Results matching “wikipedia”

I did this a while ago, as part of a background for a role playing thing I was doing. Hand in hand with it was some noodling with old Superguy concepts, and the odd notes for background materials for some potential fiction I wanted to write.

Why I did it in the style of a faux Wikipedia article I can't say.

Anyhow, it interests me, and I figured it might interest some of you, too. So enjoy.

(Taken from 2025 Omnipedia article on Meta'd, under a Creative Uncommons License.)

OMNIPEDIA "One Tome to Rule Them All, One Tome to Find Them. One Tome to Bring them all and in the Darkness Define Them."

Category: Culture: Modern Street Gangs

META'D

The Meta'd (pronounced 'metaed') are a loose network of related 'sets' or street gangs in major metropolitan centers of the United States. Originally centered in the Midwest, particularly Chicago and Detroit, the Meta'd now have significant concentrations in Los Angeles, New York, Miami and the Pacific Northwest. Unlike most street gangs, the Meta'd typically organize around paranormals (thus the word 'meta'd,' which is derived from the slang term 'meta,' which means superhuman or paranormal human), and so often individual sets of Meta'd can rival much larger non-superpowered (or "norm") gangs in power and influence. Meta'd are typically identified by wearing blaze orange (the color typically worn by hunters), with different sets using different applications to denote their individual set allegiances. Some sets of Meta'd have rivalries as intense as any the Meta'd have with external street gangs. Meta'd are often associated with the more militant side of neo-punk music.

History

The Meta'd first appeared in Chicago, when Ted "Slash" Condit and Roberto "Burn" Gabriel struck up a friendship, though they were members of rival norm street gangs. The pair realized they had more in common than they had with their gang members, and both knew other paranormals (generally with limited powersets) who found themselves marginalized even within their own gangs or separate from themselves. Forswearing their old allegiances, they founded the L-Train Loop Meta'd in 2014.

The Meta'd grew in Chicago and the ideas began to spread to other cities almost immediately. To a certain degree, this caught authorities by surprise, since there was little indication that paranormality had become quite this common. (The conventional wisdom to that point had the rate of American paranormality -- which was believed to be a higher concentration than the rest of the world -- was approximately 1 in 1.1 million. By that standard, statistically there should have only been two or three paranormals in all of metropolitan Chicago. Instead, the Meta'd of Chicago had grown to 50 members in various loosely affiliated sets by 2015. While some no doubt came from other cities, there was clearly a much higher native paranormal population than was previously expected. Some sociologists believe that due to discomfort with their abilities (and the differences perceived between themselves and normals) a high percentage of metahumans with limited powersets never reveal themselves as paranormal -- with the appearance of the Meta'd, these paranormals -- particularly those from disenfranchised, disadvantaged or economically depressed or otherwise dysfunctional conditions -- found the idea of a safe haven very appealing.

Over the next several years, the different sets of Meta'd have grown and flourished in and around other gang cultures. As Neo-punk began to gain traction in urban areas, many Neo-punk artists have developed strong ties to the Meta'd community, with groups such as the Cheshire Kittens and Death of Superguy using Meta'd as security for their venues. (The Cheshire Kittens typically wear blaze orange on stage, identifying themselves with the Meta'd directly, though it's not not know what if any set they were ever actually part of.)

The Meta'd Today

The Meta'd have known sets in Chicago, Detroit, Seattle, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Dallas, New York City, Miami, Baltimore and Boston. The sets are at best loosely affiliated, and rival sets have been known to emerge in the same city. At the same time, Meta'd typically stick together when threatened by norm gangs, so many norm gangs simply leave the Meta'd alone.

Gang income comes from the usual sources -- protection/extortion money from their neighborhoods, crime, petty theft, being hired out by bodyguards (particularly among neo-punk artists and the neo-punk community), and in some situations controlling drugs and/or prostitution in their areas. Most sets -- even those who run drugs to norms -- eschew drug use themselves for safety reasons and to set them apart from norms. Some sets specialize in the so-called Power drugs that grant some measure of paranormality to normals for brief periods of time as part of their effect (or side effect). There are rumors that some cut these drugs (or make them unusually pure), either in an attempt to injure norms or to drive the creation of new permanent metahumans. Gang representatives dismiss such claims as propaganda.

One interesting division between sets are their attitudes towards sympathetic norm gangs. Some sets of Meta'd form alliances with norm gang sets as part of a mutual protection pact (these are called the "Live" Meta'd, for "live and let live."). Others eschew all such alliances as a violation of what the Meta'd stand for (these are known as the "Pure" Meta'd). One of the best known of these schisms is in the Seattle Meta'd community. The Aurora Street Meta'd are a set of Live Meta'd directly tied to a norm street gang that calls themselves the Aurora Street Metabees (for "Meta-wannabe"). The Metabees wear bright shocking green bandanas on their left upper arms. The Aurora Street Meta'd wear their orange bandanas on their left upper arms and a darker green bandana underneath it. In contrast, the Broadway 2-Told Meta'd, from the Broadway neighborhood, are a strictly Pure Meta'd set who guard their territory from any encroaching norm gang activity, and wear their blaze orange on their right arms. (And naturally wear no green colors at all.)

Politics and Sociology

One common trait between Live Meta'd and Pure Meta'd is in the political arena. Many Meta'd actively campaign for broader acceptance of metahumans in society. The restriction of paranormals from such lucrative careers as professional sports (often seen as a route off of the streets for athletic norms, but denied to metahumans as unfair to human competitors) and various legislation designed to maintain public order and enforce fair business practices are seen as blatantly discriminatory against the metahuman community by a significant percentage of the Meta'd.

More radical elements within the Meta'd hold forth that the superior abilities the Meta'd possess should yield superior privilege -- that if metas were given unrestricted access to the opportunities the norms enjoy, then metas would swiftly displace norms at the top of the social order. They call for immediate abolition of all legislation restricting paranormality and its expression in legitimate business, holding forth that given equal opportunity, metahumans will swiftly outcompete normals. They also hold that this truth is self-evident to the point that normals actively conspire to oppress metahumans, in order to preserve norm prerogatives. Finally, some sets of Meta'd believe themselves wholly above norm law, since the laws are written to benefit norms over metas.

One prevailing theory among cultural anthropologists and sociologists is that with the decline in the past two decades of so-called "Supervillain activity" (in particular the grandiose schemes of potential world-conquerers, many of whom employed low level or otherwise less potent metahumans), the paranormal elements of law enforcement are seen less as protectors and more as oppressors by the underclass. Absent a more ritualized "supervillainous" outlet, they find themselves collecting and developing into ganglike structures. Certainly, a key component of the Meta'd philosophy is that "super heroes" are traitors to their race, acting to protect norms instead of exalt metas. Meta'd have similar responses to the concept of secret identities -- finding such 'passing' behavior to be the social equivalent of closeted homosexuals, who feel they will have their rights infringed upon and become social outcasts should their secret be revealed. The act of concealing one's paranormalities so that they can appear 'normal' is referred to in Meta'd circles as "bluesuiting," from a speech given by Meta'd activist Helen "Cold-T" Taylor:

"You know what I'm talking about. The god lands on Earth, and conceals his spandex suit and bright red cape. He puts on a blue suit and tie that makes him look stiff and awkward, and combs his hair to look unexceptional. His eyes are much better than human eyes, but he puts on glasses so he looks weak, and frail. He clothes himself not only in mundanity but in depectitude, and acts the part of the awkward fool, so no one suspects he is not a man, but a god. The Meta'd reject these blue suits. They reject these glasses if we do not need them to see. We reject the idea that we must not just conform but present as inferior to the normals around us. We stand before you proud, distinctive, and dare I say it superior. We embrace our godhood."

Another catchphrase of Meta'd philosophy is the principle of "Just Clever Enough," which is held up as a key component of norm oppression of metahumanity. This too comes from a Meta'd activist's speech -- in this case, Charles Foster White ("I.Q. Nu") of San Francisco's Wharfside Meta'ds:

"We threaten norms because we outdo them in every way. The golden trait of humanity over all other species has always been intelligence. They think, they rationalize, they use language, and they conceptualize, and so they can master lions and tigers that are stronger and faster and more physically robust. And now there are metas. And one of the four most common metahuman expressions is enhanced intellect. Metas think better than norms. Metas rationalize with greater facility and sophistication than norms. Metas can develop languages and concepts norms cannot begin to keep up with. If intelligence is the great advantage of humanity, then humanity is doomed.

"However, the norms have figured something crucial out. While they stand at the top of the heap, they do not need to be smarter than metas. They do not need to be more clever than metas. They do not need to be better than metas. They simply have to be just clever enough. They have to be just clever enough to pass laws that say we cannot use our powers in the course of human affairs. They have to be just clever enough to lift some of our most powerful up, and convince them to act on behalf of norms over metas, to negate our advantages. They have to be just clever enough to consistently act in their own best interest instead of in the interests of a greater justice. They have to be just clever enough to know that if they keep us minimized and disorganized we cannot pose a threat to them no matter how powerful or clever we are.

"And so I say we must not strive to outthink them. We must not strive to use brute intelligence or strength against them. Instead, we must come together. We must recognize their tactics. We must understand that if we act as one, with organization and with cunning, we can defeat the impediments they put in our path. We do not need to collectively be more clever than all of them -- we need to be just clever enough to act in our own best interest, in a way that counters them. Once we do that, our natural superiorities will let us outstrip them, and we will assume our rightful place without any need for violence or pain."

This sense of inevitable superiority over norm society is a common trait among Meta'd. Some sets of Meta'd (particularly Live Meta'd sets) feel that as metahuman expression becomes permitted in norm society, the natural advantages paranormals possess will elevate them to prominence. Others -- particularly among the Pure Meta'd -- believe that being "just clever enough" involves knowing when to actually strike back. The debate is typified by Evolution versus Revolution -- the former believing that Metahuman superiority is inevitable and will come in due course, the latter believing that only by shattering the old world order can a new world order take place. Neither camp, however, is particularly concerned with what happens to norms as society changes. "Norms don't care about me," Cheshire Kittens guitarist Tabitha "G-Listening" Strong once said. "So why should I care about them? I'll look after my own kind. There's a lot of norms out there. If they got off their fat asses and did for themselves instead of letting Uncle Tom metas protect them, they'd be able to take care of themselves, right?"

The use of paranormals as 'super heroes' and other forms of law enforcement -- which some might say is the traditional use of paranormals in American society -- is seen as direct evidence of a cornerstone of the Meta'd philosophy: the oppression of the paranormal on behalf of the normal. The recognizable tropes of Superhumanity -- the distinctive (often sexually exploitive) costuming, the adoption of codenames so as to make them archetypes instead of identifiable people, the use of "secret identities" to allow super heroes to assimilate into norm society when they aren't acting to protect that society, and even the use of 'signals' and other dramatic devices for norm police to summon paranormals at their whim to fight (generally metahuman) opposition are seen as clear signs of the devaluation of superhuman identity hand in hand with the exaltation of superhuman acts on behalf of norm society. "Good" superhumans strike down antisocial metahumans on behalf of norms, then change into their blue suits, put on their glasses, pretend to be norms themselves, and don't even ask for thank yous in return. Meta'd activists claim that these acts marginalize and devalue metahumanity on both sides of the equation -- "uppity" metahumans get struck down by docile "superheroes," thus preventing norms from having to do anything about paranormal rights.

Paranormal poet, writer and philosopher Dr. Harold T. McGinnis (himself a public Meta'd sympathizer), wrote about the issue this way in The New Yorker:

"My heritage is African, my birthplace is America. And, like many African Americans of my generation, I have reaped the benefits of the Civil Rights struggle that began previous to the Civil War in this nation and culminated in the Civil Rights Movement of the sixties. And while we have not yet achieved all our goals, we are vastly closer than our grandfathers were. And so I have studied the Civil Rights Movement and the attendant movements that surrounded it, and I have been struck at how differently the Metahuman Rights Movement actually is.

"Blacks used to extol 'Black Power,' but more telling was the Black Panther's exhortations of 'all power to the people!' All people, not just black people, and not just white people, should share in the power. This was the key to our struggle in those days -- we were not asking to be made masters in the house where once we were slaves. We were demanding that our former masters look us in the eye and shake our hands, both sides free and equal in all things.

"This is not something metahumans can say, with a clear conscience. We cannot claim a desire to be equal in all things with our normal brethren, because we cannot be equal to them. Our powers and abilities make us demonstrably, obviously superior in too many ways for us to claim 'equality.' If all barriers were stripped away tomorrow -- if metas could compete with norms in all arenas, then the next day would see the sun setting on norm dominance. They simply cannot compete.

"The Zooside Meta'd of New York once challenged the New York Knicks -- that year's World Champions -- to a pickup game. The Knicks declined, which was probably smart on their part. The Zoosiders have four different metas with enhanced dexterity, speed, agility and accuracy in different ways, not to mention a character whose arms stretch far enough to let him 'dunk' free throws and another who could leap for a dunk from center court. However, the idea that these tall men of basketball are "world champions" is ridiculous on the face of it. I say, let them play a team of Meta'd. In 2019 the NBA Salary Cap was made $142 million per team. All right. Do a best out of seven series between the Knicks and a given local Meta'd gang. If the Meta'd win the best of seven series, give them the next year's one hundred and forty-two million and let the Knicks try to make ends meet. Do you think the Knicks will take me up on that offer?

"Put metas of intellect into 'publish or perish' positions in direct competition with norms, and they outperform the norms four to one in research and publication. This has been shown time and again, to the point that private laboratories typically have clauses in their contracts that restrict meta researchers from claiming full patent rights or exercising stock options in the same way, lest they overwhelm their less gifted colleagues and end up running the company de facto if not de jure. American business learned the lessons of Awesome Amalgamated and Harxxon Energy well, and norm executives have moved to secure their industries and their positions against the encroachment of the next Andy Awesome or Chalandra Harkness.

"Give metas a chance to use their paranormalities to make a living, and they will always -- always -- exceed norms in that same position. I don't care if we're discussing steelworkers who can withstand the heat of blast furnaces or nanotechnicians who can shrink to atomic size or even ditch diggers who never get tired and can dig a ditch in fifteen seconds instead of fifteen minutes. When give absolutely equal opportunity alongside norms, with all preference or prejudice taken out of the equation, the metas win every time.

"That means that we cannot demand equality and expect to be heard. It cannot be done. And we cannot even blame the norms for their perceived prejudice or short sightedness. The norms are not short sighted -- they can see all too clearly the inevitable result of metahuman equality, and they don't like the looks of it one bit.

"And yet, metahuman equality -- the reduction and elimination of all barriers to metahumans in society -- is inevitable. It is inevitable because it is the only fair thing to do, and it is inevitable because if America doesn't open its society to metahumans, some other society will -- and that society will overrun America in the long run. Darwin is alive and well, and the most fit will take over the right niche, like it or not. The question is, will American norms figure out that their long term best interest is in embracing their future quickly, letting themselves take a subordinate role to their gifted and superior children, and letting our Nation be the leader in the changes to come... or will they hold onto their power and suppress the smartest, fastest, strongest and most capable members of their society, marginalizing them and calling them "villains," until one day they discover that the Europeans are colonizing Titan and curing cancer and running their flying cars without gasoline, and no one will even trade with us because of our backwards ways?"

{This article has been MARKED FOR DIVISION into "Meta'D," "Meta'D Philosophy" and "Just Clever Enough." Please go to our forum and make your opinions heard!}

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(From xkcd! Click on the thumbnail for full sized shell script!)

There is a theory of comics creation that says that all comics must be accessible to all readers. This theory says that if your webcomic isn't accessible to all readers, you are somehow failing in your mission. It's not that everyone needs to find it funny, mind. This theory (barely) acknowledges that tastes may be different from one reader to the next. However, the strip must be universal enough for everyone to potentially find it funny, or the strip hits failure condition and we all go home.

I do not subscribe to this theory. In fact, I find this theory stupid. And it always surprises me when someone else subscribes to this theory. But I get a non-trivial amount of mail complaining about other peoples' webcomics because they fail this theoretical universality test.

See, the problem with that concept goes back to a very subjective idea. It actually highlights the problems that places like Wikipedia is going through. It highlights a very human problem. Namely, it goes back to the core human response "if something is not important to me, that something is not actually important." On wikipedia, it means that a person who knows nothing about a subject still feels he can render opinions as to what is significant or insignificant, on the theory that if it were actually significant, he would have heard about it. In humor, it goes back to the idea that if you do not "get" the joke, the joke is not actually funny.

However, this is all a fallacy. If you don't know a subject, you don't know what's significant about it. If you don't "get" the joke, the joke may or may not be funny to those who do get it. And so there is this vague sense that somehow you are stupid, because other people find a joke funny and you don't even understand it.

Thus, the idea that humor is supposed to be universal. You see how it all ties together.

The thing is, humor isn't universal. Humor only works in context. No matter how rip roaringly funny you think Larry the Cable Guy is, have a group of Maasai watch it and they're going to look at you like you're insane. "Is the joke that he is clearly mentally challenged?" they will ask, politely. After a while, they will leave you to your ridiculous 'humor.

In its heyday, Mystery Science Theater 3000 jumped on this concept. Joel Hodgson was interviewed for one of those "This is MST3K" shows they did at the time, and he laid it out. (I'm paraphrasing slightly.) "We're not worried about whether or not people will get our jokes," he said. "We trust the right people will get them." And he was right -- there was such a rapid fire shotgun of references, quips and jokes that the Proust jokes I found funny ran up alongside Robert Frost poems which ran up alongside Baywatch references and silly voices.

And that brings us to xkcd. Randall Munroe clearly doesn't care if you 'get' the jokes or not. He's doing the doodles and jokes he finds funny. If you get them, great. If not, well, maybe you'll get tomorrow's joke. Or maybe this just isn't for you.

Today's strip is only funny if you get it. If you don't know what the above means (not just what 'sudo' is, but the behavior of the person asking for the sandwich and the responses he gets from the other guy), you're just going to stare at it. And if I were to explain it to you, it wouldn't be funny. Explaining jokes is almost never funny.

But if you get it, it's hysterical. At least, I think it is. I laughed for a good minute.

And I'm okay with that.

Every so often, someone tells me sexism in comic books doesn't exist. That yes, the costuming is sexualized but it's the same for both sexes.

Here's what I'd like to see.

I'd like to see every team based comic book in a month have its sexes inverted. All the men become women, and all the women become men. But page composition should remain exactly the same. Posing should remain the same.

And costuming should directly port. The new "Batwoman" or "Captain America" wear costumes exactly the same, except cut to be similarly form fitting on a female figure. The new "Wonder Man" or "Scarlet Warlock" (I won't dignify what they've done with the Scarlet Witch over the years with Wiccan terminology) would have clothing similarly cut to bare legs, buttocks, and pectorals. (Probably some kind of high cut wrestling unitard or the like.) Obviously, a character like Spider Woman would end up with a full body suit. However, in cases where "full jumpsuited" heroines usually have front zippers unzipped to somewhere between the cleavage and the navel, the resulting man will have his suit unzipped the same amount.

In the comics themselves, posing will port absolutely one to one. Where male superheroes have poses that accentuate the buttocks or penis, the new female characters will have the same. Where they have nonsexualized poses or poses accentuating the face, the new female heroines will have that. Where female superheroes are posed to accentuate their breasts, crotch, buttocks or legs, the male hero will have his pectorals, crotch, buttocks or legs accentuated exactly the same way.

Which brings us to anatomy. In cases where the male superheroes have exaggerated physiques (Superman, Thor and Captain America all fit the bill) the new heroine versions would have similarly exaggerated female anatomy (so Superwoman would be large breasted and hipped, as an example). On the other hand, where male physiques aren't particularly overly enhanced (like, say, Spider-Man) the female hero would be similarly slender and small busted. The primary goal should be to highlight the differences in male body types in that given comic as different female body types. Finally, overtly sexual heroes (especially in the area of the Johnson -- say, the Schumacker era Bat Codpieces and Nippled uniforms) would yield similarly overtly sexual heroines, while more restrained heroes would produce sexually restrained heroines.

Similarly,in situations where superheroines have exaggerated female anatomy (large bust and hips, generally), the man would have exaggerated musculatures (think bodybuilders/male strippers), buttocks and crotches. So, Wonder Woman would yield a Wonder Man who looked like an overbuilt prettyboy pro wrestler with an armadillo down his speedos who is at least as well built as superman with particular attention to detail in the primary male characteristics, while (most depictions of) Kitty Pryde would yield a slender runner's build hero. Once again, the primary goal is to show the diversity of female forms in a given issue turned male. And in situations where a heroine is overtly sexualized, the resulting hero should be overtly sexualized.

This would carry through to the villains and bystanders as well. Male police officers in the original would be female in the new version. Female secretaries in business professional outfits would be male secretaries in business professional outfits. Female secretaries, on the other hand, in 'business professional' that looks more librarian dominatrix than anything would yield men kitted out for their fantasy appeal more than their businessplace professionalism. Male thugs of various sizes and shapes would be female thugs of various sizes and shapes, and vice versa.

Above all, and I can't emphasize this enough, no more attention should at any time be drawn to the sexual characteristics, poses, attire or attitude in the new comic than in the original comic. The urge to either overcompensate or undercompensate for the gender swap would be overpowering. It would have to be fought off at all costs. For the experiment to work -- for what level of implicit sexism actually exists in comics to be appropriate revealed -- the comics would need to map as closely as possible.

The thing is? If they were absolutely accurate to nine decimal places, at the end, I'm willing to bet the vast majority of comics fans would think they were exaggerated to desexualize the women and overly sexualize the men. Consider the cover of New Avengers #7, conveniently on Wikipedia. We would have a large busted (though fully clothed) female Sentry with some sexuality to her walk (though not overly much), a slender Spider-Woman, an almost entirely desexualized Iron Woman, a Spider Man (James Drew) at least as muscular as Sentry is shown on the original, in a filmy bodysuit absolutely posed for sex (with very prominant and large penis), a female Captain America (chesty, but in highly concealing scale mail, not terribly sexual at all), a short, somewhat squat female Wolverine, and a well (and loosely) covered ronin. Going inside the comic, we'd find a world full of women with occasional token men (all slinked up in their SHIELD uniforms), and every page (the Drew) Spiderman was on would emphasize his pectorals, his buttocks, his legs or his crotch. And of course, he'd be the only man on the team, and his maleness would be kind of emphasized as primary characterization.

Or consider a Justice League -- sure, you'd have a busty Superwoman and Captain (ex-Billy) Marvel, a somewhat more slender Green Arrow or Hal Jordan Green Lantern in full body suits, a Batwoman mostly covered by her cloat at all times -- heck, if we're lucky a faceless female Question in a business suit and trenchcoat. But you'd also have Wonder Man, Zartra and Black Canary (the latter two in netted tights and high cut hipped costumes). And of course, Power Boy.

Look, I don't claim any moral high ground here. I play mostly female characters in City of Heroes because I like to look at them. Hell, back in my Superguy days, I had a character (admittedly meant as a bad Wonder Woman parody) called Spandex Babe. But the simple fact is this -- there is monumental sexism in American comics. Not mild sexism. Not "oh, it's there but it's not so bad, because the guys are just as sexualized as the girls." Monumental. If we had a single month where a second issue of all the team comics came out with all the genders reversed as absolutely fairly in all ways as possible, the vast majority of (male) comics fans would accuse them of being A) unfairly balanced and B) borderline male pornography.

(Almost certainly that actual accusation would be "gay pornography," but that's another essay.)

The first step to acknowledging the sexual double standard and the extremely prevalent and overt sexism in comics is to actually acknowledge it. So why not come right out and do it. One month, where we just flip roles. Let's see how many male role models most teenaged American boys would want to follow would come out of that month.

While we're at it, let's see how many of those teenage boys bought the issues in question.

Gosh, maybe we can figure out one or two reasons why girls don't buy as many superhero comics as guys while we're at this.

Every so often, I try to put into words just how Wikipedia has taken its mind numbingly huge potential and somehow managed to squander it. I do this in good faith, and also try to explain why it is I constantly use Wikipedia even though I think Wikipedia has wasted said potential.

(The answer to the latter is simple, for the record. Wikipedia makes a phenomenally good starting point for a journey. It just makes for a terrible destination.)

Anyhow, the most brilliant man on Earth, Lore Sjöberg, has managed to explain it vastly better than I ever could.

And been funny all at the same time.

In other news, I am recovering from the truly excellent run of the play, by rereading the complete works of Jeffrey Rowland. I'm into 2001 of When I Grow Up. It remains significantly better than many things that today I consider good, and yet Rowland considers it one of his weaker works. I take this to highlight the true and honest brilliance of Jeffrey Rowland, who is no Lore Sjöberg, but he does his best. And besides, who is Lore Sjöberg. Other, of course, than Lore Sjöberg. That old Legion of Super Heroes intelligence scale, which Brainiac 5 was a "12" on? Lore Sjöberg is a 20. In fact, the scale is called the "Sjöberg" scale and originally, Sjöberg was defined as a "1" and everyone else was defined thusly. However, it got depressing for people to be described as .02 intellects, so they finally multiplied everything by twenty and rounded to the nearest integer, so that people would feel better about all of it.

It was, of course, Lore Sjöberg's idea.

I got back from America to discover that the top of the hour had changed.

CBC Radio One, for as far back as I remember, has followed this patttern:

[musical sting]
"Here is the CBC News. I'm [announcer name]."

And then they would read the news.

The music itself would change. Not too long ago, the radio news themes were all changed, each aligned to a single motif. Prior to that, there had been chimes, and those were related to an even earlier set of chimes, for the hourly newscasts. I had no complaints. The underpinnings were the same. The pattern was the same.

When the last round of music was phased in, Radio One listeners became accustomed to a seven-note theme melody on the hour, with varying counterpoints depending on the hour, or the half-hour. (World at Six got a three-note variation which harmonized just so with what you'd heard the rest of the day.)

It wasn't so hard. Whether or not the music appealed, one got a sense of the structure involved: music, identification, news. A regular listener rapidly developed a series of subconscious associations with routine, and knew when to pay attention. "This is the hourly news. That is the half-hourly news. This is the national news appropriate to the morning or the evening. The weather will be on in [x] minutes. The program will resume in [x+ 30 seconds] minutes."

Usability.

In recent weeks, the CBC has moved to a consistent, five-note mnemonic across all of its news broadcasts, over all of its radio and television stations. This is part of a move to unify CBC's radio, network television, and Newsworld resources into a single CBC News division and brand. Flagship television show The National carries this mnemonic just as prominently as each province's hourly regional radio news.

I can't speak to what it does for television, although it seems to work for the new National theme. For Radio One's news, across the board, it doesn't work. This is why:

[one-TWO-three-four-five]
"Here is the CBC News."
[one-TWO-three-four-FIVE-six-SEVEN]
"I'm [this person].

Or, if you're a flagship show [EDIT: At least until now -- this morning, World Report fit the above pattern, suggesting things are more uniform now, but it wasn't always thus]:

[one-TWO-three-four-FIVE]
"This is [important radio news show]. I'm [announcer]."
[theme!]
"In the news: [headlines]"

It was even worse during the first couple of weeks, when not even the national newscasters had the beat quite down.

The Royal Canadian Air Farce, a television comedy troupe which first built its career across over two decades of radio, spoke unintentionally to this sort of situation when parodying the current affairs show Impact. [Scroll to the bottom of the page, where the 17 November 1995 sketch is linked; alternatively, stream or download the RealVideo-encoded sketch.] At various points, saying the word "impact" is meant to trigger the appearance of the show's logo, with an accompanying sharp noise; the announcer, in this sketch, can't quite get the timing to work. It's been rather like that for a few weeks, and is only just sorting out at the regional level. The first few national newscasts I heard along these lines had the same problem. (There's nothing quite like hearing major CBC hosts scramble to the mark.)

The system works a little better for CBC Television. You get a logo with the mnemonic, and that serves the same function as a station ID. CBC Radio, however, has always had distinct station identification spots, associated with different types of pacing. Even when integrated with Promo Girl's quirky program spots, they were very plainly keyed to the same rhythm held by standalone spots; before Promo Girl, one would hear a standalone show promo, then a station ID, then turn to the news. (That said, I like Promo Girl a lot better now that she's just doing the spots.)

The mnemonic introduces an additional concept layer for the listener to absorb, and forces redundant identification of exactly which type of news we're listening to on top of that:

"This is a production by CBC News."
"I am now telling you what show this is. [If this is a national flagship show, I am identifying myself as the anchor.]"
[Musical sting/theme associated and identified with the program in question.]
"[If this is a regional newscast, or a national newscast in offpeak hours, I am identifying myself as the newsreader.] Here are the headlines..."

By altering the structure of how news identifies itself to the listener, CBC Radio One throws off how the listener identifies that news, and its relevance at any given time. Further, it shaves extra time off of the content, however negligible. While that time is just enough to identify any given reporter, or barely sufficient to sandwich in a few more words, every word counts.

This gets even worse when one considers the regional newscasts during the daytime. Those come in at the half-hour, and top out at ninety seconds. There is no time to go through the rigamarole involved with the extra identification layer and to use the standard seven-note newscast theme. As a result, they're using what we already know. CBC Radio One has gone through the trouble to have us identify "incoming CBC news" with this mnemonic, only not to use it for a subset of newscasts.

I don't mean to be the sort of listener who bitches when things change at Radio One. I'm pretty screwed up by that standard. I like Promo Girl a lot. I found valuable the national morning split between current and cultural affairs. I'd rather see a beloved personality well applied elsewhere (e.g. Bill Richardson filling in for Shelagh Rogers during her recuperation; Peter Gzowski's Some Of The Best Minds Of Our Time) than have an institution-level show artificially sustained without that personality (e.g. The Roundup at the end of Tetsuro Shigematsu's tenure, much as I enjoyed Shigematsu himself). And I think Brent Banbury's pretty bloody nifty.

That said, those changes which have worked with listeners have followed structure to some extent, and worked best when phased in gradually. Weekday/daytime shows make good examples. Freestyle is pop-culture banter and mosaic-format music; it covers the content expectations that The Roundup maintained to a certain extent, just as both versions of The Roundup maintained some level of the interviews which were Vicki Gabereau's mainstay in that timeslot. The Current triggered the full-on split from one national current/cultural affairs morning show to two, but did so as Shelagh Rogers' cultural half transitioned from This Morning (which acted much like Morningside in very may ways) to Sounds Like Canada (which failed horribly in its outre, cacophanous anthology format, then reverted to something closer to This Morning). Even This Morning floundered until it shed its worldly, jaded slickness and backslid partway into the warm Morningside nature.

(Let's not even get into the extent to which comedy shows hold domain in legacy weekend timeslots, or how programs like Go or -- if not so much -- Simply Sean serve the same function as Basic Black did.)

In other words, changes to CBC Radio One -- which often functions best in the background and the rhythm of a Canadian's daily life -- tend to soak in best when they accomodate extant underpinnings. The segues need to be fluid, even in a microcosm. Keep that fluidity up and you can phase in pretty much anything, but you need to get there in the first place.

The news mnemonic is not fluid. It comes from television, it reflects television branding, and it assumes a unified experience that not everyone getting their news from the CBC is going to have. The mnemonic has a visual equivalent on television; I'm guessing that one is meant to have something of a ghosted synaesthesic experience moving from television to radio. One hears the mnemonic, one sees the associated animation in one's head, one thinks, "this is the CBC News." It's not a complete branding experience, but they haven't figured out touch, smell or taste yet.

Now, I actually have a mild form of synaesthesia. (No, I have no idea why. I'm not sure that it matters.) Mostly, this manifests with sound. Some of it's visual (colours and patterns at the edge of vision), and some of it's tactile (lots of pokes and jabs, mostly). It doesn't interfere with my day-to-day life, but it does underscore points like these on occasion. Not counting the misplaced human voice, instead of seven taps at the top of the hour, I have thirteen, and they're in really weird places all of a sudden.

And they're way too slow to signal, "Hey, sit up and listen to me now;" I've usually experienced hourly news report themes as rapid shoulder-pokes. "HEY! LOOKIT! NEWS NOW! NOW!" That music's supposed to get your attention. This audio gets your attention, then tries to do so at least two more times. It's a bit disorienting -- in fact, it's not unlike having a kid keep tugging at your sleeve (or, in my case, sharply poking my upper back) after you've acknowledged him. Suddenly, the news is all out of order. (Also, it's in a funny key, but you get used to that.)

The pacing's all off. It doesn't work. It's as off-paced as the announcers getting used to it.

"Impact...! IMPACT!"

"Oh. You mean Impact." Clang.