Expostulatory blogging is kind of a dead thing. The overreaching narrative of the times is outrage and discord, with a healthy mix of disinterest and distraction thrown in. For good measure, sometimes there is added a aggrandized sense of injury or unopposed wrongs. In this environment blogging to do anything but maybe get a good line in is a waste of time – engaging the stories and constructively analyzing them is best left to 'the adults': paid journalists, high profile bloggers, and the generally execrable morons with weekly columns.
For anyone wanting to blog for anything but niche topics or absurdly obtuse generality (or 'comedy' options such as the way stale top 10/12/15/25 lists, or 'jokes') the field is intensely competitive. Aggregators have created a system in which maybe 10% of all internet users bother to go beyond the internet's collective front pages. Even linking seems quaint and mildly outdated. The only real blogging left is niche blogging about the outrages and abuses of modern society, or being political, or getting paid to blog to sell something.
It helps explain the rise of people who have absolutely zero self-awareness: people who never think past the snappy one-liners and one-dimensional politics of the internet. These kinds of people, even when well-intentioned, only serve to hurt their own causes. 'Misogyny' becomes a sort of mantra that progressive dudes bray mindlessly whenever simple OR complex issues regarding women emerge from the amoral fracas of the modern media environment. People on the fence see nothing but a faceless horde of shmucks wanting to prove their progressivism and decide, Hell, why not start trolling these point-seekers en masse? You can't blame them. Aggrieving the crowd is as righteous a battle for some as fighting for the oppressed is for others.
Showing posts with label sexism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sexism. Show all posts
2/5/13
Advertiser's Bowl: 2013 Edition ft. Existential Ennui
I don't have anything against the Super Bowl. It's a good reason to drink and eat too much and a great excuse for feeling like shit on Monday. What always puzzles me about it is how the Super Bowl Ad has become this huge event. Over the next week there will be Superbowl Ad Top 10s, reviews, and news segments. Most media output about the Super Bowl Ads will have the self-awareness of a gnat. I haven't been paying enough attention to say anything with certainty, but I think it's not really a high mark for society if the high-priced overpowering sports event of the year gets spectators who care more about the high-priced commercials and overpowering half time show. Ravens fans get to feel good, but then again: Baltimore's still going to have its problems, as will we all.
Each year, lately, people get psyched up for the Super Bowl's pricey, overblown, ridiculous commercials. Newscasts neglect problematic, boring stories for the innocent pleasures of the advertisement adventure. Meanwhile grown men have been sacrificing their bodies for... shit tons of money and a good start at fame. The themes seem to run together. There are always some 'innovative' ads, in the loosest sense of the word, but getting excited about innovative advertisement is like getting excited about a new model of taser. It's like getting excited about being in pro sports, but realizing that you may go to shit in the process: we should be so lucky to waste ourselves for such a prize.
For all their expense, commercials are generally devoid of value, promote unhealthy ideas, reinforce stereotypes, lie, cheat, flatter (in the basest sense) and bully the populace. Innovation? Most don't even have the good grace to be entertaining. This year Dodge released a high-quality, high-concept pro-farmer commercial so exceptionalist and baldly desperate that it almost touched the heart – but then again: Dodge is only another part of the dust bowl. What do farmers even matter when the whole proceedings only preach dust bowls?
In spite of all that craziness, I think by far the worst Super Bowl memory I have isn't an advertisement or the spectacular failure of a deserving team. No, my personal darkest moment is when Undercover Boss premiered after Super Bowl XLIV. It was stunning. What a brilliant PR move, but how absolutely disgusting to see something like that and then the uncritical, even positive response. This evil show was embraced. People were and still are enthusiastic about it. Advertainment, another slick evasion of issues such as predatory zero-sum business practices, income inequality, and the Recession. The smug laughter that inevitably results.
I think it's the kind of show that is okay to hate. I don't use the term evil lightly. Evil is a shared burden and all that, but it is okay to despise this goddamn show. It's toxic, terrible, manipulative and the lack of popular critical response is a sad fact. It showed that soft power knew no bounds: it could take criminals, crooks, bullies and turn them into angelic, benevolent, personable superiors. I have no doubt the executive class is generally not evil, but their culture is not a healthy or positive one. I'm not an idealist to the point where I will deny the fundamental importance of business or industry, but the mere plight of the average modern person unsettles me. The way the earth – life – is used has gone far beyond the point where we can be unthinking and proud about it.
I don't get how such a transparently biased, exploitative show can still be on the air two years later. It is readily apparent that nobody has learned anything in the meantime, and that executives are just as wealthy and powerful as ever, what with the labor market wheezing and slumping like a dying hobo while the screaming middle class sinks. All you have to do to mask the dark side of capitalism is: videotape your choice of 'boss' talking about or doing awkward unsatisfactory work, in a sanitized and tightly scripted environment, edit to taste, pick some compelling underprivileged or overworked employees, wrap it up with a heartwarming situation, some cash prizes, and a teachable moment or two. Because the bosses do care: and no drudge's futile trudge through wage-slavery goes unnoticed and unrewarded.
Like any commercial, Undercover Boss delivers bias and sells misinformation. It meets minimum thresholds for propaganda. It portrays one point of view faithfully, and damn the rest – like the Simpsons, and many other fictional television shows. For instance: I joked some years ago about the five thousand dollar suit. Oh, hell. This is likely show money, which the boss gets to give out in order to humanize them (via #rotecharity). Sometimes an additional prize of changed terms of employment are entered into the bargain. Then tears. Let me tell you something about pathos: dollars alone don't make it convincing. The bosses cry crocodile tears, and the employees cry about the smug charity that will hopefully better their lives by some obscure fraction.
I tell you of such scenes, not because I follow the show religiously but because I earnestly believe that that sort of indoctrinating pablum should be reserved for what are explicitly aired as advertisements. Undercover Boss contains enough slick reality-TV features to pass as a show, but that's a mask for what is really an advertisement for the same broad attitudes which have time and time again put the majority in the corner and the minority in comfort. At the end of each episode money changes hands, and nothing significant changes. The landscape of exploitation remains the same, and objecting to it still results in a defensive reaction from the world's largest, wealthiest, most powerful guilty party.
We keep worshiping opulence, and when it inevitably fails and bankrupts us, we find that consumerism is a sweetened abyss anyway. Everyone is sick with it. The rational mind knows* it is madness to overproduce, to hoard, and to waste – nevertheless: it's a race to the bottom and nobody can afford to miss out. There is only one way down.
(*or ought to, if it is at all thoughtful)
Each year, lately, people get psyched up for the Super Bowl's pricey, overblown, ridiculous commercials. Newscasts neglect problematic, boring stories for the innocent pleasures of the advertisement adventure. Meanwhile grown men have been sacrificing their bodies for... shit tons of money and a good start at fame. The themes seem to run together. There are always some 'innovative' ads, in the loosest sense of the word, but getting excited about innovative advertisement is like getting excited about a new model of taser. It's like getting excited about being in pro sports, but realizing that you may go to shit in the process: we should be so lucky to waste ourselves for such a prize.
For all their expense, commercials are generally devoid of value, promote unhealthy ideas, reinforce stereotypes, lie, cheat, flatter (in the basest sense) and bully the populace. Innovation? Most don't even have the good grace to be entertaining. This year Dodge released a high-quality, high-concept pro-farmer commercial so exceptionalist and baldly desperate that it almost touched the heart – but then again: Dodge is only another part of the dust bowl. What do farmers even matter when the whole proceedings only preach dust bowls?
In spite of all that craziness, I think by far the worst Super Bowl memory I have isn't an advertisement or the spectacular failure of a deserving team. No, my personal darkest moment is when Undercover Boss premiered after Super Bowl XLIV. It was stunning. What a brilliant PR move, but how absolutely disgusting to see something like that and then the uncritical, even positive response. This evil show was embraced. People were and still are enthusiastic about it. Advertainment, another slick evasion of issues such as predatory zero-sum business practices, income inequality, and the Recession. The smug laughter that inevitably results.
I think it's the kind of show that is okay to hate. I don't use the term evil lightly. Evil is a shared burden and all that, but it is okay to despise this goddamn show. It's toxic, terrible, manipulative and the lack of popular critical response is a sad fact. It showed that soft power knew no bounds: it could take criminals, crooks, bullies and turn them into angelic, benevolent, personable superiors. I have no doubt the executive class is generally not evil, but their culture is not a healthy or positive one. I'm not an idealist to the point where I will deny the fundamental importance of business or industry, but the mere plight of the average modern person unsettles me. The way the earth – life – is used has gone far beyond the point where we can be unthinking and proud about it.
I don't get how such a transparently biased, exploitative show can still be on the air two years later. It is readily apparent that nobody has learned anything in the meantime, and that executives are just as wealthy and powerful as ever, what with the labor market wheezing and slumping like a dying hobo while the screaming middle class sinks. All you have to do to mask the dark side of capitalism is: videotape your choice of 'boss' talking about or doing awkward unsatisfactory work, in a sanitized and tightly scripted environment, edit to taste, pick some compelling underprivileged or overworked employees, wrap it up with a heartwarming situation, some cash prizes, and a teachable moment or two. Because the bosses do care: and no drudge's futile trudge through wage-slavery goes unnoticed and unrewarded.
Like any commercial, Undercover Boss delivers bias and sells misinformation. It meets minimum thresholds for propaganda. It portrays one point of view faithfully, and damn the rest – like the Simpsons, and many other fictional television shows. For instance: I joked some years ago about the five thousand dollar suit. Oh, hell. This is likely show money, which the boss gets to give out in order to humanize them (via #rotecharity). Sometimes an additional prize of changed terms of employment are entered into the bargain. Then tears. Let me tell you something about pathos: dollars alone don't make it convincing. The bosses cry crocodile tears, and the employees cry about the smug charity that will hopefully better their lives by some obscure fraction.
I tell you of such scenes, not because I follow the show religiously but because I earnestly believe that that sort of indoctrinating pablum should be reserved for what are explicitly aired as advertisements. Undercover Boss contains enough slick reality-TV features to pass as a show, but that's a mask for what is really an advertisement for the same broad attitudes which have time and time again put the majority in the corner and the minority in comfort. At the end of each episode money changes hands, and nothing significant changes. The landscape of exploitation remains the same, and objecting to it still results in a defensive reaction from the world's largest, wealthiest, most powerful guilty party.
We keep worshiping opulence, and when it inevitably fails and bankrupts us, we find that consumerism is a sweetened abyss anyway. Everyone is sick with it. The rational mind knows* it is madness to overproduce, to hoard, and to waste – nevertheless: it's a race to the bottom and nobody can afford to miss out. There is only one way down.
(*or ought to, if it is at all thoughtful)
4/3/11
Geez. Wow.
It's a good thing I tried to catch up to the internet news lately. Doubtless you have heard this story, or a story like it, plenty of times: noxious blog post is posted, public gets upset, author is a remedial celebrity and spin doctor, spin doesn't take, offense is broadcast – everyone chuckles in the end, because it's kind of funny.
Even Scott Adams knows there are some kinds of shit you don't touch. Not even as a blogger. Not even satirically. I blog anonymous and I wouldn't get in anyone's face or talk lightly about retardation or gender or any stupid thing. I prefer the borderlands of insensitivity and general curmugeonliness. There is one stinking turd that is so bloated with gas that even looking at it wrong can set it off. Even looking at an opposing turd the wrong way can set it off. You don't even look at this turd, let alone blog about it on your smug, high-class, oft-visited blog (which is solely buoyed by celebrity and little-more-than-average writing skills).
Anyways, the poor fellow took the nebulous, cringe-worthy subject of 'Men's Rights' to task in the most circumlocutory style possible: in short he pissed off everybody but his most dedicated fans, and even those have put at least one Dilbert mug at the back of cupboard. The irony of Men's Rights does not need to be brought up, and the ire of feminists has been alluded to by other sources covering the story and how it has been covered. It's been covered to death, and the best part is it makes me realize I am out of the loop. How do I generate controversy, gain blog hits, and become infamous?
Even Scott Adams knows there are some kinds of shit you don't touch. Not even as a blogger. Not even satirically. I blog anonymous and I wouldn't get in anyone's face or talk lightly about retardation or gender or any stupid thing. I prefer the borderlands of insensitivity and general curmugeonliness. There is one stinking turd that is so bloated with gas that even looking at it wrong can set it off. Even looking at an opposing turd the wrong way can set it off. You don't even look at this turd, let alone blog about it on your smug, high-class, oft-visited blog (which is solely buoyed by celebrity and little-more-than-average writing skills).
Anyways, the poor fellow took the nebulous, cringe-worthy subject of 'Men's Rights' to task in the most circumlocutory style possible: in short he pissed off everybody but his most dedicated fans, and even those have put at least one Dilbert mug at the back of cupboard. The irony of Men's Rights does not need to be brought up, and the ire of feminists has been alluded to by other sources covering the story and how it has been covered. It's been covered to death, and the best part is it makes me realize I am out of the loop. How do I generate controversy, gain blog hits, and become infamous?
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