Derek Thompson: Be seemingly surprising but quietly traditional

Author Derek Thompson on “the law of familiar surprises”:

Most of the time, audiences want to discover new things, but they are deeply enamored by familiar things, and so the critical challenge for most cultural producers is to make something that is optimally new; familiar but not too familiar; seemingly surprising but quietly traditional; a window to a new world that paradoxically shows you home…

Star Wars Episode IV, to pick just one example, was a wacky world-building exercise that combined classically western and eastern elements, but it was also literally the most basic story in human history—a purposefully executed, beat-for-beat, hero’s journey that George Lucas has said he modeled on the mythological research of Joseph Campbell.

Source: Derek Thompson in How ‘Zombie Flow’ Took Over Culture