I was quite upset as a teenager when I was told about how comics/ movies/ RPGs had a bad influence on "youth". I also hated being made part of a group just on view of my age. I've always believed "people", like in a vast majority of people, were grown up enough to see the difference between fiction and reality.

But as of late, I've started wondering about the influence of fiction, TV series in particular, on how "people" actually see the world. A few months back, I was at one of my music friends' place; we were converting a barn into a room to practice, so we were in cement and concrete since morning. One of my friends' kids, aged 9, was supposed to go to a friend's birthday party, in the village, about 500 meters away, 400 of which are not on a road used by cars. Having grown up in the countryside, I was most amazed they had to give him a ride. When I looked puzzled I was replied "You know, with what goes on nowadays..." I'm not absolutely sure the number of dangerous perverts is much higher than when I was a kid. And these friends have crossed the US twice on bikes, Central America, Australia from North to South, Mongolia... So they're not exactly the kind to be afraid of everything.

But I noticed quite a bit that some people, who watched lots of TV, saw the world as these series showed it to them. A world full of killers that cannot be suspected, of extremely twisted kidnappers, of brutal death waiting around the corner. Though one cannot deny that these ghastly acts take place, one cannot live in fear of them happening. All over the presidential campaign we went through last spring, and since then, it seems this paranoid view of the world has completely pervaded the public debate. Our new president promises a new law every time something happens (big French legal fetish), when enforcing those existing is practically almost impossible.

I don't know if I searched well enough, but I really wonder if some serious research was undertaken on this topic. Popular fiction is less than 200 years old, and it really started spreading around in the late 19th century. Serials, through radio or TV (outside the printed medium) are three generations old at the most. So we live a lot in fiction; I enjoy this a lot, and I'm a big CSI fan, and I love Law & Order and the spin-offs. But does it have an influence on me? And on others?

OK, this was the "I've been thinking about this for a while minute". On other fronts: we record with the band this weekend. One song is GA related, the demo is available in the appropriate forum (yeah, you'll have to search, but as I post very little, it shouldn't be too hard) I got a new job for the next two months. I work outside of home, which is nice in a way: I've got colleagues, a schedule, motivation from a team, possible business trips ... I'm afraid that this, and some family issues that are going on at the moment, will make my proofreading activities a bit more difficult, so for the 5 or 6 authors who entrust me with their stories, I won't be as reactive as I've been. But I won't give up, it's too much fun and honor doing this.

So that's all for now folks, though having long days in the office could actually get me back in the mood for writing in the evening...