When Technology is too Much... Or Missing

Mr. Too Much Technology Gadget Guy

Description

This video is structured around two main narrative voices and a character illustrating what the voice-over says while a singer often merely repeats or comments on what's just been said (as in a Greek chorus).

The setting is a Christian home and church, so this particular context is very meaningful.

We can notice on various occasions that the main character is addicted to high-technology products, mostly smartphones.

He is shown as a family man unable to communicate with his wife, except through texting.
He is also shown as a church-goer incapable of attending worship without all his phones vibrating all the time, making him look like he's full of the holy spirit.

Finally, he is depicted as a computer geek whose life has become extremely complicated instead of having been simplified.

In addition, we can say that this video is like a parody of a soof ad, and it can be seen as a caricature.

Interpretation

Basically, this video means that high technology has become a religion for many people, even Christians who are not supposed to be materialistic.

Then, in a Christian lifestyle, quite a few church-goers and believers tend to focus more on materialistic issues rather than spiritual ones.

We can add that technology reigns supreme for many people who revere it as a God enlightening his followers.

The question is, is this a real progress for humankind ?

 This is also is quite comic because the guy's life style is presented as the ideal way of living whereas it's the complete opposite.

Stuck On An Escalator

Description

Two people are stuck on an escalator in a place that seems literally empty/deserted. The man looks upset/annoyed. He might be an office worker walking to his job. The woman claims that she is already late, so for her, this is the last straw. At one point, she's about to cry and asks for a phone, then she screams for help. In short, they both look helpless, clueless, powerless and even hopeless. And also kind of pathetic due to the ironic situation they are in, unable to find a way out.

Interpretation

We can relate this situation to a fairly common one in real life : getting stuck in an elevator. The difference however, is  that in this situation, people have the right to panic/freak out/feel panicky whereas on an escalator, there is no reason whatsoever to be scared.

This video points out the increasing dependence of human beings on technology. If it goes missing, it is as if a crutch had been taken away from them, so these two people cannot even walk up the stairs, which would be the normal thing to do. We could think that technological progress makes humans lazy or at least less prone to take initiative and think by themselves, less inclined to make efforts. It's like the use of technology makes us acostumied to it and we could tend to forget even such an obvious things as to climb the strairs when an escalator stops. We could say that, this way we could end up thinking that just because it is supposed to bring us to the top of the escalator the fact that it stops makes it unable to do so, so logically we can't reach the top. And then, we are stuck, forgetting that we can climb the stairs. 

A Cartoon

This document is a cartoon from the International Herald Tribune. It tackles the issue of pirating movies, which is very common nowadays and affects the film market.

In the top left-hand corner we can see the entrance of a building, on which is written "CANNES" under the logo of the "Festival de Cannes", in which people are gathering, and being photographed while entering. In the background, we can notice a big crowd with cameras and papers, which I can suppose are to ask for autographs from the stars entering the building walking on the red carpet. In the foreground we can see a fan asking for an autograph. It includes a balloon in which is written "I love your movies. I've pirated them all!", said by the fan.

We can say that the author, Chappatte, aims to criticize piracy. To make people sensitive of the fact that piracy, aside from being illegal, harms the movie-making industry and instead of helping it to improve it makes them lose money, so to speak means to make more movies.
The author aims to denounce this fact.

In my opinion, this document is carefully thought out because at first glance, we can get a pretty clear idea of the overall message of the cartoon. We can immediately recognise the context and understand its meaning easily. I find it convincing but I don't know if it's really effective, because the issue treated here affects the majority of the modern world. Also, piracy is an easy way of having quickly the movies you want to have without paying, so I'm not sure it is effective because I don't know if people would be struk so much as to stop pirating.

Personally speaking, I think it is really a big issue, that would be nice to be solved soon, but which is far from it. I agree with the author that piracy is bad an also if you want your stars to continue making movies then you should buy they but also other movies that I don't like so much I would maybe pirate them. I mostly think that this piracy problem is something which will not easely be solved.
This makes me think that this issue has not only to do with movies but also with series and music, which is basically the same problem and not only brings a problem to the movie making industry but also to the TV. It even leads the productors of TV channels to wonder what will be the future of the TV, will it continue existing or not?