2008 Woodie Awards
A&C Redux
Ami Zukowsky
Issue date: 10/15/07 Section: Arts and Culture
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While the fact that we are read less than the features section is to be expected, to have been read less than the technology section is just embarrassing. This is the problem that faces the Arts & Culture section. So when I first sat down with my fearless leader Zev, and discussed with him what I thought to be the way to Arts & Culture salvation, naturally my first thought was what any person handed this challenge would think, enticing photography. But, as Zev pointed out to me, our readership had already been taught (in Commentator Volume XX; Issue 4) how to use the Google Image Search to locate any picture that their hearts desire.
"Dag nab it," I thought. Once again the editor over in the 'Tech Sec' had gotten one over on Arts & Culture. So at this point I decided to approach the situation from a different angle. I realized that I needed to use my critical analysis skills, which Yeshiva works tirelessly to cultivate inside me, to figure out what it is that draws people to the Tech Sec, and not to A&C! So I went to the YU Commentator archives where, "magical wonders are to behold when you enter" and what I discovered there was quite shocking.
In its early days the Tech Sec was just an average section of The Commentator, it received modest, but consistent readership numbers (almost identical to those of the Arts & Culture section). It recorded mostly landmark topics in the field of technology. There was the founding of IBM, the TB vaccine, the founding of both Windows and Mac, and AOL's inception. But then something changed. At some point early in the new millennium the Tech Sec's Internet hits went sky rocketing, and the Arts & Culture section's hits went into the basement. Every article they wrote was a hit. 'Why The PSP Took Over My Life' received triple the hits that 'Titanic: A Movie for the Ages' did, 'A Gamer is Me' quadrupled the viewing numbers that 'The Notebook: An Emotional Journey about a Journey of Emotion' received. How could this be? The people at Facebook report that Titanic, and The Notebook are two of Yeshiva's favorite movies, and only thirteen people in the Yeshiva Network list video-games as one of their interests. How then could the Tech Sec be beating us? Then I found it.
"Dag nab it," I thought. Once again the editor over in the 'Tech Sec' had gotten one over on Arts & Culture. So at this point I decided to approach the situation from a different angle. I realized that I needed to use my critical analysis skills, which Yeshiva works tirelessly to cultivate inside me, to figure out what it is that draws people to the Tech Sec, and not to A&C! So I went to the YU Commentator archives where, "magical wonders are to behold when you enter" and what I discovered there was quite shocking.
In its early days the Tech Sec was just an average section of The Commentator, it received modest, but consistent readership numbers (almost identical to those of the Arts & Culture section). It recorded mostly landmark topics in the field of technology. There was the founding of IBM, the TB vaccine, the founding of both Windows and Mac, and AOL's inception. But then something changed. At some point early in the new millennium the Tech Sec's Internet hits went sky rocketing, and the Arts & Culture section's hits went into the basement. Every article they wrote was a hit. 'Why The PSP Took Over My Life' received triple the hits that 'Titanic: A Movie for the Ages' did, 'A Gamer is Me' quadrupled the viewing numbers that 'The Notebook: An Emotional Journey about a Journey of Emotion' received. How could this be? The people at Facebook report that Titanic, and The Notebook are two of Yeshiva's favorite movies, and only thirteen people in the Yeshiva Network list video-games as one of their interests. How then could the Tech Sec be beating us? Then I found it.