The technology of storytelling | Joe Sabia

Ladies and gentlemen, gather around.

I would love to share with you a story.

Once upon a time

in 19th century Germany,

there was the book.

Now during this time,

the book was the king of storytelling.

It was venerable.

It was ubiquitous.

But it was a little bit boring.

Because in its 400 years of existence,

storytellers never evolved the book

as a storytelling device.

But then one author arrived,

and he changed the game forever.

(Music)

His name was Lothar,

Lothar Meggendorfer.

Lothar Meggendorfer put his foot down,

and he said, "Genug ist genug!"

He grabbed his pen,

he snatched his scissors.

This man refused to fold to the conventions of normalcy

and just decided to fold.

History would know Lothar Meggendorfer

as -- who else? --

the world's first true inventor

of the children's pop-up book.

(Music)

For this delight and for this wonder,

people rejoiced.

(Cheering)

They were happy because the story survived,

and that the world would keep on spinning.

Lothar Meggendorfer wasn't the first

to evolve the way a story was told,

and he certainly wasn't the last.

Whether storytellers realized it or not,

they were channeling Meggendorfer's spirit

when they moved opera to vaudville,

radio news to radio theater,

film to film in motion

to film in sound, color, 3D,

on VHS and on DVD.

There seemed to be no cure for this Meggendorferitis.

And things got a lot more fun when the Internet came around.

(Laughter)

Because, not only could people broadcast their stories throughout the world,

but they could do so

using what seemed to be an infinite amount of devices.

For example, one company

would tell a story of love

through its very own search engine.

One Taiwanese production studio

would interpret American politics in 3D.

(Laughter)

And one man would tell the stories of his father

by using a platform called Twitter

to communicate the excrement his father would gesticulate.

And after all this, everyone paused;

they took a step back.

They realized that, in 6,000 years of storytelling,

they've gone from depicting hunting on cave walls

to depicting Shakespeare on Facebook walls.

And this was a cause for celebration.

The art of storytelling has remained unchanged.

And for the most part, the stories are recycled.

But the way that humans tell the stories

has always evolved

with pure, consistent novelty.

And they remembered a man,

one amazing German,

every time a new storytelling device

popped up next.

And for that,

the audience --

the lovely, beautiful audience --

would live happily ever after.

(Applause)