This is the video game industry's chance to get on the "blame everything on P2P" bandwagon, but instead they're talking about hit titles and price cuts. This is one step removed from accepting the blame in their own drop in revenue. Haven't they learned how to play the victim from the other entertainment sectors yet?:)
I hate pop culture because I hate mass ignorance and I hate the pressure that so many teen agers go through to 'conform' with twig-thin bodies, cool clothes and the perfect attitude. I state my disdain with this to the waitress of pop culture, "N'Sync" so that the back-line cooks, the marketing gurus of pop culture may hear it through proxy.
While you make some points that I agree with, I think you're far too pessimistic about the awareness that the populace-at-large has of the way marketing works in our society. It's no secret that N'Sync and other boy bands were "manufactured" in a way that would allow them to make a lot of money.
Of course, if you were going to put together a high-profile band, why *wouldn't* you design that band in a way that would make it successful?
And even though lots of people -- perhaps even most -- would say that N'Sync's music isn't all that great, who really cares? I like a lot of stuff which isn't all that great. Fast food, old Transformers cartoons, Atari games... all pop culture stuff which could have been done to a higher level of quality. But, regardless, I still like them. Bubblegum pop music is simplistic and often trite. And? So? It also generally makes people happy to listen to it. Otherwise it wouldn't be so successful.
I tend to agree with the comment a bit above which says the guys in N'Sync got shafted here. I can't imagine how excited they must have been by the prospect of being in this movie. To have that taken away from them just because so many Star Wars fans said "Ewww" is pretty lousy.
It would be nice if art which didn't have such huge marketing behind it was more accessible. Thankfully, it's becoming more and more accessible every day thanks to net distribution being so low in cost. All it takes is a little word of mouth and a great artist can be experienced by the hundreds of millions of people who are online.
It's not N'Sync's fault that teenagers want each other to conform. It's not even the marketing CEO's fault. It's because that's what teenagers do... they make life difficult for people that are different than them because they don't know how else to deal with it, and they act like jerks to their parents, and they think nobody has ever gone through what they're going through. That's just what adolescence is. And none of that started with N'Sync, or the New Kids, or the Beatles, or whatever.
Our society's near-addiction to pop culture does have negative effects on society, but don't be so quick to disregard the positive effects. The most important positive effect of pop culture is that most people *like* it. It's fun. It also provides common ground for people to help them interact and understand one another. It would be nice if more of it was more intellectually stimulating, but being largely vapid doesn't make it evil.
What we need is a system that can store musical (and other cultural) recommendations for 150 million of our closest friends.
A couple friends of mine have put together a website that has a lot of the properties jamie is talking about in his article:
fandome.com
This site is still in beta, and there's not a lot of content yet, but it essentially houses ratings and reviews for, well, almost anything. And, not only does everybody get to vote on the quality of the listed items (books, movies, games, music, etc.), but you can also vote on the quality of the reviews in a fashion similar to/.'s comment moderation.
Eventually, there should be a system in place to let you see a sort of "user profile" for other Fandome users so you see what they've liked and not liked, and use that as a recommendation system. It's not as robust as the dream system jamie described, but I think it has a lot of potential. What they really need now is people to write reviews and get things going.
As I said, it's still in beta, officially, so be forgiving if you find some rough areas, and feel free to post comments for the admins in the forum. Check their FAQ for a quick intro to how the system works (link's in the top right corner).
What the heck...? So you're saying that you're a better or more manly nerd than people that played with Transformers? Who gives a flying fig? I will never understand why geeks feel the need judge each other based on what areas of geekdom they enjoy. We get judged enough by the mundanes; why bring it within the community?
Or, maybe you were kidding, in which case an emoticon might have been prudent.
Slashdot Mirror
This is the video game industry's chance to get on the "blame everything on P2P" bandwagon, but instead they're talking about hit titles and price cuts. This is one step removed from accepting the blame in their own drop in revenue. Haven't they learned how to play the victim from the other entertainment sectors yet? :)
I hate pop culture because I hate mass ignorance and I hate the pressure that so many teen agers go through to 'conform' with twig-thin bodies, cool clothes and the perfect attitude. I state my disdain with this to the waitress of pop culture, "N'Sync" so that the back-line cooks, the marketing gurus of pop culture may hear it through proxy.
While you make some points that I agree with, I think you're far too pessimistic about the awareness that the populace-at-large has of the way marketing works in our society. It's no secret that N'Sync and other boy bands were "manufactured" in a way that would allow them to make a lot of money.
Of course, if you were going to put together a high-profile band, why *wouldn't* you design that band in a way that would make it successful?
And even though lots of people -- perhaps even most -- would say that N'Sync's music isn't all that great, who really cares? I like a lot of stuff which isn't all that great. Fast food, old Transformers cartoons, Atari games... all pop culture stuff which could have been done to a higher level of quality. But, regardless, I still like them. Bubblegum pop music is simplistic and often trite. And? So? It also generally makes people happy to listen to it. Otherwise it wouldn't be so successful.
I tend to agree with the comment a bit above which says the guys in N'Sync got shafted here. I can't imagine how excited they must have been by the prospect of being in this movie. To have that taken away from them just because so many Star Wars fans said "Ewww" is pretty lousy.
It would be nice if art which didn't have such huge marketing behind it was more accessible. Thankfully, it's becoming more and more accessible every day thanks to net distribution being so low in cost. All it takes is a little word of mouth and a great artist can be experienced by the hundreds of millions of people who are online.
It's not N'Sync's fault that teenagers want each other to conform. It's not even the marketing CEO's fault. It's because that's what teenagers do... they make life difficult for people that are different than them because they don't know how else to deal with it, and they act like jerks to their parents, and they think nobody has ever gone through what they're going through. That's just what adolescence is. And none of that started with N'Sync, or the New Kids, or the Beatles, or whatever.
Our society's near-addiction to pop culture does have negative effects on society, but don't be so quick to disregard the positive effects. The most important positive effect of pop culture is that most people *like* it. It's fun. It also provides common ground for people to help them interact and understand one another. It would be nice if more of it was more intellectually stimulating, but being largely vapid doesn't make it evil.
A couple friends of mine have put together a website that has a lot of the properties jamie is talking about in his article: fandome.com
This site is still in beta, and there's not a lot of content yet, but it essentially houses ratings and reviews for, well, almost anything. And, not only does everybody get to vote on the quality of the listed items (books, movies, games, music, etc.), but you can also vote on the quality of the reviews in a fashion similar to /.'s comment moderation.
Eventually, there should be a system in place to let you see a sort of "user profile" for other Fandome users so you see what they've liked and not liked, and use that as a recommendation system. It's not as robust as the dream system jamie described, but I think it has a lot of potential. What they really need now is people to write reviews and get things going.
As I said, it's still in beta, officially, so be forgiving if you find some rough areas, and feel free to post comments for the admins in the forum. Check their FAQ for a quick intro to how the system works (link's in the top right corner).
--Steve-o Stonebraker
What the heck...? So you're saying that you're a better or more manly nerd than people that played with Transformers? Who gives a flying fig? I will never understand why geeks feel the need judge each other based on what areas of geekdom they enjoy. We get judged enough by the mundanes; why bring it within the community?
Or, maybe you were kidding, in which case an emoticon might have been prudent.