Thoughts on Digital Convergence and Zombies

You just can't teach a zombie new tricks. 

I've been thinking a lot about what makes something good. The skyscraper model of media makes it clear that there are certain types of art like opera, ballet and classical music that live at the top as "high media". Professional wrestling, reality tv and soap operas live at the bottom of the skyscraper. If you asked me where a show like "The Walking Dead" lived on this model a few years ago, I would've probably said "somewhere in the middle". The show, while graphic and gory does tell an entertaining story that is intense and sometimes thought-provoking.

However, my feelings on the show and my enjoyment of it has really died out as of late, no pun intended. (I mean isn't it getting tired seeing what happens when someone in the surviving group feels the need to "be alone" for a little bit?) 

The sheer amount of marketing and corporate messaging that goes into the show has become maddening. AMC Network flat-out begs its audience to follow the show on social media via a computer or mobile device while watching the show. This second-screen experience, while helpful for determining fan engagement to a show, has become distracting and interrupts the viewing pleasure of the show itself. No matter what kind of ratings the show generates, the Walking Dead is always going to be bogged down by corporate messaging, encouraging people to turn their attention away from the show, and onto other devices to further hook and advertise to its audience. It's a shameless technique, one that holds the show back from ever becoming "high" media. Imagine if the Lincoln Center encouraged its audience to Instagram photos of a performance of an opera. It just wouldn't happen. Never will happen. In this television renaissance we are in right now, "The Walking Dead" never garners the critical support of many of its peers (even on the same network), and I suspect that this heavily marketed approach to the show is part of the reason why. AMC tries to guide its audience to this new idea of a second-screen, and call me old-fashioned, but what's wrong with just watching a show undistracted by your mobile phone? You just can't convince me that this form of taking in entertainment does anything but turn people into zombies.

I really want a show like this, with zombies and horror and questionable moral situations. George Romero's "Night of the Living Dead" is an absolute classic, and I would argue, deserves a penthouse up on the skyscraper of media. "The Walking Dead" is living somewhere in the man cave of the skyscraper, playing a "Walking Dead" themed mobile game, tweeting on its laptop, and watching tv while the brain continues to rot away.

I appreciate that in modern times, new technology makes our lives easier and more convenient. In the world of publishing, digital technology has given anyone and everyone a voice. People can be informed and aware of what is going on in the world while on-the-go. But when does digital convergence, become digital interruption? When does it get in the way of appreciating a work of fiction? When does this perpetual influx and blending of ways to access media render the quality of its content dead, lifeless, gasping for air, much like a zombie?