By Dom Serafini
I was recently searching among past My2¢ editorials to look for signs of some insightful predictions or analyses I’ve made, or, conversely, to see just how wrong I’ve been over the course of the years.
What I found are plenty of euphemisms to protect myself, and some aphorisms to protect others. Now, before proceeding any further I must first define each term. “Euphemism” is a mild or indirect word substituted for one considered to be too harsh or blunt when referring to something unpleasant or embarrassing. “Aphorism” is a pithy observation that contains a general truth.
These, for example, could be considered euphemisms: “Let’s be real: Before trash-TV there was toilet-water TV, but it was essentially used to measure viewers’ preferences when it came to television shows. So today’s digital TV has caused analytical audience researchers to return to analog-era appreciation indices.” (April 2023)
And: “To solve the streaming SVoD woes, C-suite honchos should apply a journalistic trait when hiring their operation executives: Find those who don’t know anything.” (January 2023)
These, on the other hand, could be classified as aphorisms: “To determine if a company is financially sound and solidly well run, the litmus test is simple: leaf through the trade press. If you see their ads, there’s money behind them. If you don’t see ads, there is only smoke and mirrors.” (June/July 2023)
And, “As for SVoD, obviously, the decades-long studio obsession to ‘do away with the middleman’ failed to bring about the expected pot of gold!” (May 2023)
Then there are expressions that cannot be categorized, or should fall under the label “uninspiring.” For example, I came up with the expression, “’Time changes tragedy into comedy,’ when describing my 2019 book I Was Frail: The Revenge of the B12 Vitamin.” (Nov. 2022)
I also like to recall: “The toothpaste is out of the proverbial tube,’ is how SVoD proponents describe this transition. ‘Yes,’ retorted OTA advocates, ‘but the toothpaste is now available in liquid form. The key is to adapt to the new paradigm.’ ” (Oct. 2022)
And: “One of the problems is that the current management was formed and trained during the ‘years of plenty,’ when the sector was making lots of money, and is therefore unaccustomed to the current uncertainties.” (Sept. 2022)
There is also: “Elevating digital technology to a philosophy is a stretch, but European intellectuals are eager to jump into it just to prove that they are intellectuals, after all”. (June 2022)
History will also remember this (or maybe not!): “Who would have thought that in 2022 the film-TV industry’s most frequently heard whine would be: ‘I wanna go to an in-person market?’ Just three years ago the cry was: ‘Who needs so many markets?’ (March-April 2022), and this: “Our love of the industry is comparable to the high level of anxiety it generates. It’s entertainment, so we should probably be having fun. But in our case, having fun is a serious business.” (Oct. 2021)
Once in a while, I also came up with something “deep,” in the sense that it was probably better to bury it! For example, “Nature, in all its wisdom, is anti-global. It has devised a way to grow food according to seasons, as well as people’s needs. In the winter we need vitamin C to fight the common cold. Nature, therefore, has given us oranges. In the summertime when dehydration can be a problem, watermelons abound. In the fall, when the human body needs to reinforce immune systems, here come grapes.” (May/June 2021)
This one is definitely an aphorism: “The world’s current state of uncertainty has created enough anxiety in the C-suites that analysts are being replaced with fortunetellers.” (Dec. 2020)
There were also attempts at being tragically funny: “I have hundreds of books at home. Half of them I’ve read, half not yet read, and half have been partially read. This month, there are four books on the ‘to be partially read’ list [including] the Italian book that I wrote.” (Nov. 2020)
And: “It’s nearly impossible to write TV comedies these days because cussing has become the only accepted form of humor. It’s almost as though it’s more polite to be impolite.” (Oct. 2020)
These could also be listed in the “Trying to be Funny” category: “The question is: Is it better to do useful work badly or to do useless work well?” (Aug./Sept. 2020)
And: “In my view, all this hoopla about landing spaceships on Mars is totally overrated, not to mention expensive and useless, especially since scientists cannot even make the public address system in New York City subway stations work.” (May 2020)
Finally, “New research says ‘that you can now eat two eggs a week,’ my cardiologist told me before adding, ‘but do it fast, before we change our minds.’ Research into the past is much like medical research. It’s one thing one year, and another the next. Indeed, the past is very fluid as history often depends upon whom and when you ask.” (Jan. 2020)
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