[arg_discuss] TOW: almost 8 years after the Beast, which is your favourite ARG and why?

[Brooke Thompson]

On Jan 14, 2009, at 1:01 PM, Andrea A. Phillips wrote:


> Yeah, the conversation often winds up shining light on some really  

> interesting corners. No disagreement from this quarter. But we could  

> just as easily frame it as "Hey, what are some interesting  

> antecedents to ARGs?" and come up with similar results, without even  

> bringing up what bucket any of it fits into.


I, slightly, disagree. I think when you ask "what was the first arg"  
you learn not only what the person thinks might be the first ARG (or  
what they're willing to argue for that day), but also what specific  
components they're looking at to define "ARG" as well as how broadly  
and narrowly they define it.

For example, the broadest answers when I asked this yesterday were  
"when the first caveman told his first story" (obviously story must be  
the important draw to the two people that gave this answer) and "when  
Thespis stepped out of the chorus and did his own thang" (they  
expanded by saying that it was "certainly an innovative way to tell an  
immersive narrative" - so we've got innovation, immersion, and  
narrative from their answer). Now, if you asked about antecedents,  
those same broad answers may have come up, but without the primary  
assumption of "first ARG" which may give you a lot of great answers  
but it won't give you as much of a clue as to what they're looking at  
as a primary element.

Another person said "Lockjaw - that's when the phrase was coined" -  
the last time I had this discussion with them, they argued, fairly  
persuasively, for The Cottingley Fairy hoax. So, yesterday's answer  
showed an unwillingness to define things, even though they definitely  
have an answer. This shows the trend of not wanting to define the  
genre. If I had asked for antecedents, I'd have definitely gotten The  
Cottingley Fairies (and who knows what else) which wouldn't show the  
unwillingness to define (or, maybe, a desire to use the definition  
only for experiences after the term was coined).