Media/Journalism Cringe Megathread - Hot off the Presses
- Thread starter Cherico
- Start date
so their solution to this was to prove them right instead of just ignoring the minor festival that is of little actual importance in the real world, thus giving said festival more clout and making them look worse.
Blasterbot
Well-known member
sad that Magfest cucked in the end over malding journos.
Pocky Balboa
Well-known member
From what I've heard, aside from that dunk on Kotaku, Magfest itself was striding towards wokery, so it was probably inevitable they would bend the knee to suck off the games urinalists.
Blasterbot
Well-known member
this is why geek sub cultures are dead to me
DarthOne
☦️
Same. God damn it.
The media made its bed; Republicans should do as DeSantis and make them lie in it
There is one thing about social media that I actually really appreciate; one thing that has been painfully missing from traditional media for years.
notthebee.com
prinCZess
Warrior, Writer, Performer, Perv
It's journalism probably-clickbait ragebait time, with your eloquent host prinCZess!
Title has since been changed to be less silly ("Reading is precious – which is why I’ve been giving away my books" ).
But it's sure revelatory. Because reading is smug and condescending and knowledge-flaunting that is doubleplusungood.
Because you should own NOTHING and be happy!
Now, in fairness, the author's piece is not (quite) the bombastic bullshit-piece the headline implies. And I'm fully-willing to believe that someone in the paper's editorial room or who otherwise has headline-writing authority deliberately ran with the silly either because they thought it appropriate or because they figured it would get some quick & easy hate-clicks (I attempted to avoid such by way of internet archive).
That said...the author's piece is almost worse precisely because it's slightly more subtle in its bullshit.
Subject matter, politics, and authorship are no reason whatsoever to discard a book. Barring disinterest in subject matter, the only reasons to raise them as reasons is due to subjective dislike of politics or author based on things beyond the work itself--and if one already has the book in their possession there's none of the little support buying it new from a publisher and therefore supporting someone you disagree with...For anyone who ever buys books new (does anyone do that with any frequency? Maybe I'm just in a bubble where cheap and used is a necessary requirement for purchase...)
In any case, even a disinterest in the subject matter is somewhat of a hard sell--part of what's great about books on subject matter you're not interested in is their capacity to MAKE you interested in it. And if this lady is not wanting subject matter on her shelf because it would make her 'look bad'...She's an idiot, as would be any person who would judge someone based on their bookshelf containing 'bad books'.
I mean, maybe if there's a wall of texts about nazi germany, books by nazis, books on scandinavian folklore, flanked by sun-wheel flags and reichsadler statues one should raise an eyebrow, but at that point you've gone to such an extreme position as to be silly. Subject matter of some books being 'bad' is not a basis upon which to judge someone, other than perhaps as a positive because they're willing to try and engage with objectionable things (and, of course, what counts as objectionable changes across the political/social/cultural spectrum...But point being that a communist should not be judged harshly for the presence of Adam Smith or Mises on their shelf anymore than a capitalist be so for opposed thinkers gracing their bookshelf).
AND none of the above is even getting INTO the shittiness of recycling a book because you feel you're 'saving' a future reader from it. What an arrogant, savior-complex piece of garbageness.
Basically only 'real' criticism the article has whatsoever is that buying books just for aesthetics--to look smart or cultured--is objectionable. And on that much I can at least agree. Perhaps even admit a degree of guilt with the concept (I'll GET AROUND to reading the Shakespeare compilations and that kind of stuff, I swear, I'm just...always busy and reading something else always seems to be higher on the priority list...*guilt guilt*).
Anyhow.
The moral of the story is ragebait journalism-clickbait examples can get you rant-y. Don't give them the satisfaction/income from the clicks.
Title has since been changed to be less silly ("Reading is precious – which is why I’ve been giving away my books" ).
But it's sure revelatory. Because reading is smug and condescending and knowledge-flaunting that is doubleplusungood.
Because you should own NOTHING and be happy!
I will not eat the bugs.
I will not live in the pod.
I will not burn the books.
I will not live in the pod.
I will not burn the books.
Now, in fairness, the author's piece is not (quite) the bombastic bullshit-piece the headline implies. And I'm fully-willing to believe that someone in the paper's editorial room or who otherwise has headline-writing authority deliberately ran with the silly either because they thought it appropriate or because they figured it would get some quick & easy hate-clicks (I attempted to avoid such by way of internet archive).
That said...the author's piece is almost worse precisely because it's slightly more subtle in its bullshit.
These are both shit ideas had by shitty people...And I feel no compunction or reason to search for defense from that judgement as I did with the headline, and am kind of resentful I even did so because of it.
Subject matter, politics, and authorship are no reason whatsoever to discard a book. Barring disinterest in subject matter, the only reasons to raise them as reasons is due to subjective dislike of politics or author based on things beyond the work itself--and if one already has the book in their possession there's none of the little support buying it new from a publisher and therefore supporting someone you disagree with...For anyone who ever buys books new (does anyone do that with any frequency? Maybe I'm just in a bubble where cheap and used is a necessary requirement for purchase...)
In any case, even a disinterest in the subject matter is somewhat of a hard sell--part of what's great about books on subject matter you're not interested in is their capacity to MAKE you interested in it. And if this lady is not wanting subject matter on her shelf because it would make her 'look bad'...She's an idiot, as would be any person who would judge someone based on their bookshelf containing 'bad books'.
I mean, maybe if there's a wall of texts about nazi germany, books by nazis, books on scandinavian folklore, flanked by sun-wheel flags and reichsadler statues one should raise an eyebrow, but at that point you've gone to such an extreme position as to be silly. Subject matter of some books being 'bad' is not a basis upon which to judge someone, other than perhaps as a positive because they're willing to try and engage with objectionable things (and, of course, what counts as objectionable changes across the political/social/cultural spectrum...But point being that a communist should not be judged harshly for the presence of Adam Smith or Mises on their shelf anymore than a capitalist be so for opposed thinkers gracing their bookshelf).
AND none of the above is even getting INTO the shittiness of recycling a book because you feel you're 'saving' a future reader from it. What an arrogant, savior-complex piece of garbageness.
Basically only 'real' criticism the article has whatsoever is that buying books just for aesthetics--to look smart or cultured--is objectionable. And on that much I can at least agree. Perhaps even admit a degree of guilt with the concept (I'll GET AROUND to reading the Shakespeare compilations and that kind of stuff, I swear, I'm just...always busy and reading something else always seems to be higher on the priority list...*guilt guilt*).
Anyhow.
The moral of the story is ragebait journalism-clickbait examples can get you rant-y. Don't give them the satisfaction/income from the clicks.
stephen the barbarian
Well-known member
so they've gone from copying 1984 to copying Fahrenheit 451
PsihoKekec
Swashbuckling Accountant
Not really. If you don't own a physical copy of a book, then they can always change the books to conform with political whims of the moment, like it was done in 1984, albeit with current tech.
bintananth
behind a desk
These days owning a physical copy is a bit broader than "printed out, bound, and sitting on a bookshelf". A bunch of .pdfs backed up on some sort of write-once then it's read-only media like a CD certainly qualifies as a physical copy.
PsihoKekec
Swashbuckling Accountant
And with government/corporate access to all your electronic devices they can ensure that you can read only officially sanctioned versions.
LordsFire
Internet Wizard
It's useful to keep a couple old computers around that you never put online anymore. I have two laptops from the 90's like that.
Bear Ribs
Well-known member
Yeah, but it'll be trash in a few years, both because that media doesn't hold up and because as formats and technology change, old media becomes unreadable. I personally have multiple books over eighty years old on my shelves and have seen books dating back to the Bronze Age (Specifically won a trip into a historic library and got to look at one of Pliny the Elder's handwritten books.)
Meanwhile try to read a file in a format ten years out of date, after trying to install a program that hasn't been updated in ten years...
Doomsought
Well-known member
If you want to archive something for that, convert it to an ASCII text file. Its simplicity makes it useful for low level operations such as logs and configuration files. There are many, many, file types that are just an ASCII text file with a special syntax for the text and a different file extension. Because of this ASCII text files will outlast the physical medium they are stored on, easily.
49ersfootball
Well-known member
I've heard about DirectTV cancelling Newsmax from their cable channel subscriptions.
Anyone else have reaction from this controversial development ? 🤔
Bear Ribs
Well-known member
Kinda, some formats have withstood the test of time better than others but you're still going to have the issue that either WORM CDs lose their data and become unreadable after a few years, and/or the disc drive to read the media your ASCII is on isn't compatible with any modern hardware so you'll have to find some antique computer that can still read your media. I had plenty of stuff stored on floppy discs I'll never be able to use again because nobody uses floppy drives, put a lot of my college data on ZIP drives that haven't been readable in years, and burned many a CD that just spams error messages when read today.