"The medium is not the message - the message is the message"
About this Quote
Penn Jillette’s tweak of Marshall McLuhan is a magician’s flourish aimed at intellectual fashion: watch the famous slogan disappear, then reappear with the hidden compartment exposed. McLuhan’s “the medium is the message” flatters media theory with a grand inevitability - the form dictates the content, the channel rewires the mind. Jillette, an entertainer who makes his living in the mechanics of attention, yanks the conversation back to the stubborn thing audiences actually argue about: what was said, what was done, what it caused.
The intent is partly corrective and partly heckling. Jillette’s career sits at the crossroads of spectacle and skepticism; he knows how easily people confuse packaging for proof. In that light, the line reads like a pushback against the modern temptation to treat platforms as destiny. Yes, TikTok edits shape what survives; yes, cable news rewards conflict. But “the message is the message” is a demand to stop laundering responsibility through technology. Propaganda is still propaganda even if it arrives as a meme. A lie doesn’t become less of a lie because it’s “just a format.”
There’s subtext, too: entertainers are tired of being lectured that their medium is morally suspect while their content gets a free pass. Jillette is effectively saying: stop blaming the stage. Judge the act. It’s a populist move, but not a shallow one - it insists that meaning isn’t an accident of transmission. It’s authored, chosen, and therefore accountable.
The intent is partly corrective and partly heckling. Jillette’s career sits at the crossroads of spectacle and skepticism; he knows how easily people confuse packaging for proof. In that light, the line reads like a pushback against the modern temptation to treat platforms as destiny. Yes, TikTok edits shape what survives; yes, cable news rewards conflict. But “the message is the message” is a demand to stop laundering responsibility through technology. Propaganda is still propaganda even if it arrives as a meme. A lie doesn’t become less of a lie because it’s “just a format.”
There’s subtext, too: entertainers are tired of being lectured that their medium is morally suspect while their content gets a free pass. Jillette is effectively saying: stop blaming the stage. Judge the act. It’s a populist move, but not a shallow one - it insists that meaning isn’t an accident of transmission. It’s authored, chosen, and therefore accountable.
Quote Details
| Topic | Witty One-Liners |
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