Mike Birbiglia Quotes

The world has changed - we can all get news 24/7 from any device, any outlet... but we want to tell different stories in different ways, and add to the news.

'Wag' is not some kind of documentary; it's just looking at the tools that are available. Now you've got more tools - you've got social media - and just post stories through all types of back channels that can get some traction.

It's much easier to get your material out to the public now than it was in 1988, when you basically had to get onto cable to have a joke heard across the country. Now all you need is an iPhone, and you can get your joke heard across the country.

The whole Twitter phenomenon is really indicative of what's happening in this country. And I say this in condemnation of myself as much as anyone else - we are growing into a nation that has no time, desire or capacity for truth. All we can handle is 140 characters of knowledge.

Radio, newspapers, they were normal parts of my life. In those days, you had to go somewhere to watch television and leave something to see it.

Before there was an Internet, before there was an A.O.L., the circulation of newspapers was going down.

If the first lady is concerned about this Internet cycle, what would she have done during the heyday when there was 12, 13 editions of a paper in one day? What would she have done with that news cycle?

At Yahoo, we were one of the early proponents of the power of content showcased through new media. SnagFilms, with its large library and breadth of digital distribution, can help shape this next phase, bringing great stories to broad new audiences.

Digital television, satellite radio, videogames, iPods - so much media. Do books even matter anymore?

When I talk about the Internet, it's because young people are there. TV and radio are still what moves the masses, and you can't ignore that. But you also have to feed that monster that grows daily, which is the Internet.

I'm an Old Media guy. I don't have a website; I don't Twitter. I love magazines, yet I love video games. It's a strange disconnect.

There was a time in the 1930s when magazine writers could actually make a good living. 'The Saturday Evening Post' and 'Collier's' both had three stories in each issue. These were usually entertaining, and people really went for them. But then television came along, and now of course, information technology... the new way of killing time.

Sometimes I think that our culture lives in its soundbites.

It's amazing what social media has done for entertainment.

There are people who have huge YouTube followings - whose every post gets hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of hits. But I don't think that's having the same impact as someone who has a regular presence on television, or both.

TV shows and movies are a rare form of atemporality, and in an ever-changing, always-on world, spoilers feel irrefutable - sheer access to them gives the illusion of control.

For blogs today, it's really about content creation and partnering with a brand. You can get the news in so many forms and so many places. A tweet now is enough to tell you about a story. People don't have to click to go to your site.

It's actually difficult to know what anyone wants these days. Tastes seem to change so quickly nowadays depending on the latest blog. The latest Facebook page. Twitter is somewhat important in telling you what you should want.

I used to write stories on Facebook, and people started reading them, from 10-12 people initially, to thousands of people later.

Social media has changed everything. Since we're talking about what we do when we wake up and posting it, we're talking about where we go on Sundays. It's not just about where you work anymore. It's about your life.

In Vice, I saw all of it in one. I saw a studio. I saw a content creator. I saw an agency. I saw a distributor. We want to learn from them. They're talking to a generation we're struggling to connect to as an industry.

I come from a traditional media generation, you know? I'm like the last generation of that. And so the whole world has changed, ultimately. Coming into social media, Twitter, Facebook - I mean, the first social media I ever had was Tumblr.

Our culture is obsessed with real events because we experience hardly any.

We put something on Instagram, and it gets reposted, and it's everywhere, and a minute later it's gone, over. I don't see that as a negative thing; it's the way my mind works, too.

In the case of the Web, each of us has slightly more access to a mass audience - a few more people slide through the door - but Facebook is finally a crude, personal multimedia conglomerate machine, personal nation-state machine, reality-show machine. New gadgets alter social patterns, new media eclipse old ones, but the pyramid never goes away.