The OFFICIAL Unofficial Achewood Message Board
Trivial Pursuits => Wild Card => Topic started by: pmcd9 on October 14, 2013, 07:56:25 pm
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I have an idea for a blog in the vein of sites like Regretsy or People of Wal-Mart or Animals Behaving Badly. I don't know if there's a name for this type of blog, that takes a specific subject and finds countless ways to mock and ridicule the subject. Shameblog perhaps? I don't know.
I would call my blog What Have they Wrought and it's about brilliant people who have done something that have had such an impact on popular culture that they spurned imitators that ruined the concept they were imitating.
Here are some notable examples.
John Madden: He created a big dumb jock persona as a football announcer. His success spurred so many imitators that for the next decade or so it seemed like every football announcing crew had a big dumb jock character. What those other big dumb jock imitators overlooked though is the fact that John Madden is actually one of the most brilliant minds in NFL history. So he backs up his big dumb banter with science. Unlike his imitators who were just big and dumb.
Madden is mostly notable in this list because he maybe seemed to realize that he was becoming a parody of himself and dropped the dummy act for the most part the last few years of his broadcasting career.
Hunter S. Thompson: Brilliant political writer who invented the concept of writing from a first person perspective inserting himself into the story. This type of selgiraffe reporting is now a scourge on journalism. His countless imitators have done irreparable damage to journalism.
Okay, obviously I would need to do research to properly make my points, but I'm way too busy right now to get into that. I'm too busy to even give an explanation of my 3rd example Queen - A Crazy Little Thing Called Love for creating the Rockabilly subculture that exist today.
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Are there enough examples for a continuing blog? If not it would make a great Cracked article, if they haven't already done it. You know that anyone can write for them - or at least, can pitch them an article. But you have to get up pretty early in the morning to come up with something like this that they haven't already done.
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Your post just made me want to invent time travel so I could go back and junk punch Madden into not spawning Tony Siragusa.
Exactly!
Are there enough examples for a continuing blog? If not it would make a great Cracked article, if they haven't already done it. You know that anyone can write for them - or at least, can pitch them an article. But you have to get up pretty early in the morning to come up with something like this that they haven't already done.
Hmm, I don't know, maybe. I actually thought about Cracked, but didn't know that they took blind submissions. Do you know what they would pay for an article such as this?
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What they do at Cracked is that you sign up for their writer's workshop forum and you pitch the article, basically with an outline and one of the examples written up. People give you feedback and once the mods think the pitch is acceptable, they pass it on to the editors. It's not easy to get accepted, the standards are high and it's hard to find stuff they've never done, but the process is completely transparent. If you sign up I think it says somewhere what they pay, but maybe fifty bucks?
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I'd just like to weigh in that I think it's a brilliant concept and I look forward to your unique take on things
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This is a good concept, but I don't know about your queen hypothesis.
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But you have to get up pretty early in the morning to come up with something like this that they haven't already done.
"12 Amazing Ideas for Articles You Won't Believe Cracked Hasn't Done Yet"
Calling it now.
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Grunge ----> Nu metal
Radiohead -----> Coldplay, Travis
Feminism ------> Misandry
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Grunge ----> Nu metal
Radiohead -----> Coldplay, Travis
Feminism ------> Misandry
Man, you and Paul are both 2 for 3. I'm all, word, word, uh, nah, fuck that. I guess that could be good if making a website.
Simple mp3 players/ebook readers ---> Smartphones, tablets, things that connect to the internet constantly that are in my pocket that I am a slave to.
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Do you know what they would pay for an article such as this?
$50 an article (at least it was when they rejected an article I wrote).
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I'm catching a lot of shit on Facebook for comparing Shirley Temple to Honey Boo Boo. What I meant of course is that Shirley Temple was the original child star. It's generally accepted that she was a brilliant little actress and and an inspiration to millions. As an adult she proved to be a stellar human being as well. But her outrageous and unprecedented success in the nascent early days of Hollywood sent a signal out to the greedy mothers of the world with dollar signs in their eyes who would jump at the chance to exploit their precocious children. And of course there are the Hollywood producers who are more than willing to take advantage of them. No matter how you slice it, this long road of greed and exploitation leads directly from Shirley Temple to Honey Boo Boo.
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I agree with your premise, also noting it leads to Brook Shields and Jodi Foster. I think there is a weird "classist" dynamic about the revulsion of Honey Boo Boo being compared to Shirley Temple, ironic given most of Shirley's early roles were that of a destitute orphan or an unloved/overlooked child.
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I agree with your premise, also noting it leads to Brook Shields and Jodi Foster. I think there is a weird "classist" dynamic about the revulsion of Honey Boo Boo being compared to Shirley Temple, ironic given most of Shirley's early roles were that of a destitute orphan or an unloved/overlooked child.
I underestimated how much Shirley Temple means to people who grew up during the depression (i.e. my parents) and her playing a destitute child only made her resonate more with them. I don't think that saying she lead to Brook Shields or Jodi Foster would help much in their eyes. Maybe I should have said it lead to Macaulay Culkin. My mother loves the Home Alone movies.
I guess that road also lead to Christina Ricci so God Bless Shirley Temple.
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I'm pretty sure Culkin's star skidded into the dumpster of failed child stars once puberty turned cute into goofy. Shields and Foster parlayed early success into lasting careers and considerable philanthropy. Not to say the book is closed on Macaulay, or any of the other crop of "too rich, too famous, too soon" kids that the Disney machine wrings profit from for 4-12 years. I don't really know what to do about that whole thing. Entertainment certainly can focus on stories about young people and children, and its only fair that the actors who portray the characters should be paid fairly in cash; it just seems that somehow we should do a better job of raising them.
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Oh, I'm not saying her assessment is fair, I just know that she likes the Home Alone movies. She probably doesn't like Shields because she's shown too much skin in her movies and she probably doesn't like Jodi Foster because she's a lesbian.
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Man, when you're stepping over Amanda Bynes' track-marked carcass and dodging Lindsay Lohan's unregistered pink McClaren going the wrong way down Vine street as you're searching for the memorial to Gary Coleman, it makes you think something oughta be done better.
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You can say what you want about Lindsay Lohan, but I saw her in Machette and she has some sweet titties.
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a can for that lil slab of poetry, jaydub.
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Back in the 80s I used to read Dave Berry. I thought he was hilarious. He probably still is, although I haven't read him in years (don't subscribe to the paper anymore). His ultra hyperbolic style was fresh back then. Nowadays hyperbole on steroids is the norm, especially on the internet. That's right Dave Berry, I am laying Upworthy, etc. at your feet.
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Dave Barry actually stopped writing a regular column quite a few years ago. He's one of those people you have to respect for not continuing to milk it long after he'd lost his touch.
I don't see any reason to blame Upworthy on him though. He certainly did not try to hook people by being heartwarming and uplifting.
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Okay, you make a good point, he was rarely treacly and overly sentimental. But he still needs to answer for the horrible Hyperbole and a Half.
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the horrible Hyperbole and a Half.
You are dead to me.
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We never got the paper at my house so I didn't find out who Dave Barry was until his tv show (starring Harry Anderson). I had all his books for at one point and read them dozens of times in my early teens. I actually just gave them all away a few weeks ago when my parents moved and made me finally take the rest of my shit out of their house. Though I still recall some of my favorite bits from time to time (fut-wise it was extremely bee)
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For a long time we called our second pug the Emergency Backup Pug after Dave Barry, who called one of his dogs the Emergency Backup Dog.
I still have some of his books. I remember his book about going to Japan was really funny. I should re-read it and see if it's still funny after I've been to Japan more. Or maybe not, in case it ruins it? I always find that such a tough call.
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Depending on how the impending end of our tenancy shakes out this summer, I may be looking into an Emergency Backup Dog myself. Petunia is 8 (9 this spring), which seems young enough to tolerate change, yet old enough to begin planning for the inevitable. Pets make finding rental housing complicated however. Puppies even more so.
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One of the art galleries here in Houston has an annual FriedaFest. It's going on now and is this gallery's most popular show. It seems like they miss the point somehow. For myself personally I don't quite get the appeal of Frieda Khalo, but whatever she's an icon and lots of artist especially really love her. This show is almost totally made up of portraits of her, mostly aping her style as well. As far as I'm concerned it's a painters version of karaoke. Seems like it would be more in the spirit of Frieda if the artist were to do warts (or unibrow) and all portraits of themselves.
So is this what Frieda Khalo has wrought, a whole lot of weak copies of her work?