Ze Frank quotes
On street corners everywhere, people are looking at their cell phones, and it's easy to dismiss this as some sort of bad trend in human culture. But the truth is life is being lived there. When they smile - right, you've seen people stop - all of a sudden, life is being lived there, somewhere up in that weird, dense network.
Ze Frank
I've been fascinated by the Internet from the very start. In 2001, I had made a funny black-and-white film called 'How to Dance Properly,' a short video of me dancing to a Madonna song. I sent it to 17 of my friends on a Thursday, and by Monday, one million people a day were logging on to view it.
Ze Frank
I don't think you understand what the word cool means.... Being cool is about not participating in traditionally enjoyable experiences and creating the illusion that happiness can be found in alternative, less enjoyable experiences. The degree to which other people around you try to emulate your alternative lifestyle and fail determines how cool you are. You're only as cool as people wish they were.
Ze Frank
A wedge strategy is where you focus on a highly charged issue at the borders of rationality and emotion. The emotional content of the issue can create a moral conviction that the issue needs to be resolved at any cost. Tactics that would otherwise be called into question can then be employed to resolve the issue. This sets precedent for the future use of those tactics in other arenas.
Ze Frank
Most of us yearn for really intimate, healthy, in-person relationships. People have a deep desire to be understood, to be told that it's OK, that you're not isolated and broken, that this is part of the human challenge, and that there is hope. The capacity for online interactions to do that is powerful.
Ze Frank
A surprise party is where your friends and family lie to you to make you feel alone and unloved. Then, when they throw you the party they would have thrown, regardless, you experience a sudden rush of emotion as your depressed self returns back to normal. Some people think that life in general's like that. They keep waiting for the party. I call that: denial.
Ze Frank
Pat Buchanan likes to say we're in a culture war. The Civil War was a culture war, and brothers killed brothers. I wonder if they avoided dinner conversation about politics. What if this culture war turned into a real war? I'd look back on that dinner and wish that I'd ordered a side of argument.
Ze Frank