Reflection on Tivo-Technology and Culture-Brief Article

By John Buell

This article discusses Tivo and its affect on advertisements. It discusses the fact that because of Tivo, advertisement companies are putting their advertisements into the television shows and making their commercials shorter. They have been forced to do this because Tivo gives people the ability to skip through the commercials. This is why product placement has become so prominent in television today. This article discusses the fact that no technology, especially Tivo, will ever get us away from commercialism.
I have a Tivo in my house, and, to me, it was the greatest invention. If I was too busy to watch a television show I liked, or a skate competition, I could just record it, and watch it when I had a chance. This was great, because I could watch the show when I had time, and I could skip through the commercials and just enjoy the show. But, product placement has increased, even though I might not have noticed. Now, characters in the TV shows I watch are drinking Coca Cola, or wearing Nikes. I feel like this added product placement could be detrimental to the younger people watching TV, especially if the products advertised are sugary, fattening foods. If young kids see their favorite characters drinking Coke and eating McDonalds, they are much more likely to do so themselves. This article also mentions the fact that, for those who don’t have Tivo, they are getting fed double the amount of commercials. John Buell also points out that the product placement is extremely prominent in sports arenas. Many young children and adolescents watch sports and they are constantly bombarded with products. Tivo has aided to the fact that sports arenas have billboards all over the arena for things like Gatorade, Dunkin donuts, etc. Sports should be the place where kids can be safe from the fattening and fast food culture that everyone is exposed too, but it has come to be a place of increased product placement. I think this is really sad.
What is interesting to me is the fact that a lot of the product placement in TV shows goes unnoticed by me, and I think by most other people. That is what makes me nervous about the increase in product placement. People are being brainwashed into wanting the product that is being advertised. At least in regular commercials it is obvious what the advertisers are trying to sell to me. In product placement, it is not. I think that all of this could be harmful to the people watching TV. This adds to the fact that TV has become something that isn’t really good for people, especially young children. When young girls see Hannah Montana drinking a Coke, they are much more likely to want to drink coke, than they were before they saw the show. When they se her wearing a certain brand of clothing, they are much more likely to nag their parents until they get that brand. Therefore, Tivo has led to an increase in product placement, making it worse for TV viewers in general.

True Fans

I have always been interested in the idea of the “starving artist” because I enjoy art produced by non-mainstream artists. I feel like these people are the true artists of our time. I feel this way because they don’t produce their art for the money they will gain, but because of the message that they are trying to give out. Like Robert Rich, these artists feel that if just one person is strongly affected by their art they have succeeded. Their goal isn’t to sell a million albums, but to move people. I really respect the artists “living in a micro-niche,” because I can relate. I am studying film, and although filming big screen movies would give me a good, solid income, I really want to focus my attention on filming the thing I love, skateboarding. Although this won’t get me the same amount of money that filming a big screen movie would, it will make me happier, and this is how these starving artists feel, I think. Like Rich says, they are the “sort of artist who would be happy doing nothing else.” In my opinion, they make their art, not for their own success and pleasure, but for the betterment of other people. Another aspect touched upon in this article is bootlegged art. It must be frustrating for Rich, in my opinion, when people get his music through bootlegging. I never actually put that into perspective because stealing popular artists’ music doesn’t really harm them. But, every purchase counts for those artists “living in a micro-niche,” and when their music is stolen, it makes a huge difference.
These artists dedicate their lives to sending out a message through their art that not all people hear. Because of this dedication, I feel like these artists deserve more credit than those artists who do it for the money. I feel like it’s really unfair that those artists who sing meaningless music, most of the time not even written by them, get many times more money than those musicians who sing from their heart. According to Robert Rich, the Internet has helped him gain more of an audience, and this makes me happy. I like that the Internet is making it easier for these artists to gain an audience. In my opinion, it will be better for everyone if people started listening to the music produced by someone who feels passionate about something, not some rapper who sings about things that he feels will get the most audience. Also, although these artists don’t have many followers, they have dedicated ones. It also interested me that these artists think so much into how they present their product. Rich describes the different consequences of promoting their albums in different ways. Starving artists who rely on their small pool of fans need to be careful how far they go with their art, or how similar they stay. Both of these things can turn off their audience, which would be terrible. This article showed me that being a starving artist is more complicated and frustrating than I thought. For this reason, these artists deserve to be respected even more than they are.