Between the primal scream “Leave Britney Alone!” and the primal duh! “Don’t Tase Me, Bro!” it’s clear the water’s a lot murkier when it comes to intellectual content these days. The screaming momos starring in both these YouTube hits are obviously twin sons of different mothers.
My alma mater is the University of Florida, so it’s understandable I’m a little miffed at seeing a journalism student – senior no less! – get the lead role in what looks more and more like a setup with the sole purpose of recasting Whitey as Rodney courtesy of the campus cops. During my stay in Gainesville, they were favorably compared to the Keystone Kops, for reasons obvious and otherwise.
As a communicator, it’s troubling when so much bandwidth is consumed eyeballing these whacked out vid bits – extreme street racing, anyone? – at a time when the majority of the population readily admits to virtually ignoring newspapers and of treating reading in general as something last practiced during Victorian times.
So what’s this doing on a powersports site? If we agree there are only so many moments during the waking hours for information to be consumed and interpreted, then it follows that with content like this on the buffet it’s less likely your message gets heard. Or viewed, as the case may be.
Right now there’s increasing concern over the rise in motorcycle fatalities, and a fair amount of disagreement as to cause. Industry leaders are pretty well informed on the subject though views vary. But we’re left wondering if the actual at large biking audience has any inkling there’s a serious discussion going on. Web forums notwithstanding, the issues that intersect our lives need to be communicated in a fair, accurate and efficient manner by those involved, for those involved. If not, it’ll be the realtor turned legislator who happens to hate bikes that’ll do it for us.
