Week 4 Lab: TED Talk Video Notes

 The danger of a single story:

• Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's TED talk provided greater insight on the meaningfulness of storytelling. Her speech highlights how one story can dominate our understanding of people and places, although both are very complex and nuanced.
• It's crazy how limited the conventional American perspective is when discussing Africa. The diversity across African countries is often completely ignored in American discourse, and the poverty and violence are the main focuses of stories told about Africa.
• It's also interesting how the speaker focused on a classist lens too by recognizing the single story she was told of Fide. Oftentimes, poverty can become the dominating source of identity for lower-class individuals, and it ignores the redeemable and important qualities of these people. Chimamanda was not afraid to critique her own perspective, as she was in the position of power by basing her understanding of Fide's family on one story of their poverty.
• I appreciate how Chimamanda connected the danger of a single story to how media portrays political debates. Her discussion on immigration and how limited her understanding of Mexico parallels the American's limited understanding of Africa; both are told a simple, single story, but it's important for us, the audience, to seek out a diverse array of narratives to better understand the world.
• This talk demonstrated how powerful stories can be. If we start telling stories that are more diverse and emphasize the hidden complexities of people and places, we can better understand each other and avoid traditional power structures. It's important to start the story at the right time in order to construct a complete narrative, and it's essential to not extrapolate stories when we have a limited understanding.

Imaginary friends and real-world consequences:

• Dr. Barnes's TED talk made me consider something I had never thought before. Looking back, I do agree that our relationships with fictional characters do have real-world consequences, and it's psychologically fascinating how these illusionary relationships have meaning.
• I wish Dr. Barnes discussed more on the role of parasocial relationships with celebrities; we definitely have developed a culture of admiring and revering celebrities, and it would be fascinating to see the psychological underpinnings that drive this forward.
• This research re-affirms the importance of storytelling as a way to develop important relationships; even if these characters are fictional, they play an important part in so many people's lives. It's shocking that, with a conservative estimate, we've spent 235,000 years on the stories of Harry Potter. The time we've given to fictional characters is insane, and their impacts can't be ignored.

 

Story vs. Narrative graphic. Source: Flickr