Is writing “cool”

I would say that the decision of whether or not MAYA applies to public and professional writing depends entirely on what aspect of writing you’re discussing. While the balance between novel and familiar is especially important in novels and other consumer oriented, entertaining writing genres, this is not necessarily the case in public and professional writing. The subject matter of public and professional writing is not dictated or guided by consumerist forces and therefore the option to choose a “cool” topic is often not on the table. Your topic is dictated by the work you are doing or the directives of your boss or superior whereas in other types of writing, authors choose what they want to write about, often with the goal of selling copies.

However the presentation of information is subject to consumerist principles because your readers have the option of whether or not to read it, no matter whether your writing is professional or creative. Thus, I would argue that public and professional communication is subject to MAYA and the principles of coolness not regarding its subject but regarding its style. Whether its adding familiarity to make something incredibly novel seem more manageable (as in the case of Loewy’s contributions on the space station) or adding something novel to make old news seem worth reading (like with US 1) it is important to keep readers engaged so that the information you are trying communicate can even reach your audience.

Another interesting point would be to discuss the role of people in the editor type position of journals or other publications and how they are subject to MAYA. This would require a revision of my separation of subject and coolness. Thompson extends past consumerism to the realm of academics and discusses how applications for funding in the research world has been experimentally demonstrated to be subject to MAYA, with comfortably novel proposals experiencing more success than drastically novel ones. This demonstrates that, from a top down administrative position, decisions of which writing pieces you will share, or which proposals you will grant funding to has an aspect of choice and coolness. However, I would argue that this decision process is more of an intermediate consumption writing than it is the act of writing itself. Therefore, MAYA can apply in some contexts to subject in the entire process of writing and publishing/distributing, however, writing itself does not employ MAYA when choosing topics.

Successful writing styles are very much dependent on what the norm of a time is. Consider reading Shakespeare versus reading Jodi Picault; reading an article from nature versus reading an article from the times. While both Shakespeare and Jodi Picault seek to convey drama and entertainment to their reader, they are written in drastically different ways simply because of the norms of communication at the time. What style of writing experiences the most success in its attempts at communication depends greatly on the temporal and topical context of that writing. So are changes in writing styles between conexts different sides of the same coin? Are they reinventing the wheel? Or are they simply the same techniques applied to different topics and goals?

The Marvel analogy discusses is an example of the latter; Marvel uses the same characters, in the same setting, with slightly different events but nonetheless the same goal (entertainment) and values throughout a series. The FX tv show analogy discusses different sides of the same coin. It is a situation wherein novel presentation is used for the same goal over and over again; each new presentation is inherently the same, it just has a different façade.” They are more like narrative Trojan horses, in which new characters are vessels containing classic themes—surprise serving as a doorway to the feeling of familiarity, an aesthetic aha.” Thomas also relates this to the use of similar chords in music. While a great number of pop songs are all built on the same exact chord progression, they sound completely different, and while you may argue that they each try to make their listener try to feel something different, their ultimate goal is nonetheless to invoke emotion.

In the same way, all writing is has one fundamental goal: communication. While the goal can range from informing to persuading, the goal is always to effectively convey a point. And this ultimate goal requires clarity and interest to keep your reader reading. Thus I would argue that all writing, public and professional writing included, most closely resembles the FX tv show, with new façades and styles intended to keep readers reading but the ultimate goal is always the same, clarity and comprehension. Small changes in style to maintain engagement add up over time, resulting in slow revolutions in the norms of communication between time periods and contexts the same way that small, single letter or sound changes in baby names add up. “This is how culture evolves—in small steps that from afar might seem like giant leaps.”