TV Streaming as Cultural Education

[Emerson]

I am hoping this Forum breaks out one day as a true open discussion platform.

So here is a discussion evoking YouTube video that says, among other things, that the new show “Wednesday” (Jennifer Ortega as the teenage Wednesday from the 60’s Adams Family show) has received more than ONE BILLION views in its first month streamed to home TVs around the world via Netflix.

By comparison, in the 90’s, an American TV program needed to reach around 10 million viewers to be considered successful. 30 million viewers would have been off the charts.

So this kind of makes magazine and book sales irrelevant?

Beyonce has had a BILLION VIEWS of one or more of her music vids on YouTube … so again, culturally … education per se in the classroom is perhaps overrun by internet exchanges.

One day, this Forum might reach 1 million views a day? Maybe!
- Emerson

[tfindlay]

I did a search at YouTube.com for "religious naturalism". Quite a few videos came up. Most with less than 1000 views. There were a few notable exceptions such as:
How to Live a Good Life and Create a Just Society (Massimo Pigliucci)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9ZD73leIqo 3.6k views
Hidden miracles of the natural world | Louie Schwartzberg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FiZqn6fV-4Y&t=286s 4.2m views

The question is always how to you attract viewers in large numbers? Can you make a video go viral or does it just happen?

[vandermude]

"The question is always how to you attract viewers in large numbers? Can you make a video go viral or does it just happen?"

As to this question, it may be instructive to take the metaphor of a virus somewhat literally.

Richard Dawkins came up with the concept of the "meme". Quantities of information packaged in different media are what you are referring to. So instead of a virus, which is mostly a set of genes, you have a package of memes.

The meme you are considering here is the idea of Religious Naturalism.

With this preamble in mind, let's see what it takes to be the religious equivalent of Covid-19. Let's call it the RN-meme

Some thoughts:
1. You would want RN-meme to spread easily.
1.1 Current growth media are YouTube, Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, and TikTok. This is probably where you need to culture the meme.
1.2 Don't limit yourself to a single medium.
1.2 Keep it simple. An RN-meme the size of a virus reproduces faster than one the size of an elephant.
2. The RN-meme needs to bypass the immune system. Here are some points:
2.1 Most people are immune to new memes because of their personal biases.
2.1.1 The RN-meme might avoid or overwhelm the biases.
2.1.2 One thing you need to do is avoid a frontal attack on current biases. This leads to an antibody response.
2.2 But you can also compromise the immune system, thus lowering defenses. One way (and this you can't control) is having the social body in an unhealthy state. Some observations:
2.2.1 If there is a lot of unhappiness and dissatisfaction with the current status-quo. This lowers the immune system making people open to alternatives.
2.2.2 There has been a marked decrease in attendance in traditional religions all over the world. I personally doubt that most people are satisfied by being "nones". I think religion is a fundamental part of being human. To throw in another metaphor, our equivalent of a religious biome has had a dying out of the old religions, which can then be populated by RN-meme.

Finally, I want to point out that there is a heckofa lot of luck involved. When it comes to the spread of religious memes, why did Mormonism and Baha'i grow to be big religions, the Millerites (7th Day Adventists) Scientologists and Christian Science become small religions, and Ethical Culture and Haeckel's Monism virtually disappear?

Anyway, these are just a few points to kick off the discussion.
Tony Van der Mude

[tfindlay]

Tony,

The RNA Hub group is in the process of creating an organizational structure whereby various roles can be assigned to activities we already doing or to new activities that we identify as important. One of these activities is the effective use of Social Media. I think your metaphor is a useful way of looking at how ideas (memes) spread and will be of interest to the members who become involved with our Social Media team.

[vandermude]

Thanks Terry.
Taking the virus metaphor seriously can help spur some creative thinking.

Note that I am using the Dawkins terminology "meme" to represent any informational package, be it a video, web page, image or simple word or phrase, that conveys information about Religious Naturalism.

For example:
Viruses mutate as they are spread. The mutations make them more susceptible to each population.
SUGGESTION: Pick a simple, fundamental Religious Naturalism meme. What simple phrase or image encompasses RNA? How is this tailored to individual populations?

Do not limit yourself to a single metaphor. I compared the spread of the RNA meme to Covid. I also compared it to the human biome. We have a colony of bacteria that help digest what we take in from the world. Similarly, our religious viewpoint helps us digest the events from day-to-day living. One problem with today is that the old-time religions don't digest what is going on. The changes in sexuality and sex roles, for example.
SUGGESTION: Create memes that pose the question: Are you worried about <issue-of-the-day> Here is how Religious Naturalism can help you get some perspective on this issue.

The virus metaphor has an underlying assumption that the virus is a parasite-an invader. But sometimes there is symbiosis.
SUGGESTION: When creating memes, make sure that the recipient knows how Religious Naturalism improves their lives in a concrete way. It is more than just an idea. Religious Naturalism should make their lives better.

Viruses come in many strengths and affect humans in many ways. Smallpox and Cowpox come to mind. Some types of religious practice, like fundamentalism can be destructive. Other kinds of religious practice, such as Christian loving-kindness can make the world a better place.
SUGGESTION: Ask yourself - what are the strengths and weaknesses both of RNA and of the memes that portray it.

By the way: has anyone done a literature search on how memes go viral in this day and age?

Tony Van der Mude

[Emerson]

Thnx Terry & Tony for good commentary.

Tony said: “ SUGGESTION: Pick a simple, fundamental Religious Naturalism meme. What simple phrase or image encompasses RNA? How is this tailored to individual populations?”

I could not agree more. My current favorite flavor would incorporate “Be kind and respectful”.

Many other flavors are possible.

Terry, I’ll take a look at the YouTube links.

To get at Tony’s point about the ground for the meme to spread, I note here and elsewhere that Jennifer Ortega who plays the teen “Wednesday” in Nerflix’s new series benefitted majorily when TikTok picked up her self-created dance moves (modeled on the portrayal by the original 8 year old actress from the 80’s). The dance moves went viral. Netflix has now recorded more than ONE BILLION of their program in under one month!

Talk about a meme!
- Emerson

[vandermude]

Emerson:
You say
> Tony said: “ SUGGESTION: Pick a simple, fundamental Religious Naturalism meme. What simple phrase or image encompasses RNA? How is this tailored to individual populations?”
> I could not agree more. My current favorite flavor would incorporate “Be kind and respectful”.
> Many other flavors are possible.

I'm sorry, Emerson, but this is just not enough. The meme must be something that sets Religious Naturalism apart from the crowd. Your suggestion could apply to Big Bird just as well.

I'm not advocating anything extreme, like "When you die, you rot", but we really need some sort of slogan or image that is unique to us, is memorable, and is of value to whoever comes in contact with it.

I find it interesting that one of the videos that came up was by Massimo Pigliucci. I am a big Massimo stan. Note, though, that his main emphasis the last ten or so years has been the Stoics, but recently he has been incorporating the Skeptics. So although Massimo fits comfortably with RN, what he would have to say in his videos applies very well to the ancient Greeks and Romans as to RN. My point is to emphasize that in terms of message, anything you take from Pigliucci will not be useful to set RN apart from the crowd. What is more important is to note that he has become one of the more influential popularizers of philosophy as it applies to daily living. And not just because he is kind and intelligent and wise, (told you I'm a fan of his) he also happened to be in the right place at the right time when Stoicism became a fad. Actually, he helped make it so. The important point here is that videos become viral as much because of the social context as the message.

Tony

[Emerson]

Tony,

“The meme must be something that sets Religious Naturalism apart from the crowd.”

Yes and no.

Right now RN is pretty far set apart from the crowd. Yes, it has a content that needs to be explicated. So there is that. But, conversely, nature is enough is not really enough if it become an exclusionary trope.

But yes again in the sense that be respectful and kind is itself a trope designed to encourage folks towards a behavioral norm … a trope that wouldn’t be needed if it was already a universal behavioral norm.

Here, however, I am drawing a distinction between what RN consists of as an ideology or scientific philosophy and what we need to present to a wary public in the inclusionary hope that tge public will gravitate here for dialogue.

Be prepared (boy scout motto) and be kind (stop shooting each other motto), and join us (tribal motto),

- Emerson