Words aren't the thing anymore. Everyone I know looks at videos or images all day long. They could care less about words, unless those words caption an amusing image. So ours is a dying art, mainly of interest to the old. Bless the readers, for they are few and declining in number. I was struck by Myr's call for young males to get involved with the site. I wonder how they can be lured away from videos, images, and games. I think that will not happen. Images are more immediate in their effect upon the audience and a much easier medium to convey thoughts and feelings. There are people who will never read The Lord of the Rings, but they saw the movies.

I don't think words are better or worse than video. It's just different. It's a matter of taste. I have my own personal preference, but my friends disagree. I hate videos online, and if a site starts playing one immediately, I bounce. Youtube is something I might visit once a year. Especially with how-to articles, I haven't the time or patience to watch a ten-minute video to obtain information that I could read in five minutes. The rest of the world feel differently. Maybe my reader here prefers reading (notice I did not use the plural form), but dear Reader, you know we are in the minority, and being gay, in a minority of the minority.

Videos seem to bring a soothing social component to many people, making them feel they are not alone anymore but engaged with others. One lonely lady I knew kept the television playing all day long at low volume simply because she liked to hear comforting voices of news anchors and weathermen in the background. That is a very human need. I find the people on television a little bit annoying and don't entirely trust them. I don't want to find myself repeating the things they say or using the same cadences or styles or believing what they believe. When I get lonely, I have my cats, my memories, and my husband.

Today, I think prose still has a purpose. It is the precursor to film. Every video starts out in life as an idea, and prose captures that idea. I don't think anyone has abandoned the use of scripts except producers of reality shows, which may be going out of fashion from what I've heard.