In a brief interlude around 5:00, when some folks were leaving the office and others were visiting, the conversation turned to cable television.
CNN has changed a lot. I remember realizing that fully when I saw
a segment on a farmer who lost two cows. Isn't there something in
Europe, perhaps, that might be more newsworthy than that?
Maybe the cows were kidnapped by terrorists?
I asked.
And they'll soon be beheaded, right.
If we dressed up in turbans and took movies of ourselves going
cow-tipping,
I wondered, how long would it take before they
were all over the Internet?
Let me be clear here: I think that a video of men in tuxedos or Mandarin jackets would be equally ludicrous, and would spread across the net nearly as fast. I can't help but think that if I had a handheld video recorder and access to a field full of cows (or, to be more safe and more humane, a field and a pile of sawhorses, pillows, and other items from which I could build fake cows), that this would be a wonderful experimental waste of an evening. Tape three videos: one of people in fake turbans tipping fake cows; one of people in fake tuxedos tipping fake cows; and one of people in Mandarin jackets tipping fake cows. Place all three videos on the network, and write a mail to a few friends saying that it's there. Wait one month and observe how far the video has spread.
I'll link anyone who wants to try it?