The Remote
Feb. 12th, 2006 09:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
johncomicHow many remotes do you own? [In my house there are six.]
Do any of them make a clicking sound when you press the buttons? [None of ours do; they all operate silently.]
Did you ever own a remote that clicked? [I never did.]
Remotes in comics and cartoons always click. And I know in some places, people actually refer to remotes as "clickers". So where the eff did this come from?
You see someone in a comic pointing a small non-descript object in their hand that goes "click" and you know it's a remote -- even though that object, in the very act of clicking, is acting unlike a remote.
Granted, there are lots of weird carryovers in our attitudes toward sounds. We still say that phones "ring" even though it's been years since they actually rang -- cuz they used to. Dogs never actually said "bow wow", but they do make some kinda sound, that's probably closer to "bow wow" than it is to, say, "ring ring".
But this whole idea of remotes clicking -- or even making any kind of sound at all -- we all seem to accept the idea, but why? Where did the idea come from? Is it only Canadian remotes that don't click, or what?
Yes, sutff like this actually matters to me. :P
Do any of them make a clicking sound when you press the buttons? [None of ours do; they all operate silently.]
Did you ever own a remote that clicked? [I never did.]
Remotes in comics and cartoons always click. And I know in some places, people actually refer to remotes as "clickers". So where the eff did this come from?
You see someone in a comic pointing a small non-descript object in their hand that goes "click" and you know it's a remote -- even though that object, in the very act of clicking, is acting unlike a remote.
Granted, there are lots of weird carryovers in our attitudes toward sounds. We still say that phones "ring" even though it's been years since they actually rang -- cuz they used to. Dogs never actually said "bow wow", but they do make some kinda sound, that's probably closer to "bow wow" than it is to, say, "ring ring".
But this whole idea of remotes clicking -- or even making any kind of sound at all -- we all seem to accept the idea, but why? Where did the idea come from? Is it only Canadian remotes that don't click, or what?
Yes, sutff like this actually matters to me. :P
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no subject
Date: 2006-02-13 03:43 am (UTC)Now, if I were a cartoonist drawing a person in a room changing the channel, I wouldn't have this option, because there's no one else in the room for him to tell that he's going to change the channel. So I would instead probably draw something like the word click above the remote in the picture to alert the audience that this has happened.
no subject
Date: 2006-02-13 11:57 am (UTC)[Yeah, I know you're right, and, despite how I made it sound, I'm just idly curious, it's not like this is keepin' me up nights or anythin'... ;) ]
no subject
Date: 2006-02-13 12:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-13 07:31 pm (UTC)For instance, when the Harry Potter series became so huge, I spent awhile pondering how it was that the structurally similar but far more sophisticated fantasy novels which obviously influenced it had gone nowhere. They continue to go nowhere, too; the HP crowd has no interest and no knowledge whatsoever.
The answers were illuminating.
no subject
Date: 2006-02-14 12:20 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-14 06:10 pm (UTC)However, there are a number of fundamental concepts at work.
One of them is this: The initial audience for these books was not kids, and not adults generally... but housewives who were looking for books for their kids. These people do not generally walk down the F/SF aisle, and their knowledge/interest level of its contents is nil.
But when they found the HP series, it did look like good kid-fare, and when they read it, they themselves became hooked... in part because -- since, like the kids, they had no knowledge of the F/SF aisle -- the concepts seemed far fresher than they actually were. And responding to the freshness, they promoted the books heavily online to their peers.
Even today, if you look at the actual sales of these books, what you find is that there are two distinct audiences: Preteen kids of both sexes and teen/adult women. Look around a plane and you see the adult men reading things like Grisham thrillers. Look around a HP convention and it's nothing but grown women as far as the eye can see.
no subject
Date: 2006-02-13 03:44 am (UTC)They were called "clickers" because they actually did click. I think an early version of the remote control sent a beam of light. You pointed it at one of the corners of the screen to make the TV do what you wanted it to do - change the channel or volume (yeah, make the TV bigger or smaller :).
Sometimes when I'm searching for the right word (which is happening a lot more often than I'd like to admit), I'll call it the "thing" or the "clicker". Sometimes I'll make the international sign language for "remote control" by holding my hand at arm's length in front of me, fingers flat below my thumb, and moving my thumb up and down.
no subject
Date: 2006-02-13 12:00 pm (UTC)And there we have it. (Just like phones ringing.)
Thank you. :)
Figures it would take the expertise of someone deeper into technology than I to solve this, Mr. Dozen-Remotes... ;P