0
‘I’ve been busy’ is thrown around a bit nowadays, if someone says ‘why didn’t you text me back last night?’, your instinct reaction is to say ‘I’ve been busy’, when really you mean ‘I couldn’t be bothered facing the keypad for you, someone who means emotionally and physically nothing to me what so ever’; but we’re to polite as people do that aren’t we?
I’ve been asking myself have I been busy to excuse my serious lack of blogging on this website, partly it’s because I’ve been busy with sixth form, work (which because it’s the summer holidays, that’s where I’ve been spending most of my time), exams and exam results. It doesn’t seem like much, but for the all to brief moments where I have nothing to do, I’m usually sleeping.
This, however, should change starting next week. Sixth form is resuming as I start Year 13 and my work hours are being cut down to around three or four shifts a week, this should leave plenty of time between coursework to blog about my musings and television reviews (which seem to be making up most of my latest posts recently). It’s what I like to do.
Regarding my website, I’m pleased to announce that over the past five months that we’ve tipped over 5,500 unique visits. However, this is mainly due to my XFM Download Vault page that is attracting the thousands of The Ricky Gervais Show fans out there; but this of course directs traffic to my blog so all is fair, thank you to everyone who has visited this site.
Since June, each month has caused the percentage of visitors to increase every single time – at one point reaching 180% but that’s slowed down to a steady 30% which is good because it shows that people are still interested in what the website provides. Even if it may not be this blog all of those visitors are coming here for.
I have lots of ideas for future blog posts including product reviews, television reviews and general musings; let’s hope I find the time to write them which is what I love to do.
Steven, Administrator.
Published on August 26th 2010 / Filed under Blessays, Website News
0
I accidently mistook Big Brother for a post-apocalyptic film where an atomic bomb kills everyone except cunts.
In this blog post I will be reviewing and discussing the two main reality television shows that are on at the moment. With Big Brother finally ending in a way that makes you breath a sigh of relief how you would when someone you dislike has just finished a boring conversation with you, and The X Factor (feat. auto-tune) starting for the billionth time, the true meaning of ‘fame’ will come under examination by those who ask: “Who the fuck are these people?”
Big Brother
Like Chlamydia or that thing you did one summer, Big Brother keeps coming back for more – no matter how much you want it to go away and stay hidden. I haven’t watched Big Brother for about two years yet I know about it because it’s impossible to get away from; with the media a la The Sun reporting everything from the foundations of the house to ‘How to get the Paul look this summer’, (I don’t know if there is a contestant called Paul, there’s probably not as it’s too normal a name; I’ll go for Famalam instead). The Internet doesn’t escape it either, from trending topics on Twitter to poorly misspelt groups on Facebook; everyone, somewhere, is inadvertently exposed to harmful rays of abysmal television – and there’s no escape.
Actually I did tune into Big Brother by mistake for a few seconds when waiting for The IT Crowd to start but instead I mistook it for a post-apocalyptic film where an atomic bomb kills everyone except cunts. I wonder why anyone would watch this show on purpose to be honest; it just seems to make you angry. If you want to watch television to be angry, just watch the news and look out for the news stories about mass shootings; that’s what you should get angry about, not someone you don’t know not deboning a fish before grilling it or whatever it is they do to past time. Probably passing time in cardboard boxes the lazy bastards.
As of 25th of August 2010, Big Brother is over… Oh wait, no it’s not, because we’re being treated to something called Ultimate Big Brother which sounds more like a cult more than anything else; as I did with the usual show, I tuned into Channel 4 at the wrong time and mistook the spin off show as a live stream of a VIP section at Nandos. In fact, it’s not a cult but where they get the ‘best’ housemates, (which is like choosing the best gun shot wound in your partners corpse you’ve got to identify), are locked up into the house for two weeks. With a cast you’d be more likely to find on Celebrity Love Island, including Preston from Never Mind The Buzzcocks and John McCririck who appears not to own a mirror, this spin off is set to be one of the biggest disappointments on British television this year, other than Live Abortions which sadly never made it to air, it was a miscarriage of an idea.
After ten years on the air, eleven series, however many celebrity editions and countless spin off shows this franchise has churned out; some good must have come of it? Some may argue that it defined a genre. But what genre? A genre including classics such as I’m a Celebrity, Strictly Come Dancing, Celebrity Fit Club and Somewhere Over the Rainbow. What possible good are any of these shows? I know, I know, escapism, but surely people can find something better to escape with. If you’re using these shows as means of escapism, how depressing must your life be. A life like mine, for instance, but happily not this depressive, yet.
The worst thing about Big Brother the housemates which are usually ugly, idiotic, shameless, disgusting, self promoting, selfish and tiresome. If their platform to get famous is this show, why are they fucking bothering? Why is it so important for them to become famous. We know that how they act in the house, isn’t how they’re portrayed on screen once the editing is done. Their relationship with the public isn’t moulded by them, it’s moulded by the producers.
Now because I haven’t watched Big Brother for a very long time, I may be being a bit harsh on it, reviewing my own shrouded memory; but an opinion is an opinion and this is mine.
The X Factor
If reality shows were a two course dinner, the unfulfilling starter Britain’s Got Talent has been and gone and we’re treated to the main course: The X Factor. After the triumph of Joe what’s-his-recently-gay-face’s win last year, (who got to ask Michael Buble a question as an audience member at his show, who says the winners get no-where… He got a Christmas number two lest we forgot), the ITV have decided we need a new supreme singing overlord amongst us.
This year The X Factor appears to take place and various oversized blue NHS waiting rooms around the country – this time however, there’s a trick: auto-tuning. Auto-tuning so obvious the producers may as well dub over the ‘good’ contestants with actual fucking singers. If auto-tuning has been used to make some acts sound better than they are – who’s to say that they aren’t using deauto-tuning technology to make the bad acts sound abysmal. It would be less embarrassing for the poor fuckers to have a rectal examination in these NHS style hubs.
With obvious nonlinear editing such as the classic can-only-hear-a-pin-drop reactions from the audience cropping up every so often to further humiliate the hopeless contestants, I wonder how long it will be before we’ll be shown a message where we’re allowed to pause the television and draw penises and swastikas over their exploited little faces.
It’s the classic fairytale story of rags to riches, however, the audience are the lynch mob trying to scare the ogre out of town; but the ogre isn’t ITV or the producers for literally throwing shit into a fan that’s pointing directly at us, oh no, it’s the contestants who we despise; who although probably stupid, are more than likely tricked into being leered at by the public, (or the mob if we’re still going with this fairytale analogy which I’ll now drop). If a show depends on its supporting cast for reviews, then we’re obviously going to hate the contestants instead of the producers and therefore the show itself – and this is, of course, wrong of us.
Then we move onto the judges who sit about as obtuse as the grim reaper reading a short story outside of an old peoples home – apparently these four are the most talented people in Britain, so talented two of them decided to fuck off half way into the series, (a fact the ‘next time’ trailers have been referring too (i.e. Cheryl Cole) like it’s something to advertise, what cunts). This week we had Simon Cowell who looks like a burnt out cigarette in a shit T-Shirt, Cheryl Cole who may as well have a speech bubble with ‘you’re a little star’ taped to her mouth all the time to save her from talking, Geri Halliwell who appeared to have a book of let-down/inspiring clichés hidden under the desk and Louis Walsh who looked like someone trying to part of the ‘cool gang’ at school by edging on the end of the panel. Apparently these people are good enough to judge the rest of Britain and therefore they do, being as mundane and predictable as ever.
From this you may think I hate The X Factor, well I don’t, I enjoy watching it to disconnect myself from all of the serious stuff I have to deal with. If you’re too ignorant to enjoy an hour of shit every now and again you may as well be dead, (besides Big Brother, which is hard to enjoy).
Finished
John Updike once said ‘Celebrity is a mask that eats into the face’, this is very true, however in today’s culture, I believe not only does fame become someone’s personality, but that the public are warped too because we believe anyone we see on television enough must be a celebrity, a fact the media contribute to. Maybe that makes us idiots, I just don’t know anymore.
If the world is a stage, then reality television is the intermission where nothing happens.
Steven Knight, Administrator.
Published on August 25th 2010 / Filed under Media
1
I got bored of my old 19 inch monitor, I also got paid. These two facts mean only one thing; a brand new monitor. I wanted to go all out on this new one because I know that I’d need it for many things: web design, television, high definition films and usual computer stuff.
I decided to go for this ASUS which is packed full of features including a 26 inch screen running a 1920×1200 resolution, HDMI, DVI, VGA and RGB inputs as well as speakers and a webcam. The price may look like a little much, but when it’s in front of you it’s simply amazing; the size of it and how well it works is fantastic. Anyway, enjoy the poor picture below!.
Next month, iPhone! Steven, Administrator.
Published on July 8th 2010 / Filed under Miscellaneous
0
I’ve come up with a theory – it’s my first theory so don’t be too harsh. I’ve called it the iComedy theory because it revolves around how I think new technology and social networking is changing the face of humour and how this change has allowed anybody to become their own comedian.
In the old days, if you wanted to tell a joke to a lot of people you’d have to find work at a comedy club and get yourself a five minute slot after convincing the management. Then you’d probably stress over your material for hours on end by trying to get input from everyone and anyone to reassure yourself that the crowd will love you and your jokes – remember, these people probably haven’t paid to see this new talent so they won’t hold any bars if they don’t like what they hear and probably wouldn’t be above heckling until the act broke down into tears.
However, in 2010 and with the introduction of Facebook and Twitter I reckon that the whole aspect of comedy is going to change, where instead of being talent spotted in a dingy bar at 2am sweating like a Liberal Democrat realising a hung parliament is inevitable while being covered in urine thrown at you by drunk truckers who think they’re attacking a The Who support act, that you’d instead catch the eye of an agent with one simple Tweet.
For my theory to have any basis I need to further explain why I think social networking is rapidly evolving comedy… I’ll try my best. Picture this: you’re sitting at work or at school, twiddling your thumbs trying to make one go forwards and the other one go backwards but you instead see something happen in the class or office you’re in and bam… You’ve thought of a great observational comedy joke, or overhear a funny conversation that you can take out of context, or you’re browsing BBC News and you’re able to think of a dark joke about a murder or a rape or something. If you have your phone or a computer handy, you can simply type out the joke and send it off to Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, etc. There you have it; it’s done, no trucker’s urine on you and hundreds of people have now read your joke, and if they enjoy it then they’ll either ‘like’ it, comment it or send you a Tweet back. Instant gratification in action.
This goes one step further with Twitter though, if people really like your joke – they may retweet it for a whole new audience to read and reply back to you, this again creates further feelings of instant gratification – and this time from people who you don’t even know. However, let’s say your joke does not go down well, no-one comments on it or you re-read it and think that you can make it better. No problem, you can simply delete it and start all over again without the fear of getting further backlash because you physically retract your actions.
I do this all the time and therefore have firsthand experience with the iComedy theory, I often think of funny quips that usually involve dark humour to the extent that I often refrain from publishing them such as the following joke: We should elect a black man to become the new Labour leader, you know, it’s ironic… Slave labour. Usually when I publish a joke, 99% of the time people comment it, ‘like’ it or reply which gives me instant gratification because I wouldn’t say such jokes in real life for fear of them not working out which isn’t a problem online because I can simply delete and refine. With everything, however, there are some down sides.
Even though I feel this new wave of comedic expression is a good thing in order for comedy to evolve beyond that of a theatre stage, it all relies on one thing: the published jokes have to be funny, if they’re not funny, (which is obviously subjective, but you know the sort of people I mean), it leads me to think that maybe some people, some time, should shut up.
Steven, Administator.
Published on May 29th 2010 / Filed under Blessays, Education
