Either it dashes right up to you, tongue out, pleading for your attention, or it strikes a pose wherever it happens to sit, meeting you halfway if you care to approach — and not particularly minding if you don’t. ... Cat media knows it’s good, and thus doesn’t mind if you don’t seek it out right away. Dog media doesn’t care if it’s good, as long as you’re absorbing it.
Read the post for elaboration and examples.
I think the observation is that media typically are either (1) interesting/beautiful and less concerned with your attention/money, or (2) sloppier and more concerned with your attention/money.
That is probably generally true, but it is not necessarily true, as Colin himself writes in a previous post:
I've recently come to find that making something interesting and popular is the only creative goal worth pursuing. Sure, you can gun for popularity alone, but the easiest way to that is to crank out something bland that zero love but millions find acceptable. On the coin's other side, you can make maximize only interestingness, but then you risk making something obscure that your potential audience, the pool of people with pre-existing proximity to the work — dwindles to zero.
A quote from Anne Sexton comes to mind: "I am in love with money, so don't be mistaken. But first I want to write good poems."
Another dimension of media metaphorical animalness worth considering is mule-ness -- that is, the extent to which it does something for people. In the stuff I consume and in the stuff I create, usefulness is my priority -- or at least I think it ought to be.
