stevenberlinjohnson.com: Is Satire Also The Best Form Of Flattery?

Perhaps the clearest sign that Everything Bad has reached some kind of bizarre saturation point is the fact that major newspapers are now publishing parodies of the book and its argument. (File this under: be careful what you wish for.) It's tempting to be thin-skinned about these sorts of things, but they really have been very funny, and of course the book in question lends itself naturally to satire.

A while back Jason Kottke included Everything Bad in his hilarious "How To Order Food In A Restaurant":

Order anything made with lots of butter, sugar, etc. Avoid salad or anything organic. A meal of all desserts may be appropriate. Or see if you can get the chef to make you a special dish like foie gras and bacon covered with butterscotch and hot fudge. Ideally, you will have brought a Super Sized McDonald's Double Quarter Pounder with Cheese Meal into the restaurant with you. Smoke and drink liberally.

This week The Guardian's "editor's page" included a "digested" version of the book:

This book is an old-fashioned work of persuasion that aims to convince you of one thing: that I am one of the most influential social commentators of the 21st century. To this end I have decided to take the generally accepted premise that modern culture is dumbing down and argue the opposite, as this will guarantee me a lot of attention.
Take video games. The common view is that the people who play them are witless, atavistic sociopaths. Nothing could be further from the truth. Modern games have a free-form structure that constantly challenges the player to interact with the environment and make complex decisions.
By contrast, books deliver a linear narrative that rarely forces the reader to think. What book can teach you how to cut someone up with a chainsaw, hide their body in a dumpster and evade capture by crawling through a ventilation duct?

Finally, my favorite: a column written by the Boston Globe's Alex Beam, in which he imagines a conversation with his 12-year-old son about the book. I believe you now have to pay to read the article in the Globe archives, but basically, the joke is that Beam is trying to get his son to stop playing "Warcraft III" and his son keeps countering with quotes from Everything Bad. I particularly loved this bit:

''If not 'The Sopranos,' maybe we could watch reality TV, like 'Joe Millionaire.' Mr. Johnson says
those shows are full of 'collateral learning.' Or I could watch my 10,000th consecutive
'Simpsons' rerun. Johnson thinks reruns 'are responsible for making the culture smarter.' "

''They're not making you any smarter! You watch reruns and junk DVDs over and over again! It's
so annoying!"

''You're so out of it. Movies today are worth watching over and over. Remember 'Finding
Nemo'?"

''That idiotic cartoon we saw on the plane?"

''The very one. Johnson writes that 'you can watch Nemo dozens of times and still detect new
information with each viewing, precisely because the narrative floats so many distinct story arcs
at the same time.' "

''He has little kids. Sleep deprivation has affected his judgment."

''Did you read The New Yorker review of his book, in which Malcolm Gladwell wrote that 'at the
elementary-school level, homework seems to be of marginal or no academic value'?"

''I asked Johnson about that. He said that was Gladwell talking. Johnson turns out to be very
pro-homework."

''Really? You talked to Johnson? Does he have the Creep Jacking cheat codes?"

The Basics

I'm a father of three boys, husband of one wife, and author of seven books, and co-founder of three web sites. We spend most of the year in Marin County, California though I'm on the road a lot giving talks. (You can see the full story here.) Personal correspondence should go to sbeej at earthlink dot net. Media requests should go to Matthew.Venzon at us.penguingroup dot com. If you're interested in having me speak at an event, drop a line to Wesley Neff at the Leigh Bureau (WesN at Leighbureau dot com.)

My Books

Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation
An exploration of environments that lead to breakthrough innovation, in science, technology, business, and the arts. I conceived it as the closing book in a trilogy on innovative thinking, after Ghost Map and Invention. But in a way, it completes an investigation that runs through all the books. Sold more copies in hardcover than anything else I've written.
The Invention of Air
The story of the British radical chemist Joseph Priestley, who ended up having a Zelig-like role in the American Revolution. My version of a founding fathers book, and a reminder that most of the Enlightenment was driven by open source ideals.
The Ghost Map
The latest: the story of a terrifying outbreak of cholera in 1854 London 1854 that ended up changing the world. An idea book wrapped around a page-turner. I like to think of it as a sequel to Emergence if Emergence had been a disease thriller. You can see a trailer for the book here.
Everything Bad Is Good for You: How Today's Popular Culture Is Actually Making Us Smarter
The title says it all. This one sparked a slightly insane international conversation about the state of pop culture -- and particularly games. There were more than a few dissenters, but the response was more positive than I had expected. And it got me on The Daily Show, which made it all worthwhile.
Mind Wide Open : Your Brain and the Neuroscience of Everyday Life
My first best-seller, and the only book I've written in which I appear as a recurring character, subjecting myself to a battery of humiliating brain scans. The last chapter on Freud and the neuroscientific model of the mind is one of my personal favorites.
Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities, and Software
The story of bottom-up intelligence, from slime mold to Slashdot. Probably the most critically well-received all my books, and the one that has influenced the most eclectic mix of fields: political campaigns, web business models, urban planning, the war on terror.
Interface Culture : How New Technology Transforms the Way We Create and Communicate
My first. The book I wrote instead of finishing my dissertation. Still in print almost a decade later, and still relevant, I think. But I haven't read it in a while, so who knows what's in there!

stevenberlinjohnson.com

Is Satire Also The Best Form Of Flattery?

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