concept is quite real.
I am a fan of bad TV. It is not even bad TV to me. It is instead TV that is light and doesn’t require higher mind. It is often trope driven and simplistic in many ways. As a result much of the new writing I am producing falls into that same trope trap. This is where things become difficult. I don’t want to be a walking trope. I want to develop deeper narratives that veer away from the traditional characters and roles and offer us a reflection on what and who we are as a human society. However, I struggle with the reality that most people are driven headlong into lives defined by these tropes.
Think about it: We live in a world where the social influencers are largely shills for the biggest companies whose lives play out on varying scales of social media. On the largest scale you have the Kardashians and the Real Housewives of Lord Knows Where. On a smaller scale you have the Youtubers followed by the Instagram Models followed by the Snap Story mavens. More and more my kids are defining themselves by who they follow vs. who they want to be. I’ve heard enough about T-series v. PewdiePie conflict to fill a novel.
So, how does any of this pertain to what I write? Well, I am doing a bit of excuse making here by saying the world is powered by tropes and memes. I am allowing myself to write in that fashion because the masses are ‘about that life’. Still, I ought to be better than that and more true to the message I see and want to put out into the zeitgeist. That starts with reading and watching a better class of stuff. No more Black Summer-esque nonsense for me.
Well, maybe just smaller doses.