Flight of Icarus
… otherwise known as the fuck up from high up.
I’m going to be slightly philosomythological for a moment here. The word might not actually exist, but then again it means something and suits this occasion. So I’m now declaring this word to be officially recognised by Mentera, so there.
Anyway, to this issue about Icarus and his flying. For those who might not be familiar with Greek mythology, Icarus and his father Daedalus were prisoners in a tower on an island called Crete by a king called Minos. They could not escape by sea, seeing that they have no boat, and every boat leaving Crete was searched carefully. So the two — more father than son actually — contrived to escape by air. So they made wings for themselves with feathers and wax. The story goes that they could fly with these wings, and proceeded to escape Crete and King Minos.
So Icarus, exuberant at being able to fly, flew too close to the sun, at which point — to cut a long story short — the heat melted the wax of his wing and the feathers wafted gently to the ocean, slightly longer than Icarus who had by then plunged to his death.
That’s mythology.
Now I am going to philosophise about this mythology — hence philosomythological — and connect it to something from the real world, where people take commercial airlines and wax themselves for other, more painful reasons.
Mainstream media going into blogging. Yes, that’s my real world issue. It’s not wrong, and frankly it’s a right. Bloggers are not a new strain of homo-sapien totally disconnected from the function of norms. It’s just a noun given to someone who does something, like a cyclist is a noun for a person who rides a bicycle, or tricycle and even a unicycle. They ride different things, in different ways but still… well, cycle.
So yes, newspapers can blog — in fact to progress, they MUST make headway in the internet — just like CEOs, politicians and semi-retired journalist blog. We blog. We are websiters, commenters, readers, and in some cases, losers.
You can’t go saying that so-and-so can’t do this or that. It’s like a cyclist going around saying that motorbikers cannot buy bicycles. Then pedestrians would start telling cyclists that they are hijacking the walking agenda by… walking. It gets ridiculous.
However, being in the business of publication and mass communication, one would expect that mainstream media companies and organisations related to them would want to do it better, having more experience in ‘flying’. So unlike Icarus, or us mere amateurs in the business of mass communications, one would expect them to build better wings.
Wings that can withstand the heat of the sun, or more to the point, stand up to the scrutiny of discerning readership. This is important, because at some point, the organisations would want to monetize. After all, the gauge of a successful business activity is how well you garner revenue, regardless if you later squander it on ‘growth’.
Moving into a new space, like Icarus flying away when his peers paddled away or walked, is invigorating. The hubris is exceptional. However, without good wings, you will fall. Flat on the face.