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Fuck You, I Won't Buy What You Sell Me

Started by Jumble Cashback, December 09, 2009, 12:35:00 PM

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Jumble Cashback

Ok, first off, I never once claimed to be 'protesting' anything.  So can we drop that particular straw man for the moment?  All I ever claimed to be was bored, which is true.
Quote from: Neil on December 09, 2009, 01:41:18 PM
I was talking generally about anyone who does this, rather than you specifically.  However, I refer you to the bit of my post you didn't quote, where I pointed out that X Factor has been running for months.  Since August, in fact, so any kind of protest is doomed to failure, and it's entirely self-defeating anyway when the same people end up with the money:

That's not what you said you were doing, though.  So what is the actual point of buying this single, which IS what you said you would do?  How is that worthwhile as a 'protest' of the X Factor?  Protesting bandwagon-buying by indulging in more bangwagon-buying? 

As spanky says, the X Factor lot have been following the show, and the fortunes of the contestants, for ages, and it's actually probably fair enough they'd want to shell out for the single. 

The 'self-defeating' argument is based on an assumption of what those participating hope to achieve.  If people do this to prove some kind of 'subversive' point, then I agree, it is self-defeating,  but if people (like myself) just do it so that something other than the same, dull game-show reaches the top-spot, then they'll only fail if they don't get the numbers - and that's not 'self-defeat', that's just 'defeat'. 

I will be giving to charity (but I don't like to sing about it), but I will be doing this as well for a laugh.  I didn't think it was necessary to sign-post that, but it appears that my half-arsed endorsement of something, of which I made particular efforts to point out the triviality, is now staining my reputation.

Spiteface

The eventual X-Factor single is going to be a cover of "Don't Stop Believin'" by Journey, is it not?

I'd sooner have a campaign to get the original track to #1, if I'm honest.

I'm amazed it's taken this long to get things like this started.  I blame Girls Aloud.  If people didn't encourage it when they were formed on "Popstars: The Rivals", we wouldn't be having these discussions right now.  I stopped giving a fuck about the charts many moons ago (like most people once they reach a certain age).  Then came "Popstars: The Rivals", where TWO manufactured bands (the other was One True Voice, remember them?) would battle it out for the christmas #1 single.  The sheer arrogance of "We can put out 2 singles and ONE of them WILL top the charts on a given week" made me sick then.

I BAMLEM CHRYEL COEL.

I hate X-Factor, I hate Rage Against the Machine.  If the choice of an alternative to get behind wasn't so lazy, I might support it myself.  But it's not.  If it was something even more profane, I'd get into it, just to see what would happen if it worked.

I shouldn't need to point this out, but online campaignes liek this and online petitions DON'T FUCKING WORK.  The internet makes people think they have a voice, but they don't.  And yet, here I am, posting this on a message board somewhere on the internet.  Go figure.

I'm hungry.

lipsink

I'd support it if it was John Cage's 'Four Minutes Thirty Three. Imagine that on TOTP on Xmas Day.

Neil

Quote from: Jumble Cashback on December 09, 2009, 01:59:52 PM
Ok, first off, I never once claimed to be 'protesting' anything.  So can we drop that particular straw man for the moment?  All I ever claimed to be was bored, which is true.

Again - not talking about you specifically there, although "sticking it to the X-fuckter" and "Fuck You, I Won't Buy..." does make it all seem rather like a protest to me.  Isn't that at the root of all this?  Sticking it to The Man and/or declaring (socially) how much you hate a TV show? 

QuoteThe 'self-defeating' argument is based on an assumption of what those participating hope to achieve.  If people do this to prove some kind of 'subversive' point, then I agree, it is self-defeating,  but if people (like myself) just do it so that something other than the same, dull game-show reaches the top-spot, then they'll only fail if they don't get the numbers - and that's not 'self-defeat', that's just 'defeat'. 

The problem there, though, is that it's helping to support (and therefore guarantee the spread and ubiquity of) nauseating, chummy, viral marketing, and I'm sick of seeing the internet being wilfully shaped into a mob these days. 

I hate the X-Factor like poison, and I wish I could say 'oh, go for it then, good luck', but I just can't bring myself to do so.  Particularly when it's all been orchestrated by some marketing cunt who KNOWS some people hate the X-Factor, and will therefore happily throw their money away on a doomed enterprise like this. 

Pedro_Bear



This is a transparent hijack and abuse of legitimate internet pranking. That lame participants will pay to play says it all, and into the same company as the so-called target no less.


Cowell has demonstrated particular resilience to online pranking, in one case turning the tables, earning him a degree of respect. It would come as no surprise if the reveal in this case is that he is behind it all. And if he is, that reveal will come quite publically.


PROTIP: a distortion joke has no rationale behind it, that's what makes it funny, and that's what gives it longevity. Or, of course, the results are so awful that it's worth the effort.

Paaaaul

I can't remember the last time I watched ITV.
The only #1 from the last ten years that I can think of at the moment in Umber-ella.

I couldn't give a stuff about X-Factor, or who is going to be number one in the pop charts.

I am detached.

I am happy.

[PM me for details on how you can be too.
Bonus - today only
*Free part one of the course*-
Spoiler alert
1) Turn off your telly
[close]
]

purlieu

Quote from: Spiteface on December 09, 2009, 02:04:12 PM
The eventual X-Factor single is going to be a cover of "Don't Stop Believin'" by Journey, is it not?

I'd sooner have a campaign to get the original track to #1, if I'm honest.
There is one, but it got overshadowed by the Rage one.

I might buy this, because I find the idea of Killing In The Name being the UK's Christmas Number 1 in 2009 such a wonderfully irrelevant and stupid idea it really appeals.  I don't know how many people are buying it as a full on appeal for the alternative as much as 'if we're going to do this, it may as well be a song that says fuck off in it'.

It probably won't work but it'll get to number 2, with the original Journey track in the top 10.  A couple of friends have joined the 'Get Half Man Half Biscuit to Christmas Number 2' group, which is nice.

spanky

Quote from: Spiteface on December 09, 2009, 02:04:12 PM
The eventual X-Factor single is going to be a cover of "Don't Stop Believin'" by Journey, is it not?


Some ballad originally sung by Miley Cyrus, I heard.

chand

Quote from: purlieu on December 09, 2009, 02:22:02 PM
I don't know how many people are buying it as a full on appeal for the alternative as much as 'if we're going to do this, it may as well be a song that says fuck off in it'.

Except it has all the swears at the end so you can cut them off in the radio edit, apart from that one famous instance. And this, hehe;

QuoteOn 22nd August 2008, Scottish alt-rock band Biffy Clyro covered a re-worked acoustic version of "Killing In The Name" on Jo Whiley's Show at The Reading Festival on BBC Radio 1. The band agreed that, for this live broadcast, they would not use expletives and sung just the melody in place of the notable swear word in the song. However, the crowd were bound by no such agreement and began an impromptu mass sing along with the swear word in place, audible by the recording equipment. As this broadcast was going out live at lunchtime, Jo Whiley was required to apologize on air after the performance.

Jumble Cashback

Quote from: Pedro_Bear on December 09, 2009, 02:17:20 PM

Cowell has demonstrated particular resilience to online pranking, in one case turning the tables, earning him a degree of respect. It would come as no surprise if the reveal in this case is that he is behind it all. And if he is, that reveal will come quite publically.


Oh bugger, that's a thought.

An tSaoi

Quote from: Spiteface on December 09, 2009, 02:04:12 PM
The eventual X-Factor single is going to be a cover of "Don't Stop Believin'" by Journey, is it not?

I'd sooner have a campaign to get the original track to #1, if I'm honest.

It's a nice idea, but they try something similar every time a new version of Hallelujah is released and it never works.

Neville Chamberlain

Ooooh, Rage Against The Machine! Gosh! Aren't they scary!!! And they say "fuck"! Ooooh, get them!

I hope this grotty little campaign fails miserably and Simon Cowell is triumphant at Christmas, not because I like Mr. Cowell - my opinion of him when I can be bothered to have an opinion of him ranges from mild dislike to utter difference - but because I hate silly token gestures like this, all the more so because it involves RATM, one of the worst bands ever to have existed.

Good night!

An tSaoi

I hope some third song from a different label takes the top spot and both sides lose out.


An tSaoi

All these various "[Song] for #1!!!" campaigns are just going to split the vote. The best option is to simply stop being buying the X Factor song. I suggest we hijack all the lorries transporting the X Factor CDs to the shops and drive them off a cliff. Not sure how to get rid of the download versions, but I'm sure we can work on it.

Uncle TechTip


lipsink

Quote from: An tSaoi on December 09, 2009, 04:38:09 PM
Not sure how to get rid of the download versions, but I'm sure we can work on it.

Break every computer in the world. It's worth it.

Johnny Townmouse

I have given money to Sony for far less worthy reasons than this, so I may consider joining in. On the other hand, this is a little bit like putting a banana skin in the path of a dying polar bear, just to watch it slip in its dying moments.

Jemble Fred

Quote from: Johnny Townmouse on December 09, 2009, 04:50:17 PM
I have given money to Sony for far less worthy reasons than this, so I may consider joining in. On the other hand, this is a little bit like putting a banana skin in the path of a dying polar bear, just to watch it slip in its dying moments.

How so? Big Brother seems to be (very very slowly) dying, but X Factor seems to have got more and more popular year on year. It was actually quite easy to ignore it up until a couple of years ago.

Shoulders?-Stomach!

Nobody should buy a single piece of music on Christmas week.

Johnny Townmouse

Quote from: Jemble Fred on December 09, 2009, 04:52:12 PM
How so? Big Brother seems to be (very very slowly) dying, but X Factor seems to have got more and more popular year on year. It was actually quite easy to ignore it up until a couple of years ago.

This appears to be much more about upsetting the programme's influence on the charts, and the top 40 specifically, and in fact more precisely, the christmas number one slot. These things will be of absolutely no consequence in a matter of a few years. If people really wanted to upset the franchise industry of the X-factor, they would need to watch a different channel to ITV every week to upset the ratings, and we know that could never happen.

The charts and the X-Factor are really two completely different concepts. The amount of people who completely extricate themselves from the programme and its 'contestants' the moment the show ends is huge.

Finding out that Sony BMG controls the RATM back catalogue is a bit like discovering that Aleister Crowley once owned the copyright to the Bible.


Quote from: Pedro_Bear on December 09, 2009, 02:17:20 PM
a distortion joke has no rationale behind it
I beg to differ.

thugler

pointless because:

It won't happen. These things come up every bladdy year.

Quote from: chand on December 09, 2009, 01:42:12 PM
We should be encouraging people to ignore the X Factor and channel that anger into making new music (anyone can fucking do it), not countering marketing with more fucking marketing.

But X Factor is the new punk!

http://thequietus.com/articles/03357-luke-haines-interview-middle-age-is-no-time-to-sing-about-madeleine-mccann

QuoteI've always sort of insisted it's the legacy of punk rock really. The kind of idea that anyone can do it. And obviously X Factor and stuff like that are an end result of all that. There's no difference between audience and performer which is kind of like essentially what punk rock was saying only with a three chord backing. And now it's just the hits of the day. But I think it's pretty good. You know, there's no real music industry left anymore, so the old kind of escape of rock 'n' roll and football, well football's still there, but rock n roll isn't really there, so it's like reality shows are a means of escape instead. It's better than working in Dixons.

Artemis

The fact (?) that Sony will get money from all the purchases of RATM is a bit beside the point, isn't it? It's not a protest against Sony, after all. I don't care that they'll get more money. But I'll buy another copy of Rage because it's only a couple of quid, if that, and I do like the idea of breaking the humdrum predictability there is at Christmas.

I'd rather Sir Cliff got backing than Rage though - I used to like the days he'd saunter onto the scene with a cringeworthy Christmas song.

Jemble Fred

Quote from: Artemis on December 09, 2009, 06:44:16 PM
I'd rather Sir Cliff got backing than Rage though - I used to like the days he'd saunter onto the scene with a cringeworthy Christmas song.

It's Barry Manilow's turn this year – DON'T look for it, I turned the radio off in disgust after one verse, but the shitty refrain still took hours to shake off.

Serge

Quote from: Shoulders?-Stomach! on December 09, 2009, 04:59:20 PM
Nobody should buy a single piece of music on Christmas week.

I advise against this course of action, as I'd still like to have a job come Christmas.

I'm up for the Mike Reid's 'Chantilly Lace' option, by the way.

weekender

I'm going to stick it to 'The Man' by not buying the X Factor single because I don't like it, ignoring all this crap about Rage Against The Machine, and probably listen to something I like during Christmas week.

Put that in your pipe and smoke it, 'The Man'.  What's that?  You don't care what I do?  Oh well.

SavageHedgehog

Why can't something fun be No. 1, like Der Kommissar by Falco? It's about drugs and in German which makes it twice as anarchic as anything by those Peter Pan rebel rousers.

Just noticed that Popjustice has proposed an interesting alternative campaign:

http://www.popjustice.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=4269&Itemid=206

QuoteAll this "ooh let's get Rage Against The Machine to Number One" business is seriously starting to grate now. Do you know which song would have been better to pick? 2004's 'Fifty Grand For Christmas' by Paul Holt.

In case you've forgotten, when Paul Holt auditioned for the first series of The X Factor Simon Cowell told him that if Holt managed to get a Number One single, he'd hand over fifty thousand pounds. So Holt made a song, 'Fifty Grand For Christmas', about the bet. As the lyrics - and this is one of the greatest opening lines in the history of popular song - explain: "Simon says he'll pay the sum of fifty thousand pounds if I get to Number One".