Teasing Teasers Teased Teasers

I just watched a six second 'teaser trailer teaser' for the next Bourne movie. This is far from the first time this has happened, and it’s not even the most extreme example. That dubious honor goes to The Episode VIII “production begins” teaser. 

But having typed out the words “I just watched a six second teaser trailer teaser,” I’m now forced to face the reality that I’m at least partly responsible for this bullshit (sharing, liking, retweeting, blogging about it), and I’m pretty sure I hate myself. I’ll get back to you.

Based on this trend of teaser trailer teasers, we’re tracking for a teaser teaser teaser tease for Episode IX sometime next week. Just a single drum beat and the roman numeral IX. It’ll hit 20 million views in five minutes, and immediately be followed by hour long trailer analyses from popular YouTubers, who will incessantly pause the four second opus to give you their expert opinion on the featured drum beat and its appearance in a suspiciously large number of scenes featuring Obi-Wan Kenobi. “We’re out of time, but check out part II tomorrow, where we’ll discuss the significance of this font. So hype! [#EpisodeIX][Patreon link]

I can’t speak for the rest of the planet, but this sort of behavior represents a problem I need to address: I’m so obsessed with the "next thing," that I hardly pay attention to the "thing that’s happening right now." It’s so easy to fall behind, talk about something irrelevant, that I’ve become obsessed with the concept of keeping up. Especially considering my decision to “somehow someway one day” make money talking or joking about video games, which just exacerbates the issue. If I post a YouTube video even one day after its subject matter is done trending, no one’s going to watch it. 

Every week is just another meme-laden series of popcorn farts that can’t stay in the public consciousness long enough to have an meaningful conclusions drawn from them. Should I want to pause long enough to really dig into something, I’d better hope the internet train slows down so I can get a good look. Otherwise, too bad. “We’re not talking about that anymore. But they are,” the internet-conductor seems to say, pointing at a group of megafans as they put on horse-blinders and leap from the train. “Have fun! When they land, they just sit down and jerk each other off.”[Fig. 1]

Fig. 1

All I can do is look forward, and hope to catch something on the horizon that’s actually interesting, and not just a tin-can glinting in the sun from atop a landfill. This way I can guess what it is, make assumptions about how it will look when the train actually passes it, and if I’m proven right; BAM! Proper understanding. If I’m wrong? I just wasted my time trying to figure out if there was any inherent worth to a pile of garbage. But with any luck, the rest of you will be looking with me. [#SoPumped][Link to Patreon]

Maybe I should just get off and walk.