I Think It Would Be Fun To Ruin A Newspaper

Elon Musk made headlines recently when he suggested a website that would allow the public to rate journalists on their truthfulness. According to a poll of his twitter followers, this is a really popular idea. Among others, however, it’s not so popular, and has attracted a lot of ridicule.

Why Musk is going to war with the media is a bit of a mystery. After all, he’s benefited greatly from media hype. Generally, he’s had positive coverage, up until the recent questions about Tesla’s factory safety. You also have to wonder why other super-rich, super-famous people haven’t had similar reactions. Just think of all the opportunities for Bill Gates to snap when facing critical press. You might be inclined to think that this is just another example of the central malady of our age: powerful men realizing just how much they can get away with. But there are also contemporary examples of tycoons handling media critique less childishly. Amazon’s Jeff Bezos has faced similar scrutiny over his company’s work conditions. And Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg has faced an even larger media barrage; while he hasn’t exactly faced it like a great titan of industry, he also hasn’t gone looking for cheap revenge.

I’ve seen comparisons between Musk and Donald Trump. That’s easy to understand: although quite different in other areas, they seem to share a surprisingly thin skin. So many are heralding the end of Elon Musk, as he melts down into a nerdier Trump. Or perhaps he just becomes a Bond villain. Personally though, I think a more accurate comparison for Musk is Charles Foster Kane. He has the same playful entrepreneurialism, the sense of being a self-appointed public hero, and an ego that is incompatible with being the people’s hero. At least Musk’s girlfriend is actually musically talented.

But back to the journalist site idea. Some people have pointed out that similar sites have been tried before. Others have made the should-be-obvious point that it would be easy to rig the site to give ratings that fit someone’s vested interests. Musk tried to assuage these fears by saying it would have to be able to resist mass input from bot armies. But even if you could do that (good luck) there’s still the threat of coordinated efforts of many people working together. After all, similar things have already happened.

But the biggest problem with this idea is that it’s trying to fix the problem with more of the problem. Let’s assume that this website would work as intended without being manipulated or hacked, and thus displays an accurate picture of the general public’s opinion of the accuracy of journalists. I have to ask how that would be any different from how our current society works. We already run society based on the assumption that popularity is more important than correctness. Musk’s website would just formalize that process. He even suggested calling it “Pravda,” in reference to the Soviet newspaper whose name ironically meant, “truth.” But a more appropriate name for Musk’s journalist-rating site would be, “truthiness,” the word Stephen Colbert coined to describe something that feels true, whether or not it is.

Things The Teenage Me Would Never Have Believed About Life In The Future, #40 & 41

#40:

Superhero movies are more popular than ever. That's right, Batman made people forget about Superman IV, and it's been all success from there. Except Batman and Robin, you'll want to skip that one.

Anyway, the point is that now it's not just the biggest names that are getting their own movie franchises, even the more niche characters get big budgets.

#41:

You know Bob Ross, the super laid-back artist with a show on PBS? Sadly, he dies in 1995. But he is still well remembered, and is as much a pop-cultural icon as ever.

Anyway, put those two facts together, and, by 2018, this happens and it doesn't even seem weird:

The Revolution Is About Basketball

NBA Commissioner Adam Silver gave an interesting interview where he talked about how the league uses modern media. For instance, the NBA encourages people to post highlights to YouTube, unlike some other sports organizations. First of all, they have an agreement with YouTube that they still get ad revenue from these clips, even if the NBA itself didn't post the videos, and secondly, they understand that clips on the internet aren't really competing with the game itself.

That's a refreshing attitude, not just in pro sports but in all of business. Most corporations have a knee-jerk reaction to stop any-and-all unauthorized usage of their product. While I can understand why a company would want to guard their intellectual property, there often seems to be no thought of a greater strategy that goes into the decision to send out cease-and-desist orders.

But what I found really interesting is that they've used their streaming service to learn about fans' preferences. They can tell how much of the game people are watching, and when they're turning off the game. I guess that can lead to privacy concerns, but in the modern world, the NBA knowing when you stop watching is pretty small potatoes.

What I find interesting is that this data contributed to their decision to reduce the number of time-outs this season. On the one hand, I could have told them to do that and saved them a lot of trouble. But it also makes me wonder what other insights the NBA and other leagues could learn about what excites and annoys fans.

It's also notable that Silver mentions that they find it easier to increase viewership by encouraging existing fans to watch more, rather than winning over new people. I'd like to see this approach applied to hockey, where there doesn't seem to be much focus about whether the sport should appeal to hard-core fans or appeal to new audiences, and discussion of how to appeal to each usually involves a lot of guesswork and stereotypes. It would be good to see some more certainty, even though I fear that it might push the sport in directions that I, personally, wouldn't like.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go subscribe to the NBA streaming service. Next year I'm going to use it to watch every game, but I'm going to stop watching every time there's a bad call against the Raptors.

Kanye, It Was Really Nothing

Recently, we've seen Kanye West, Shania Twain, and Morrissey surprise fans by jumping on board the right-hand side of the cultural divide.

Shania showed herself to be in over her head from the start, saying that she would have voted for Trump, then backtracking wildly once she discovered how unpopular that was. It might seem unfair that she's getting heavily criticized for something she apparently knows little of, but I have no sympathy: after all, we're all incompetent on most matters, but the rest of us know enough to sit up on things we don't understand. She's shown a kind of political Dunning-Kruger.

Kanye West has come out in support of Donald Trump. Should we really be surprised? Stats show that at least one African-American voted for him, it might be Kanye. It seems to me that they have a lot in common. For one thing, they have the world's two largest free-standing egos.

Another similarity is that when people are discussing Trump often come back to that Maya Angelou quote that when people show you who they are, believe them. Like Trump, Kanye keeps showing us who he is, and we keep not believing him. I've seen some people kinda defend Kanye by claiming that he's such an innovator and unconventional thinker that he doesn't fit into any preconceived notions of political sides. But a better explanation for West's ideas being incoherent and all over the map is that he's a lot like Trump: lacking in understanding and concentration.

Likely, Kanye's subsequent description of slavery as a "choice" will be the end of his support, at least from African-Americans.

Morrissey is another star who keeps trying to show us who he is; he's had a string of increasingly offensive statements and actions. Because he's the only one of these musicians who I've ever been a fan of, it's a bit more disappointing for me, even if his devolution has been in slow-motion. I'd like to think that he - like many in our current culture - has just become addicted to the joy of pissing people off, and has lost sight of the fact that sometimes pissing people off is the hint that you should re-evaluate your life.

But whatever the reason, I don't care anymore. I've given up, and I see that many others have too. But I'm sure that each of these suddenly hated musicians will have many more second-chances from other fans in the years to come.

These experiences have made me realize another unrealistic thing about Star Wars: when someone turns to the dark side, everyone else just accepts it. They're like, okay, he's on the dark side now. No one makes excuses for him, no one forgets it happened just because he hasn't force-choked anyone in the past week. No one looks the other way because of his other skills.

"I can't believe you hired Darth Farius to do your taxes."
"Well whatever you think of his politics, he's still a good accountant."

Through Rose-Coloured Camera Phones

I'm getting tired of the demonizing of phones and mobile devices in public places. I mean, like any technology, it deserves skepticism and analysis rather than naive acceptance. But a lot of the critiques of phones' effect on society is just scattershot complaining from the memory-challenged.

I'm guessing that young people are dismissing these attacks as just a bit more ageism. But in case any of them are falling for it and believing that the mobiles are the downfall of civilization, I'd like to offer some reassurance. As someone who was there for the pre-mobile era let me clear some things up.

People weren't very social before mobiles.

Listening to Boomers, X-er's and older Millennials, you'd think that the old world was a marvelously social place where public places were full of conversation, and where complete strangers regularly reached out to one another.

Actually, it was an awkward bore, where entertainment was limited to old magazines. Yeah, that's right: the pile of old magazines in every waiting room? You probably thought the reason they're so old is that no one bothers replacing them now that we have phones to entertain us. Nope! They've always been years out of date, but it used to be that people would actually read them, because there was nothing better to do. That's why most people resorted to starting off into space instead. They would have killed for a convenient portable entertainment device. And you would have killed for the person across the room starting at you to have his own entertainment device to divert his gaze.

People weren't more caring

It's not like they were completely cold-hearted, but they weren't any nicer. Perhaps you've heard some of the old shocking stories about bystanders not helping victims? Well those all happened without phones.

People have always been reluctant to get involved with strangers around them. Now, at least they may be using their phones to connect with strangers on the net. Even I'm writing this while sitting in a waiting room. That may be odd, but it's still better than the old way of living in a shell.

Kids weren't very active

Looking at memes on facebook, you'd think that kids once spent all their time doing healthy and wholesome activities outside, then someone gave them phones and it all ended.

I don't know, maybe there was once a golden age of kids' activities, but it would have been decades ago. Keep in mind that TV - and vacuous programming on it - has been widespread since the 60's. Video games were commonplace by the 80's.

Tinder et al have destroyed dating

Look up the "personals ad" concept. People used to look for love using twenty words at the back of a newspaper, right above the ads for escort services. Does that sound better than modern dating apps? And don't even ask about 90's singles phone lines.

Radio Love Song

Recently, I heard a DJ mention that "Let's Dance To Joy Division" by The Wombats is his favourite song, and it appears on a Spotify playlist from the producers of Guardians of the Galaxy, presumably to remind everyone the franchise still exists while they wait for the next instalment in a couple of years.

I was intrigued, so when I got home, I looked the song up on YouTube (Still no streaming music for me. I listen to music the old fashioned way: files I've bought and downloaded.) The song is very good, though I wouldn't list it as my favourite. On the list of indie songs that name-check indie bands, I'd place it ahead of "Let's Make Love and Listen to Death From Above" by CSS, but behind "Daft Punk is Playing at My House" by LCD System.

But then it hit me how weird this whole experience was: A DJ mentioned a good song - but didn't play it - and I looked it up myself to hear if it was any good. That's not how the whole DJ concept is supposed to work; their job is after all to play good music. But in today's radio world, it's just accepted that outside of college radio, the music is pre-approved focus-grouped demographic pablum, and the DJ's have no say in it.

But the DJ's themselves seem reasonably free to express themselves - after all, ads for radio stations usually promote them as much or more than the music. So we have the strange situation where DJ's can express their personality by talking about edgy music, but aren't allowed to play it.

Similarly, big-budget movies are okay with using obscure music in self promotion, even if the movie itself is a safe comic book sequel. So these two media may be restrained by the need to be safe bets, but don't mind acknowledging alternative choices the consumer might make. It's like some kind of weakened dystopia where Big Brother won't show you rebellion, but is okay with everyone talking about it.

Is Pepsi Okay?

I'm amazed by these new diet coke ads. Coke seems to be rebranding it, with energy-drink-style cans, and young-person-based-ads. I know I'm not the target market, but they look awful. You know, the ones where they're walking down the street talking to you.

(And here's the other. I have to admit: it's cute that if you're watching closely, you'll see them pass each other. I'm embarrassed that it took me so long to notice that.)

I may not be the target market, but I do remember some of the embarrassing ads that tried to appeal to me when I was part of the hot demographic. Both then and now, it was clear that they were putting these ads together based on what the ad execs had seen on TV or overheard in malls, not by actually talking to young people. "Maybe you're into friends who leave voice mail"?!? What does that even mean? Can you be into friends who don't use voice mail anymore? It's like they wrote the script using Mad Libs Millennial Edition.

I guess there is a certain challenge in understanding new generations. In my case, they were trying to figure out what Generation X cared about, before finally realizing it was nothing. Now they're trying to focus our what Millennials have in common, and are realizing that is also nothing. Well, one thing most of them do share is a disappointment in an economy that isn't giving them opportunities for rewarding or prestigious careers. You know, like jobs in advertising, where they could have prevented this embarrassment.

Meanwhile, Pepsi had an ad that walks us down memory lane. That's a big departure for them. As I observed previously, one of the few constants throughout my life had been Pepsi constantly trying to align themselves with whatever young people idolize. But one of the necessities of that strategy is that your ads have to live in the now: if you're appealing to today's kids, you can't mention that you were also trying to appeal to their parents. In this case, they not only admit that, they go on to tell you that they helped your grandad score at the drive in.

The fact is, we've entered a new pop-cultural epoch, where time no longer exists. Between reboots, rehashes and remixes, we're experiencing everything at once, so nothing can be hot, cold, retro, or camp anymore. It's like at the fall of communism, some people claimed it was the End of History. I didn't believe that then, and it turned out to be totally wrong, but somehow Pepsi rejecting trendiness feels even more monumental. It's like the concept was dying on us, and society needed Pepsi to give us permission to let it go, and herald this new era.