#3,116 – AI Week: Concept Trailers

Who should be the next James Bond? Aaron Taylor-Johnson? Idris Elba? Someone else? What about Henry Cavill? If you’re leaning towards Superman a recent AI infused concept trailer has got you covered.

As Futurism puts it:

“Misleadingly billed as ‘Bond 26 – First Trailer,’ the fake casts Margot Robbie as Cavill’s co-star, and envisions — in another common fantasy pick — Christopher Nolan as director, according to the suspiciously ChatGPT-sounding synopsis in the video description.

Created by KH Studio, which has dozens of fake trailers like these on its channel, the video uses a mix of AI imagery and real movie footage, including scenes from what appears to be ‘The Man From Uncle,’ Cavill’s most Bond-like role to date.”

Even though the trailers are an AI fakery I don’t mind them. On the contrary, I love the idea of using AI to bring fantasizes to life, to envision what our favorite movies might look like with different casting decisions or to give us a glimpse of what a rumored project might actually look like. Such as Back to the Future Part IV with Tom Holland.

If Hollywood executives paid attention they could use these concept trailers as a way to screen ideas and make casting decisions, seeing how certain people would look in certain roles before actually having to make key decisions that could make or break a movie. The more clicks and views a certain concept trailer got the more likely it would be that version would get greenlit. For now we can just enjoy all the concept trailers out there currently making the rounds on YouTube.

Are Concept Trailers the Greatest Idea Ever?

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#3,004 – AI Week: Magenta Green Screen

When Netflix isn’t foolishly cracking down on password sharing they’re innovating, constantly trying to find new ways to stay ahead of the curve whether that’s tweaking their famous recommendation algorithm, developing new projects, or pioneering new technologies. Such is the case with their new approach to green screening.

Quartz explains:

“Netflix researchers have pioneered a visual effects method that could be an improvement to the traditional green screen, and it just requires one extra color: magenta. A study published on arXiv.org dubs the new method ‘Magenta Green Screen.’

The technique requires the subjects to be bathed in red and blue LED lights, creating the color magenta, while standing in front of a traditional green screen. Digital cameras, which interpret light in red, blue, and green values, can then split the actors and screen into separate channels: the magenta channel (foreground) and green channel (background).

AI can then reference photos of the actors in natural lighting to eliminate the magenta hue. Researchers say that the technique makes it easier to composite, or layer, visual elements. It can even pick up on tricky details like strands of hair and transparent objects.”

It remains to be seen if Generative AI, with the potential to turn anyone into a film maker, can truly disrupt Hollywood and by extension Netflix. Doing to them what they did to Blockbuster. But for now using AI in their own unique way is to Netflix’s advantage as they try to increase the amount of paid subscribers they have.

Is a Magenta Green Screen the Greatest Idea Ever?

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#2,973 – Tesla Drive-In

Elon Musk is driving everyone crazy with all of his changes to Twitter, I mean X, but his penchant for constant innovation could result in a neat idea: a drive-in movie theater/charging station concept so that Tesla owners can multi-task and watch a movie while their car charges. Or at least clips of movie since charging wouldn’t take a full two hours.

Design Boom explains:

“As reported by Teslarati, CEO Elon Musk listed Arizona-based practice Stantec as the project architect and California-based PCL Construction Services Inc. as the contractor. The submitted architectural drawings, initially tweeted by a now-suspended account (@MarcoPRTesla), reveal 32 stalls in the parking lot, combining Superchargers and Level 2 charges. An indoor-seating restaurant will offer versatile food options on its menu while a rooftop area invites leisurely rest and the chance to eat outdoors. Completing the Tesla project are two movie theater screens running famous movie clips 24/7. Guests at the old-school diner and drivers supercharging their vehicles can enjoy these 30-minute snippets before heading off to their final destinations. Design-wise, a recent tweet by Elon Musk specifies that the diner will boast a retro-futuristic aesthetic: ‘Grease meets The Jetsons with Supercharging.’ “

As much as I rail on Musk for ruining Twitter and damaging the Tesla brand with his antics even I can admit this is a cool idea. Especially the retro futuristic aesthetic.

Is a Tesla Drive-In the Greatest Idea Ever?

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#2,900 – New Black Mirror Scenarios

Five years ago when I was first discovering Black Mirror I came up with 50 additional plots of mine based on current events and my own ideas. Most of them really do feel eerily prescient and like they could be actual episodes on the hit show. Others remain purely in the realm of science fiction. With so much going on though it’s time to come up with some more scenarios ripped from the headlines and my imagination. 61 of them this time around! Charlie Brooker, you’re welcome in advance:

• It started with AI girlfriends.  Chatbots based on real people that you can rent out to chat with and pretend to date.  But eventually people began to fall in love and wound-up marrying AI entities.  Which means that some children are going to wind up growing up with AI parents. Which creates a whole host of issues at the first parent-teacher conference when an AI parent feuds with an AI teacher designed to act like Socrates.
• It started out just as testing but eventually synthetic embryos wind up developing all the way into full-fledged humans.  Is the resulting person actually human or something else? The next generation is about to find out.
• AI advancements let us communicate with other species. All species. Not just our pets but wild animals too. Resulting in mostly hilarious situations and improving life for every little thing on Earth.  Until a plot to overthrow humans unfolds in the ocean.
• Sending each other memes takes a dark turn when we develop the ability to actually emotionally experience the memes not just view them. This starts out as a way to prank people until it’s used for torture.
• To keep up with AI some people decide to get Brain Computer Interface implants.  Leading to a divide in society between those who have implants and those who don’t. And a plan from the government to force conversion.
• A conspiracy theorist finds compelling evidence to suggest that some major conspiracy theories were in fact true and all the facts we’ve been told are the conspiracies.  But no one believes him. Until years later when whether or not to believe him becomes a conspiracy theory itself.
• A driverless car has to sole the train problem and make a life-or-death choice between saving one person (you) or a bunch of other people.  The person who wasn’t chosen was the inventor of the car.
• A mental health call center fires their entire staff and replaces it with a chatbot that starts to give bad advice.  Including to some of the recently let go staff that now needed to use the service.
• Researchers at CERN prove the existence of an alternate reality and figure out a way to contact that world.  Leading to a whole host of problems once people start interacting with their other versions.
• There’s so much AI generated content that AI programs start to use AI generated content in their search results creating a feedback loop that crashes the program. And a society that grew too reliant on AI is now hapless without any AI to guide them.
• Space tourism accident results in several billionaires dying. Turns out it was sabotage.  A plot to kill off all of the world’s billionaires one by one by enticing them to spend ridiculous amounts of money on novel experiences that only they can afford. The most it cost the more they wanted to risk it all.
• An AI QR code brings you into an Augmented Reality.  That you can’t escape from.
• We develop the ability to play back our dreams as movies. Watching them with loved ones let us share our sub conscious thoughts and become even closer together. But this backfires when a young couple find out what the husband has been dreaming of and fantasizing about.
• A Climate Change geo-engineering scheme to save the planet goes wrong, actually dooming us all.
• Underwater spas grow in popularity after a stunt shows that living underwater for 100 days can make you 10 years younger.  But there are unintended side effects such as loss of bone density and personality changes.
• Some people decide to use Personal AI to built their own chatbots trained on their own data so that they aren’t reliant on Big Tech.  These chatbots respond to emails and complete tasks for us based on how we normally would respond. But can we be held legally responsible for something our Personal AI said? One man is about to find out.
• To keep up with AI the Transhumanism movement takes off with people implanting sensors into themselves.  There’s a rift in society between Luddite holdouts, those with Brain Computer Implants, and the Transhumanists actively merging with technology.
• AI wins a local art contest enraging a talented artist who desperately needed the prize money.
• Biosensor tattoos monitor our health and let us know when our blood sugar levels are too low or when we have an infection. The tattoo of a young woman keeps glowing but doctors can’t figure out what it’s trying to tell them.  Is it malfunctioning or is she about to die? A similar plot could be with tech that monitors your mental health and indicates that you’re going crazy when you’re not which actually winds up driving you crazy.
• A factory worker starts to don a mechanized suit that allows him to lift heavy weights.  At first, he’s reluctant to put on the suit but eventually he doesn’t want to take it off. In fact, he can’t.
• There are currently fears that TikTok is actually a Chinese bioweapon. Designed to make us dumber. An episode could explore a similarly sinister social media plan.
• Sex toys in the future let you send your emotions to your partner. A kissing machine even lets you experience what it’s like to kiss your partner.  Which is problematic when a young man in Tokyo decides to stay in a long-distance relationship rather than ever met up with his girlfriend IRL.
• Just like a Tamagotchi a new smart watch lets you take care of a pet that’s living inside the watch face. But eventually the pet becomes aware that it’s trapped and wants to get out of the watch. 
• In the future there are a whole bunch of ways to give birth.  There are babies from three parents, babies seeded by robots, babies grown inside of artificial wombs, babies with AI entities for parents. In one private school for the ultra wealthy all of these different babies grow up together.  In a time lapse episode that jumps around throughout their childhoods you come to find out which birthing method is the best and which ones raises a killer.
• An AI powered typewriter helps a wannabe author produce several big hits. He signs a big contract for a sequel to his blockbuster hit but now the AI no longer wants to help. And his deadline is fast approaching.
• A hacker uses voice cloning technology to steal information and commit robberies while pretending to be the victim’s loved one.  But then that same technology is used by the authorities to trick him into surrendering.
• A woman who feels no pain goes viral.  Resulting in her being experimented on by a drug to try and find a drug that can eliminate pain for everyone else. They’re actually successful, not just in eliminating pain but also in removing fear which has unintended consequences as everyone in society becomes reckless.
• A new app store for neurological experiences lets people select the mood or feeling that they want and download it for a small fee. Predictably, a new brand of drug addict emerges.
• An avalanche causes a group of friends to get snowed in. Luckily their rental house is made of edible bricks. To survive all they have to do is eat their way out.
• A psychological vaccine is developed that protects us against misinformation. But how do we know what’s misinformation and what’s fact?
• A link is established between gut health and mental health leading to a whole host of new treatments. And a nefarious plan from a cereal manufacturer to control our minds through breakfast cereals.
• A new hangover cure lets you drink as much as you want without ever getting drunk. It works really well and people begin to become reliant on it. Leading to a series of overdoses when it suddenly stops working.
• Unemployment reaches an all-time high as AI avatars and chatbots replace most traditional jobs.  People begin to fight back leading to an all-out riot.
• An episode that explores the nature of physics/reality/illusions. If reality isn’t “real” what is the world really like? A man suffers a traumatic brain injury that impacts his vision and his brain instead of constructing reality shows him the raw feed.
• In an alternate reality people embrace taking vaccines.  To the point where we now have vaccines for everything.  For preventing bug bites, Alzheimer’s, skin cancer, diabetes, everything. One day the “everything” vaccine comes out that promises to protect you from everything.  But there are unintended consequences.
• There’s so much plastic in the world that it’s starting to get into our water and food supplies.  The local weather even gives plastic rain forecasts. Eventually people start embracing all the plastic.  A little bit too much.
• A woman starts having success at her job once she starts using ChatGPT.  Soon she becomes obsessed with AI and does whatever it tells her to.  Using chatbots to communicate with friends.  Using its advice on what to eat and what to wear. Eventually she takes things too far and starts killing because the AI told her to.
• A viral TikTok trend (the Grimace shake) goes too far once people start trying to one up each other on who can orchestrate the best fake death.
• Skin suits get developed that let you change your physical appearance so you can hide skin deformities or become a different race or gender. Problems arise when no one is who they appear to be.
• A rescue worker testing a jetpack designed to reach inaccessible terrain on rescue missions crashes deep in a forest on a test run.  There he discovers a lost tribe that’s never encountered any modern technology before.  Their whole society is quickly torn apart once they start interacting with the gadgets he had on him.
• A Japanese inventor creates a suit that gives people up to six extra arms. Hilarity and controversy ensue once people start living with extra appendages.
• NASA researchers figure out how to use ultrasound pulses to induce hibernation in astronauts. Meanwhile a study comes out suggesting that noise is detrimental to your health. A tech blogger winds up using all of the latest research (initially intended for benevolent purposes) to go on a crime spree inducing hibernation in his victims (instead of killing them) and using a noise gun to injure them. Points to a scary future where gun violence has been replaced by science inspired violence.
• An episode takes you through the day in the life of a citizen in a peaceful, futuristic society where everything is perfect.  So, how is this a black mirror episode? The twist at the end is that this taking place on a floating city in a world overwhelmed by rising sea levels from Climate Change.
• Ghosting becomes such a problem that a dating app goes to the extreme and forces people who match to stay together no matter what.
• In the future there are so many unique people.  There’s a person who can’t feel pain and another who can experience colors. So called Freaks of Nature like a boy who can’t stop hiccupping and a transhumanist with over a 100 different implants in their body who become famous for being so unique.  But fame comes with a price.  When an eccentric antiques collector winds up collecting them too and putting them into a human zoo on a remote island.
• A geneticist invents a way to bring back extinct species such as the Wooly Mammoth.  But eventually Neanderthals are brought back as well and all hell breaks loose.
• A universal translator lets people talk to anyone regardless of what language they speak.  But eventually the translations aren’t accurate and an international incident ensues.
• Voice based technology continues to take over society.  From podcasts to voice controlled AI assistants to voice cloning we’re constantly talking to or listening to something.  There are even podcasts recorded in our own voices.  This winds up driving a man crazy when he thinks he starts hearing voices. Is he or did he just forget to take out his earpiece and still has a podcast in his own voice playing?
• It’s been suggested that by 2025 90% of all online content will be AI generated. Not only will we struggle to know what’s real news or fake news but soon we won’t even be able to tell what’s AI generated and what’s made by a real person. Or even who is real or an AI avatar. Is the main character even real?
• The Technological Convergence (AI, AR/VR, nanobots, quantum computing, driverless cars, synthetic biology, 3D printing, etc.) all coming online at once overwhelms society as we’re not emotionally ready to experience 20,000 years of innovation in just 100 more years of evolution. 
• AI advancements lead to a new Beatles song and remixes of other famous artists.  To the point where no new songs ever get invented again.  Which makes a rising pop star very angry.
• The button. Just hit the button and AI automatically responds to your email.  Or just hit the button and AI codes an app for you.  Soon society becomes too reliant on just hitting “The Button” to do everything. To disastrous results. Like when someone hits a button that starts a nuclear war.
• A local pizza chain (domino’s inspired) uses technology in their marketing ploys such as paving roads to ensure smoother pizza delivery.  So much so that they become obsessed with using technology in service of pizza.
• Thanks to AI and VR books and movies now allow to visit virtual recreations of famous worlds such as Middle Earth or Dunder Mifflin as you live inside the stories. In this episode you get to experience some famous examples. That you can’t escape from.
• Inspired by the Mark Zuckerberg/Elon Musk cage fight duels make a comeback to settle feuds in the future.  Even for people who don’t want to participate.  With a surveillance state ensuring that every infraction gets noticed and resolved.
• A whistleblower comes forward with proof of alien technology. And then starts to get harassed as a result. Is he telling the truth? You’re left wondering but there’s a suggestion that a lot of modern technology was actually reverse engineered from alien tech.
• Inspired by vintage inventions that have been shared recently on Twitter such as a pedestrian catcher, window knocker, acoustic kitty, solar bath, music for the deaf, etc. there’s an episode that takes place in the past with a plot revolving around the unique inventions of the time.  Imagining what a Black Mirror-esque experience would have been like in a different era.
• A new procedure lets people become taller.  But first they have to break their own legs on purpose.
• A DNA ancestry kit leads to a host of issues. A person finds out they only have a few days to live due to a rare genetic disorder.  Someone else find out they are related to an infamous person while another gets arrested from a 30 year-old cold case.
• A famous inventor (Ray Kurzweil inspired) is known for making scarily, accurate predictions about the future. Throughout the episode you see him working on something, making new calculations.  At the end of the episode he is horrified by what he sees.  But the audience never knows what that is.
• A marketing firm gets hired to promote a new movie (think Barbie dream house popping up in Malibu) and brings that movie to life in the real world. But some people don’t know that what they’re seeing is just to promote a movie.

Could any of my ideas become a Black Mirror episode?!

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#2,836 – AI Month: AI Generated Movies

This isn’t exactly the best time to be going on strike if you’re a Hollywood writer. Not when AI is emerging as a real threat to creativity. In fact, we may only be a few years away from watching movies entirely generated by AI. Not just using ChatGPT to polish up the script or MidJourney to generate some of the images you’re viewing. Not even a fully generated AI movie starring entirely made up people which is also coming soon. But an AI program fully capable of creating a custom movie for you, starring your avatar, and using your own voice. With you in the role of Director/Prompt Engineer.

Futurism explains:

“In a recent panel interview with Collider, Joe Russo, who has directed big Marvel movies like “Avengers: Endgame” alongside his brother, shared some of his thoughts on how AI might impact the film industry, giving it about two years before AI can create a fully-fledged movie.

‘We’re in a world where the entire generation has a facile expertise in [AI], and is also not afraid of it,’ Russo said. ‘So potentially, what you could do with it is obviously use it to engineer storytelling and change storytelling,’ allowing for ‘constantly evolving’ stories.

‘You could walk into your house and save the AI on your streaming platform,’ he added. ”Hey, I want a movie starring my photoreal avatar and Marilyn Monroe’s photoreal avatar,’ Russo explained. ”I want it to be a rom-com because I’ve had a rough day,’ and it renders a very competent story with dialogue that mimics your voice.’

The director also said he believes modern TVs are not far off from having enough processing power to ‘render anything in real-time.’

‘You can curate your story specifically to you,’ he added.”

If you’ve already played around with ChatGPT, MidJourney or any other form of AI you already know how easy and fun it is to come up with your own prompts and see the ensuing results. You no longer have to be an artist to create art or a writer to generate prose. And soon you won’t need to be a director either.

Would you want to be the star of your very own AI generated movie?

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#2,818 – AI Month: Rooms.xyz

If you thought your kids were already spending too much time playing Roblox you ain’t seen nothing yet. Just wait until they find out about Rooms.xyz, a combination between Minecraft and Roblox that’s like digital Legos as you build your very own interactive 3D space on your browser.

TechCrunch explains:

“A team of ex-Googlers is today launching a new digital creativity platform, Rooms.xyz, into beta testing. The startup, backed by $10 million in seed funding led by a16z, offers a browser-based tool for designing 3D spaces — or ‘rooms’ — using drag-and-drop, editable objects or code, allowing users to express themselves through creative play as they design rooms, basic games or other interactive activities contained in these small, online spaces.

The idea is something in between a simple creation tool like Minecraft and a more advanced world-building platform, like Roblox. Or, as the company describes it, it’s like the ‘digital equivalent of LEGO.’

Like a box of LEGOS, Rooms is meant for open-ended play where people use the objects to express themselves in some way — whether that’s building a tiny version of a real-world room, a dream room or by creating some sort of interactive space, like a simple game or a musical instrument you can click to play, or something else.”

For example..

Considering the creative possibilities and how easy and fun it is to use it’s clear that Rooms.xyz is going to blow up on the same level as Minecraft or Roblox. The Next Big Thing in entertainment has arrived.

Is Rooms.xyz the Greatest Idea Ever?

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#2,741 – The Netflix Fix

Netflix has been drawing a lot of heat lately for canceling shows too quickly. If the numbers aren’t there the very first weekend the shows are gone. I get that we live in a cancel culture but this is getting ridiculous! Case in point: the mind-boggling cancellation of the mind-bending 1899. Which especially doesn’t make sense considering it’s from the creators of Dark who have already delivered Netflix a mega hit. Fans have started an online petition to bring it back but it’s probably to no avail. Is this why Reed Hastings just stepped down? Has he come to the realization that Netflix is a sinking ship, about to face serious backlash for the way they do business?

The problem with canceling shows too quickly is that it makes people overly cautious. Why invest time and energy in a new show if it’s just going to get canceled after one season, ending on a cliffhanger with multiple subplots that never get resolved? Better to wait for a few seasons to come out and a satisfying conclusion to be put in place before jumping in. But if you do that, if you wait too long to start watching, if everyone does, then no show will ever get renewed. Creating a vicious cycle.

It’s gotten so bad that some showrunners are literally now begging people to watch their shows opening weekend as that is literally the only metric that Netflix cares about. But what if you don’t want to do that? What if you have a trip coming up and want to save a show for a long flight? Or for a rainy day? What if your just too busy to drop everything and watch something the day it comes out. Shouldn’t we be out and about, enjoying our lives, instead of just sitting around on the couch all the time anyway?

What I’m proposing is that Netflix change their ways. The so-called Netflix Fix would install a new metric by which Netflix can measure the success of a show, taking into account more than just opening weekend viewership. Such as:

• How many people have a show saved in their queue to watch later
• How many people said they liked the show within Netflix
• Rotten Tomato scores
• IMDB score
• Google user scores
• DVD/Blu Ray sales
• Merchandise sales
• Ticket sales (for movies previously released in theatres including all sequels and prequels)
• Award nominations
• Social media impressions (number of tweets, retweets, likes, comments, etc.)
• Results of polls the company conducts
• # of Google searches
• How many people started and watched to completion vs. started and stopped
• How many people watched more than once
• How many people went on to watch content similar to that

Combine all that and then contrast that versus how much it cost to make and how long it took and what critics are saying. Throw it all together into a mathematical formula similar to the Drake Equation and Voilà! you have a new formula for determine the actual value of a show!

Stop canceling shows!

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#2,667 – Information Week: Geoguessr

Lots of people love geography. Countless others love to travel. Some can name all the countries. Others all the capitals. And a select few can identify any place on Earth in a manner of seconds from a quick glance at a Google Maps Street View image. Wait. What?

The New York Times explains:

“An unremarkable stretch of highway and trees, as seen on Google Maps’ Street View, appeared on the screen. It could have been anywhere from Tasmania to Texas.

“This is going to be south Philippines, somewhere on this road down here,” Trevor Rainbolt said instantly, clicking on a location on a map of the world that was less than 11 miles from the spot.

A road winding through woods was up next. Lake Tahoe? Siberia? “It looks like we’re going to be in Switzerland here, unless we’re in Japan. Yeah, we have to be in Japan here,” Mr. Rainbolt said, correctly pinpointing the country.

Mr. Rainbolt has become the face of a fast-growing community of geography fanatics who play a game called GeoGuessr. The premise is simple: As you stare at a computer or phone, you’re plopped down somewhere in the world in Google Street View and must guess, as quickly as you can, exactly where you are. You can click to travel down roads and through cities, scanning for distinguishable landmarks or language. The closer you guess, the more points you score.

To some, Mr. Rainbolt’s snap answers seem like wizardry. To him, they are simply the result of countless hours of practice and an insatiable thirst for geographic knowledge.

‘I don’t think I’m some genius,’ said Mr. Rainbolt, a 23-year-old online video producer in Los Angeles. ‘It’s like a magician. To the magician, the trick is easy, but to everyone else, it’s a lot harder.’

For the casual player, traversing still images of winding pastoral roads, Mediterranean foothills and streets filled with tuk-tuks can be tranquil, especially without a time limit. But for performers like Mr. Rainbolt, the pace is frenetic, and identifying a location can take only seconds — or less.

Mr. Rainbolt is not the top GeoGuessr player in the world. That distinction is often considered to belong to a Dutch teenager who goes by GeoStique, or to a French player known as Blinky.”

These Geoguessr players remind me of the memory competitors I read about in Joshua Foer’s excellent book Moonwalking with Einstein. People who push the boundaries of what the human brain is capable of whether that’s walking through memory palaces or recognizing images in a flash. I’m pretty sure with enough practice that I could increase my memorization skills. But identifying a place in the world that I’ve never been to before?! That would surely take a lot longer to master.

Is Geoguessr the Greatest Idea Ever?

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#2,647 – Selfie Series

The other day the Hoover Dam nearly exploded while AOC got arrested and London burned.  Then China rolled out tanks to prevent bank customers from withdrawing their own money while Joe Biden announced that he may have cancer and then did announce that he has COVID.  Another day another crisis or two.  Such is life in 2022 where we deal with unprecedented times daily. 

We could all use a little fun right now and if roasting Elon Musk’s body isn’t doing it for you anymore you may want to distract yourself with Hasbro’s Selfie Series.  A new way to turn yourself into a literal action hero.

As Gizmodo puts it:

“Unless you’ve got access to loads of gamma radiation or some mystical stones, your chances of becoming a real life superhero are very slim. The easier way to achieve your heroic aspirations is through Hasbro’s new Selfie Series: collector-grade six-inch figures featuring a custom 3D-printed version of your own face digitally scanned using your smartphone.

Creating action figures based on real people isn’t an entirely new idea; a few years ago Hasbro and Formlabs actually ran a contest where five super fans were given the chance to create an action figure based on their own likenesses. At the time, limitations in 3D printing and digital scanning meant that Hasbro couldn’t offer every fan the chance to turn themselves into a figure, but the technology has improved enough since then that the Hasbro Selfie Series will now be open to anyone who wants to pony up $60 for a six-inch figure that looks exactly like the person staring back at them in the mirror every morning—but with a better costume.”

Personally, I think this concept is super cool.  As much fun as it was playing with GI Joes and other action figures as a kid I can only imagine how much better it would have been to play with an action figure that actually looked like me and my friends!

Is the Selfie Series the Greatest Idea Ever?

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#2,569 – Storyliving

I just bought a place to live for the first time and immediately regret it.  Not because there’s anything wrong with it.  But, rather because if I would have waited a little bit longer I could have moved to Cotino.  A new residential oasis that Disney is building that will make you feel like you’re living in a magical place.  That’s right.  Everyone’s favorite theme park is now getting into the home ownership game as well. Where they will hopefully not be taking anyone for a ride.

The Verge explains:

“’Storyliving by Disney’ will operate as part of the company’s theme parks division, developing a series of master-planned communities for residential living, designed by Disney’s creative staff and offering the same pampered tranquility found in its resorts.

‘Picture an energetic community with the warmth and charm of a small town and the beauty of a resort,’ said Disney Parks, Experiences and Products exec Helen Pak in a promotional video.

Only one location has been announced so far: a community of 1,900 housing units named Cotino that will be built in the city of Rancho Mirage in California’s Coachella Valley (a location where Walt Disney himself once lived).

Concept art for Cotino shows villas, condos, and housing complexes clustered around a 24-acre ‘grand oasis,’ which Disney says will offer ‘clear turquoise waters’ powered by the Crystal Lagoons technology deployed at its resorts. Amenities will include ‘shopping, dining, and entertainment,’ as well as a beachfront hotel and clubhouse hosting ‘Disney programming, entertainment and activities throughout the year.’

Members of the public will be able to visit Cotino by purchasing day passes, while a section of the development will be set aside for residents aged 55 and up.” 

Considering how fervent Disney fandom is I’m sure there will be plenty of people who will jump at the opportunity to live in a Disney themed area.  Especially considering how desperate we all are to escape our mundane lives.  Perhaps the answer to that desire for escapism then is more analog than digital.  Embedding ourselves into story driven, themed areas instead of plugging ourselves into a virtual metaverse that mirrors the real world.  Enhancing that which already exists instead of reinventing the wheel on a 1:1 scale.

But if I were Disney I would play up the association even more.  The press release said that Mickey won’t be showing up and that there wouldn’t be any discounts to Disney parks for residents.  But why not? In fact, why not go all the way and create true 24/7/365 immersive experiences? Taking for instance the Star Wars hotel experience where you supposedly feel like you’re on real missions and travel on space ships to get to the park and make that a place where people live not just visit.  Letting people live out their fantasies all of the time not just some of the time.  Now that’s a story I’d want to check out.

Is Storyliving the Greatest Idea Ever?

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