Letters from VIDIOTS!

Letters from VIDIOTS!

PLUG INTO THE VIDIOT CULTURE

Please address correspondence to: LETTERS FROM VIDIOTS P.O. Box P-1064 Birmingham, Mi 4801 2

This may be VIDIOT's letters page, but we don't have any letters yet—which mokes this a perfect opportunity to let you in on what VIDIOT is oil about.

First of all, let's get one thing straight: we're new, and we're trying to put our finger on something we know is out there. It's young, it's obviously fun, and it's mystifying as hell to those who aren't plugged into it—but what it is, we can't put a name to. Yet.

VIDIOT knows there's a revolutionary force out there now that's as powerful to the "youth culture" os barebones rock 'n' roll was to the same back in the '60s. The New Technology: it's electronic, it’s cheaper every day, and its symptoms include Sony Walkmans, home videogames, MTV, cable TV, home computers, disposable LED clocks you throw awoy when they lose power or don't ever have to throw away because they're run by solar power. ..and haven't things changed awfully fast? VIDIOT realizes the New Technology is bringing people together in the unlikeliest places and, at the same time, keeping them further apart than ever. Ever walk in downtown Manhattan during lunch hour? Hundreds of people bumping into each other, oblivious to everything but what they hear coming out of their own tiny headphones, living in their own tiny world and apparently not missing a thing.

VIDIOT does not worship at the Church Of The New Technology but instead will document its unravelling In Wild In The Streets, '60s kids were brandishing their

don’t-trust-anyone-over-30 slogans as tf they were Meaningful Ways Of Existence;

now all those kids are over or approaching 30 and the tables are turned. The cliche is that parents couldn't help kids with "new math" in the '60s and they certainly can't help Johnny construct his own computer program in the ‘80s. If Johnny can't read, he'll probably be able to devise a program to make reading unnecessary. Which makes VIDIOT □ meaningless excursion, ultimately—but won't it be fun?

Go to on arcade, lose five bucks worth of quarters until you've learned Donkey Kong Junior, get bored with it until the designers make a new game even more interesting, and continue the cycle. Those who really know their stuff might go on to design their own arcade game later and continue stumping future champs, who'll do likewise. The Home Game explosion—responsible for this mag, among other things, and every single commercial you've seen in the last month or two—is bringing such a competition to fore that Coleco/Atari/Mattel and everybody else out there may soon render the arcade totally obsolete. If enough people want the software, they'll make home systems so sophisticated you won't need to go arcading to be challenged.

Those frightened adults who see their children's brains evaporating like so much electronic mush are ignoring the fact that, for a quorter and a few minutes of their time, theirchildren's lives won't be boring—their motor skills will be honed, their stimulus/response systems strengthened to new thresholds. While adults fret about where their children put their quarters, they buy new video recorders to escape the boring wasteland network television has become and continue the electronic cycle at o higher level. Adult and child alike "plug in," yet only the child participates

What would you like to see in VIDIOT? Why did you pick this magazine up in the first place? Did you like the cover? >ou think there's anything foall this stuff, or what? One of the reasons these words □ re here is to invite as many responses as possible from all of our reodershtp—what kind of lifestyle do you lead?

Do You:

1} Ploy arcade gomes?

2} Play home games?

3) Like music?

4) Watch MTV?

5) Design computer programs?

6) Go to Harvard?

7) Come from Lincoln, Nebraska?

We need to get a finer tuning on the

plugged-in ones. We call this magazine VIDIOT not only because it's catchy but because it implies a commitment to the New Technology and leaves room for the Essential Stupidity Of It All. If the Communist Mutants From Outer Space home game didn't exist, we probably wouldn't either. Think about it.

We here at VIDIOT want to make this magazine exactly what you wont— basically so you'll buy o bundle of 'em, tell your friends to do likewise and eventually make us so rich we won't have to work here anymore. It makes sense to us, so why shouldn't it to you?

Please write, OK?

The Editors