Blog 7: Irony and the Art of Storytelling

The public sphere has lost the art of storytelling. Storytelling belongs to the land of far far away. Real stories don't belong on headline news, they don't take up prime time tv spots, and they don't get dedicated columns in the Washington Post. There isn't enough time to tell Valentino's story, or so the modern world has tried to convince us. NO TIME. That is how the art of storytelling has gotten lost...between the alarm clocks, the drive thru coffee places, express trains to the city, late nights, shower, rinse and repeat. The change in lifestyle, over the course of history has let us forget about the art of storytelling. Human history was passed on through oral tradition, there was a necessity to tell stories. Stories used to tell people about everything they needed to know, one needed to hear the story to understand what their role was or how the universe functioned. Stories were a necessity, much like Valentino's story of the what, to explain the way life is the way that it is. Modernization has lost those stories... tucked them away on paper bound with leather spines. Modernization has shifted storytelling from a necessity to leisurely activity, sadly that few of us have time for. Storytelling in the modern time belongs in niche holes in our lives, between all of the functioning madness of the 21st century. Stories now are only valuable as soundbites, in small bits and pieces, numbing our need for stories. Those few stories that penetrate the viable avenues of communication in the modern time, are trivialized. Or made so entirely commercialized, that the humanity of the individual story is lost, it becomes a token for the real meaning of the story. Those stories we seek out are found in fragments segments of our society, in our online blogs or on public radio. In those fragmented parts of the society of the story, it seems that storytelling is almost making a resurgence, radio programs like "This American Life" hosted by Ira Glass reinforce the necessity to tell stories. On YouTube you can find this storyteller telling about storytelling, is an interesting 1/2 digression, one that reminds you in the modern time how the criticism of the public sphere that McKee talks about is acknowledged but still tries to maintain the principle of storytelling. The key to any critique is the alternative. An alternative to the public sphere where we can actively and consciously choose not to trivialize, commercialize or fragment stories. That day has dawned, with the domination of user generated content. McKee's criticism stems from a lack of control over the public sphere... here in the world of user generation, user control... here things are beginning to change.