Introduction, or, the History of Deez Mediaz, or, Why in the Hell Are You Reading this Fucking Thing in the First Place?

Pseudo-self-deprecating (actually immensely self-centered) title aside:

Long story short (believe me—this is the shortest you'll ever get it :P ), I have a tendency to, as my dude Joseph puts it, 'get worked up' on the Facebook statuses of others. A couple weeks ago, I did just such when he posted a concise statement saying that while he was not in 'celebration' of Osama bin Laden's death, he hoped that it would signify closure concerning a decade of excessive and aggressive U.S. military pursuits, to which, after some basic conversation, I responded by ranting verbosely about foreign policy. He responded by saying that, despite my long-winded response, we seem to pretty much agree on the important parts of the subject, and that perhaps my detailed writings on foreign policy would be better fitted into a blog, where more people would (perhaps >_<) pay attention to them.

In the couple weeks since then, I have engaged in three or so Facebook debates with various individuals—one of them being a lengthy (and heated) conversation with the author of this blog concerning the appropriate and rational way to deal with fundamentalist religion, due to a conversation in progress on my good friend Skye's status. The second was, similarly, on a post of Skye's and on the topic of the rhetoric of the 'New Atheism' movement, and was considerably more civil (and thus more productive and interesting). The current one is now in progress on my friend Whitney's status, about television, and is being abandoned so that it can instead be summarized and placed here as my 'inaugural' blog.

What brought me to concretize this decision was another conversation with Joseph (via Skype, as he is in Japan at the moment), wherein he teased me about the fact that I always 'get worked up' on Facebook. In defense of myself, I said, "Hey, man, it's an opportunity for intellectual discourse!" His response was, "If you're using the term 'intellectual discourse' on Facebook, you're trying too hard, man! You should get a blog!" My response to this was to create a status playfully mocking him: "Andy Jones is looking for opportunities for intellectual discourse. Any suggestions?" When my friend Dwight suggested that I look to blogs, I ceded victory to Joseph and decided to start one myself.

And that's pretty much that! Intellectual discourse ftw, man—it's what it is. I've limited the focus of this blog to 'media theory,' which I feel is a nebulous enough space for me to work within, and perhaps enough to create the illusion of unity amongst the mess of convoluted entries which will surely follow, starting with the (I hope at least somewhat convincing) debunking of the myth that television is a 'poison' which will inevitably 'brainwash you.'

Pieces.