Hi aF… yeah, those are all thought-worthy questions and concerns. I realize that the less-than-wonderful reminders of facts-of-the-planet… sort of poo-poos on the sunny and clean lawn that most people paint-up for themselves.
But the facts of the story… the true story… is a higher priority than all the considerations you listed… about the story styling/telling. When you say “top story”… what measuring criteria are you using… to determine “top”? Top gut-wrench? Top life-saving possibilities? Top earth-saving? Top interesting and entertaining? Or maybe… top impact, no matter what emotion/point.
We’ve noticed, surely, that Wingnut is TRYING LIKE HELL… to give everyone a type of permission… to tell stories about people unnecessarily dying. This thread… is about storytelling, and where else would a Wingnut like me… TRY to influence? Some would say it’s not my place/biz to influence the topics of others’ stories… but I want to have an impact (and ‘a say’ about life on planet Earth) just like everyone else. When you have a microphone as tiny as mine, you turn it on and speak your mind and heart (and logic) at every possible opportunity.
I was/am a HUGE NASA space agency fan/follower. I watched every spacewalk, every docking, every piece of space station arrive and be installed. Every time the cameras caught a view of Earth, I would think “Hey, there “WE” are!”. It wasn’t long before I started treating all occupants of the planet… as “we”, and determined that there were NO “them” in the many types of us vs. them wars that we seem to fight on the planet’s surface. For example… when viewing the Earth from space… there seemed to be no reason at all… for “owning” land and trying to place borders around certain sections of the planet (ownership bordering). Borders/fences/titles-of-ownership just made no sense anymore, just like “thems” made no sense.
You can “feel” this same type of us-vs-them conversion… by watching the movie Independence Day… where the “us” became all Earth occupants/wildlife, and the “thems” were “outsiders”.
It was also interesting to see the spacestation crew’s love for each other, no matter the nationalities. The space station was a microcosm of what life on Earth… SHOULD be like… everyone on the same team, and everyone looking-out for each others’ well-being. The ISS is a wonderful example of “better”… of sharing… of caring… of our capabilities. The us-them “establishment” and money/ownership-based “cult”… had no power on the ISS. And so, true “human nature” came shining-through, and I got to watch it orbit-across the starry skies behind my house… on numerous occassions.
This all relates to yard fences, too… and the widespread use of the word “my” in common English. Ownership. My country, my people, my family, my business, etc… all related-to us vs. them bordering/wars (competing/rat-racing).
In a way, I am telling a story right now… yes? A story about storytelling shocky-yet-true stories… and why we don’t like to hear “bad things”… things that could ruin our fantasies/self-lies about who we REAL-ly are. Blinder-removal stories. Or even more specific… the story of blinders and “nuh uh” denials (rose-colored glasses). Why do we tend to like strawberry shortcake… far more than a bowl of green beans? Why do we seek “make me feel good” stories over “make me feel morally disgusting” stories?
Is the target audience… a priority? Not really, unless you’re peddling something. More important, maybe, is to determine what traditions/habits is general humankind… addicted-to, and how do we break the addiction… and relocate human heartstrings? The story of WHY people dislike disgusting-yet-true stories… might be THE “top” story, right? The story of storytelling. The story of the protective shells that humans wear… so they can avoid (forsake) certain distasteful stories.
3D is wonderful. It bedazzles the eyeballs and unleashes the imagination. A good question might be… "While the human is bedazzled by 3D, are their heartstrings and horse-logic about piles of dead bodies… more available for touching?
If I can steer BJS into being very well known… for telling stories that help the planet and reduce preventable deaths… that’s a worthwhile association in my book. The World Health Org NEEDS visualization apps… badly. Our games… need reminders within… about some atrocities happening nearby. You must admit… the numbers I spew, here… are shocking and delusion-destroying. It takes SOMEBODY to pierce the “avoid looking at this” shell that surrounds W.H.O. statistics. WHO better than we storytellers? Who else WILL?
When you have ONLY a little tiny microphone/amplifier… the underlying “cause” of the stories told into that mic… is everything. It doesn’t matter who the audience is, or how large. It doesn’t matter how fortunate YOU are, it matters how denied of survival supplies… the dead kids are, and why it happens. It matters… if “cost-of-living” eventually gets labeled as a terrorism device… which my investigations show it is.
Which social injustice? I choose the one that is most-atrocious, most-disgusting, most-needed to be stopped immediately. I hope others weigh the reasons for THEIR told stories… using the same criteria. We programmers tend to use logic, and logic dictates… the biggest problems come first. With mainsteam news ignoring the biggest problems, it is up to “us” to place “the biggest problem” labels… onto the ACTUAL biggest problems. Mainstream news uses ratings… but WE are smart enough to use W.H.O. statistics… who care nothing about ratings - only about accurate counting/measuring.
