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It's amazing. As Moosey (and many others) have pointed out in the past, we can argue for HOURS about something while being on the same exact side and saying the same exact thing.
It's a little worrisome
Tonight I addressed apparently my 4 biggest fears. 1) My Mom's hoarding tendencies reaching the level that she could be on Hoarders (in a sense watching the show was actually a bit reassuring because she is nowhere near that bad, she has friends who are worse and she tells "YOU HAVE TO STOP THIS" and if nothing else, we can have an intervention showing her the show and just going "This is you :| No more now.") 2) That I might someday have to take food/nutrients intravenously thanks to out of control food allergies and just how bad that would be. Turns out? Even worse than I could imagine. Not cool man. 3) Kids. :| Seriously. I'm not having them. -_-' and 4) Turning into my Dad.
Everyone's always known I'm a lot like my Dad. SO alike it causes friction. Lots of friction. We butt heads. We can barely spend more than a couple of hours in the same room before it escalates to yelling even though neither of us want that because we both have migraines :| mm. Fortunately Moosey and my Mom are so happy go lucky that they always get along with either of us. But sadly together my Dad and I just well... butt heads. Where male!Ace and female!Ace flirt and make friends with each other and Aces generally get along with each other, Smoker and Smoker don't. And as is often bantered (half-kiddingly, but only half) my Dad is Garp, and I'm Smoker. He's a crazy old man whom I love and respect, but he also is crazy and occasionally thinks the sky is falling. My worry is just turning into him as I get older.
Moving along.
We covered a lot of ground. Most of it is pointless (Obama basically bending over backwards for the Republican party so they can -- never mind, I'm ranting), some of it was just opinion stuff (Olympic team sports being silly due to population percentages to choose from), but the poignant one in my opinion was the one that got most heated. Which was why newspapers aren't being bought and CNN/other news shows aren't being watched.
It's been a gradually growing pet peeve of mine for a good 11 years. Not that readership was going down, but that they keep blaming the internet. It's like the American dubbing and manga industries blaming the internet and illegal downloads for loss of revenue when without the internet enabling people to find, learn, and test, they would have no viewers or interest enough to produce it at all whatsoever. (Fortunately thanks the tanking economy, they realized it had nothing to do with illegal downloading so much as that people consider comic books less important to spend on than food and found other ways to get revenue while keeping viewers. Two thumbs way way up on that. Especially to Viz!! \o/) No, the reason they started to fail was because they stopped reporting NEWS. Hell, that's why the Daily Show was first created, less as a political commentary and more to mock how RIDICULOUS news had gotten in the U.S.
And yet in spite of people pointing this out, they (like my Dad) insist that Americans don't want those stories, they want the entertainment. Yes, of course Americans want entertainment in their news. What do you think humans are? We want our news and information spoonfed to us in delectable morsels that taste good and are easy to swallow. Why do children's vitamins come in packaging and taste that makes them almost like candy? This has ALWAYS been the case. This isn't recent or thanks to the internet. Comics were first created and added to newspapers for the express purpose of being more entertaining and selling well. Dear Abbey and other advice columns? Same thing. Gossip columns? Likewise. There's even an entire entertainment section for that reason.
The problem isn't that they were adding more and more entertainment. The problem was they became just that. They stopped trying to make the vitamins marketable and just went "well fuck it, we're practically making candy, let's just make candy" and then failed to remember that candy companies ALREADY exist. Candy isn't a new and improved concept. People who buy candy-like vitamins, still actually want the vitamins, they just want it in candy form. If you're just going to focus on making candy then they're going to go for the REALLY good tasting candy, not the mediocre stuff you eat to get the vitamins in you. Duh. :|
So yeah, news can't really compete with entertainment at entertainment's own game.
By no means am I saying the solution is eliminate all entertainment from news. Hell no. Granted I still watch BBC for news, but there's a reason I watch the Daily Show. It's good television and it offers something other shows don't.
Fox News started in 1996. It didn't "skyrocket to popularity" (yes I use that term loosely) until about the time of the War in Iraq. This isn't because the entire United States suddenly became hardcore Republicans after 9/11. It was because they got pissed off with other news organizations whose editors were basically trying to GUESS on what people wanted to hear about on the news.
~~News Flash~~ Just because we hear something on the news that we don't like or that makes us sad or mad doesn't mean we change the channel. Why? Because it's the news. It's not a fucking sitcom. You don't watch the news to laugh until you cry usually :| You watch the news to make sure the world isn't blowing up behind your back while you were busy running an every-day life.
So while CNN was wavering on whether covering the Iraq War would alienate too many viewers or upset people and caring more about LOOKING fair and balanced, Fox News said "Fuck that shit. Since the other news organizations are basically all doing the same thing, we'll do something different from that and pick up the rest." And that is exactly what happened.
So here's some free information for you. We the public would like our information free and unbiased. However, if you offer us something we can't get from someone else, we will fork over the cash. It's like paying off an informant in the street for a hot tip. Hypothetically we could look around for the next 3 days to find it ourselves, but paying the $20 is actually going to save us time and ~effort.~
Want to revitalize your industry? Aside from keeping in mind your target market and evolving technology, offer something that NOT every. Other. Goddamn. Newspaper. Already. Does. Free. And. Easier. Even if that means more work for you, believe it or not, that's how you get paid. Shocking I know. But back in 2004 when every freaking paper and tv!news across the U.S. was reporting and hyping the hell out of every single shark attack making everyone think sharks were suddenly OUT OF CONTROL; it wasn't really as newsworthy as all the stations made it out to be. It scared people. It sold well for a while for the same reason fads happen and why people read gossip mags to find out about Prince Charles wedding. But you cannot start to rely on that, which they did. The reason you cannot do that? Because then you're just candy without the vitamin. And frankly, you're just not that good for candy. You're kind of good, we might tell you politely even enthusiastically that "this is good enough to be candy!!11!" but when it boils down to it if we're going to buy flintstones vitamins without the vitamins or M&Ms, I guarantee you'll be out of business before you can try to put the vitamins all back and regain your customers.
So you want to sell news? Offer a metaphorical filter. There's a LOT of "news" and world and local and general "happenings" to know about. No one can know ALL of it and people are too busy to try to research every single one. So fucking filter and tone it down to the nitty gritty. Give us those most important ones like Vitamin C and B and Zinc. Then make it taste good enough that we don't make a face and would even eat it like candy. Tell us about wars and natural disasters, and murders, and all the things we don't really WANT to face, but know deep down inside we should. THEN you can juice it up with pop star interviews or boobs. Yes, in order to sell magazines with comics and daily life stories Hugh Hefner did it with Playboy Bunnies. But sadly none of the current stations or print are doing that. I don't mean using specifically sex or nude girls. I mean offering something you can't get somewhere else. If you're only going to print the same relative articles about global warming that have been said for 15+ years, why should I even bother to read, much less buy it? It might have new and supposedly incontrovertible proof, but you're all boy who cried wolf on me. For all I know this is just your stupid hype to sell papers again.
So before news gets on people's case for using Wikipedia and twitter or whatever else out there, that is my personal statement to them. Give me back my vitamins if you want me to buy your candy. Because your fake news just isn't as entertaining if you're trying to compete with variety shows and so forth. Stop it. Don't show me a youtube video on national television: people who haven't gotten the word about it that they could even find out from you don't use the internet enough to care. So don't chase down the same fad as everyone else, find something others haven't that actually has some valid use. Then you might see your viewership go up, if you haven't shot yourselves in the foot forever from the idiocy.
It's a little worrisome
Tonight I addressed apparently my 4 biggest fears. 1) My Mom's hoarding tendencies reaching the level that she could be on Hoarders (in a sense watching the show was actually a bit reassuring because she is nowhere near that bad, she has friends who are worse and she tells "YOU HAVE TO STOP THIS" and if nothing else, we can have an intervention showing her the show and just going "This is you :| No more now.") 2) That I might someday have to take food/nutrients intravenously thanks to out of control food allergies and just how bad that would be. Turns out? Even worse than I could imagine. Not cool man. 3) Kids. :| Seriously. I'm not having them. -_-' and 4) Turning into my Dad.
Everyone's always known I'm a lot like my Dad. SO alike it causes friction. Lots of friction. We butt heads. We can barely spend more than a couple of hours in the same room before it escalates to yelling even though neither of us want that because we both have migraines :| mm. Fortunately Moosey and my Mom are so happy go lucky that they always get along with either of us. But sadly together my Dad and I just well... butt heads. Where male!Ace and female!Ace flirt and make friends with each other and Aces generally get along with each other, Smoker and Smoker don't. And as is often bantered (half-kiddingly, but only half) my Dad is Garp, and I'm Smoker. He's a crazy old man whom I love and respect, but he also is crazy and occasionally thinks the sky is falling. My worry is just turning into him as I get older.
Moving along.
We covered a lot of ground. Most of it is pointless (Obama basically bending over backwards for the Republican party so they can -- never mind, I'm ranting), some of it was just opinion stuff (Olympic team sports being silly due to population percentages to choose from), but the poignant one in my opinion was the one that got most heated. Which was why newspapers aren't being bought and CNN/other news shows aren't being watched.
It's been a gradually growing pet peeve of mine for a good 11 years. Not that readership was going down, but that they keep blaming the internet. It's like the American dubbing and manga industries blaming the internet and illegal downloads for loss of revenue when without the internet enabling people to find, learn, and test, they would have no viewers or interest enough to produce it at all whatsoever. (Fortunately thanks the tanking economy, they realized it had nothing to do with illegal downloading so much as that people consider comic books less important to spend on than food and found other ways to get revenue while keeping viewers. Two thumbs way way up on that. Especially to Viz!! \o/) No, the reason they started to fail was because they stopped reporting NEWS. Hell, that's why the Daily Show was first created, less as a political commentary and more to mock how RIDICULOUS news had gotten in the U.S.
And yet in spite of people pointing this out, they (like my Dad) insist that Americans don't want those stories, they want the entertainment. Yes, of course Americans want entertainment in their news. What do you think humans are? We want our news and information spoonfed to us in delectable morsels that taste good and are easy to swallow. Why do children's vitamins come in packaging and taste that makes them almost like candy? This has ALWAYS been the case. This isn't recent or thanks to the internet. Comics were first created and added to newspapers for the express purpose of being more entertaining and selling well. Dear Abbey and other advice columns? Same thing. Gossip columns? Likewise. There's even an entire entertainment section for that reason.
The problem isn't that they were adding more and more entertainment. The problem was they became just that. They stopped trying to make the vitamins marketable and just went "well fuck it, we're practically making candy, let's just make candy" and then failed to remember that candy companies ALREADY exist. Candy isn't a new and improved concept. People who buy candy-like vitamins, still actually want the vitamins, they just want it in candy form. If you're just going to focus on making candy then they're going to go for the REALLY good tasting candy, not the mediocre stuff you eat to get the vitamins in you. Duh. :|
So yeah, news can't really compete with entertainment at entertainment's own game.
By no means am I saying the solution is eliminate all entertainment from news. Hell no. Granted I still watch BBC for news, but there's a reason I watch the Daily Show. It's good television and it offers something other shows don't.
Fox News started in 1996. It didn't "skyrocket to popularity" (yes I use that term loosely) until about the time of the War in Iraq. This isn't because the entire United States suddenly became hardcore Republicans after 9/11. It was because they got pissed off with other news organizations whose editors were basically trying to GUESS on what people wanted to hear about on the news.
~~News Flash~~ Just because we hear something on the news that we don't like or that makes us sad or mad doesn't mean we change the channel. Why? Because it's the news. It's not a fucking sitcom. You don't watch the news to laugh until you cry usually :| You watch the news to make sure the world isn't blowing up behind your back while you were busy running an every-day life.
So while CNN was wavering on whether covering the Iraq War would alienate too many viewers or upset people and caring more about LOOKING fair and balanced, Fox News said "Fuck that shit. Since the other news organizations are basically all doing the same thing, we'll do something different from that and pick up the rest." And that is exactly what happened.
So here's some free information for you. We the public would like our information free and unbiased. However, if you offer us something we can't get from someone else, we will fork over the cash. It's like paying off an informant in the street for a hot tip. Hypothetically we could look around for the next 3 days to find it ourselves, but paying the $20 is actually going to save us time and ~effort.~
Want to revitalize your industry? Aside from keeping in mind your target market and evolving technology, offer something that NOT every. Other. Goddamn. Newspaper. Already. Does. Free. And. Easier. Even if that means more work for you, believe it or not, that's how you get paid. Shocking I know. But back in 2004 when every freaking paper and tv!news across the U.S. was reporting and hyping the hell out of every single shark attack making everyone think sharks were suddenly OUT OF CONTROL; it wasn't really as newsworthy as all the stations made it out to be. It scared people. It sold well for a while for the same reason fads happen and why people read gossip mags to find out about Prince Charles wedding. But you cannot start to rely on that, which they did. The reason you cannot do that? Because then you're just candy without the vitamin. And frankly, you're just not that good for candy. You're kind of good, we might tell you politely even enthusiastically that "this is good enough to be candy!!11!" but when it boils down to it if we're going to buy flintstones vitamins without the vitamins or M&Ms, I guarantee you'll be out of business before you can try to put the vitamins all back and regain your customers.
So you want to sell news? Offer a metaphorical filter. There's a LOT of "news" and world and local and general "happenings" to know about. No one can know ALL of it and people are too busy to try to research every single one. So fucking filter and tone it down to the nitty gritty. Give us those most important ones like Vitamin C and B and Zinc. Then make it taste good enough that we don't make a face and would even eat it like candy. Tell us about wars and natural disasters, and murders, and all the things we don't really WANT to face, but know deep down inside we should. THEN you can juice it up with pop star interviews or boobs. Yes, in order to sell magazines with comics and daily life stories Hugh Hefner did it with Playboy Bunnies. But sadly none of the current stations or print are doing that. I don't mean using specifically sex or nude girls. I mean offering something you can't get somewhere else. If you're only going to print the same relative articles about global warming that have been said for 15+ years, why should I even bother to read, much less buy it? It might have new and supposedly incontrovertible proof, but you're all boy who cried wolf on me. For all I know this is just your stupid hype to sell papers again.
So before news gets on people's case for using Wikipedia and twitter or whatever else out there, that is my personal statement to them. Give me back my vitamins if you want me to buy your candy. Because your fake news just isn't as entertaining if you're trying to compete with variety shows and so forth. Stop it. Don't show me a youtube video on national television: people who haven't gotten the word about it that they could even find out from you don't use the internet enough to care. So don't chase down the same fad as everyone else, find something others haven't that actually has some valid use. Then you might see your viewership go up, if you haven't shot yourselves in the foot forever from the idiocy.
