Recently I've had the misfortune of watching ITV's Take Me Out, on the surface a seemingly harmless yet pointless form of entertainment where 1 male is subjected to the scrutiny of 30 women before he gets to turn the gun on them. This is done through the very blunt use of lights to indicate a girl's inclination towards the particular man on show at the time. However once you dig a little deeper it becomes impossible to not be hugely annoyed by not only Patrick "Paddy" McGuinness, who's involvement in the show is of such low significance he could be replaced at points by a cardboard cut out of himself and I would fail to notice/care, but also the vapid prancing pricks who descend onto our screens in search of a hard earned fuck and the satisfaction of being able to say "They're right! I really AM beautiful!".
Round 1 of Take Me Out is a man being literally dropped in front of the women on what Paddy calls "The Love Lift" which quickly becomes a shaft to a very bland man's-only heaven where everyone must dress exactly the same and wear wax/gell in their hair at all times. Not only this but if a man who exudes any amount of difference is lowered down on what I will now affectionately refer to as "The Cock Dropper" he is more than likely to get no lights incredibly quickly. What a surprise. But anyway, let us move on.
Round 2 and 3 consist of a video detailing some definitely true aspects of the man's character/personality and a show of "talent" respectively. The video tends to contain vague and empty comments from friends or family (if you can find me someone whose friends wouldn't describe them as "loving" or "nice" then I will disregard you for lying) which end with us still not knowing anything in particular about anyone on the show be it the man or women. Well that's not entirely true, we do get inane little soundbites of giggling from the 30 women, which is hugely fucking annoying but can sometimes say something about their personality. It usually says "I'm boring and I'm trying to compensate for that by acting "bubbly"". Round 3, the "talent portion", honestly doesn't even deserve a mention. I have yet to witness anyone doing anything that could have even remotely swayed any woman who is above "moron" on the hugely biased "smart scale" that I plan on creating soon.
The truly worrying/disgusting thing about this programme which makes me livid and just depressed at the state of not only television but the general public, is the way in which people are treated if they exude anything more than a drop of difference or eccentric behaviour. There's a woman I remember on one episode who I THINK was called "Zsa Zsa", who was basically bombarded with comments that may as well have been as blunt as "WELL AREN'T YOU OLD EY ZSA ZSA? HAHAHA YOU WANT LOVE OR SEX SO YOU CAME ON THIS SHOW! THAT'S FUNNY CAUSE YOU'RE OLD! OH AREN'T YOU ECCENTRIC". It made me feel physically sick with anger and annoyance. It didn't help that she fucking played up to this ridiculous opinion of old slightly batty women. It was all just fucking awful.
I wanted to write more in this post but I've honestly been putting it off over and over again because everytime I've sat down to it the bile has risen in my throat, my body hoping the sick will then block out any memory or knowledge that Take Me Out has ever been accepted into my collective intelligence, the inevitable chunks of carrot covering important words therefore rendering this post to me as just some useless letters smushed together around sick. I want to force ignorance into my brain when it comes to Paddy McGuinness' ridiculous grin and fucking stupid catchphrases. But I can't blame him, or the women or the men. I don't know who to blame for it and nor do I care because if we're honest it is fucking pretty low on our lists of things that are painful to even acknowledge. Just, lets all pretend it never existed and then we never have to accept that the society that we live in shat it out into our televisions. I'll start the petition.
Sunday, 20 February 2011
Friday, 18 February 2011
"Young, Angry and White" - Fuck Off
After recently watching both the Channel 4 documentary Young, Angry and White and David Cameron's speech to the Munich Security Conference/David Cameron's moronic "controversial" comments sandwiched by him babbling out shite that is already very obvious to anyone with more than a bollock for a brain ("Islamist extremism and Islam *pause for effect* are not the same" well done. Did you know 2+2 also equals 4?) I have decided I am almost infinitely depressed by the people that inhabit this world. Allow me to explain.
Let's start with Cameron. Now, it'd be a lie if I said I'd always been a big fan of David Cameron but this speech for me was the final nail in the Cameron shaped coffin. For nearly twenty minutes the man who pretty much runs our country alongside being a figurehead for what is meant to be the majority opinion in our country spouted a mixture of painfully obvious remarks wrapped in complicated language and basically outlined to us that demands set by terrorist organisations were, shall we say, a little bit over the top (once again, well done there). It was pointless. At one point he was talking about practising Muslims in Britain in a way that made them sound almost like stubborn teenagers who refuse to believe they aren't correct on every matter ever, the patronising fuck. Oh, are the practising Muslims all confused because they're in a country that doesn't have a Muslim majority are they? No. They aren't.
The fact that Cameron felt the need to say that "some young men" feel slightly out of place when trying to practise the traditions that their parents would IN A DIFFERENT COUNTRY is just fucking idiotic. What a surprise. They're in a different country that has a different culture that has been borne out of an entirely different religion. If you didn't catch that I'll sum it up for you Davey boy, the key word was "different". And alot of the time difference is what matters. Without difference in opinion we're just one boring grey mass slowly circling a fucking star. We need difference. According to Cameron, in Britain "We have allowed the weakening of our collective identity". Fuck the collective identity. The majority of people in this country are arseholes and I don't want to be in anyway associated with them so why is collective identity so important? Who cares anymore really. Surely this want to grasp onto some kind of stereotype of how a country is supposed to be is an entirely primitive concept that should've been chucked after we stopped saying we owned something when we put a fucking flag in it. I understand the importance of someone having a grasp of their culture but not to the point where I'm violent.
A culture lives on through important individuals or a countries architecture not a landmass that that country just so happens to take up, I won't be remembered and nor will a skinhead draped in an England flag but the people who matter will be remembered along with the context that surrounded that person at the time of their life, for example their culture. One of the main points of our lives if not THE main point in my eyes is to try and experience as many different things as you can and one of those things is the different cultures celebrated around the world. To deny multiculturalism is to deny that we as human beings have the ability to be tolerant of all cultures around the world, an ability I strongly believe that we have. Oh yeah, he also tried to basically have a sly dig at people being overly politically correct at one point as well, trying to appeal to absolutely fucking everyone in the entire country there are we David?
Young, Angry and White is a documentary in which we're shown an insight into the mind of 19 year old Kieran who is at the moment flirting with the idea of joining the BNP. It's probably important to mention that Kieran isn't your stereotypical BNP follower, he'd appear to be a pretty harmless teenager if he wasn't spewing racist dribble that sounds like it's been copy and pasted from a twats brain into his. I've already written about what I wanted to write here up above among my comments about David Cameron so I'll keep it short. Stop ruining Britain with your unbelievable racist babble. Life isn't as black and white as you see it. You're devolving a civilised country and proving to everyone that life really isn't worth living if we're the same species as you.
Let's start with Cameron. Now, it'd be a lie if I said I'd always been a big fan of David Cameron but this speech for me was the final nail in the Cameron shaped coffin. For nearly twenty minutes the man who pretty much runs our country alongside being a figurehead for what is meant to be the majority opinion in our country spouted a mixture of painfully obvious remarks wrapped in complicated language and basically outlined to us that demands set by terrorist organisations were, shall we say, a little bit over the top (once again, well done there). It was pointless. At one point he was talking about practising Muslims in Britain in a way that made them sound almost like stubborn teenagers who refuse to believe they aren't correct on every matter ever, the patronising fuck. Oh, are the practising Muslims all confused because they're in a country that doesn't have a Muslim majority are they? No. They aren't.
The fact that Cameron felt the need to say that "some young men" feel slightly out of place when trying to practise the traditions that their parents would IN A DIFFERENT COUNTRY is just fucking idiotic. What a surprise. They're in a different country that has a different culture that has been borne out of an entirely different religion. If you didn't catch that I'll sum it up for you Davey boy, the key word was "different". And alot of the time difference is what matters. Without difference in opinion we're just one boring grey mass slowly circling a fucking star. We need difference. According to Cameron, in Britain "We have allowed the weakening of our collective identity". Fuck the collective identity. The majority of people in this country are arseholes and I don't want to be in anyway associated with them so why is collective identity so important? Who cares anymore really. Surely this want to grasp onto some kind of stereotype of how a country is supposed to be is an entirely primitive concept that should've been chucked after we stopped saying we owned something when we put a fucking flag in it. I understand the importance of someone having a grasp of their culture but not to the point where I'm violent.
A culture lives on through important individuals or a countries architecture not a landmass that that country just so happens to take up, I won't be remembered and nor will a skinhead draped in an England flag but the people who matter will be remembered along with the context that surrounded that person at the time of their life, for example their culture. One of the main points of our lives if not THE main point in my eyes is to try and experience as many different things as you can and one of those things is the different cultures celebrated around the world. To deny multiculturalism is to deny that we as human beings have the ability to be tolerant of all cultures around the world, an ability I strongly believe that we have. Oh yeah, he also tried to basically have a sly dig at people being overly politically correct at one point as well, trying to appeal to absolutely fucking everyone in the entire country there are we David?
Young, Angry and White is a documentary in which we're shown an insight into the mind of 19 year old Kieran who is at the moment flirting with the idea of joining the BNP. It's probably important to mention that Kieran isn't your stereotypical BNP follower, he'd appear to be a pretty harmless teenager if he wasn't spewing racist dribble that sounds like it's been copy and pasted from a twats brain into his. I've already written about what I wanted to write here up above among my comments about David Cameron so I'll keep it short. Stop ruining Britain with your unbelievable racist babble. Life isn't as black and white as you see it. You're devolving a civilised country and proving to everyone that life really isn't worth living if we're the same species as you.
Wednesday, 9 February 2011
Justin Bieber
Although Justin Bieber has become an incredibly easy target for people who prefer music that is deeper than a slowly evaporating tiny puddle or more complex than just noise underneath a pointlessly autotuned tosser designed to make you gyrate your hips, I feel alot of the scrutiny/immense hatred this boy and his music has come under is well and truly justified. However, due to the huge popularity and unpopularity this "child star" has been buffetted with I felt I would try and take an unbiased look at him and his "music". I will point out now though that all of the information I will be using as evidence for my opinions has come from the internet so if some of what I say is untrue then I can only hold Wikipedia and Google responsible.
Due to Justin Bieber's immense fame at the youthful age of 16 I assumed, wrongly it would seem, that there may actually be an edge of tragedy to the story of his rise to fame in that it was most likely a bit of a Britney affair. What I mean by that is I assumed perhaps his mother or some form of parental figure in his life had pushed and forced him onto stage and into singing as to make some form of fame for themselves. This however seems to be incorrect and actually Bieber kept his desire to sing majoritively hidden from the adults in his life. This in and of itself to me makes me hate just that little bit less to know he hasn't been scrabbling round in the metaphorical dirt of life for that shiny gold coin of fame. He also in his early years learnt how to play the piano, drums, guitar and trumpet, all of which self taught mind you. Now I think we all know that Bieber's choice of music means we'll never really get to hear his ability on any of these instruments but I think we must also accept that even though this talent is wasted on such a useless "musician" who has decided to only appeal to the "tween" market, it is impressive that he had the effort to teach himself atleast an ability, however large that ability may be, in all of these instruments. The subject of "tweens" however is what moves us on this post.
When somebody makes music and styles their entire image to grab the attention of the naive goldmine that is adolescent females, you should expect the cynical/common sense reaction towards your music and image from people who they themselves aren't adolescent females. The cutesy, boyish, fresh faced freak that Justin Bieber has decided to become shows us all that in reality, getting fame in the music world obviously isn't about making impressive or artistic music at all. You can sell anything to the majority of adolescent females aslong as it looks nice. Fact. Our entire world is populated by people that sadly most of the time base their opinions on what they can see whether it be a person or the way that person acts. When a young girl sees Justin Bieber's little face all young and stereotypically attractive, they will instantly flock to him as if he was the light at the end of a foggy tunnel, a tunnel filled with lights that were crafted by people over a large amount of time, who took into consideration their light crafting influences and the importance of the creative process when making a light. A little subtle metaphor for you there.
Now taking myself out of my unbiased persona I can honestly say that Bieber's rise to fame is altogether sickening. The fact that he never really strived for the fame and it was just plopped into his lap when a record label realised they could make money out of him is just so vile and makes you feel as if we will forever repeat the same wheel of pain that is modern popular music until the day you die, slowly closing your eyes to the music of your favourite band who were fantastic but never really "made it" because they didn't appeal to enough people for anyone to pick them up. I think though if we all look at our hatred for Justin Bieber, in reality he is nothing more than a mild annoyance. He spouts silly tripe and says cringeworthy things but give it five years and the liklihood is we'll have rid of him. What really angers us is the fact that we will never rid of the formulaic way in which major labels pick bands and solo artists based if not solely, mainly on their money making ability rather than their artistic talent to create music. Music is a universal art that I now with all my rage believe that we humans don't deserve. We bash it and bruise it until it fits a format that we ourselves think it should fit rather than ever just trying to create music for arts sake or even for the sake of ourselves. We shouldn't be angry at Justin Bieber, we should pity him, as he is just yet another husk that will later be thrown away a bunch of suits when they realise he isn't bringing in enough money for them, left to slowly dwindle away the rest of his years alive debasing himself just to get a tiny taste of the fame he used to have.
Due to Justin Bieber's immense fame at the youthful age of 16 I assumed, wrongly it would seem, that there may actually be an edge of tragedy to the story of his rise to fame in that it was most likely a bit of a Britney affair. What I mean by that is I assumed perhaps his mother or some form of parental figure in his life had pushed and forced him onto stage and into singing as to make some form of fame for themselves. This however seems to be incorrect and actually Bieber kept his desire to sing majoritively hidden from the adults in his life. This in and of itself to me makes me hate just that little bit less to know he hasn't been scrabbling round in the metaphorical dirt of life for that shiny gold coin of fame. He also in his early years learnt how to play the piano, drums, guitar and trumpet, all of which self taught mind you. Now I think we all know that Bieber's choice of music means we'll never really get to hear his ability on any of these instruments but I think we must also accept that even though this talent is wasted on such a useless "musician" who has decided to only appeal to the "tween" market, it is impressive that he had the effort to teach himself atleast an ability, however large that ability may be, in all of these instruments. The subject of "tweens" however is what moves us on this post.
When somebody makes music and styles their entire image to grab the attention of the naive goldmine that is adolescent females, you should expect the cynical/common sense reaction towards your music and image from people who they themselves aren't adolescent females. The cutesy, boyish, fresh faced freak that Justin Bieber has decided to become shows us all that in reality, getting fame in the music world obviously isn't about making impressive or artistic music at all. You can sell anything to the majority of adolescent females aslong as it looks nice. Fact. Our entire world is populated by people that sadly most of the time base their opinions on what they can see whether it be a person or the way that person acts. When a young girl sees Justin Bieber's little face all young and stereotypically attractive, they will instantly flock to him as if he was the light at the end of a foggy tunnel, a tunnel filled with lights that were crafted by people over a large amount of time, who took into consideration their light crafting influences and the importance of the creative process when making a light. A little subtle metaphor for you there.
Now taking myself out of my unbiased persona I can honestly say that Bieber's rise to fame is altogether sickening. The fact that he never really strived for the fame and it was just plopped into his lap when a record label realised they could make money out of him is just so vile and makes you feel as if we will forever repeat the same wheel of pain that is modern popular music until the day you die, slowly closing your eyes to the music of your favourite band who were fantastic but never really "made it" because they didn't appeal to enough people for anyone to pick them up. I think though if we all look at our hatred for Justin Bieber, in reality he is nothing more than a mild annoyance. He spouts silly tripe and says cringeworthy things but give it five years and the liklihood is we'll have rid of him. What really angers us is the fact that we will never rid of the formulaic way in which major labels pick bands and solo artists based if not solely, mainly on their money making ability rather than their artistic talent to create music. Music is a universal art that I now with all my rage believe that we humans don't deserve. We bash it and bruise it until it fits a format that we ourselves think it should fit rather than ever just trying to create music for arts sake or even for the sake of ourselves. We shouldn't be angry at Justin Bieber, we should pity him, as he is just yet another husk that will later be thrown away a bunch of suits when they realise he isn't bringing in enough money for them, left to slowly dwindle away the rest of his years alive debasing himself just to get a tiny taste of the fame he used to have.
Sunday, 6 February 2011
Wednesday, 2 February 2011
Inspired By A Man Who Has Stood In A Giant Pizza Box For Money
Me and my friend Sam were discussing what shapes a persons' mentality when regarding what they perceive as useful knowledge the other day and so I decided to write about what we discussed. I won't mention any names but this conversation came about when we were discussing people that had either dropped out of college or had been forced into a particular course or job they wouldn't have previously chose due to their inability to perform at a good standard in their A levels. Now, it'd be hypocritical for me to in anyway have a go at anyone that didn't do well at their A levels as I myself did very bad in my exams and somehow got into my first choice university on a course I love. I got lucky. But that doesn't stop me from almost seething with anger when anyone who has been forced into or decided to follow a career path that hones "practical" skills rather than doing the kind of degree that I am doing which hones "creative" skills decides to believe that they are doing something which will better themselves far more than anyone deciding to do something in the arts. Sam's opinion on the entire subject was that we must try and increase our ability in both practical and creative talents rather than sticking with one. Although I partially agree with this it's not how I feel on the subject. I would never describe myself as "a creative" because it's pretentious and comes with connotations of being a twat, quite rightly in many cases, but I am also someone who has near to no practical skills and I don't care about that. My ideal career path would be one where I can write the way I want to write about any subject matter I choose to write about, to use words as a form of expression. Whether this be lyrics or a novel or maybe even a journalist, I don't care that I will never know anything about car maintenance. This doesn't make me better than anyone else nor does it make me worse than anyone else but I do believe that it makes me a different person who desires to have more of an understanding about many more things. This subject can almost always stray into a debate about my opinon on the cuts in universities and the many marches that have taken place due to the proposed rise to student fees last year. Whether or not I agree with any of that is a different matter that I won't get into but it is interesting to note how many people reacted in their different ways, specifically those who scoffed at the entire affair. These are the people who find it hilarious that anyone could ever care about such a trivial thing, get your head sorted you moronic students, wait till you have to get a fucking job in REAL life. I think we can all be agreed that these particular people are twats who don't deserve a moment of our time. I've digressed here, my original point was that whether or not you see yourself as someone with "creative" skills or someone with "practical" skills doesn't matter. What does matter however is that we respect people's desicions and abilities, not take a negative opinon on someone else or a group of people purely because they have different talents to you.
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