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Banal Celebrities

Started by @ssmaster, February 18, 2004, 04:00:37 PM

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@ssmaster

Now I like my reality shows, I find them a good source of entertainment although I am very careful not to get carried away with long discussions about them as I think that is a step too close to becoming an obsessed fanboy.  
Sure I might add something to the latest Big Brother thread but that is usually because I have some uncomplimentary thing to say about them.

In my office the girls are celebrity mad, they all have the latest issues on Now, Hello, Heat etc and spend most of the working day discussing celebrity issues. Now usually I don't have a problem with this, I find it a perfect platform to show off my sarcasm skills and ridicule said celebs. But it really reacted badly to THIS NEWS STORY ABOUT JORDAN when they commented, "yeah she really really loves him you could tell". No you couldn't!!! She was stringing him along, it is all a publicity stunt you simple bastards!!! Fucking hell she is talking about settling down with the guy and having babies she only met him 3 weeks ago. This wouldn't have anything to do with him just getting a one million pound record deal would it?

My point? Celebrities are annoying and yes, yes I'm jealous as fuck that I'm sat in an office dealing with network problems and not earning shit loads of money for being nothing but a recognisable face.

Rats

"I want more children, proper ones, not like that blind bag of spuds that my mother keeps putting in my lap. What's the point of that, it just sits there not knowing where the hell it is half the time, bloody waste of nappies. Aren't they meant to gurgle and crawl about and shit?"

smoker

"in ten years time, me an petah will still be in lav, i know e's the man for me cos whenever i see im me guts start to dribble down me thighs. i don't give a toss abaht wot people fink of us, or that they fink i'm only wiv im cos ee's got a nice body an that, an e's going to be rich soon, an it will elp wiv me career. i'm his mysteron girl and e's my spunk-fuhrer, an e's so good wiv little whatever-is name is, the little fing in me house that keeps crying for is nana whenever i go near 'im."

hands cold, liver warm

in the eugenic driven world of the earth's dystopian future, all women will look and think like Jordan. She is the mother of the master race.

Kill her now or humanity shallst be damned

Mediocre Rich

I could not beleive the reaction of some people who I had once thought were reasonable to Whoredon on I'm a Celebrity.

There opinion of the freak actually went up as she stood with her tank of perspex on getting a face full of creepy crawlies and snakes and other things too horrible to want anywhere near your feet never mind your eyeballs.

"Fair play to her" seemed to be the reaction, "There's no way I'd do that, fair fucks, I mean god that would be revolting and she just stood there.  Fair play, good on yer, I always thought she was just a vacuous old flat back with more tits that brains but fair play, she's prepared to stand there in her bikini with a goldfish bowl full of disgusting creatures in it over her head just to gain some more exposure, well good girl, your alright in my book, fair play!"

Wankers.

Vermschneid Mehearties

Quote from: "Rats""I want more children, proper ones, not like that blind bag of spuds that my mother keeps putting in my lap. What's the point of that, it just sits there not knowing where the hell it is half the time, bloody waste of nappies. Aren't they meant to gurgle and crawl about and shit?"

Hoho! Satan will be so nasty to you Rats.



Quote"He has told me he's fallen for Kate, the real me. Not Jordan, the glamour girl I invented," she said.

The idea that there's a decent person behind it all is the invention.  This "real me" bollocks pisses me off:

"I've acted like a complete skank for years to get attention but don't worry, it's not the real me." -jordan

wasp_f15ting

I have learnt to let these people not get to me any more. There were a couple at my last job (which I quit on Monday) who would obsess about all the wonderful things that happen in the celebrity world. They were entranced by Jordon most of the time. I never watched this faecal excuse for a show so I never had any idea about what it was all about.

But the trivialities they seek are as probably important to them as someone who reads the economist or whatever since their social and intellectual area is confined to such menial job, there isn't much room for them to expand any further and have that extra knowledge affect their jobs. So why expand their spectrum of thinking if there is no personal gain? At least if they swot up on the fashion trends for forthcoming months they can converse with each other and feel a common link and interest, which is what most of them want in the 1st place.

european son

Quote from: "wasp_f15ting"But the trivialities they seek are as probably important to them as someone who reads the economist or whatever since their social and intellectual area is confined to such menial job, there isn't much room for them to expand any further and have that extra knowledge affect their jobs. So why expand their spectrum of thinking if there is no personal gain?

i don't think most people who buy the FT or Economist (or perhaps the Indy or Guardian, or National Geographic are better examples) do so to further their job or for financial renumeration.

Quote from: "wasp_f15ting"At least if they swot up on the fashion trends for forthcoming months they can converse with each other and feel a common link and interest, which is what most of them want in the 1st place.

they do it for the same reason people read Heat, which you've outlined above.

Tokyo Sexwhale

Quote from: "hands cold, liver warm"in the eugenic driven world of the earth's dystopian future, all women will look and think like Jordan. She is the mother of the master race.

Kill her now or humanity shallst be damned

Wouldn't that make Dwight Yorke the father of the master race, and their son, the master race itself?

@ssmaster

Quote from: "Tokyo Sexwhale"
Quote from: "hands cold, liver warm"in the eugenic driven world of the earth's dystopian future, all women will look and think like Jordan. She is the mother of the master race.

Kill her now or humanity shallst be damned

Wouldn't that make Dwight Yorke the father of the master race, and their son, the master race itself?

Very good Toyko Sexwhale

Sherringford Hovis

I don't see anything wrong with Celeb Culture per se - after all, it's good to have aspirations and all that sorta thing. The only thing that bugs me is that Sleb Culture since the 1950s has been making all the wrong people famous: far too many sportspeople, music and showbiz.

How great it must have been in Queen Victoria's reign when that weekly periodical

"heat - the sun never sets on the British Empire"

would've included included engineers, scientists, philanthropists, doctors, missionaries, businessmen, philosophers, authors. If there was a "thinking person's" heat full of stories about genuinely great people, I'd buy it; hell, I'd probably even write for it.

Sample headlines:

Stephenson breaks 30mph barrier!

Isambard's four-in-a-four-poster shame!

Darwin - I'm a monkey's uncle

Full Marx? I'm loving Engels instead!

glitch

Quote from: "wasp_f15ting"But the trivialities they seek are as probably important to them as someone who reads the economist or whatever since their social and intellectual area is confined to such menial job, there isn't much room for them to expand any further and have that extra knowledge affect their jobs. So why expand their spectrum of thinking if there is no personal gain? At least if they swot up on the fashion trends for forthcoming months they can converse with each other and feel a common link and interest, which is what most of them want in the 1st place.

There's only 4 real reasons why people watch TV (or access any media), regardless of demographic:

Quote from: "Dan McQuail"
    [*]Information- in order to gain knowledge and information of the world.
    [*]Personal identity - the acquisition of a sense of identity through the comprehension of individual values.
    [*]Integration and social interaction – the reinforcement of a sense of social belonging through learning about the lives of others.
    [*]Entertainment – an emotional escape, relaxation, to forget problems and worries.[/list]

    Yes, I did A-level Media Studies... aren't I clever

    hands cold, liver warm

    Quote from: "Tokyo Sexwhale"
    Quote from: "hands cold, liver warm"in the eugenic driven world of the earth's dystopian future, all women will look and think like Jordan. She is the mother of the master race.

    Kill her now or humanity shallst be damned

    Wouldn't that make Dwight Yorke the father of the master race, and their son, the master race itself?

    that was the first experimental attempt to produce the starchild. It went wrong obviously. I imagine Jordan will have another baby which will eat the defective one.

    Sherringford Hovis

    Quote from: "Dan McQuail"
      [*]Information- in order to gain knowledge and information of the world.
      [*]Personal identity - the acquisition of a sense of identity through the comprehension of individual values.
      [*]Integration and social interaction – the reinforcement of a sense of social belonging through learning about the lives of others.
      [*]Entertainment – an emotional escape, relaxation, to forget problems and worries.[/list]

      I've never heard so much bullshit in all my life. Here's a translation of the above into REAL reasons:
        [*] I'm lonely and hate sitting in the quiet on my own as it makes me even more depressed than I am already
        [*] I genuinely like that program that's on in two hours - I'll just watch any old shit until then
        [*] Telly's great, innit? Like a cinema but smaller and in your house rather than at the cinema and that. I'm loving telly, there's stuff on there about all the people I read about in the Snu, only with telly you don't have to use your finger to remember what word you is on, innit?
        [*] I'm a pensioner on state benefits, too poor to even buy a paper to read, and way too scared to go outside even if I could afford a broadsheet
        [*] I'm a student, I've just necked a lot of drugs, and want to see something that will space me out... man. Yet because the drugs make me more susceptible to advertising and government propaganda, any shamanistic experience that I have that might otherwise have improved my life by altering my perception will instead be replaced by a nagging subconscious feeling that I should buy an SUV as soon as I've paid off my student loan.
        [*] I've been betrayed by both the education and social welfare systems, and consequently don't have the imagination or motivation to do anything else
        [*] I haven't got any lightbulbs
        [*] I hate my partner, and it's an easy way of either opting out of talking to them, or at least watching Eastenders together might give us something in common to talk about
        [*] After staring at my monitor at work all day, I cannot get through the evening without at least another three hours sucking on my cathode-ray nipple
        [/list]
        If religion is the opiate of the masses, the TV is akin to glue-sniffing or crack.

        http://www.artie.com/comix/calculus1.htm

        www.largecow.demon.co.uk/

        glitch

        Quote from: "Sherringford Hovis"I've never heard so much bullshit in all my life.

        Yet you go ahead and churn out a lot more of it in response. Nice attempt to challenge tried and tested media theory.

        smoker

        most of those reasons fall into the original four don't they?

        Still Not George

        Yeah, but media theory is as a rule utter bollocks invented to give meeja studies graduates something to do. Whereas Hovis' reasons were at least entertaining.

        glitch

        Quote from: "smoker"most of those reasons fall into the original four don't they?
        Yeah. I didn't make it clear in my reply. Maybe this should have been more apt:

        Adding non-comedy to pad out your personal views, which if closely examined, reinforce the very idea you're trying to deconstruct, is a bad attempt at challenging media theory.

        Quote from: "Still Not George"Yeah, but media theory is as a rule utter bollocks invented to give meeja studies graduates something to do. Whereas Hovis' reasons were at least entertaining.

        I wouldn't agree in the slightest. Due to the way the world (or more accurately, business and people) now works, media affects the majority of people's lives (whether actively or passively).

        QuoteThose who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat its mistakes.

        And those who do not learn from media are doomed to repeat the mistakes of others and have it plastered across the frontpage of the red tops*

        It could be argued that media theory is as important and politics and sociology. And no, I'm not talking about degree choices here.

        * crap analogy but I hope you see what I mean by that

        hands cold, liver warm

        media theory is a lot of dead end ideas either stating the obvious or explaining nothing. To claim that media studies is as important as politics is insane. The media does not set agendas or change governmental or social systems. It merely gives the people what they want, which is often either entertainment, information or a mouth piece to vocalise their concerns. The media is more a product of sociology and politics than anything.

        Perhaps the media is interesting in terms of mirroring our society or some such bollocks, but as of itself, media theory is fundamentally worthless.

        Still Not George

        Thing is... like many of us, I live in a University town, and I know an awful lot of graduates. (Hell, I am one... yeah, get me with the education)
        And the vast majority of them can usually, if pressed hard and perhaps given some run-up time (English grads in particular need run-up time), can come out with some theorem or quote or bit of theory from their chosen discipline which will absolutely stun and entrance anyone with a touch of soul and more than a couple of brain cells.

        Physicists can leave you speechless with uncertainty, biologists can tell you things about Mother Nature that leave your mouth hanging open, mathematicians can show you terrifyingly complex equations which resolve into beautiful simplicity, English scholars can pull out bits of our marvellous language which'll make your soul weep, Historians can utterly change your mental view of some chunk of your nation's past. Even apparently banal subjects like Computer Science have some piece of beauty in them, something that sings in the very soul of people who hear them. (I left Cerys stumped for months with the Von Neumann Bottleneck problem, and that's without mentioning the Turing Test/Chinese Box Theory or the Travelling Salesman problem...)

        Never once has anyone with a "media" class degree (either Media Studies itself or Film and Television Studies and the like) done anything of the sort. I find myself wondering what the point of the discipline is, if it truly does consist of nothing but unprovable, closed-environment maxims with no greater context. I hope that someone can pull out a bit of Media Studies axiomatic to counter my argument, but so far I've been left cold.

        (Not entirely sure where this rant was going, so I'll leave it there)

        glitch

        Yes and no. It doesn't set agendas itself, but can change public opinion (e.g. through the manufacture of news) which in turn can demand a change of agenda. It doesn't directly change social systems themselves but with the majority of this country mindlessly tuning in after school/work, it is one of the strongest factors that affect society.

        I understand why a lot of people dismiss media theory as bollocks because it tends be shouted by "Actualleh"-type students who didn't have a fucking clue what they wanted to do when it came to filling in that UCAS form and  so "chose the easy route." So they just have to share this nugget of truth they copied from their textbook/heard during that one 60-second burst of paying attention in lectures. And it makes them so smug.

        I hate the majority of media students by the way

        The simplest way I can explain why it's useful is - turn on the TV. Whatever you see cost money/effort to have it put there. It's there for a reason, whether that's to sell you this particular brand of washing powder or to tell you about the goings on in Jordans pants. But what's the reason why you're being told this?

        Sherringford Hovis

        Quote from: "xerode"
        Quote from: "Sherringford Hovis"I've never heard so much bullshit in all my life.

        Yet you go ahead and churn out a lot more of it in response. Nice attempt to challenge tried and tested media theory.

        There's no such thing as a "tried and tested theory" - if it's tried and tested, then it's no longer a theory. There's no such thing as theory or strategy in the media anyway - it's all guesswork. I know this because I followed Jello Biafra's advice, so now I AM THE MEDIA - and I got here without a degree or any of that crap. How? Because I'm full of shit. I am eloquent, stubborn, cynical, critical, can browbeat people, distort or invent facts and exhibit  unjustifiable bias better than anyone that's been to University to do journalism or meeja studies.

        George Monbiot puts it better than even a shitmeister like me can though - I'd link to his piece, but it's in Frames... so here:

        Quote
        Choose Life

        Every week, sometimes every day, someone writes to me asking for advice about the career they should take. I can't, unfortunately, respond to them all, so I thought I should try to formulate some general guidelines, which I hope people will be able to adapt to their own circumstances. This advice applies only to those who have a genuine choice of careers, which means, regrettably, that it does not apply to the majority of the world's workforce. But if the people writing to me did not have choice, they wouldn't be asking.

        While this guidance may be applicable to some people working in other areas, the examples I will use all come from journalism, as most of those writing to me want to be journalists, and this is the field in which I have mostly worked. Before you take it, I should warn you not to rely on my word alone. I can't guarantee that this approach will work for you. You should take advice from as many people as you can. Ultimately, you must make your own decisions: don't allow me or anyone else to make them for you.

        The first advice I would offer is this: be wary of following the careers advice your college gives you. In journalism school, for example, students are routinely instructed that, though they may wish to write about development issues in Latin America, in order to achieve the necessary qualifications and experience they must first spend at least three years working for a local newspaper, before seeking work for a national newspaper, before attempting to find a niche which brings them somewhere near the field they want to enter. You are told to travel, in other words, in precisely the opposite direction to the one you want to take. You want to go to Latin America? Then first you must go to Nuneaton. You want to write about the Zapatistas? Then first you must learn how to turn corporate press releases into "news". You want to be free? Then first you must learn to be captive.

        The advisers say that a career path like this is essential if you don't want to fall into the "trap" of specialisation: that is to say, if you want to be flexible enough to respond to the changing demands of the employment market. But the truth is that by following the path they suggest, you are becoming a specialist: a specialist in the moronic recycling of what the rich and powerful deem to be news. And after a few years of that, you are good for very little else.

        This career path, in other words, is counter-educational. It teaches you to do what you don't want to do, to be what you don't want to be. It is an exceptional person who emerges from this process with her aims and ideals intact. Indeed it is an exceptional person who emerges from this process at all. What the corporate or institutional world wants you to do is the complete opposite of what you want to do. It wants a reliable tool, someone who can think, but not for herself: who can think instead for the institution. You can do what you believe only if that belief happens to coincide with the aims of the corporation, not just once, but consistently, across the years (it is a source of wonder to me how many people's beliefs just happen to match the demands of institutional power, however those demands may twist and turn, after they've been in the company for a year or two).

        Even intelligent, purposeful people almost immediately lose their way in such worlds. They become so busy meeting the needs of their employers and surviving in the hostile world into which they have been thrust that they have no time or energy left to develop the career path they really wanted to follow. And you have to develop it: it simply will not happen by itself. The idea, so often voiced by new recruits who are uncomfortable with the choice they have made, that they can reform the institution they join from within, so that it reflects their own beliefs and moral codes, is simply laughable. For all the recent guff about "corporate social responsibility", corporations respond to the market and to the demands of their shareholders, not to the consciences of their employees. Even the chief executive can make a difference only at the margins: the moment her conscience interferes with the non-negotiable purpose of her company - turning a profit and boosting the value of its shares - she's out.

        This is not to say that there are no opportunities to follow your beliefs within the institutional world. There are a few, though generally out of the mainstream: specialist programmes and magazines, some sections of particular newspapers, small production companies whose bosses have retained their standards. Jobs in places like this are rare, but if you find one, pursue it with energy and persistance. If, having secured it, you find that it is not what it seemed, or if you find you are being consistently pulled away from what you want to do, have no hesitation in bailing out.

        Nor does this mean that you shouldn't take "work experience" in the institutions whose worldview you do not accept if it's available, and where there are essential skills you feel you can learn at their expense. But you must retain absolute clarity about the limits of this exercise, and you must leave the moment you've learnt what you need to learn (usually after just a few months) and the firm starts taking more from you than you are taking from it. How many times have I heard students about to start work for a corporation claim that they will spend just two or three years earning the money they need, then leave and pursue the career of their choice? How many times have I caught up with those people several years later, to discover that they have acquired a lifestyle, a car and a mortgage to match their salary, and that their initial ideals have faded to the haziest of memories, which they now dismiss as a post-adolescent fantasy? How many times have I watched free people give up their freedom?

        So my second piece of career advice echoes the political advice offered by Benjamin Franklin: whenever you are faced with a choice between liberty and security, choose liberty. Otherwise you will end up with neither. People who sell their souls for the promise of a secure job and a secure salary are spat out as soon as they become dispensable. The more loyal to an institution you are, the more exploitable, and ultimately expendable, you become.

        None of this, of course, means that you can start doing precisely what you want to do straight away, and be remunerated as you might wish. But there are three possible approaches I would recommend.

        The first is simply to start how you mean to go on. This is unlikely, for a while, to be self-financing, so you may need to supplement it with work which raises sufficient money to keep you alive but doesn't demand too much mental energy. If you want to write about the Zapatistas in Mexico, earn the money required to get you out there and start covering them. If you want to make it pay, you must be enterprising. You should investigate all the potential outlets for the stories you hope to come across: magazines, newspapers, radio and TV stations, websites and publishers.

        You should have a clear view of what you want to cover before you go, plan it carefully and find as many contacts as you can from among people with some knowledge of the issue. But at the same time you should be ready for stories you don't anticipate, which might find a home somewhere unexpected. You might for instance come across a wildlife story while you're there, with which you could help finance your trip by writing it up for a wildlife magazine. You might supplement your earnings with a travel piece, or something for an architectural magazine or a food programme. Editors are sometimes delighted to receive material from outside the box (though more often they simply won't understand it). Work in as many media as you can, and be persistent.

        Be prepared to live and travel as cheaply as possible: for my first four years as a freelancer I lived on an average of five thousand pounds a year. In seven years working in the poor world, I managed to keep my expenses down to three thousand pounds a year. This is a good discipline for any freelancer, however well you're doing. If you can live on five thousand pounds a year, you are six times as secure as someone who needs thirty thousand to get by. In Britain, however, the possibilities of thrifty living have now been clouded somewhat by student loans: many people looking for work are already burdened by debt.

        Work hard, but don't rush. Build up your reputation slowly and steadily. And specialisation, for all they tell you at journalism school, is, if you use it intelligently, not the trap but the key to escaping from the trap. You can become the person editors think of when they need someone to cover a particular issue from a particular angle (that is to say, your angle). They then respond to your worldview, rather than you having to respond to theirs. It's surprising how quickly you can become an "expert" in a particular field: simply because so few other journalists will know anything about it. You will find opportunities, and opportunities will find you.

        The second possible approach is this: if the market for the kind of work you want to do looks, at first, impenetrable, then engage in the issue by different means. If you want to write about homelessness, for example (one of the great undercovered issues of developed societies), it might be easier to find work with a group trying to assist the homeless. Learn the trade by learning the issues, and gradually branch into journalism. Though this takes you a step or two away from your ideal, at least you will be working with the people experiencing the issues which interest you, rather than with the detached men and women in the corporate newsrooms who have themselves lost their dreams, and who know as little about the real world as the careers advisors who helped land them in those jobs in the first place.

        The third approach is tougher, but just as valid. It is followed by people who have recognised the limitations of any form of engagement with mainstream employers, and who have created their own outlets for their work. Most countries have a number of small alternative papers and broadcasters, run voluntarily by people making their living by other means: part time jobs, grants or social security. These are, on the whole, people of tremendous courage and determination, who have placed their beliefs firmly ahead of their comforts. To work with them can be a great privelege and inspiration, for the simple reason that they - and, by implication, you - are free while others are not. All the money, all the prestige in the world will never make up for the loss of your freedom.

        So my final piece of advice is this: when faced with the choice between engaging with reality or engaging with what Erich Fromm calls the "necrophiliac" world of wealth and power, choose life, whatever the apparent costs may be. Your peers might at first look down on you: poor Nina, she's twenty-six and she still doesn't own a car. But those who have put wealth and power above life are living in the world of death, in which the living put their tombstones - their framed certificates signifying acceptance to that world - upon their walls. Remember that even the editor of the Times, for all his income and prestige, is still a functionary, who must still take orders from his boss. He has less freedom than we do, and being the editor of the Times is as good as it gets.

        You know you have only one life. You know it is a precious, extraordinary, unrepeatable thing: the product of billions of years of serendipity and evolution. So why waste it by handing it over to the living dead?

        from http://www.monbiot.com


        Has someone somewhere pushed a button to turn off the usual VW jocularity in this thread, or what?

        Peking O

        Quote from: "Dan McQuail/Peking O"
          [*]Information- in order to gain knowledge and information of the world.
          [*]Personal identity - the acquisition of a sense of identity through the comprehension of individual values.
          [*]Integration and social interaction – the reinforcement of a sense of social belonging through learning about the lives of others.
          [*]Entertainment – an emotional escape, relaxation, to forget problems and worries.
          [*]Noise Blocker - To drown out the sound of my neighbours beating the shit out of each other[/list]

          Still Not George

          Quote from: "Sherringford Hovis"Has someone somewhere pushed a button to turn off the usual VW jocularity in this thread, or what?

          It's not just here, it's sorta general at the moment. The sheer number of posts in the top, say, 30, including a "This is the worst thread ever" (not even ironically) post by someone who really should know better is astounding. I'm seriously considering monging up a big white "STOP FUCKING WHINGEING" rubber stamp.

          Mediocre Rich

          Quote from: "Still Not George"Thing is... like many of us, I live in a University town, and I know an awful lot of graduates. (Hell, I am one... yeah, get me with the education)
          And the vast majority of them can usually, if pressed hard and perhaps given some run-up time (English grads in particular need run-up time), can come out with some theorem or quote or bit of theory from their chosen discipline which will absolutely stun and entrance anyone with a touch of soul and more than a couple of brain cells. <snip>

          Never once has anyone with a "media" class degree (either Media Studies itself or Film and Television Studies and the like) done anything of the sort. I find myself wondering what the point of the discipline is, if it truly does consist of nothing but unprovable, closed-environment maxims with no greater context. I hope that someone can pull out a bit of Media Studies axiomatic to counter my argument, but so far I've been left cold.

          Do you know, I think your absolutely right.

          I did a 'Multimedia and journalism and Buisness degree' because I failed miserably at my A-levels because I thought smoking pot and going to nightclubs was big and clever, and the whole media theorem part was just so stupifyingly obvious that it was rendered pointless.  How they manage to string 3 year courses out of what essentially you could teach in half a term is beyond me.

          A seperate (but related) part of the course was Cultural Studies and some of the work we did on narrative was interesting, as was the more historical aspects.  However too often I found myself  in that archetypal meeja studies situation of being sat around drinking coffee talking about the culural effects of Coronation Street.

          I now work at my family's firm and waste half my life reading other peoples opinions on the internet.