Brian O'Blivion

Sometimes I see a movie that is so good, I hit myself on the head for not seeing it before. Like Videodrome by David Cronenberg. It's about a TV-producer who gets strong hallucinations from a pirate broadcast. After a while even the viewer, as well as the main character, can't separate real life from illusion.

What was very interesting about the movie, is that it contained a few interesting theories about media. One of the characters, Brian O'Blivion, was actually based on a real-life scientist Marshall McLuhan; a man who first used the term 'Global Village' and who predicted the internet almost 30 years before it was invented. The character Brian O'Blivion only talked to people with videotapes. But nobody knew that he already died. He built a big library of videotapes that could be used for any occasion. This way he lived on for the world, long after his death.

Nowadays you don't need a library of videotapes anymore. A simple profile on Facebook is enough to make yourself immortal. Sometimes it's sad to see a profile of a death person. You still see vivid, happy photographs. People still write messages to the deceased. And even the age is rising, like nothing ever happened. Social media creates more and more Brian O'Blivions every day.