What Engages Me?
This is a hard question. If something is truly engaging we are probably not aware of how engaging it really is because we are engage by it; consumed and unaware of our surroundings. It is hard to recall this feeling because like I said if you are thinking about being engaged you are obviously not that engaged. I recently saw Fast & Furious, and frankly I don’t know where to put this on the spectrum of engagement. For one the plot was awful and involved an uncalled for, unexpected, out of nowhere “plot twist” every five minutes. At the same time I don’t and never had an interest in cars beyond if they could get me from point A to point B. Top that all off with some awful acting, CGI effects and random car chases that makes no sense and there you have it a hit action movie, or one car chase after another. Yet this movie is making millions of dollars and I would be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy it even a miniscule amount. At the end of the day this isn’t my cup of tea, but it still engaged me enough to laugh and wonder once again how blockbusters came to be the incoherent mess that they are.
Still Fast & Furious is nowhere near the pinnacle of my onscreen entertainment. Call me a sucker but my most regularly watched TV show is America’s Funniest Home Videos; I would also say that this one of the fastest hours of my week. I don’t know what is better than a montage of people getting hit with balls while standing on giant balls, kids running through glass doors and generally anything dumb that anyone has ever caught on tape. Maybe I have a short attention span; maybe I need to grow up and start watching more news shows, but really I don’t think so; there is nothing better than a solid hour of bloopers to end the day. Maybe it is the laughing that causes it to be so engaging, or maybe it is the fact that my roommates and I all watch it together. AFV could be the newest form of male bonding.
Really though this brings up two interesting things to consider when thinking about what engages us. Not only do we need to consider the speaker, but we also need to consider the environment and the physical reactions a speaker may cause us to have. Take Barack Obama for example; we have all seen him speak on TV in front of thousands, but the feeling that gives us is nowhere near the feeling I got when I was crammed in the Kohl Center with my peers hearing him speak. Humans are a social species; I can’t speak for us all but I think in most cases we are more engaged if we are with friends and can not only be engaged but also further our relationships by being engaged in the same thing. Along with being engaged as a group our reactions are different in a group setting compared to when we are alone. Laughing by yourself is not the same as laughing with your friends. Laughing by yourself might make you feel weird more than anything. On the other hand, if you are in a group and you know that everyone in the room is feeling the same way you are then the feeling only becomes stronger. In essence what I am saying is that the larger the group you are in and also if the group is similar to you; then you will be more engaged.
For me this question goes much farther than what engages me. We need to consider why and how just as much as what it is that engages us. Bloopers, absurdist humor and anything that generally pushes or crosses the “line” is what engages me most. “Embrace your weirdness” as that man said; I couldn’t agree more. I don’t see the point in watching the same old laugh track sitcom because they are all the same. When I really want to be engaged and forget about my problems, I like most college kids I know, dig into the depths of Youtube for those moments that were never supposed to happen or were never supposed to be filmed. Normal is boring and overrated; weird is where it’s at.
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I agree that weird is where it is at. Weird like tractor is saying is what engages me most. I especially like the youtube example because I do occasionally spend an embarrassing amount of time watching random videos. Those videos do engage me. They are different, things you don’t see everyday; funny things. I’m not one to be engaged in lectures with one person blabbing on without the slightest try at involving the audience. I hate to say it, but I do have about the same attention span as a flea. If something does not interest me or involve me I stop paying attention. Sometimes I even catch myself steering off into whatever else there is to listen or look at without even knowing that I’m losing my engagement. That is why weird things like tractor says engage me.
ReplyDeleteI’m not saying that absolutely no lectures have me actively engaged but very few. The lecturer needs to first off, be talking about a subject that interests me, and two they need to have a great personality. The lecturers that have me the most engaged are the ones that crack jokes and laugh at themselves, and who involve the audience. My favorite is when the lecturer pokes fun at somebody in the audience. I need life in the presentation, I need movement. It may distract some people, but I need the lecturer to move around, it makes it seem like they are more excited in the topic. Even if it is a topic that interests me, if there is a speaker that just rambles without including the audience or it looks like they have no interest in the topic themselves, then I don’t engage. If they just stand in one spot then they just look drab to me and uninteresting. If the speaker is uninteresting, the presentation will be uninteresting. Sometimes I try so hard to pay attention but I just can’t because the person who is talking just bores me, most of the time it is because they had not once said anything to the audience.
Ralph Nader came to Madison a few months before the election. I was stoked to hear what he had to say, but as soon as he stepped up to the podium I already knew no matter what he was saying that it was going to be boring. Just the way he walked up to the podium, it was almost as if he was tired and had no motivation to speak. He has some of the most brilliant ideas, yet the way he was speaking that night just made me not want to listen. Nader stood at the podium, almost leaning on it with his elbow at times, and talked. Occasionally he would start talking louder to try to make a point, but then he his voice would die down again for the rest of the speech. His voice was just not consistent, it was boring and he only moved once or twice when he had a point. I wanted to listen so badly but just couldn’t keep my attention on the words that he was saying. Nader spoke about his campaign and their promises if he makes president, like any other candidate does, but he rarely engaged the audience except for the typical “you guys need to vote for me or nothing will change.” I’ve heard him speak before, maybe that day was a bad day for him, or maybe I just couldn’t pay attention but either way, his speech did not engage me.
Tractors point is very interesting, that if you are engaged, you wouldn’t realize it. I had never really thought about it until I read his blog, but it is true. If you’re in a lecture and are constantly thinking about understanding what the lecturer is talking about, you’re not really engaged, you’re over thinking. You are over thinking and trying to understand what they are saying, but if you were actively engaged it wouldn’t matter if you completely understood what was being said because you would be so awed by the topic. A person should know if they were actively engaged after whatever it is you were watching or listening to is over. When it’s over if you just forget about it the clearly you weren’t engaged, if you talk about it then you were engaged. Even if you talk about the points making no sense to you, or how bad it was, you were still engaged because the topic is on your mind.
In the end, I engage in whatever it may be, a movie, a speech, a presentation, only if it relates to me, or if the attention is brought to the audience. Otherwise I feel like there is no reason to be listening or paying attention because the speaker or movie doesn’t care enough to try to engage the audience, so it must not be important enough to pay attention to. Like tractor said, weird is where it's at. The weird, random jokes that a lecturer may make, or weird personalities in a movie, that is where it is at because that is what engages me. At the same time, the weird needs to somehow relate back to me to truly engage me in the topic.