Is there ever an original thought anymore? It’s tough to find in the world of music with all of the samples and it doesn’t

Image Comedy Central

seem like there’s a flick that hits the theaters that wasn’t made 30-some-odd years ago or was on the smaller screen on Saturday mornings (here and here). Even the world of literature which screams originality, tends to borrow from stories past. As does our government, one would only need to look at Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick to hear the words of Change 1.0.

I found myself wondering the same thing about the business marketing industry as my boss and I pondered ideas for a contest after reading the story about Netflix awarding a cold million to the winners of their three-year old contest to improve their movie prediction tool. The contest seemed original to us for all of an hour or so when Mashable posted this nugget about PayPal.  It was kind of disheartening throwing contest ideas off one another only to say Didn’t so-and-so do that contest, heck even the contest that we are currently running, has been done before.

It almost felt like we were stuck in that episode of South Park where the shows creators mocked their own originality in an episode called Simpsons Did It.  Every creative thought was met with a sarcastic Simpsons did it, in an homage of sorts for the classic Fox series.

With the overall lack of original ideas out there, I wonder if it is the idea that matters or if it is in the delivery.  I am a firm believer in the proof being in the pudding, so the success hinges on how well the campaign is executed that ultimately will determine a company’s success. Afterall with human life being thousands of years old, there is a good chance that whatever you are thinking, it has been done before. If not, by a person, I am sure that the Simpsons did it first.

Who would have thought that a show about four boys from a redneck hick town in Colorado would be around 11 years after offending it’s first audience? Let alone spark scholarly conversation and debate.

Image: Sidereel.com

You don’t need to adjust your computer monitor, I did just mention South Park in the same breath as intellectuals. The show that spurned every ethnic group from Mormons to Christians, social and disabled groups and drove Chef to quit with their infamous Scientology episode has sparked a series of philosophical debates in South Park and Philosophy, You Know I Learned Something Today.

In 22 separate essays, philosophers and sociologists churn up reasoning from Freud to Socrates to give reason to a show that often lacks a moral conscious.

The essay that I found most fascinating was Vote or Die Bitch by John Scott Gray. Part of the reason that it stood out so much was that I read it during the election. In the end all of our choices turned out to be, in Stan’s words between a turd sandwich and a douche. The rational by Gray actually showed that in a roundabout way, change is really just something old coming back into fashion. Much like those awesome sweaters that you have hiding in storage.

While the book was a quick read, some of the discussions were over the head of philosophical novices like myself, I would suggest checking it out if you are a fan of the show.

Has anyone else checked out this book?