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
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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.