The one thing I find more distasteful than TED is are smug commentaries writing about how distasteful TED is. It reminds me of of jazz musicians criticizing "watered down jazz-pop".
> "What I ask myself when confronted with any TED talk is this: why do they all sound the same?"
Well, why do criticisms of "mainstream, middlebrow" works all sound the same?
I personally have found TED talks to be useful introductions and primers to all sorts of subject matter that I might not have otherwise engaged with. That's something I can appreciate. I've learned things and had my interest piqued in many others, which is more than I can say from reading the original post.
The idea that TED should be ignored to death, and that only the unwashed masses watch it– it's cringe-inducingly elitist and holier-than-thou. God forbid people make an attempt to learn something, and to share their learnings with others, if they don't do it according to the hallowed principles of the Harvard elite.
Anyway, these rants are not going to have much of an effect. People are going to continue consuming TED, just as people are going to listen to jazz-pop.
And you know, just as some people end up inspired by jazz-pop to pick up an instrument and dive into the deep end, some kid who watches a TED talk is going to go on to have an illustrious career in some field.
Way better than anything you can say for a grumpy old fart who sits around criticizing other people.
>Way better than anything you can say for a grumpy old fart who sits around criticizing other people.
And what you've done here is so much different?
Let's not have a fight between hipsters and anti-intellectuals.
Mediocrity and popularity go hand in hand. That is it's often incredibly difficult to maintain quality in an endeavor which has become wildly popular - or your motivations between creating something great and maintaining popular appeal get muddled together.
Take jazz music -- it takes a lot of listening, knowledge, and understanding to fully appreciate really great jazz. Mass audiences aren't going to have that understanding so there's a strong tendency for the subtlety which makes the genre great to be bred out -- most of the consumers can't tell the difference and simply don't care.
It's not elitism that says jazz-pop is awful, it's simple truth that jazz-pop is a shallow approximation of the real thing.
Maybe it's okay that some things are shallow and simple and fun, there's a place for such things; but let's not elevate them to greatness so we can bash folks who appreciate the real thing.
TED talks are increasingly at risk of being very much more about being engaging than having valuable substance. It turns out most of the real world doesn't have much of the pop, shine, and sparkle TED talks make it seem.
Simply TED is pretentious.
>attempting to impress by affecting greater importance, talent, culture, etc., than is actually possessed
Its heart might be in the right place, but its execution can be lacking. There are real problems between the sciences and the mainstream and people are right to criticize things that make this interaction worse by giving wrong impressions.
What do you know about watered down jazz-pop? It's real. It's easy listening. Have you heard the rampant sameness that plagues new jazz? It's like a pastiche that I can hear from a mile away. Norman Brown is an excellent guitar player, but I can't stand to listen to that sugary, over-saturated production garbage that seemingly took over the industry. Real jazz doesn't have a damn wind chime stroke every third song. There's a place for criticism, and you just picked a really bad example for your case. How bad? Try this on for size:
TED talks are to intellectualism what Kenny G is to jazz.
Sure! The point still stands– I could utter loathe Kenny G, but the fact remains that some people pick up the instrument because they enjoyed Kenny G, and some subset of those people go on to develop an interest in "real jazz", sans over-saturated production garbage and windchome strokes. And some of those people might create music that I would really enjoy.
So I'd argue that Kenny G is good for jazz, and TED is good for the sharing of ideas.
> "What I ask myself when confronted with any TED talk is this: why do they all sound the same?"
Well, why do criticisms of "mainstream, middlebrow" works all sound the same?
I personally have found TED talks to be useful introductions and primers to all sorts of subject matter that I might not have otherwise engaged with. That's something I can appreciate. I've learned things and had my interest piqued in many others, which is more than I can say from reading the original post.
The idea that TED should be ignored to death, and that only the unwashed masses watch it– it's cringe-inducingly elitist and holier-than-thou. God forbid people make an attempt to learn something, and to share their learnings with others, if they don't do it according to the hallowed principles of the Harvard elite.
Anyway, these rants are not going to have much of an effect. People are going to continue consuming TED, just as people are going to listen to jazz-pop.
And you know, just as some people end up inspired by jazz-pop to pick up an instrument and dive into the deep end, some kid who watches a TED talk is going to go on to have an illustrious career in some field.
Way better than anything you can say for a grumpy old fart who sits around criticizing other people.