How the Internet ruined criticism

Interactivity is great as it means you can get your own say on things because YOUR opinion really matters and needs to be told to everyone on the planet as YOU are the undiscovered genius, YOU are the voice of a generation, YOU are saying what everyone else is just thinking.*

But interactivity started out on pretty boring subjects like voting for who you wanted to be your MP or local councillor and even then you could only utilise your power once every few years. Where is the fun and enticing prospect of abuse of power in that? Nowhere, that’s where.

Thankfully, with the advent of the digital era, having your say on subjects has become much easier what with phone-in radio and TV shows, Twitter, text messaging, TV shows which encourage you to vote, blogs and the ubiquitous comments box on any website you visit.

Now you can forward your viewpoint on any subject you like from whichever empty vessels get to spend another Saturday night being judged and sentenced by millionaires (that’s The X Factor folks) to what the simple solution that all the world’s leaders are missing is for the Eurozone debt crisis or the exact reason why Man City put six past United on Sunday and the consequences of that for the rest of the season.

Hail interactivity, leveller of the playing field!

However all opportunities and freedoms are horrendously open to abuse and just generally ruining it for everyone by making everyone’s opinions being easy to air. And so we come to being negative and how the Internet has basically ruined it.

The funny, funny people over at cracked.com have made a register of the ten types of angry commenter one finds online and for this exercise there are two particular categories that this blog highlights; the Busy Critic and the Angry Unfunner.

It might be best to have a read about those first before continuing. Don’t worry, I’ll wait for you to finish.

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Wow, you came back. All done? Good, let us continue.

You’ll find these two types of commenter appear pretty regularly if you peruse the Guardian website. For example, here is a piece on Channel 4’s Marmite-ish new comedy-drama Fresh Meat. I say Marmite-ish as its divisive and opinion-splitting, not what it tastes like (that would be beer and kebabs as it’s a show set in a student house… zing).

Skip down to the comments section and the people who like the show generally give reasons why they enjoy it and, if they see fit to, offer constructive criticism for how it can improve. Contrast that to the negative commenters who leave a one line sentence fragment saying they don’t like it and moving on to do the same on another article. No attempt to explain why they dislike it or what’s wrong with it or anything like that. No way, that’s too much like hard work and they’ve got a lot of bringing people down left on their to-do list today.

In many ways they’re like the immature guy at work/school/uni who found it funny to come towards people, drop a fart and then move on, thus ruining everyone’s day. Or for a few minutes at least.

Want some more examples? Just on the top five viewed items on the Guardian culture section, you can see a similar story when it comes to a review of the latest episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm and even flipping David Attenborough isn’t safe!

This is just plain lazy, you’re entitled to your opinion just like everyone else but to not even bother explaining your point of view is an insult to be quite frank as it suggests you don’t have the time to contextualise your opinion, it’s just there and should be treated as important as those who justify theirs.

In a similar vein, the sport pages provide a similar, if not the same, trend when it comes to internet commenter warriors.

The general theme is either abuse the writer with a petty comment, as seen with this Jonathan Wilson piece or a snide remark about their being another article about Man United or Arsenal as seen here and here, almost as if the reader has been forced at gunpoint to read the article. As can be seen from the Wilson article, some of the commenters don’t even bother reading the article, just taking the headline and slugline and making a comment from that. Again, lazy criticism from people that are often the first to complain about “lazy journalism.” To them of course, irony is an alien concept.

These examples come from just the sport and culture sections let alone delving into the murky depths of the Comment is Free free-for-all.

What I’m getting at it is that t vast majority of negative comments on websites now are so generic and boring that they are worthless. They aren’t going to persuade anyone to shift their opinion on the matter as you’ve seen them a million times before so what’s the point in taking them in?

The general consensus is that the commenter is an individual who merely writes the negative comment for the sake of it rather than any real dislike of the subject of the article, the article itself or the writer.

More to the point, the reason why it ruins being negative is that it tars ‘real’ negative comments with the same brush; the comment being penned by a bored, sad individual with no agenda but their own pitiful amusement. Thus, proper criticism that is well informed, constructive and, crucially, has a point gets skirted over and placed into the generic, negative comment (by this reader at least) to be filed for ignore now.

Comment away below.

*Post note; don’t point out the supreme hypocrisy of reading this on a blog that has a comments section and Twitter interactivity button. That would not be cool, right?

Solar powered spending

It’s not often this blog delves into politics and economics as, being lower middle class, this writer lacks the intellect to take on the big issues of the day. Well, that’s what the establishment brought me up to believe anyway.

Anywho, as I strolled through the centre of Reading today, a familiar scenario greeted me in the middle of the pedestrianised Broad Street; the sight of people whose job it is to convert your faith or sell you something.

After being accosted by a man who wanted to save my soul and a woman who wanted to sell me being shot in the testicles for an afternoon aka paintballing (incidentally, I’d choose the latter as a lifetime of commitment seems hard work), another salesman, who didn’t stop to talk to me, caught my eye.

He was at a stall that said “No more energy bills after one easy payment” which was empty, completely unsurprisingly, as nothing is ever that simple. Even the general public, who I’ve often spotted picking up pennies off of the wet pavement, weren’t gullible enough to believe this money-saving ruse.

However, it got me thinking; could solar energy help boost the UK’s flagging economy?

Here is my basic, layman analysis using back of a fag packet maths and a particularly loose grip of the laws of economics.

The reason for the fragility of the UK economy is a lack of faith in the system and not enough disposable income for the Average Joe to spend on things like speedboats, new shoes and fancy chocolates leading to less jobs in industries like designing, making and selling speedboats, shoes and fancy chocolates leading to less disposable income for the people who would fill these roles and so on in a long, unbroken cycle.

Now, if you can free up more of a person’s income to allow them to spend it on the above capitalist items of aspiration, that will help the economy grow by producing more jobs and then more disposable income from the newly employed.

So, if the Government was to invest in a scheme whereby, gradually, all the homes in the UK are fitted with the capacity to produce its own electricity through solar power, this would reduce a household’s energy bills leaving them more cash to spend on Thornton’s chocolate.

Naturally, the outlay for such a project wouldn’t come cheap and it is estimated that it will take until 2020 for the PV format of producing solar power to become competitive with fossil fuel alternatives but even starting a long-term scheme by just specifying all new properties must have solar panels built into them would be a foundation on which to build.

Likewise, funding a project for all homes to be fitted with proper insulation to the reduce energy bills for certain households and allow for more disposable income. Little things like this make a difference.

That said, the £3.2 billion the Treasury is expected to make by 2016 from carbon taxes (the costs of which electricity companies are allowed to pass on to their customers) is kind of a rather large weight to lose should a solar power policy be pursued.

Blast from the past; The Crystal Maze

One of the great joys of my youth was being ill as it allowed me to stay at home and watch Nickelodeon or Cartoon Network all day.

However, there is only so much Doug or Arthur you can watch without feeling a bit sick at all the bright colours, dodgy animation and the bizarre looking characters. And so, channel hopping would begin which would eventually lead to the glorious then and but slightly less glorious now Challenge TV.

I can’t pinpoint the first time I watched The Crystal Maze but it was probably before the turn of the century and I was, to an extent, terrified of it. A creepy fortune telling woman, people getting locked in small rooms for either failing some pretty basic challenges or failing at games tantamount to torture and Richard O’Brien all probably contributed to this.

But minor peril never really hurt anyone and thus, The Crystal Maze became my entertainment of choice when I was ill and off school right up until the very moment the Playstation 2 arrived in my life.

For anyone that doesn’t know, all five of you, The Crystal Maze was a loose copy of French show Fort Boyard in which contestants with very bad hair and in primary colour jumpsuits undertook a series of challenges in four different themed ‘worlds’ to win crystals. The challenges the contestants faced fell into four classifications; physical, mental, skill or mystery with sexism dictating male contestants often took the physical games and inevitably failing at them.

The number of crystals that the contestants won contributed to how long they would have in giant crystal filled with pieces of gold and silver paper; the show’s finale. If they grabbed enough of these pieces of paper in the allocated time, they won a prize ‘of a lifetime’ which was non-transferable for cash, I think. Not that it mattered of course, more humans have been on the moon than won The Crystal Maze.

At its peak, the show received up to 6 million viewers on Channel 4 and was the channel’s most popular programme, achieving cult status particularly among the student demographic, unsurprisingly.

Despite the innovative games, for my money, the two real joys of the show were the set and original host Richard O’Brien.

The maze was purpose-built in an aircraft hangar in Essex for £250,000 and the attention to detail and the quality of the production values were stunning, even to my youthful eyes. The dank squalor of the “Ocean” world contrasted so much with the open, bright “Aztec” world as to make them look like different planets, not a mere couple of feet apart. The haunting dungeon of the “Medieval” world was where the money was best spent with numerous genuine-looking props, eerie lighting and a constant supply of dry ice simultaneously produced a homely yet chilling effect.

It’s a wonder why the set piece for the finale looked so budget; a biosphere looking structure filled with fans at the bottom and lots of pieces of foil that, according to Wikipedia, took a lot of experimentation to perfect.

As I was saying before I went off on an inevitable tangent, O’Brien was the other main attraction. The writer of The Rocky Horror Show (yes really) was cast as a host and a bizarre host he was too. He was like a cool version of Dr Evil but more mad. His ‘character’ sounded as if he had been stranded in the maze for as long as he could remember (he had made the ‘Medieval’ world into his home where he lived with his ‘Mumsie’) and despite being a guide to the contestants, he wouldn’t hold back from putting them down witheringly. His seemingly random monologues to the camera and eccentric dress sense only added to the depth of his endearingly odd character. Oh, and every now and then he would start playing his harmonica. For no apparent reason other than he just could.

O’Brien left the show in 1993 and despite his successor, Edward Tudor-Jones (a cross between Dylan Moran and a rejected Doctor Who costume) adding his own brand of oddness to the show, he was no O’Brien as was reflected in the gradual diminishing in audience figures The Maze garnered, resulting in the show’s cancellation in 1995 after six series on Channel 4.

Its legacy can be seen anytime you put on terrestrial TV on a Saturday night with shows such as The Cube, Ant and Dec’s Push the Button and Total Wipeout to name but three all tracing their lineage back to The Crystal Maze’s combination of physical and mental challenges and host’s who either encourage or take the piss out of the contestants (sometimes both). One just needs to see the opening to the first ever episode to see elements of all the shows outlined above in evidence.

Clearly, its legacy is a lot less impressive than it should be but as is the way with trailblazers; the knock-offs will never be as original nor as compelling nor as innovative as they are just that, knock offs.

For one last thought, ITV were rumoured to be planning a remake of the show at the beginning of last year. For reasons no one can ever possibly explain, the host was to be Amanda Holden. The plans were shelved. The world breathed the biggest sigh of relief since VE Day.

Top Gear USA @ 7pm Fridays, BBC3- 7 out of 10

There has been a resolutely one way traffic flow with regard to TV shows appearing on US and UK screens; every over show on in the UK is an unchanged, American import whilst everything that goes the other way gets remade on the journey. Maybe there is an island for the process somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic with a machine for carrying out the remodelling process.

Anywho, Top Gear USA, whilst being a remake, shares enough of the genes of its British forefather to be recognisable to audiences over here in Blighty but enough differences to give it a sense of American….ness.

We’ll start off with the stuff that has been packed up from UK Top Gear and shipped over the Atlantic. Same theme music, same warehouse-style set, same combination of car reviews and challenges, same number of presenters, same dicking around, same interviewing segment with a celebrity driving around their version of the Top Gear test track. Basically what I’m getting at is the format is very, very similar. Not quite sure why that surprises me, kind of comes with the territory of “being a remake”.

One thing they haven’t tried to copy exactly like for like is the three presenters of British Top Gear. There was a larger, nerdier guy with a beard (a bit like James May at a push), a guy with a sticky up fringe (Richard Hammond-esque) and another guy with receding hair who looks a bit older and does the interviewing (Jeremy Clarkson, therefore), all of whom made such a large impression on me that none of their names stuck. And so, for the rest of their review, they shall be referred to by their British names. Oh, and another difference, the gratuitous amount of swearing.

The montage they put together at the start of the show to showcase what would be coming up over the series looked promising; similes, quips, fast cars, challenges that threaten injury, low level property damage and piss taking and the first show of the series pretty much was par for the course.

It involved “Hammond” and “May” trying to outrun a military helicopter in a Shelby Cobra through the streets of a Georgian town, “Clarkson”, “Hammond” and “May” going really, really fast on a long, straight road to find the best Lamborghini ever made and “Clarkson” interviewing Buzz Aldrin for about two and a half minutes followed by the poor old fella tootling around the track in a Suzuki. All pretty standard Top Gear fare then. Which is fine by me as each of the segments worked, if not quite as polished as their British counterparts just yet.

Now for the bad stuff; to begin with, the backing soundtrack, usually such a strong element of the Top Gear package was lacking with inappropriate music being used or it just being too quiet

Secondly, at times all three presenters suffer from a wooden on-screen style and the banter between co-presenters seems somewhat forced though, to be fair, on-screen chemistry just doesn’t happen overnight, even if the participants do happen to be perfect for each other. UK Top Gear took a good four years to develop the interchanges it has now between its presenters and there were glimmers of chemistry, particularly in the out and about, recorded segments.

Overall, I wanted to hate this show. I wanted to despise the fact it was an American remake of a British television institution. I wanted to mock its attempts to import British humour to an American audience. I wanted to belittle it’s presenters for having the gall to try to recreate it. I wanted it to blow up in an explosion of American bombast.

And yet, it was far from unwatchable; the presenters are knowledgable and passionate, the filiming is splendid and the content is thought out, if a little bit on the short side leaving things being rushed through or not fully explored. If it was called something other than Top Gear, I probably wouldn’t watch it so it’s living on its brand for the time being but it’s certainly worth sticking with, just to see what else they’ve come up.

Why Barcelona still bug me

Four months ago, Barcelona completed their 2011-12 season cum procession when they beat Man United in the Champions League final thus sealing their 3^rd win in that competition in six years to go with five further La Liga titles.

Best team of its generation? Oh yeah. Best team ever? Not yet but we’ll see, the potential is certainly there.

In the aftermath of their Champions League victory, I wrote a blog post explaining why, despite loving the footballing side of Barcelona, their corporate side meant I could never feel more than merely liking the club; not loving or admiring.

Many lovers of the club cite their role in keeping alive Catalan nationalism and opposition to Franco, their community role, their partnership with Unicef, the “Mes que un club” idea that marks them out as different from other clubs.

My argument was basically that they were no different from other clubs; same corporate greed, same big-spending, same dirty politics all wrapped up in a right-on, ‘left-wing’ marketing disguise. Whilst I don’t doubt they take their genuine interest in helping charities and that side of their business, it does make the philosophy a lot more attractive to sell.

After a trip to the Nou Camp, I feel no different.

I wasn’t surprised that the tickets for the ground tour or for a shirt were so pricey (22 and 80-odd Euros respectively) as its football; everything is ridiculously expensive though for a club who proclaims its community ethos, one would think the prices would reflect that.

The tour itself is nice enough, seeing the stadium bowl from the press box, the middle tier and pitchside, seeing the stadium innards such as the chapel, the dressing room and so on but it was the museum that caught my interest most of all.

Over 100 years of history, lovingly restored and displayed with replicas of all the trophies the club have won and memorabilia such as the whistle used in the club’s first game, various footballs and signed shirts and so on. A football nerd like me’s paradise.

However, as you read through the history of the club on tables that run the length of the museum, the one constant message that’s rammed home is the spiritual link between the club and the fans and how it cannot be broken. The pretentious, righteous, left-wing ‘right-on-ness’ that, speaking as a leftie, I cannot stand.

Of course it’s going to be biased, it’s the Barcelona museum, written by Barcelona people so it’s going to be unbalanced but the unrelenting tedium of how everything the club was for their community and fans became patronising and the message stale.

And then, at the end of the tables telling you the history of the club, you have a queue to have your photo taken and then superimposed into the Barcelona team, thus wrenching out more money from you for a tacky souvenir.

In a way, it’s even more patronising and downright bastard-ish than the Real Madrid or Man United marketing model as with them at least you know they are corporate, capitalist vehicles that are out to milk their fans for all they’re worth. Barcelona seem to attempt to hide it in a veneer of left-wing propaganda, that you’re buying into history and righteousness when it’s all just the same bullshit really.

The club does have a history of just behaviour in opposition to the fascist Franco regime in the past and it’s charity work in the present but one can’t help but feel it’s used to shift the “Mes que un club” philosophy for marketing purposes. One does wonder what brave individuals like Joan Gamper and Josep Sunyol would think of it all.

Sam and Evan: From Girls to Men @ 9pm Monday, BBC3- 6 out of 10

In the 21^st century, you can do pretty much whatever you like when it comes to romance; just as long as it involves another human and is within the established legal and ethical framework that has been refined and developed over human history. Thus, new unusual stories pop up and that’s just what Sam and Evan is all about

The documentary follows posh southerner Sam, who at the age of 17 and after five months dating 20 year old Evan, moves 200 miles north to live together which kind of makes it sound like a cross between a buddy movie and a rom-com but in the 21^st century. And set in Rochdale.

Both Sam and Evan were born girls, but are now on the way to becoming men as that is both what they feel they are and so they technically are in a gay relationship. They’re just a typical couple all things considered in the way they act and talk and relate. They probably argue like real (deliberate provocation FYI) couples too though broadcasting couples arguing is reserved for heterosexual couples on TV, it would appear.

Sometimes it gets a bit confusing when its men who are having a period and so on but modern life is quite confusing; working a Sky+ box takes some getting used to. Not that this is anything like working a Sky+ mind, the confusion bit is the only thing that would be in shared circle on a Venn diagram.

As the show continues, the viewer is show the pair undergoing the process of becoming men; starting with names and then moving on to clothes, testosterone injections, something called a “packer” to simulate a penis in one’s trousers (probably not available on Amazon) and eventually exploring gender realignment

The third key character is Evan’s very approving mother Kath who says she is so supportive as Sam “makes my son happy”. The couple live with Kath who even goes so far as to injecting Sam with the testosterone that he needs fortnightly. Other examples show of the bond of support from other members of the pair’s family and their friends; the strength of humanity.

But humanity has two faces of course. Little, (not gonna mince words here) cunty kids shouting abuse in the street and throwing eggs. That said, with only one instance of such prejudice being shown, perhaps it isn’t as prevalent as the “info” box about the show made out. Then again, an hour where every five minutes a scene of cunty kids shouting abuse isn’t exactly uplifting, inspiring TV. Unless immediately after shouting it they get immediate comeuppance in the form of a kick in the bollocks; damn this unfair world.

Things get even more confusing later on with revelations about Evan and his potential to undertake the sex change process but it only shows the couple’s strength of bond together and their support as they grow up and grow together.

The theme of growing up isn’t just to do with the participants of the show but also the BBC3 channel as a whole. BBC3 used to be more point and laugh style of documentaries but the channel is maturing. The subject matter does sadly have the point and laugh factor, that tends to come with the territory, but it’s so much more mature and refined.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not exactly award-winning documentary making but it wouldn’t be on BBC3 if it was and the fact that the show ends with a plug for the BBC Action Line for people who have similar feelings only serve to emphasise the show’s responsibility. Perhaps it would have been nice if they played the same message after Hotter than my daughter.

How to solve The Simpsons crisis

There be a crisis brewing over in the land of American television and you will never guess what it’s about. Ya huh, got it in one; money.

The main voice actors for The Simpsons, probably the single most influential television product ever and longest run US comedy series, have refused a 45% pay cut to their $8 million a season salaries and Fox are refusing to play ball. The voice actors have offered a 35% pay cut and a share of the show’s profits, the argument I may well take into my next pay discussion at the supermarket where I currently work.

Anywho, the show is expected to have enough episodes to run until May next year with the dispute being solved by December so the show’s writers can come up with a season or series finale, perhaps involving some kind of Futurama crossover but almost certainly not.

The Simpsons creates billions of dollars in syndication and merchandise for Fox so its loss would be huge to those all important Murdoch profit margins but, being the helpful sort, I’ve come up with some replacement show ideas for them. Free of charge.

1.

An animation revolving around the escapades of a white, American family that consists of the stupidest man on earth as the father, an almost as stupid son, a evil baby who has homosexual undertones, a stereotypical housewife mother, a dull as dishwater daughter and a talking, alcoholic dog. But, get this, you fill it with cutaway cultural gags and make it rather crude! Huh? Eh? Whatadyathink?

2.

Alternatively, you could run with this; a cartoon show that looks at the mundane activities in the lives of a white, working class, Methodist family from a fictional Texas town. The father can work in middle-management, there could be a fat son and a delusional mother where catchphrases are the order of the day.

3.

Or, better yet, I’ve got this. A show that, using the format of drawing, showcases a white, American family and the adventures they get up to. The father can work at the CIA and be right wing, the daughter can be something of a leftist (ooooo cue tension!), a nerdy son and a ditzy wife. Oh, and for some comic relief, a talking, alcoholic alien with a fondness of dressing up and homosexual undertones and a man trapped in the body of a fish who speaks three times a series. Boom, $$$$.

4.

Finally, if you want a branch out a bit and tamper slightly with the formula, there is this idea. Load up your animation software and take the working class family, a moustachioed father figure, the fat son, the talking baby and two generic female characters to make the wife and daughter and, now hear me out here, change their skin colour. Bingo, Yahtzee, prime time gold.

PS. I’m rather aware that this riff may have got old by the time you had read to #2 but hey, you’re the one that read this far

Unforeseen consequences

Returning to a story that has interested me for some time, earlier this week, Portsmouth publican Karen Murphy won an important EU ruling in her favour.

The case revolves around Mrs Murphy using a digital decoder from Greece to screen Premier League football games in her pub for a cheaper price than with UK football broadcaster Sky. Sky promptly took her to court when they found out six years ago under copyright infringement law.

However, Mrs Murphy took her case to the European Court of Justice who ruled that the way in which satellite broadcasters limit themselves to one country is against the freedom to provide services and for individuals in the European Union to choose the service providers they desire; thus, the prohibition on the sale of digital decoders is deemed unlawful. It is unprecedented for a national High Court to not enforce a ECJ ruling.

However, the ruling also pointed out that certain copyright infringements were also being made by Mrs Murphy and other decoder users in that whilst football is not covered by copyright law, graphics and sound and the whole branding used by companies such as Sky and ESPN are covered. Therefore, if pubs were to broadcast a match with this branding in it, they would be in breach of the law.

Quite simply, in the wake of this ruling, broadcasters could put a piece of their branding (a permanent graphic of a £ sign in the top corner perhaps) and thus a decoder user would be breaking copyright law.

I’ll not go into the footballing side of the ruling here (I may well do elsewhere in detail later this week) but on a side note of irony.

As one article notes and makes very clear, the main reason pubs broadcast football matches is that they pack pubs that are otherwise dying a rather slow and painful death. Anyone that’s been to a pub, say, on a Saturday at noon and a Thursday at the same time, it is clear to see that most of a pub’s revenue comes at the weekends when they show football from the hours of noon to about 10pm.

However, the ruling has made it a lot easier for football fans at home to get a digital decoder for themselves and use it instead of Sky to view football matches. Naturally, it is unlikely for a monolith like Sky to sue every single individual user of a decoder (if Sky’s copyright is infringed by use of the branding); apparently it’s not great for the marketing department to take millions of potential customers to court.

Anyway, that means that the opportunity for football fans to sit at home and watch matches is far greater as they can now afford to when prices for a digital decoder are up to a third the price of a Sky Sports subscription and booze from a supermarket of a similar price ratio.

Therefore, pubs, including Mrs Murphy’s, would get less income on their peak weekend times as more punters stay at home, thus hammering another nail into the pub coffin.

Do be careful what you wish for.