So I have made it through two days of the district convention, i half heartily payed attention during it (whoever evented smart phones is a genius!) anyway I noticed the parts were pretty dummed down this year, especially the demos...and there were a lot of them they all were very unrealistic and over dramatized. Even the speakers parts were pretty dumb and scripted. Have the conventions always been like this or am I just now noticing because I have awoken?
Demos at convention
by lostinthought 7 Replies latest jw friends
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stillin
probably, you just woke up. Last year a good friend said that the demos and skits were totally realistic. I thought they were lame.
I don't know. there are different levels of being...
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blondie
It helps if you know whether it is an "experience" or a "re-enactment." The first tend to be the actual individuals and their personal experience, the latter uses people who did not have have the experience and are "re-enacting" it, like a play. I have seen "demos" where the sister who plays the wife is not married to the "brother" who plays the husband, and the young jw that plays their son, is not their son.
The WTS gives the brothers with the part the situation they want portrayed and these brothers have to find someone in their circuit that had such an experience. I have seen the same experience used in 3 separate conventions. I have also seen "re-enactments" where I knew the people had nothing of the sort happen to them personally.
The brothers also have those on high supervising the part also edit the experience to fit the situation and add key phrases that highlight the theme.
More and more talks are manuscripts, partly to prevent the local speakers from punching it up too much. The WTS doesn't want some new light featured in one convention that is not in the others. Uniformity or excuse me "unity" is the WTS goal.
Older jws know that what is in print is the official party line anyway.
Things have been dumbed down for years at least 20 years to date. If there is one talented speaker out of all 3 days
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DaCheech
demos are taken from a brother sister with a certain occurrence resembling the demo................
so 10% is true, and 90% is a blatant lie........... have done it, and friends have done it, where I knew the real truth
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Billy the Ex-Bethelite
"Have the conventions always been like this or am I just now noticing because I have awoken?"
I'm thinking 6 of one, half-dozen of the other. I didn't go this year, but I thought they were trending dumber before. And after you see TTATT, the dumbness detector gets much more sensitive to the elevating dumbness levels.
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sseveninches
whoever invented smartphones is a genius!
Spot on...it was especially easy for me to use mine (and to nap) since I was responsible for the debit/credit card machines and had a room to myself.
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Reopened Mind
I have given an experience or 2 at conventions and assemblies. There is a core of truth to the experience, that's why I was asked in the first place. However at rehearsal I was always asked to empahsize a phrase or add certain comments to bring my experience in line with the theme of the assembly or the brother's talk. Everyone's experiences were punched up to portray what the speaker wanted. And I assume what the Society's instructions were.
Reopened Mind
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wezz
When I did a demo once, after rehearsal, the 'brother' suggested rewording our demo because of what the audience 'wants to hear'.