A friend of mine threw his arms up in exasperation, telling me that he was done with stories, or fiction per se, as he felt it was just a big lie. He’s a smart guy, a Phd, but a recent immigrant from the Middle East. So my first impression was a language barrier of some sort, as it’s obvious that stories aren’t lies. We know they’re made up and therefore “lie” isn’t the right word for it.
But still. I gave it some thought. Storytelling is not a lie, but it is fake, and when you think about just how many stories we consume through YouTube, Netflix, cable, films, books, video games not to mention the ways in which we consume them such as through tablets, phones, theatres, TV, computers, you’ve got to wonder just what kind of society we’re becoming in the 21st century.
Fictional characters play a big role in our lives. Sherlock Holmes or Anne of Green Gables or even someone like Mr. Spock have become important people, not mere entertainment. The truth is, these characters have taken on a kind of life of their own and whether we like it or not, they’ve become a part of our lives. They’re not just figments of our imaginations. They’re real in our collective conscious and unconscious too. Storytelling might be an adult’s version of playing pretend, but stories are often loaded with theories about life, our souls and even finding peace on Earth.
But, I’m not surprised at my friend’s bad mood. We’re entering a kind “peak storytelling” in our culture. No one can possibly keep up with the amount of imaginative storytelling that’s going on. Also, with soft barriers, come an influx of storytelling that is unrivaled in any age of mankind. Chinese stories in India or Italian stories in Canada, we’re sharing our tales with each other and it just adds to the volume. Let’s not forget the past either, as vintage stories are often given new life as remastered or re-imagined works. Who knows what it’s all doing to our minds? Maybe we’ll consume stories in the short term like dinner, and then just forget them. Or, we might just turn them off altogether and go back to plowing the fields. Maybe we won’t just hear of story bingeing, but also story dieting for people who can’t control their intake.
We’re in new territory, a new age in storytelling. We’ve got more of them that we know what to do with. No one wants to spend their lives in a zombie-like state watching too much TV. We want to live our lives. Besides that, other issues will come up, some financial, but also social, as stories bring people together and create a common language. If storytelling goes epic worldwide, then expect a big hit to be a multi-billion dollar project with more and more of the working class hoping to make it rich as a narrative artist of sorts. Canadian Idol is just the beginning. In fact, shows like that might become viable recruitment tools.
My main prediction, however, is that we’ll turn reality into a fictionalized world with enhanced virtual reality technologies that superimpose fiction into our field of view. Or, better yet, we’ll postulate that the very universe itself is a kind of story, a fake experience no one should believe in. In other words, we’re becoming Homo Narratus, the storytelling animal that’s aware of its own storytelling.
Right. Well, I guess it’s story time for us all. Stories are so all-consuming, you can’t even avoid them – not even in your sleep. Well, nighty-night anyway. We’ve got to accept our true natures, for better or worse.