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Here's an idea: The War of the Worlds can help us understand what fiction actually is.
When I say "War of the Worlds" the first thing that probably comes to your mind is the
1938 radio broadcast narrated and directed by Mr. Orson Welles.
Welles' Halloween broadcast was so convincing in its sonic depiction of invading aliens
that, as the story goes at least, residents in and around NY and NJ were FREAKING OUT.
Orson's War of the Worlds was based on another Well's War of the Worlds: the 1897 novel by
H.G. Wells. No relation, different spelling.
HG's WAR didn't take place in the Dirty Jerz, but rather in Surrey and London, in a very
similar situation where humanity had very good reason to fear for it's well being at the
hands of giant, laser weilding not-friendlies.
But these are not the only two expressions of H.G.s original story, oooohhhh no no!
Like Sherlock, Superman and very few other piece of culture, HG's War of
the Worlds has spawned COUNTLESS, adaptations, sequels, remakes, and homages.
Like, maybe you were one of the six people to see the 1988 Canadian Television show or
the 2005 Tom Cruise vehicle which we'll reference once or twice because the assets are good--EXPLOSION!
The entire War of the Worlds media complex is built upon and references what is arguably the
same universe, characters, history, situations...
And at least one instance of it was able to convince people that the fiction was in fact ...FACT.
Which is why it's such a great way to talk about how... FICTION... works.
Or really, what fiction IS. Because, really, fiction is just an arrangement of objects--
people, places, things--set into a progression or maybe a conflict.
But what exactly ARE those things? The people, places, and stuff-n-junk that make up a fictional story?
From a super young age we're taught that the core nature of fiction is that the objects and
situations in it aren't real, that they're necessarily false-- that they don't ACTUALLY exist.
And maybe they don't. In next week's video we're gonna talk about Harry Potter and what EXISTENCE
and NOT EXISTENCE means for elements of fictional stories, but for now:
We say Martian Invaders don't "exist" but HERE THEY ARE. I can point at them, and with
War of the Worlds Martian invaders specifically there's even a particular look and STYLE.
There is this bundle of characteristics which is conjured, and which, until next week at
least, we're going to say qualifies as a KIND of existence.
That existence, though, is *clearly* different from that of radio show hosts and minivans,
protons and even ideas like peace and time...
Especially because along with those things that as far as we know aren't actually *actual*-- like giant
aliens, capsule shaped interplanetary space-craft, Tom Cruise being a Dock Worker...
Fictions also contain "real" things WITH actuality...
things LIKE motorcycles, minivans, protons, Tom Cruise, and ... peace.
Are those things, the inside the fiction but otherwise real things, any different from
the outside the fiction versions of themselves?
Put another way: is HG Wells' London THE London? Is Orson Welles' Jersey THE Jerz? Is a Martian
Invader... A. MARTIAN. INVADER? God i hope not.
In name, maybe, depending upon who you ask. All these things are what they ... are.
Fictional Grover's Mills exists in A JERSEY--but here's the thing: that Jersey only
exists because of a reference conjured in our minds upon hearing the word JERSEY.
Jersey, here, is a REFERENCE. It is not MEANT to be the same Jersey from
a... news report or the census.
Some, and arguably all fiction, works by REFERENCE, by gloming on or suggesting a connection
to things that we already understand or know by name.
When HG Wells invokes London, he is referencing a Fictional London, of which he only imagines
and describes maybe... 5%. What of the REST of that London?
Maybe it's there anyway, just chillin. Though, it DOES seem weird to call it "a city" since
it doesn't have plumbing or day care or whatever else except to the degree that we HAPPEN
to imagine it does.
This London seems an incomplete London REQUIRING our shared sense of what "A London" should
be--namely: old, and full of very friendly people. Except for the invading martians of course.
And speaking of which! What ABOUT those things which exist between fictional worlds but most
certainly NOT in ours?
When H.G. Wells created those bear sized, leathery, tentacled martians, it could be
said that he also created a world in which they really do exist.
Creationism--but not that creationism--says that fictional objects exist, but only because
of the authors who first created them, "actively and intentionally." footnote: jeffery goodman
Meaning, they don't exist here in our ACTUAL world except as entertainment, but they do exist
IN, and as is the case here, IN BETWEEN, other merely possible worlds. But how does
that happen? How does something "exist" but not, and not only in one world?
Alexius Meinong was an Austrian philosopher who thought lots about this conundrum,
and had a really fun explanation:
He theorized a kind of object--which we now call a Meinongian Object--that has zero
existence, but DOES have PROPERTIES. His two most famous
examples of such an object is the round square, and the golden mountain.
Two objects which have no existence but very clearly stated properties.
Some of his later disciples, most notably a man named Graham Priest, joined the idea
for this kind of object with one that theorizes other possible worlds.
Possiblism states that anything which is possible ... exists. Also called Modal Realism, it
states that those worlds in which those possibilities became ACTUAL are just as real
as ours, because any subject inside of them would say that their world is the ACTUAL world.
So when I say "War of the Worlds Alien" or "Aunt Beast" or HE WHO SHALL NOT BE NAMED-
I'm not describing something that exists in our world, but a thing existing in another world.
And which being familiar with what I'm talking about, and regardless of its nonexistence in our world
You could probably describe, or maybe even draw, a reasonable representation of.
We think of fiction as being necessarily false; but when we look at it this way... IS IT?
Besides being true in their own potential worlds, the most believable of fictions
give accounts of events which MIGHT AS WELL have happened in our world.
This was exactly the case with the War of the Worlds radio Broadcast. While it WAS fictional,
there was nothing NECESSARY about its falsehood.
Meaning: War of the Worlds certainly wasn't a WAR in the same way that what's happening in Afghanistan
and Syria are WARS...
But for some people, at one point in history, at least, it was just as much, if not MORE, of a war.
Even though in our world it was constructed entirely of fictional objects.
It takes a special kind of object--itself but not, true but not, here AND there--to
allow fiction to work the way it does, And that's especially true in the exceptional circumstances, like the Blair
Witch Project, King Arthur, most Borges short stories and of course... The War of the Worlds.
What do you guys think? What are fictional objects? References?
Possible worlds? Mental creations? Let us know in the comments.
And in my best possible world you would subscribe.
This week's episode was part a set produced by a few PBS DS YouTubers.
So you should check out the other HG Wells and War of the Worlds related videos.
We'll put some links... everywhere. We'll just put links literally everywhere. Links, just, all over the place.
Alright everybody let's unpack...some comments.
Let's see what you guys had to say about unboxing. prosper58 wonders if it's weird that
he watches unboxing videos for objects that he already owns I say no. I mean
a lot of the comments sort of seized on the inherent excitement in unwrapping something
and revealing these things and it's kind of like you know Christmas,
receiving presents on your birthday or something, so I think it makes, i think it
makes total sense. It's also really interesting to see other people's reactions
to things that you already have... But why, sour Sorola, why do you want to
see the things that you are going to get before you get them? You
are gonna see them eventually. Why watch an unboxing video if you're gonna get it?
Thank you, Darksinne, you also seem nice...
To everybody wondering what the pink thing in the episode was it was a
mobile phone kickstand. Get your minds outta the gutter! Sticks to
the back of your phone so that it stands up. You guys.
Daniel Hough wonders about the future of unboxing videos, and yeah, it'll be really
curious to see what happens when the unboxing video turns into like another
piece of the marketing barrage that happens when there's a new piece
of technology, and yeah, we'll see whether or not we can
even like, whether or not we think of it as trustworthy or whether or not it
needs to be just a person who has this thing which,
I mean, a lot of them at this point, they kind of aren't, right? There are professional
unboxers and all this other stuff. Yeah, it's a complicated thing.
Keith Shaw says that there is also maybe some kind of inherent bragging in the unboxing video in showing
that like this person has this thing before you do and
I think thats part of the appeal right? Is that
you get to, through watching the unboxing video, you
get access to a set of knowledge that you would only have if you were otherwise standing
in front of the thing, so you can, you can like act all cool
hanging out with your friends about all the minute details that you know about some
object that you don't actually have. Not that I do that or anything.
Shane Tilton makes the very fair case that there are essentially two Sherry Turkles
the pre and post 1995 Sherry Turkle and yes, most of my ire is to recent Sherry Turkle
so thank you Shane for providing some context.
Carson Betts kind of talks about the teleology, I guess, of unboxing things that when you
buy something and you open it you're sorta done, like you have acquired
it and now you have a practical relationship with it. And the unboxing video allows you to
have that excitement of receiving a thing
without actually receiving it. Which I didn't think about it this
way and that's really cool. I think that's... I like that. A lot.
There was a weird uptick in this kind of comment this week
and I just wanna be really clear that I consider this incredibly high
praise. So to everybody saying that we are V Sauce wanna-be's: Thank you!
I mean, I think anybody who wouldn't wanna be V Sauce is, in my book at least, doing it wrong.
To MashGod and everyone else asking for an ASMR video
eventually the answer is: Yes of course! Maybe not
right around the corner but definitely, yes a thing that we will talk about.
jsk8et makes a great connection between selfies and unboxing videos
and their comment really makes me think about what I see as two
different kinds of unboxing videos: the ones where the perspective is from the person
doing the unboxing so their hands kinda become your hands, and the more performative kind
where someone sets down the camera, sits across from it, and opens
the box while looking at the camera. And I wonder if there's some sort of like
connection there between, you know, the sort of, the selfie of unboxing videos.
I don't know. It's a good comment.
This week's episode was brought to you by the hard work of these Martian invaders.
We have an IRC, a subreddit, and a Facebook. Links in the Dooblydoo
And the tweet of the week comes from KariAnnWrites who
points us toward a Slate article about new Canadian research
about the, let's say, personality of trolls.
And for this week's record swap we are going to be replacing Oxford Collapse
which makes me a little bit sad because I know a couple those dudes
with Iron Butterfly: In A Gadda Da Vita.
So, goodbye Oxford Collapse and welcome: [hums]