As a famous Star Trek cap’n once remarked, the world of the future, while full of Wi-Fi and advanced dentistry, has been mighty stingy about coughin’ up some flying cars. Of course, Stephen and I can collaborate on podcasts from hundreds of miles away, all my favorite music fits on a chip the size of my fingernail that I can move from device to device without adaptors or cable, and my video game system plays all the streaming episodes of ‘How I Met Your Mother’ I care to watch. Hell, the ignition key to my Chrysler has twice the computing power of the Apple IIe I learned to program on back in the Reagan era, so it’s not as though I’m focusing entirely on the broken promises of Hanna-Barbera cartoons. Indeed, having access to damn near all the media I ever wished I could see (the “lost episodes” of the Twilight Zone, digital copies of the first 150 issues of Amazing Spider-Man, Cancelled Comics Cavalcade, even the notorious racy photos of Katy Manning with a Dalek) have enhanced my downtime greatly, and also begged a query…
The MS-QOTD (pronounced, as always, “misquoted”) can’t wait until, in fifteen or twenty years, today’s angry millenials begin talking about how lazy and entitled “kids today” are, asking: What advances (technological or otherwise) have had the most effect on your particular window of pop-culture enjoyment?
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The one for me is that I no longer have to buy a physical copy of my media for me to enjoy. I still buy some blu-rays. But I haven’t bought a CD in over ten years. That fact that 100s of CDs can fit on one tiny two inch square still blows my minds. And the fact that most movies I want to watch can be pulled from the mythological “CLOUD”
For me, I think its the advent of the omni-info databases like Wikipedia, IMDB and the like.
All the information of the world is really at our fingertips. All you need to do is ask the right question.
Two things.
1 – The internet has made it much, much easier for me to enjoy any number of things that would otherwise have cost a fortune or been difficult to acquire. Things like subtitled Super Sentai or anime were a pain in the backside to find in the pre-internet days, often taking months or even years to see a whole series. The sheer amount of video games available online, both for play online or for download has allowed me to sample or own more than just what I’d be able to find in my local stores. And legally getting a specific song or album by artists that may not be available in my area no longer requires long waits (if they could be found at all).
2) – The advances in the making of action figures and other toys has made for some wonderful toys to be released. Look at a Star Wars toy from around 1980 and now, and you can see much more detail and likeness to the character compared to how they used to look. Things like Transformers can be much more detailed and less bulky and awkward while still being able to transform between a robot and something else. And most figures look more like mini-statues rather than a stiff basic standing pose toy from even just a few years ago.
The Internet. Years back, I used to scour newspapers and magazines for what new movies and TV shows that are coming out and not much more. Now, I scour sites like Major Spoilers for the same information and more.
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HDTV/BluRay – have reduced my need to physically go the movies to get the “theatre” experience. I can purchase a hit movie on BluRay for about $25 which includes far more than I would see at the movies (digital copy, ultraviolet copy, extras etc.).
Internet/Podcast – if you can’t make it to a comic conventtion due to finances or selling out, the internet (Bon Jour) and podcast like Major Spoilers provide instant up to date information.
Digital Comics – similar to Jason’s view of 100s of CD fitting on tiny square inch. I can now fit or have access to thousands of comics on a tablet which is less than the size of small hardcover. I no longer have to dig through long boxes to read a story line I may want to re-read. I still purchase some hard copy comics (nothing beats the smell of new comic), but I can now take my collection where ever I go.
Tablets – I wanted one so badly the first time I watched 2001: A Space Odyssey… Now I have one!