
We Are Now at Peak TED - antitamper
https://backchannel.com/we-are-now-at-peak-ted-c4fc4926bf20
======
vidoc
TED, or the perfect display of what public speaking is today: that is, getting
some kind of Tony Robbins on stage, who wont be shy of using the same tricks
they learnt at some toaster club, to inspire and wow a crowd that's actually
more here to enjoy their charisma rather than their ideas. TED is the absolute
evidence that the powerpointization of ideas is in its terminal stage.

~~~
snewk
so, i have a speaking engagement at a local TEDx event next weekend. I think
my topic is both interesting and educational, and the way its presented will
(hopefully) get people thinking about the subject in a new way. what do i do?
cancel?

~~~
DonHopkins
Troll them with a great talk like "How to Deconstruct Almost Anything". [1]

"Academics get paid for being clever, not for being right." \-- Donald Norman

[http://www.fudco.com/chip/deconstr.html](http://www.fudco.com/chip/deconstr.html)

~~~
snewk
I am a troll at heart, but over the last few months i've become friends with
the event organizers. As much as trolling would be fun, I feel it would be a
betrayal of their trust.

------
melted
Some of their speakers are just talking out of their ass. There was a woman on
TED Radio Hour a few weeks back who was going on and on about how it's so bad
that we bury the bodies when people die, and we should instead dress our dead
in some mushroom spore infused garbs she's trying to sell. Having a brain of
my own, I was like "Lady, do you realize that each of these bodies has
produced an enormous mountain of waste in their lifetime? Several tons of shit
alone, not to mention garbage, CO2, etc etc". Add to that the fact that those
"pollution eating mushrooms" can't really do anything ordinary soil can't do.
They can't convert heavy metals to unicorn tears, sorry folks. The stuff dead
bodies will release when they decompose matters not one iota. And yet someone
in TED approved her participation, and people paid $8K to see this inane
drivel. WTF?

Update: here's the talk
[https://www.ted.com/talks/jae_rhim_lee?language=en](https://www.ted.com/talks/jae_rhim_lee?language=en)

~~~
patcon
I was going to respectfully disagree, assuming this speaker was instead
referring to larger things about changing the culture of death. But then I
actually skimmed the video, and she really is just saying that we shouldn't
bury because our bodies house natural toxins. It's pretty silly. I would say
that the organizers recognize her getting the stage was a mistake... :)

------
awl130
TED is now a full-blown lifestyle company like GoPro or Whole Foods, except
instead of one or two celebrity endorsements, they gain a new implicit
endorsement every time they book a new speaker. franchising TEDx was a
brilliant move; first, for the casual consumer, TED content (by people like
Bill Gates) is confounded with TEDx content from some local idiot. from a
valuation point of view this increases your average ad rates. line/brand
extension, this is marketing 101. TED jumped the shark a long time ago when
they started having poetry readings and shit.

~~~
c06n
> TED is now a full-blown lifestyle company

Hasn't it always been?

------
shoo
[http://theamericanreader.com/the-sound-of-ted-a-case-for-
dis...](http://theamericanreader.com/the-sound-of-ted-a-case-for-distaste/)

> What I ask myself when confronted with any TED talk is this: why do they all
> sound the same?

...

> TED’s is the language and tone of the pitch. It’s a style that comes from
> corporate conference rooms, where product ideas are pitched to potential
> investors. It’s the fundraiser’s speech. You cannot sound needy—you should
> sound like there is a world out there waiting to buy your work, that you are
> here only out of a belief in the importance of spreading your idea.

...

> For various reasons, I find myself forced to sit through a TED-talk now and
> then. I squirm in my seat—feeling humiliated for myself and the speaker.
> This is a distinctly un-adult feeling.

------
Doctor_Fegg
TED trivia: Chris Anderson, the founder, got his break in business by starting
an 8-bit computer magazine called Amstrad Action. The magazine grew to become
a computer publishing empire, Future plc, giving Anderson the funds and
freedom to try TED.

(Amstrad Action was a great magazine. I was its freelance tech ed in its last
years - gave me my start in journalism.)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amstrad_Action](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amstrad_Action)

~~~
wpietri
Chris Anderson was not TED's founder. That was Richard Saul Wurman. He sold it
to Anderson in 2002: [https://www.ted.com/about/our-organization/history-of-
ted](https://www.ted.com/about/our-organization/history-of-ted)

------
ktRolster
A ticket to TED costs $8500. I didn't realize that.....I look at the audience
at TED talks a whole different way now.

~~~
malsun
There's two things non-technology people don't seem to know about TED when
they mention it to me.

First that TEDx events have little to do with TED. Second the prices for
proper events are in the elitist levels of society. It's no surprise when you
start to notice the audience members are more famous than the speakers.

~~~
lsc
>First that TEDx events have little to do with TED.

hah. Yes, the continued existence of TEDx indicates that the organizers of TED
are not aware of just how severely TEDx damages their brand.

------
mcphilip
The Onion Talks series parodying TED talks has some real gems. My favorite:
What is the Biggest Rock?

[http://youtu.be/aO0TUI9r-So](http://youtu.be/aO0TUI9r-So)

~~~
jerf
My favorite has to be
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOGJQD0WXkk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOGJQD0WXkk)
, "Your Brain-Gun: Turn Off the Safety". Much darker.

~~~
SpanishArch1
Quit Whining And Put On A Goddamn Coat is great too
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yeqwDLsZJn8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yeqwDLsZJn8)

------
alexashka
Is there any actual content in this article? Other than how awesome TED is?

Did they address a single concern or critique of TED in this article?

No... Just that it's 'awesome'.

Well ok then TED organizers... Thanks for reminding us that you think you're
so great, you feel no need to listen to anyone.

~~~
Others
I'm not sure it really is as pandering as you make it out to be. In some
places I wasn't sure what the author thought of TED at all. For example, this
sentence is particularly pointed: "Where an audience that gave a standing
ovation to Ed Snowden a couple of years ago happily wears tracking devices on
their badges that allows fellow attendees to know where in the facility they
are within a few meters."

~~~
wrs
Amusing on the surface, but of course that feature is for the benefit of the
audience (and quite useful--the breaks are a bit of a zoo with 1000 people
milling about), and they explained from the stage how to turn it off when
desired, so he is reaching a little bit with that one.

~~~
fabulist
The implication wasn't meant to be that the organizers nefariously distributed
these badges insisting that if participants had nothing to hide they had
nothing to fear. It was that the participants will clap for whoever is onstage
without thinking deeply about what they are saying or believing in what they
are advocating. They'll cheer on Edward Snowden but they won't consider the
implications of the technology they're using.

------
vietnameselady1
I would like to see TED scale down and return to its simpler roots (pre 2007),
possibly even go dark and spend a few years finding itself. The brilliance of
the older TED formula was that it was chaotic and amusingly unpolished: The
audio was bad. The lighting was crap. The emcee was awkward. But that TED
limelight could bring out unexpected genius moments from humble unknowns, and
elicit real humility from the odd celebrity who might give a talk. "Put
interesting people together," the rule was, "let a few of them talk, and see
what happens."

Today TED is all polish and perfectionism and production value. The Academy
Awards stage design and videography is planned months in advance. Speakers are
carefully vetted, recalibrated, tweaked, and tuned among an upper tier
committee. Corporate sponsors are courted by a large international sales team,
and these accounts pay enormous sums for the chance to create branded
"experiences" for the ticket holders. Speakers (those whose egos allow it) are
coached relentlessly about storytelling, sincerity, posture...

These efforts may have increased the average-overall quality of the talks, and
made the talks more palatable to a wide audience. But that came at an expense
of a certain kind of magic.

~~~
wrs
There has been a great deal of exactly that feedback from attendees (including
me) and Chris Anderson is definitely hearing it -- he addressed it at length
from the stage twice this year. However, he seems to think that is a necessary
side effect of producing talks that will be viewed millions of times (I think
he said ted.com has hit a billion views now). I'm not sure I agree, but in any
case I enjoyed it more back in the day when you never knew if the next talk
would be an epiphany or a train wreck!

------
noonespecial
I was watching TED talks about two years ago. My (then) 7 year-old paused in
the midst of wandering by and watched for about 30 seconds then asked, "Is
that like cartoons for big people?".

Yes. Yes it is.

------
ryanobjc
TED just seems so neat, thought leaders talking about things no one else did.

Except the depth is necessarily shallow. So I listened to a TED talk about how
social media needs to change and it exacerbates problems. Except he's light on
analysis and ideas.

Which is fine I guess, but to me, hearing about how the problem exists without
the follow up of ideas on how to fix, just seems incomplete.

And yes, I know, I'm giving him a hard time, etc. But the problem is very
real, and needs a very real fix. More videos about how the problem came about
just isnt gonna fix it.

~~~
Beltiras
Some problems need to be acknowledged long before you close in on a solution.
Sometimes stating a problem in clearer terms will bring new thoughts on a
solution. That can have value in and of itself.

~~~
ryanobjc
Sure, but what happens if that is all you end up with?

~~~
Beltiras
Then stakeholders need to redefine the problem until the solution presents
itself. You can't solve a hard problem without understanding it.

------
jmorphy88
Sam Hyde pulled off a brilliant troll of TEDx a few years ago
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTJn_DBTnrY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTJn_DBTnrY)

------
partisan
> We have reached Peak TED. > That’s TED. But we may not have hit the peak
> yet.

We can have it both ways, it seems. Peak means there is a decline coming. The
article closes on a note that suggests otherwise.

~~~
tim333
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headline...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headlines)

------
horsecaptin
Ok, whats with all the hate? I like TED - the talks are awesome. I don't care
if I never get invited. Some of the talks opened my mind to some of the
coolest things that people are working on.

------
minikites
This banned TED talk is all you need to know about TED and where their
motivations are:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKCvf8E7V1g](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKCvf8E7V1g)

Peak TED is actually this video on how to use one paper towel when washing
your hands:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FMBSblpcrc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FMBSblpcrc).
You mean if you shake your hands and fling water all over the bathroom then
you don't need as much paper to absorb the remaining water? How revolutionary.

~~~
tdeck
Scoff all you want, but in the years since I watched that I have dried my
hands with one paper towel every time. One anecdote, sure, and I don't watch
TED anymore. But this is hardly the worst TED talk. At least it provided some
practical advice rather than vaguely asserting some breakthrough.

~~~
myNXTact
It is hands down the most influential Ted talk I've ever watched. It is very
trivial, but I think it about it several times a day wherever I wash my hands
in a public bathroom.

------
dredmorbius
I took the opportunity to visit a local group simulcast of Thursday's TED
presentations -- apparently much the same program Steven Levy viewed -- and
took from it many of the same impressions. The "Inside TED" segment was
actually fairly revealing and I thought useful. Chris Anderson gave some
inside baseball insights, and voiced TED's goals of spreading knowledge
(something I've written and mused on at length). The "chopped liver" comment,
by the way, came from Stewart Brand.

But the presentations -- the ones I managed to catch -- dragged. Boston
prosecutor Adam Foss had a compelling story. Lidia Yuknavitch's talk wandered
... a lot ... though perhaps that was part of its point. Cerfs was ...
interesting.

And then because I live in the future, I left to video-chat for an hour and a
half with someone an ocean away.

That done, I decided it was more worth my time to tap into another set of
experts -- curated books, at the library, where I could tap into 4 million
years of collected wisdom (though granted, only about 8,000 of that is
preserved in literary tradition).

One of the most obvious characteristics of the TED livestream was an inability
to bump up playback speed through slow bits, or to skip to a more interesting
talk. TED also has a relevance problem -- really hitting on challenging
problems. Part of which is an inherent conflict with exposure: some ideas
really need to be developed and discussed within a safe space.

The livestream/remote program was an interesting experiment, but I'd rather
have had the option to catch several days at one location, and perhaps
_somebody_ in a role as a moderator / facilitator. There was at least one
local TEDster, but no clear organisation on top of physical support (video,
seating). That, though, was good.

------
Nickste
Adam Savage (of Mythbusters) did a hilarious fake TED Talk at the Amanda
Palmer ninjaTED show the other day: [https://huzza.io/amandapalmer/live-
stream/amanda-palmer-ninj...](https://huzza.io/amandapalmer/live-
stream/amanda-palmer-ninjated/live/replay?seek=172:40)

"What if we could use data, to build the perfect snowboard?"

"In the average Silicon Valley tech company, 95% of time is wasted building
tech products"

------
l33tbro
Was thinking only yesterday we must be at peak "peak". Has become a pretty
commonplace descriptor these days for anything experiencing maximum popularity
in its life cycle, which I think applies to its current status as a buzz-term.

------
mikesickler
As a victim of its own success, the quality of presentations has to go down.
TED reminds me of Inside the Actors Studio. Stick around long enough and
eventually you're talking to Tim Allen about his "process."

------
smegel
We were at peak TED before TED even came into existence, with the amount of
"progressive" blabber in the world.

------
perseusprime11
To me, TED always felt like a stage for egomaniacs to talk about how great
they are and how they are changing the world.

