How to Absorb the News, or: A Weirdly Serious Moment

 

We all absorb the news. Some of us are obsessed with it, seeking it out at every opportunity. Some only see what forces its way into their eye line. But the news is inescapable, not least for the way in which it can warp and change our society. News is a colossal force bearing down upon all of us, but as to whether it’s a force for good or not is a whole other question.

Don’t misunderstand my meaning behind this. There’s no question that the distribution of information is incredibly important. Without it we would be stranded to the dark ages. Crimes could frequently go unpunished, important information could go unreleased and regimes around the world could easily go unchecked leading to innumerable violations of human rights.

But the way in which such information is dispersed has become corrupted over the years. These days, even that which proclaims itself to be pure, undiluted, factual news is just as riddled with bias as a speculative, opinionated column. A speculative, opinionated column like this one.

In this world of journalistic “Blurred Lines” with news reporters often simply “Thinking Out Loud” (not to mention other relevant points linked by the titles of songs that ripped off Marvin Gaye) it’s important for everyone, to read news with a certain eye and be willing to properly fucking digest what they have just consumed. And so, in this article I aim to try and point people toward what I would consider to be a good path to achieve this goal of rising above the misdirection in the print.

The accusation of ‘sensationalism’ is thrown at news so often that they are inseparably linked in the minds of many. You don’t even need to turn to the style-over-substance powerhouse that is Fox News to see it. Across every station, broadsheet, tabloid and website the sensationalist attitude is rampant. Instead of news sources, they have become entertainment outputs. In todays world, where virality and shareability seem to take precedent above all other objectives in reporting, the headline is king. Not only is it king, but its influence has started to seep into the rest of the article.

Unfortunately, when judging such practices it must be addressed that this is not merely the fault of journalists. The news consumer is just as culpable. The words ‘virality’ and ‘shareability’ are so new that whilst online dictionaries happily list them, my 2010 edition of Microsoft Office does not. Neither of those words exist without there being an audience. Nothing grabs the general public’s attention like shock, fear and disgust, and the news sources fall in line, giving the public what they want.

Looking back through the years, headlines never used to be the hyperbolic shock-fests they are today. Over time, journalists and editors alike started to see the heightened effect they could have on an article and the trend became more common. BUT, and this is important, this approach rarely found its way into the article itself. Eventually, every headline was so laden with attention seeking verbiage, the more desperate and audience baiting of sources started letting the practice trickle down into the main bulk of the article itself. Thus, news sources started to become more extreme.

And that is only the tip of the iceberg. I frequently come across people ready to wax lyrical on a topic which the extent of their knowledge comes from a headline. I see people reposting articles from highly questionable sites, seemingly only for the clickbait attention it will bring them (another thing that news sources are fully willing to play to). And more worryingly, you start to see the effects of such practices. People allowing the abundance of articles based on surprise and unfamiliar territory to warp their perception of the norm.

We so easily allow the tone in which we are told information affect how we process it. I’m sure a good deal of us have been told or said to someone “It’s not what you said, it’s how you said it”. The same is true of news, but the relatively ambiguity in which we view the journalist, lowers our defences just enough that we don’t question. But just try and imagine what existing in an environment so focussed on trying to find the unsettling, shocking, disgusting and ‘reportable’ in everything. And when you can apply that system to everything, personal bias and hidden objectives are free to run rampant via exactly what is reported, and where you lay your focus. Far from the unfiltered ‘news’ it claims itself to be.

Throughout the years there are varied examples of what can happen when people are left in that kind of environment or are subject to that kind of mentality for too long. From the relatively harmless, such as NBC’s Brian Williams and his ever changing defence of his decision to add some ‘drama’ to a war zone, to something a little darker with far greater consequence.

Many of us, by this point, have seen or heard about Vester Lee Flanagan (aka Bryce Williams), the ex-reporter who gunned down two ex-colleagues live on air. It’s been hard to miss. The event that span a thousand stories. From the gun crime debate to racism in America there has been something for everyone to latch onto, and none of it fucking feels right. Even his ex-colleagues opened the following days morning show by announcing that “This is a newscast like no other”. Whilst this may be true, there is something unsettling about the tone and angle being worked.

But something that seems to have gone unchecked in piecing together a timeline is his role as a reporter. Perhaps it is unsurprising. Reporters don’t exactly want their articles placed under extra scrutiny based on who they are as people, leading from the profession itself. But it is something that deserves to be considered. It’s unarguable by this point that there was something psychologically off with Vester Flanagan, but who’s to say it wasn’t heightened by extended time and focus in that environment?

Even over here in the UK, which many smugly claim to be the more balanced and sane side of the pond, we can see the effects of newscasters not being able to switch off. One cannot see Jon Snow (the newsreader, not the Game of Thrones character who may or may not be [SPOILERS]) vehemently criticise a LEGO Marvel Superheroes game for its “levels of violence” without then questioning everything else that comes out of his mouth. It’s as if he’s been sucked up by the journalist bubble so long that he was never around to experience video games. Or LEGO. Or children.

And these are just issues with the people involved in news journalism. Either the journalists or the audience. But there is one party whom have so far been ignored. The reports themselves. News reports have almost taken on a life of their own. As long as someone’s watching, they don’t care who the journalist, nor the audience, nor the subject matter is. The news report as an entity is like a cockroach in a nuclear holocaust. It will survive us all.

News reports, once divided by medium, all follow the same pattern. We’ve all seen the strolling news reporter, droning on as their image is intercut with stock footage, ‘illustrative’ graphs, vox pops and the final spiel of a few pointed questions. We’ve read the news reports with their select formatting and style. The regiment opening paragraph, with everything up until at least the halfway point as by-the-numbers as it can be.

Whilst this can be a helpful tool for journalists, reporters, broadcasters and publishers alike, it can easily warp the minds of anyone with less familiarity to the process. Particularly when we also delve into the realm of local news. Two stories of vastly different importance can suddenly appear equal. When this combines with the inherent bias of a writer’s focus / personal interests, a want for traffic / reactions and worryingly frequent cases of misinformation being reported as fact, the effects can be catastrophic.

Even outside of the audience, this is the kind of scheme which gives way to heavily biased news sources. It’s how people can start to think of themselves as a Guardian-person or a Sun-reader. Between that, average incomes differing area to area and tendencies in social circles, things can head towards secularisation. As dangerous as secularisation can be when it happens on the grounds of race or similar, when it happens according to a set of loosely defined yet passionately defended ideals it can be far worse.

This is only exemplified with the knowledge that we, as humans, only tend to seek out information that already agrees with what we believe. Despite which political movement we align ourselves with, I’m sure we’ve all judged politician’s actions differently, even in a situation like the expenses scandal where the wrongdoings are undeniable on both sides. We rationalise to excuse our preconceptions, judging someone from our own fold as an individual traitor, whilst judging the opposition as a whole for the same offences.

And I suppose that’s what it comes down to. The difference between judging an individual, and judging a group as a whole. It doesn’t just come down to political stance. It can be anything. Young against old, white against black, straight against gay, poor against rich or left against right. It doesn’t matter. We stick to our own, and are the poorer for it. Apparently the biggest new piece of information we can digest without our sensibilities getting in the way and distorting the truth is something like Lance Armstrong’s exposure. No-one (this side of the pond at least) was in denial about what happened there. People were shocked. People were torn by the fact he did do good work with the fame and success he gained, but no-one was so rocked by the findings that they retreated into themselves and went into denial.

People fucking hate to be proven wrong. We fear things that truly challenge us, and could potentially make us look bad. And so we turn our heads and avert our gaze safely walled off from the impending and valid doubts in our own respective identities. And we focus instead on celebrity gossip, human interest stories and would-you-believe-it pieces. Our minds are captivated (possibly due to some long forgotten evolutionary trait) by the surprising and unfamiliar. The very fact we are dealing with something unknown is enough to warp our minds and make us forget that we’re only seeing what we’re seeing due to its rarity. The same applies to suddenly finding a hole or a weakness in a subject. We become so enthralled by the hole itself, and feel so betrayed when our preconceptions are broken, that whatever once surrounded or masked the hole no longer matters.

So even without obvious bias, misinformation and the drive for ratings, news reports can leave us seeing the world as warped. It can make us confuse the numbers, mistake an issue’s importance and do all of this without ever getting us to take a long hard look at ourselves and reconsider what we already believe.

The problems in news reporting are so numerous it is almost laughable, and it seems like that’s not going to change. We are on a path, and as we previously discussed, it’s human nature to stick to it. But what can we do? To me, the only viable answer is to keep a presence of mind. To better understand the ways in which our brains work, know how they can easily fall into laziness and closed-mindedness and do our best to rectify the situation. To really challenge ourselves all the way, and not just back out when things get uncomfortable. To try not to speak on matters we know little to nothing about, parroting back what we just heard without any processing of information, merely for the sake of attention. To not only be aware of the bias in media of opposing viewpoints, but to be aware of the bias in media that supports our own stance. And to remember that every news source out there has a whole list of other objectives, many of which take precedence over ‘report the truth’.

And finally, despite the 2,000 or so words I just wrote which may seem to point to the contrary, it’s important that we continue to consume the news. It may be more contaminated than a hospital’s sewage outflow, but without it we would only be worse. Without the news we would be living in total ignorance, and whatever gripes and opinions I may have, I know that the world’s slightly raised level of education and communication have allowed me to form and share them.

Ode to an Indian Style King

All my life, I’ve lived in London. Well, just outside London. But I do love London. The city has such a wonderful spirit. It isn’t a tourist trap, despite the high amount of tourists whom constantly swarm it. In fact, the city doesn’t give a shit that you’re in it, tourist or resident, and it lets you know that. This is why I absolutely adore London, and why so many tourists cower in fear and disgust at how “rude” it can be. If you died, nothing would grind to a halt, no-body would have that instant shock to the sudden change. There are enough people that outside of those with a close personal to you, nobody would notice nor care. You are barely a ripple. And that’s the way it’s meant to be. But every once in a while, a random someone you meet out in the world who provides such a surprise that it just makes you think.

It’s a well known rule in London that you do not spark up a conversation on public transport with someone you don’t know. And even if you’re with someone you do know, it is often seen as trashy or disrespectful to simply continue your conversation at it’s original volume. Quieten down or else.

However, when I found myself sat across from an Indian man in black fedora, white suit, hot pink shirt and no shoes on the train home, I felt to not break the rule of silence would be a disservice to the universe. The man was in his mid 70’s and had a plastic bag of… something, in the seat next to him. In his breast pocket, he had a hot pink handkerchief to match the shirt. Tucked behind the handkerchief, were a comb (ready and waiting to be used) and a pen, both in keeping with the colour scheme. The dude was fly as all hell.

It was 20 minutes past midnight Wednesday morning, and there was (as far as I could tell) no good fucking reason for this guy to be dressed as extravagantly as he was. He looked like a cross between Lou Bega and Scarface. Tony Montana. Not the villain in the Lion King. Just incase anyone was confused. Finally, I gave in and got his attention.

And the guy couldn’t have been nicer. We chatted until I got off the train. As to why he was dressed so damn fancy, he informed me that despite there being no occasion, he wanted to feel stylish. I assured him he had visually achieved his goal, and he asked me a few questions about myself. I answered them quickly and shifted the focus back to him (I can barely explain what I do to my own grandparents, let alone someone else’s). It turns out he was the CEO of a finance company and loves his job. He prefers treating his employees with a carrot than treating them with a stick, and has a strong belief in finding enjoyment in your work. He has three grandchildren whom he loves dearly, and we didn’t talk about his kids, but I’ll draw no conclusions from that. And finally I learned that he has a fear of clowns, and gets a little weirded out by Santa Claus.

So to thank you, Indian King of Style, I drew you a Dave. Not that you’ll ever read this, but sometimes things just need to be expressed. But you reminded me of something I fear too many people forget. Everyone has a story to tell. Everyone has something that makes them interesting, sometimes you just have to ask the right questions. And it can’t hurt, if that person is dressed like Scar Bega.

A Theory on Keanu

Anyone else notice how Keanu Reeves didn’t age for roughly 2 decades? From 1990 to 2010(ish), dude barely aged a day. Then suddenly, in the last 5 years he ploughed through all that seemingly neglected develoment and now appears far closer to his actual age of 50 (even if he’s still not quite there yet).

Is it simple aging? I’d hate to think so. Could the world really be that dull? But what other options are there?

Could he have placed himself in a cryogenic sleep for all moments excluding public appearances and film work? And now that he’s getting more work in the gritty indie scene he hasn’t the time to preserve himself? Was it a granted wish from a fairy, on which the clock has well and truly run out? Or perhaps Reeves is an android, slowly learning human behaviour and emotion (explaining some of his earlier performances) and adapting himself with the goal of blending in with new ideas he learns along the way. Don’t believe me? Consider that during the period in which Keanu started aging, they put a Terminator movie in which the idea of aging extraneous tissue was created as an excuse to continue using a now 67 year old Arnold Schwarzenegger, into production. And when movie robots are aging all of a sudden, Keanu-bot realised he no longer had an excuse. Things had to change.

Maybe it’s just me…

– Dave

Considerations of a Princess

Mario as a character has existed for a very long time. First known as Jumpman, he squared off against the house of Donkey Kong before really finding his feet in his own main series. Beginning with Mario Bros, moving swiftly into Super Mario Bros, the series made him a household name and after 35 years of activity, the little guy shows no signs of slowing down.

Mario has often come across many friends and enemies alike, the most notable of which would probably be Luigi, Bowser and Peach. Ignoring Luigi for a second. there have often been speculations and assumptions surrounding the relationship between Peach and Bowser. Peach is clearly capable of handling herself as seen in the Smash Bros series, Super Princess Peach, Super Mario 3D World and the many of the RPG style games (and others). So how would (as Nintendo continues to try and convince us) a smart, capable, independent woman get and remain captured? The simple answer is that she didn’t. She wanted to be with Bowser. Maybe it’s a sense of polyamory, maybe it’s the thrill of rebellion, maybe it’s the idea of royal marital responsibility (princess of the Mushroom Kingdom with the Koopa King would supposedly by good for both Kingdoms). But it cannot be argued that some part of Peach has feelings for Bowser. To try and break down my point by game:

• We don’t see her get captured in Super Mario Bros.
• We don’t see her get captured in Super Mario Bros: The Lost Levels
• In Super Mario Bros 2, Bowser doesn’t appear at all.
• In Super Mario Bros 3, Peach sends Mario on a quest, and whilst he is away is then “captured” by Bowser.
• We don’t see her get captured in Super Mario World.
• Or in Super Mario 64.
• We finally see her get captured against her will in Super Mario Sunshine, but it’s by Bowser Jr. whom in turn is in disguise, and under the impression the Peach is his mother, something she herself doesn’t deny, even if Bowser admits it’s a fallacy.
• It is Bowser Jr. again who captures her in New Super Mario Bros.
• And in Super Mario Galaxy… we finally see Bowser kidnap Peach.

That means it took 22 fucking years for us to actually see something which people have been complaining about seeing too much of since the mid 90’s. And when we do see it, it’s a little over the top. Between carpet bombing, synchronized airships and a damned laser-shooting-flying-saucer, to these eyes at least it seems like Bowser is trying hard to prove a point and possibly even cover a scent.

It’s a-me… muggins.

– Dave

Better Lessons I Could’ve Learned Watching Beauty and the Beast

I’ve always had a mixed relationship with Disney animated movies. I have a few theories on why. I’m sure part of it comes from when I was born. Disney had just come away from a trifecta of very successful princess movies (debatably, I am including Aladdin) which to the eyes of a young boy, did their part to taint the image of the studio. By the time I had turned 5, they had added a further four movies to the roster. Admittedly, these again included movies like Hercules, but Megara was still treated like one of the princesses (at least while people could still remember that movie happened). Nowadays, Disney have made their princess club a little more exclusive (possibly due to trying to turn it into a real brand). Nala is no longer part of the pride and Tinkerbell bolted, but even with these more recent additions, 5 out of the 11-strong-roster made peak waves in popular culture during my childhood. Before too long Disney would start trying to re-capture my heart with faire like Lilo & Stitch (with which they would succeed) but there was still a noticeable gap for me between my first infatuations with Winnie the Pooh or The Jungle Book, and identifying on an emotional level with a little, blue, 6 limbed alien.

As a result, despite having seen them, the princess movies are somewhat of a blind-spot in my cultural knowledge, particularly with the level of analysis I enjoy going into. Never more so did this fact make itself evident to me than whilst watching Matthew Patrick’s Film Theory on Beauty and the Beast.

To summarise in case you don’t have the time, the video points out the massive injustice in the supposed morality of the film. It all stems from the central plot device of the film. A young man denies an ugly old woman a room on a stormy night, despite her offer of a rose, and is cursed to live a beast when the woman reveals herself to be a beautiful sorceress. She enchants the rose to bloom until the man’s 21^st birthday, and if he fails to make a woman fall in love with him by that time he shall be forced to live as a beast until his death. This places the beast’s current age at 20. Only once in the film is the time period between that fateful night and the present addressed. Be Our Guest contains the line “Ten years we’ve been rusting, needing so much more than dusting”. This all means that the curse, around which the entire film is based, was placed on a ten year old.

The idea of a ten year old being potentially punished for life for doing what any child in today’s world would be applauded for doing (allowing a complete stranger into their home for the promise of a treats) inspired me to revisit the film, and whilst watching, ideas started circulating round my head. I then decided to watch the spinoff Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas. I did so for two reasons. 1, to try and gather more information and clarification on any ideas I had and 2, to shut off the possibility of having to go through every version of Beauty and the Beast, because fuck that. There’s a lot of them.

Watching through the movies, it occurred to me that there are in fact a fair few more interesting narratives hidden in the movie. Whilst the story and message we are given are fine, a young, attractive yet misunderstood girl learning to judge people based on their personality instead of appearance (which incidentally goes against what Disney had done their best to instil in people for the previous 60 years) but compared to the other possibilities at hand it is ultimately dull. In the supposed interests of children, Disney (particularly at the time under the yoke of Michael Eisner) decided not to explore the story in the following ways.

The first perspective switch with a potentially better movie behind it is an obvious one. Tell the story from the perspective of the beast himself. A child forced into a life he did not choose, which warps him in the eyes of society, during which time he matures to the point where it becomes a fully-fledged part of his identity. In the movies he seems to have developed prejudices against such things as beauty and Christmas, all during a punishment intended to shape him into a more moral person. There are parallels that could be drawn between this and youth prison systems or even insurgent camps out in the Middle East: unequivocal punishment and alienation leading to indoctrination by radical groups / ideals which end up shaping a person and putting them on a worse path than they were already on. We even see similarities with homeless people losing their humanity after being treated for extended periods like they don’t have any in the first place. By the time Belle enters the picture, we should understand the severity of the Beast’s situation and what he has to lose. She is not only the potential promise of a better image, but his last chance of redemption within himself. The version we get seems to have its head far more up the arse of aesthetic. Which is more than a little ironic.

Another switch of perspective would be to that of the sorceress. Little is known about her, but we can see from her actions that she is either a) self-assured to the point of sadism or b) scorned as shit and out to punish the world. Disney could have animated, scripted, scored and choreographed a kid friendly Walter White / Ozymandias (Watchmen), but instead we got a side note. A waste of a character who feels it is completely acceptable, not to mention rational, to severely punish a 10 year old orphan (oh, did I forget to mention? Where the fuck are his parents?) for making assumptions based on appearance and protecting his property from a possible thief / murderer AND also punishing the boy’s servants by turning them indefinitely into ornaments. Speaking of which…

The parts of Beauty and the Beast which people seem to remember, more so than even Belle and the Beast themselves, are the living ornaments. Cogsworth, Lumiere, Mrs Potts, Chip and co. easily stole the show with their antics, witticisms and damn catchy tunes, but their story should be so much deeper. Within the story of the staff we should see exploration of Stockholm syndrome, the warping one goes through during extreme suffering and entrapment, the literal objectification and concurrent sexualisation of women via Lumiere and his feather duster French maid, and with the presence of Chip, either the anti-aging powers of enchantment OR the logistics of teapot birthing.

Oh, and genocide.

Sorry probably shouldn’t have sat on that one for so long. But let me lay this one out for you.

During the course of the two films we see hundreds of plates, forks, cups, clocks, candlesticks, footstools, wardrobes, instruments and many, many others spring to life. On the presumption (which we have no reason to doubt) that each living piece of furniture was once a living, breathing person, how many fucking staff did this one kid have at his command? Secondly, where did all the original furniture go? Was the house empty? Barren? For a staff of that size, one would have to presume, no. But within the house the amount of living furniture we see vastly outnumbers that which is stationary. So what happened to the original furniture? If I had to guess, I’d say that there would have been a growing tension in the house after the curse had been placed. All the staff members suddenly finding that many of the jobs they used to do are now inaccessible to them, whilst jobs they are now designed for are being done by being which look like them, but can work harder, longer and cheaper, beginning a situation similar to what birthed such groups as UKIP, the BNP and the EDL. The staff become used to each other in their new forms, and via a sci-fi-esque distrust of what is now the uncanny valley they start to correlate against the old furniture, seeing it as lifeless and robotic. Eventually, in a bid to make themselves more mentally comfortable with the bad situation they are in, they “cleanse” the house, no longer having to live with a reminder  of what they have been forced to live as. Starting afresh. In the Christmas special we even see that staff have taken the place of festive decorations, taking on their new identities and spending the majority of their year in boxes instead of finding a way to cling on to any remnants of their old existence. Embracing the phenomenally shitty hand they’ve been dealt.

And despite which of these alternate readings and untold stories tickles your fancy, I think we can agree that the movie/movies are set at the wrong time. We need to see the whole journey. Belle may be a character whom young girls connect with, but despite her bookishness and strong mindedness making this not such a bad thing, far more interesting and complex lessons could be learnt from the Beast. After being broken and shaped by the curse, and the staff’s aforementioned troubles of their own, Belle could have been an interesting and uplifting third act. But existential angst and undeserved punishment don’t sell toys. And furniture genocide is reportedly hard to put into a parade. I’m hoping the upcoming retelling with Emma Watson is able to learn some lessons and grow some balls. But I know it’s a fool’s hope.

And finally, as a special treat, here’s Dave dressed as Lumiere. I don’t know why.

Shepherd’s Delight

Something occurred to me about the phrase “Red sky at night, shepherd’s delight. Red sky in the morning, shepherd’s warning.” It promises so much, yet delivers so little. The suggestion of cosmic forces, tainted skies of fate and impending doom, I should be in some fantasy novel. This should be our comet of ice and fire. Our skies around Mordor. We should be facing an orc army or…dragons? Bloodshed? Both? I guess it is Westeros.

But what do we have in it’s place? Otherworldly predictions? Not so much. More like refracted light. And that impending doom? A fucking weather forecast. For shepherds. In case of rain. And not acid rain. Not snow. Not hail. Not fire and ash cascading from the heavens. Regular old rain. God damn it shepherds.

– Dave

Dave

This is Dave. He has no eyes. He looks a bit like a cross between a turtle and a muppet. He enjoys dressing up.He has a slight wheat intolerance. I’m also pretty sure he has no feet. I like him.

Like anything, there is a point to Dave. Any time I have something overly short or stupid in my head, Dave is going to say it for me. And he’s going to help me illustrate my point. By dressing up like an idiot.
To illustrate what I mean, this is going to end with a haiku, by Dave:

“Hot-boxing a fly,

Got so high, it forgot how.

What do I call it?”

---

Buckle up. It’s gonna be a dumb ride.

The Generation Names – Part 1: Hits From The Pong

As you may have guessed by this point, I love video games. I love playing video games, I love talking about video games, I love reading, writing and watching things about video games. Fuck, a third of the articles prior to this one had been about them. This one is about them as well but let’s, be honest, created a far less impressive statistic.

But there is a reason for that kind of frequency, and it goes beyond simple fondness. Video games, seemingly more-so than any other medium, have gone out of their way to try and establish some form of unity between them. There are many possible reasons for this, but they mainly come back to the fact you will generally be playing these things with a little piece of plastic in your hands, and not a jack-lead, plunged into the top of your spine and reading your every thought like you’ve planned a trip to the fucking Matrix.

Films, TV and books go out of their way to fill the consumer in on what they (or the characters) are witnessing. Video games, particularly early video games, bear an odd kinship to music. Whilst early sprites and / or lyrics can help build some kind of context for what you’re taking in, it is nothing without the mechanics of the game or song around it. As such, more idiosyncratic patterns can emerge through desperate necessity to have an easy in for new players / listeners, and behind them more intricate ideas can build up. Admittedly I have not yet written an article about music, but with musical culture being so fractured as to what people have or haven’t heard (not to mention my own horribly obscure musical taste) I know there’s only so many references someone can read and not be familiar with before they give up.

I currently have 2 gaming consoles in my room, not counting my computer or phone (Steam doesn’t matter, for some reason computers will always be the outcasts in this playground). They consist of the PlayStation 2 and Nintendo’s Wii. They got me thinking. People have picked on Nintendo a lot over the last decade or so for having intolerably stupid console names, but do they deserve it? Or have we just become numbed by repetition. By the time the Wii U came around, the majority of mocking seemed to come from the fact that it sounded like a siren, or that if the homophonics weren’t there “U” is a ridiculous letter to include in a title. In only 6 years, people had become so used to the idea that Nintendo had made the insane decision to name anything “Wii” that it was barely mentioned. So, has there ever been a decent name for a console, or are we all so easily worn and manipulated that we’ve been eating shit for years? Let’s find out. Over an 8 part series. Sorry.

Contrary to popular belief, the first generation of home gaming consoles did not include the fucking NES. Nor did it include the Atari 2600. There was one generation before even those dinosaurs. And our pelycosaur era consists of 4 consoles. I should mention, my ground rules are basically whatever Wikipedia says with regard generation grouping, goes. Which is my cowardly way of telling you that this generation’s technically going to end in 1978 and the next one will start in 1976. Fucking Wikipedia…

The first home gaming console of all time was the Magnavox Odyssey in 1972. By all accounts it was revolutionary… and shit. Due to a desire to keep costs down (a desire which was then ignored by parent companies and retailers alike upon release) the Odyssey was an incredibly basic system. It didn’t have bad graphics, it had no fucking graphics at all. Instead it used printed overlays, placed on top of the screen, and all of its games were centred around the idea of either two distinct oblongs moving around the screen of controlled by each player, or the same thing but with a third dot moving of its own volition, being batted by the players. This third dot would later be grounds for the company trying to sue Atari for stealing their idea to make Pong. Like I said, it was revolutionary… and shit. But does it have a good name? A bit. At first glance it seems workable. Odyssey denotes a journey, this was the first console. Magnavox sounds interesting, it means “great voice” in Latin… But ultimately? An odyssey isn’t the beginnings of a journey, it’s the whole damn thing. The guise of history once again fools us into imagining meaning, but ultimately the point in the name, on some level at least, was trying to say that “it’s all come down to this”. If you want proof of how much bullshit that statement is, just search the name on youtube. And past that? Magnavox is just a company name. Not to mention, it’s the name of the company whom had raped and pillaged the poor designer Ralph Baer’s dream of an affordable product, after he had cut so much away to try and make that dream happen. A constant reminder of corporate greed and screwing people over. So, does the Magnavox Odyssey have a decent name? A bit. It still sounds a tiny bit cool.

Next up, released in 1975 is the Philips Tele-Spiel. Evidently very little is known about this console. What is known is that it was a Pong console with interchangeable cartridges. The cartridges came under such titles as Ghost Chaser and Racing. However, whether any of these games differed greatly from just looking like Pong is anyone’s fucking guess. I found 3 separate videos of gameplay online. They all looked like Pong. Make of it what you will. As for the name? It’s actually not too bad. The name translates to Tele-Game in English. Unfortunately, for the sake of fairness we then have to include all the international names, and Finland’s offering of the Tele-Peli really kicks any hope of credibility into the dirt.

Also in 1975 came Germany’s Video 2000 console. Jesus fuck… I thought the Tele-Spiel was a bitch to try and research. This is worse. But then, what do you care? You’ve never heard of any of these. And neither has anyone you know. You’re not gonna buy them, you’re not gonna play them… what is this, a review all of a sudden? Yes, yes it is. But (thankfully) not of the console itself. The Video 2000 introduces a stupid, long standing concept to console naming. One that has mostly died out, but that we will see time and time again over this series. The idea of adding numbers to the end of a name to make it sound future-y. It didn’t work in old sci-fi, it doesn’t work here… frankly the only time it might have ever worked is when it was used to add a flourish to Harry Potter’s fucking broom. So, is Interton’s Video 2000 a good name? Fuck no.

And our final entry into the first generation may just be my least favourite. Not just because it was late (by 2 bloody years), not for any of the reasons I have already listed, but because it just sounds so gun-totingly American. We’re talking of course about the Coleco Telstar Arcade. It’s worth pointing out that a version of the Coleco console did come out in 1976 (still a little behind, but who cares), but that doesn’t escape the fact that a version also came out in 1978. These machines prolonged the closure of an age for 3 years after anyone else was trying to keep it open. And the reason I decided to specifically talk about the Telstar Arcade is it’s the only one people have any recollection of, probably due to it being ugly as sin. A huge triangular contraption with fake wood furnishings, Each side covered with its own set of questionably functional accessories, and a triangle in the top in which to slot the awkward, triangular cartridges. And to my knowledge, unlike any of the consoles beforehand, the Telstar has more gameplay capability than slightly tweaked pong! So why does it suck? Why did I decide to pick on this one? Because “Coleco Telstar Arcade” sounds like what would happen if you forced John Wayne to give a full name to his horse.

And so we leave the first generation of consoles, without having made a dent on the thesis on a lack of credible console names. But it’s just the first step of the journey. And we have a long, long, long way ahead of us.

Next Gen Please!

What I Learned Playing “Clicker Heroes” For 9 Straight Hours

And so here I sit, scribbling in a journal, mind uneasy. The beast of my presumed nightmare rears its head at the horizon, and the air grows cold. How did I even get here? Oh yeah, trying to keep writing something interesting, whilst posting at the frequency of a fucking vlogger. What a fool I was. But, as every sell-out hack in the last few decades has proven, hardship begets artistic triumph. And so, here is what I can only presume will be a Pulitzer winning, heavily biased video game review by a dick who likes to think he’s funny.

Clicker Heroes is a free to play, possibly freemium though I can’t yet say for sure, “idle game” by Playsaurus; an L.A. based indie game studio famous for… Clicker Heroes and… um… I have no fucking idea. I checked the Playsaurus website and it consisted of a link to the Clicker Heroes, and a linked promotional image for something called Cloudstone. The link lead me to a slightly bigger version of the image, and at this point I gave up.

Clicker Heroes itself is available either through Steam or on the Clicker Heroes website, and I’ll leave it up to the Steam product description section to explain it; “Ever wondered what one quadrillion damage per second feels like? Wonder no more! Embark on your quest to attain it today! Start out by clicking on the monster to kill them, and get their gold. Spend that gold on hiring new heroes and get more damage. The more damage you deal, the more gold you will get.” In terms of game play it is supposedly similar to Cookie Clicker and other such “Clicker” games. Looking to Steam once again, the game has apparently aggregated 91% positive reviews. Scrolling down, the first review is negative, coming from a member who has clocked two hundr…

What? Fucking… seriously?

Two hundred and fourty-six fucking hours. For a negative judgement. And I thought I was crazy.

Finally let’s set some ground rules. I’m going to play this game for 9 hours.  Every 45 minute mark, I’m going to take 15 minutes leaving the game on in the background to record my thoughts, feelings and really chronicle both the experience and my own personal journey. At the halfway mark I’m going to take a half hour break so that I don’t end up hanging from an HDMI cable by the end. And most importantly, no distractions. No listening to music, no watching TV in the background, no reading secretly on the side. The most I will have is my phone sitting beside me, because there is no damn way I, or possibly anyone, could make it thought this task without some kind of contact from a real person.

Let’s fucking do this.

Hour 1 – It Begins

Jumping into the game, it occurs to me that this was probably intended to be played on a tablet. The open screen is very simple, on memory there was two buttons, but to be honest with you that was a whole 45 minutes ago; all events previous have begun to blur. It started much as I expected it to. The noises in being channeled into my ears for the first 5… maybe 10 minutes? It could easily be longer… Those noises could drive a lesser man insane. Or a better man for that matter. But for the predetermined insane, not too much further damage can be done. The same punch sound effect repeated endlessly, twinned with what according to my statistics was up to seven clicks per second. Tripletted with the single “coin” sound used for every single coin. And soon enough, I realised that this game has a musical score that I believe to be a total of one track long. I might time how long it is later. But it is important to note that it has a beginning, and a fucking end. The song fades out, and then the same song starts again a few seconds later. Every couple of minutes you have a stark, silent reminder that you are trapped here, and the longer you stay the more locks are being put on the door.

After a while the clicks stopped. As you gain more coins you can hire digital helpers to click for you as you all endeavor to kill monster after monster. As I type this I have so far killed over 1700 monsters. Who’s the real monster here? Well, no-one’s called me a monster at this point for a little under two weeks, but we’ll see by the end.

And yet, I will admit that there is something wholly addicting about this game. Even as I type this, I keep clicking back, keeping my game as optimized as possible. I will check in again later.

Hour 2 – Realisations

The second hour plodded by, I gained more power-ups and helpers, and I started to have realisations about certain parts of the game. This is how the game works. You progress by passing through different terrains. Each terrain has 5 different levels. In 4 of these you fight an assortment of regular enemies, and then at the fifth stage you fight a boss with a huge amount more HP. And then the “difficulty” goes back down. And that’s it. Over and over. And over. And over. You go to different terrains. You fight different enemies. You get different power-ups. You get different characters. And none of it changes a damn thing. The only thing that changes is the slight increase in time to get to the next level, get the next boost.

The enemies at the start were all charming in their own way. And then you saw them again. And again. And again. Occasionally they’d be slightly tweaked: different colour scheme, different size, but if anything that was more annoying. It didn’t change how you fought them, it didn’t change anything. It would be like if every Zubat you encountered in a cave was wearing a different pair of glasses. It wouldn’t matter. It would just be the same. And yet, the relentless repetition serves to make the player feel weak. Utterly useless. Enemies I had taken down within seconds of starting the game were still taking me as long (maybe longer) 2 hours in due to a “higher level”. You just feel so… not even helpless, but inconsequential. Life’s existential quandary. Unable to tell if it’s even worth continuing.

But I… I have a reason, and more to spare. Discovery! Journalistic Spirit! Boredom and a lack of resources! However, it doesn’t change that foreboding feeling that nothing you’re doing matters. If I moved away, the game would just keep playing itself, accumulating gold. Even as I type this, the number generators are spinning away, as both I and the developers know that this is really a waiting game. Unfortunately, I know that they’ve already won. Well played.

I think I need a kebab…

Hour 3 – Payment

Well, things are looking up. I got a kebab. Or at least I got a burger from the kebab shop. Changed my mind at the last minute. Don’t worry, I ordered in. I’m still in this hell. But God, it’s good. So delicious. Swimming in grease. Some warmth in my life.

Scratching around the menus I find what, by this point, I already knew to be true. This game is freemium. It’s not as bad as the majority of other freemium games. It doesn’t suddenly cut you off for failure, forcing you to either wait or pay to continue playing. Instead the game is designed just to make you wait. Possibly forever. Feels like forever. If you’re hooked by the start, you’re probably doomed. Happily, I approached this with the same degree of cynicism I approach nearly everything with. And yet I’m trapped here. There is no difficulty. There is no real strategy. There is just clicking. Buying the next upgrade, and more clicking. But then, why click? To click is to wait, fooling yourself that you’re doing something worthwhile with your time, even within the confines of the game.

But it’s still better than paying.

Hour 4 – Buzz buzz buzz…

It took me 4 hours to realise. There’s a bee, flying across the top of the screen, from right to left. I tried clicking on it. Nothing. Occasionally it disappears. But it’s always come back. So far.

After a while this game becomes about management. It’s like you have your own company, and some departments are able to make far more money than others. After a while you forgot where you came from. Constantly being courted and seduced by the next big thing. But they’re never good enough. Don’t get me wrong, they do their job. I’ll even say that they do it well. But as soon as you even have the funds to get them, before you even purchase, their successor has already come along and posted themselves all over the menu. As such it’s never satisfying, but it keeps you there.

Eventually all you’re doing is waiting, staring at your hands. You remember the good work you did together in the early days. Back when you used to click. You try clicking, but quickly realise that your clicks just seem meaningless in this day and age. What use are you? You’re an old man now. What do you have to offer? Back to your trickle down clickonomics, douchebag. You try leveling up your click ability, so as not to feel so useless, but at the end of the day it’s futile. It’s still a click of vanity. Of desperation not to feel so fucking useless.

My eyes hurt.

It might have been the bee.

Hour 5 – To take a breather

I’m sweating. I don’t know why. It might have been the burger. I doubt it though. It might be this warm as hellfire room. But again, I’m willing to give it the benefit of the doubt. I’m pretty sure it’s this game. I need to get up. I need to do something. Anything. I mean, what’s the point? What’s the point in me staying here?

I wouldn’t have liked this game. I think it’s time we addressed the issue. I’d have never liked it. And even past that, it was never meant to be played like this. It was meant to be just a fun little thing to have in the background. A little something to fill the gap between cradle and grave. But then I got a hold of it. And that’s what I do. I stare at something until it breaks, no matter how long it takes, and then act like I’m not the one to blame. Fuck, look at the selfie article. What the fuck am I?

Hour 6 – Relief?

This hour seemed to start better. The game reached out, extended an olive branch. Over the past 6 hours, I’ve been noticing little orange fish pop up. Don’t get me wrong here, I don’t mean goldfish. I mean half orange, half fish. They’re cute. And occasionally fill a gap left by the bee. At first I didn’t click on them after my run in with the bee, but do so and you get some extra coins and, most of the time, you receive a ruby. My rubies kept building up and for the life of me I couldn’t figure out what to do with them, or even how to use them at all.

Eventually it occurred to me. The rubies were the “real world purchase” items. I learned I had accidentally collected enough of these gems to pay for one of the giant freemium upgrades. I bought it like Charlie, expecting the chocolate factory. And I’ll admit, I got a little moment of elation. I had literally trillions of coins. And they lasted me all of 3 minutes. I was so quickly out of comfortability it was almost like it never happened. And then I realised. I hadn’t beaten the system. I hadn’t discovered a secret. I was playing in the exact way they had wanted me to. First taste was for free, but I didn’t want a second. Fuck spending £1.20 on that.

I need to get up. I need to stretch out. Otherwise… this could well be the end of me. I shall write again… when I return.

Hour 7 – An End?

I reminded myself whilst out stretching my legs, that I got this game on Steam. Like the majority of Steam games, it has achievements. That in turn got me thinking; does this game have an end? There’s certainly a finite number of achievements; many of which I don’t even understand. Has anyone ever reached the end? And if so, why? There was never any story. There were never any stakes. Do we really get that much of a kick out of seeing a number getting larger, and our progress confirmed by a little bell. Pavlovian condipshits. And speaking of Pavlov we should think of ourselves as dogs, because this game is nothing but patting yourself on the head. And the worst part? The worst part is that we clearly love it. That is the freemium ideology. Where big AAA titles rely on out desires to boast. Big perspective; king of the world shit. Freemium manipulates a similar need but on the other end of the scale. We need to be directly told that we’re doing well. No scoreboards, no comparison with thousands of worldwide participants, just you. And on that alone, we are so needy… so insecure… that we are fucking hooked.

I don’t think I can go on…

Hour 8 – On and on and on

The air grows thin. Has it been hours? Days? There are no logical ways to make sure. Energy must be conserved. Winter is coming, yet the heat is unbearable. I watch my companion with suspicion. Was it he that brought us here? Logic suggests he must have, but we’ve been here so long that I may never learn the truth.

A song plays in the distance, over and over, whilst beast a slain by a band of madmen. They call it sport. They call it adventure. They call it a career. They call it anything except that what it is. Endless death. A sea of blood and coins. Across desert, forest, cave, tundra… nothing changes. Not for them. I look back at what I’ve done… at what I started… how could I have been so foolish? To think this road had an end. I have walked the fury road. I live, I die, I live again.

I think I lost my bee friend…

Hour 9 – Hrnnn…

I’m just a little black rain cloud, hovering under the honey tree,

I’m only a little black rain cloud, pay no attention to little me,

Everyone knows that a rain cloud, never eats honey, no, not a nip

I’m just floating around, over the ground, wondering where I will drip

…

You never can tell with bees. 

The Idiot’s New Words: Part 1

I’ve always been a fan of wordplay and puns. Growing up with British comedy, I watched a huge amount of old twee programmes still, transitioning out of the vaudevillian style, such as the Two Ronnies, all of which seemed to have precisely one joke type: Wordplay. And puns. Tw- Precisely two joke types. Wordplay and puns. The rest was by and large showmanship, and I have to hand it to those guys and a great deal of the industry at the time for establishing themselves as comedians off the back of one joke. But wordplay continued to thrive in the industry as it still does to this day; if a little less frequently. I blame America.

On a personal level, I always love trying to turn phrases during real conversations. You can synthesize something all you like, but nothing quite has the thrill of being in the field. Thusly, I create a hell of a lot of wordplay which reliably makes me tiresome to talk to, and is then promptly forgotten, lost to the annals of time. And so I’m starting this series, as a way to try and preserve a little of something that I have lost literally thousands of over the years. Here are words and phrases that I think should join the common vernacular, or at least should have a rarely travelled page of the internet dedicated to them.

Human Consentipede – An act in which a person willingly attaches their mouth to the anus of another indefinitely, regardless of consequences.

Embro – What to call your male twin when you share a particularly “Dude!” moment.

Hook, Line & Wanker – When a woman flirts with a guy at a bar, gets drinks bought for her, continues the charade until the end of the night, getting more and more drinks out of him, before sending him home frustrated and alone.

Deutschbag – A winning put down to call your German friend if they’re being a bit of an arsehole.

Cornotto – Any ice cream which, whilst aping the aesthetic of a Cornetto, is not of true Cornetto heritage. This definition can branch to either supermarket own brand, imitation Cornetto’s, OR to other branded confectionary tie-in ice creams which merely borrow the waffle cone with solid chocolate tip ideology.