You know one of the things I dislike about blogs is when you find one you like and the person writing stops updating. It's ironic that this one has gone the same way. I don't know why. I suppose it's much like when you got a diary. For the first couple of weeks your enthused with writing all the minutae of the day. As time progresses though, well it becomes less of joy and more of a chore.
Not that this is a chore, there's still just as much bile beating in my heart as there was when I started this little thing, there just isn't the same will. The word “meh” seems a good away of describing it as any.
Of course I still post on the net. It would be interesting to count up the amount of stuff I've actually posted around the internet. I reckon if I totaled up the 1000 posts there, the 4000 posts somewhere else, the posts on boards that don't exist anymore, the posts on boards that shouldn't exist anymore or the places I've been banned from (you know I don't care. 2000AD is shitter now than it has been in 15 years and the last three Porcupine Tree albums have been utter crap. Deal with it.) plus the assortment of other stuff out there I reckon it would probably amount to three or four books worth of stuff. While a collection of my writing probably wouldn't have much broad appeal i would be fascinating to see those first tentative posts on the old Spaced forum from 2001. (I think they were about Flash Gordon. Go figure)
But I digress. The point is that I do post on the internet a lot, I just don't post very much here. Which is puzzllng as this is the only place where I can stick things without someone going “yer taking out yer hole” - well people can write that (they haven't) but I can decide whether it appears or not. Perhaps I like the debate, perhaps I like the company, perhaps there's other reasons, but mainly I think it's because here it feels like I'm taking to myself..
Which I am. So you'll excuse me if the next rant I post seems reflect this.
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Back to life, back to reality
Nothing much to report. Okay then just a couple of things then.
Currently reading "Is It Just Me Or Is Everything Just Shit?". Don't remember writing this book but it does sound (a lot) like what's on this blog. If only I hadn't abandoned the old, traditional styles of communication in favour of a blog I'd have a nice quote from the Guardian on the back of a best selling book I'd written.
Perhaps I should just make a Guardian quote up for my blog "sour, miserable whinging that would make a baby panda cry. Try beating youself with a stick. It would be better crack than reading this shit"
Anyway I'll stick more up soon. Including the much anticipated "Clapping At Lottery Numbers" more "I Frigging Told You So's" and "The Rise of the Experts" which is a pun (a bad pun granted) only about three people will get
Saturday, May 03, 2008
Mine's better than yours
Post purchase reassurance. Not a thing many people have ever really heard of. But it does exist.
The buying process is a complicated thing, more complicated that you’d ever realise. Not because the steps to actually owning something are “complicated” rather that people rarely stop to think what these processes actually are. Indeed we’ve become so used to the process it simply doesn’t register. The “want” the “need” the “justification” and then the “purchase” are all so well ingrained in us that it seems automatic, a reflex action.
Of course it isn’t. It’s wrong to overstate that people are manipulated into buying products, but it is equally wrong to suggest that it is something free from external factors and pressures. Of course we are aware of advertising, but in the main people claim to be “unaffected” by it’s teasing, tantalising and temptations.
Which, is of course, utter rot.
You buy something because there is a need. The need may be that you have to eat, or the need may be that you want a games console. One is biological one is entirely mental.
Of course what advertising doesn’t really deal with is what happens once you’ve bought the thing. You’ve swallowed the bumpf and that shiny new consumer durable is now proudly residing in your front room. Now what?
That’s were “post purchase reassurance” raises it’s head. Put simply it’s that thought, “have I bought the right thing?” Now this manifests itself in a variety of ways. Perhaps the most obvious and depressingly common is something I’d refer to as “mine’s better than yours”. Even a casual browse of the internet will see how much of cyberspace is devoted to sites which can be boiled down to this simple phrase.
It’s part of human nature for people to seek out others with common interests and is nothing new. However I wonder if people whose common interest is a slickly marketed consumer durable realise just how odd a phenomena it is? More so how downright peculiar it is attacking others who’ve chosen a different consumer durable. This isn’t corporate evangelism; it’s a corporate inquisition. I know I’ve touched on this before but as religion declines I wonder if it is being replaced with a doctrine of loyalty to corporations? Again people deny this, “no” they state solemnly “I can see through the corporate hype, mine is definitely better than yours”. And of course it is.
Now you may think that doesn’t happen, people aren’t that stupid. But they are. Just to prove it I conducted a little experiment on a forum I occasionally post on just to see what would happen. Now this wasn’t a particularly scientific experiment but the response was interesting. I offered an alternative to the received wisdom. It didn’t take much. I was wrong. No explanation was given, I was simply wrong. Theirs “was better” all backed-up with evidence from other “mines better than yours” websites. The reaction to daring to suggest they’ve made the wrong choice gets to the core of “post purchase reassurance”.
Perhaps before the internet you just dealt with it. I’ve bought it, I’ve got to live with it.. But I can’t really believe that’s true. The myriad magazines that predate the internet demonstrate that this as long been a feature of what has become know as consumerism. “I’ve bought the right thing because a magazine dedicated to the product tells me so”.
However the internet has merely provided a new vehicle for people to ask for, and receive validation, from others who’ve looked for and received the validation. And as this is what you are specifically looking for, this is what you’ll specifically find. But the whole thing of defining yourself by the consumer durables you have and the validation you think you get from get from strangers because you own it is a thoroughly depressing thought.
I wonder what it says?
Nothing good.
The buying process is a complicated thing, more complicated that you’d ever realise. Not because the steps to actually owning something are “complicated” rather that people rarely stop to think what these processes actually are. Indeed we’ve become so used to the process it simply doesn’t register. The “want” the “need” the “justification” and then the “purchase” are all so well ingrained in us that it seems automatic, a reflex action.
Of course it isn’t. It’s wrong to overstate that people are manipulated into buying products, but it is equally wrong to suggest that it is something free from external factors and pressures. Of course we are aware of advertising, but in the main people claim to be “unaffected” by it’s teasing, tantalising and temptations.
Which, is of course, utter rot.
You buy something because there is a need. The need may be that you have to eat, or the need may be that you want a games console. One is biological one is entirely mental.
Of course what advertising doesn’t really deal with is what happens once you’ve bought the thing. You’ve swallowed the bumpf and that shiny new consumer durable is now proudly residing in your front room. Now what?
That’s were “post purchase reassurance” raises it’s head. Put simply it’s that thought, “have I bought the right thing?” Now this manifests itself in a variety of ways. Perhaps the most obvious and depressingly common is something I’d refer to as “mine’s better than yours”. Even a casual browse of the internet will see how much of cyberspace is devoted to sites which can be boiled down to this simple phrase.
It’s part of human nature for people to seek out others with common interests and is nothing new. However I wonder if people whose common interest is a slickly marketed consumer durable realise just how odd a phenomena it is? More so how downright peculiar it is attacking others who’ve chosen a different consumer durable. This isn’t corporate evangelism; it’s a corporate inquisition. I know I’ve touched on this before but as religion declines I wonder if it is being replaced with a doctrine of loyalty to corporations? Again people deny this, “no” they state solemnly “I can see through the corporate hype, mine is definitely better than yours”. And of course it is.
Now you may think that doesn’t happen, people aren’t that stupid. But they are. Just to prove it I conducted a little experiment on a forum I occasionally post on just to see what would happen. Now this wasn’t a particularly scientific experiment but the response was interesting. I offered an alternative to the received wisdom. It didn’t take much. I was wrong. No explanation was given, I was simply wrong. Theirs “was better” all backed-up with evidence from other “mines better than yours” websites. The reaction to daring to suggest they’ve made the wrong choice gets to the core of “post purchase reassurance”.
Perhaps before the internet you just dealt with it. I’ve bought it, I’ve got to live with it.. But I can’t really believe that’s true. The myriad magazines that predate the internet demonstrate that this as long been a feature of what has become know as consumerism. “I’ve bought the right thing because a magazine dedicated to the product tells me so”.
However the internet has merely provided a new vehicle for people to ask for, and receive validation, from others who’ve looked for and received the validation. And as this is what you are specifically looking for, this is what you’ll specifically find. But the whole thing of defining yourself by the consumer durables you have and the validation you think you get from get from strangers because you own it is a thoroughly depressing thought.
I wonder what it says?
Nothing good.
But none of this matters. You might as well be arguing with a Canary about Schoenberg’s theories on serialism. “Their” one is always going to better than “my” one. In the same way that “my” one is better than “theirs”
Sunday, March 30, 2008
New REM album...."a triumphant return to form"
or so the Independent reckons
And of course it is. Just like their last three albums have been "triumphant returns to form" or every single Oasis album since "What's The Story" or the rest...
We all bought "Automatic For The People", we all bought Moby's "Play", we all bought Air's "Moon Safari" we all bought "What's The Story". Etc. Etc. Etc.
Some of us were so impressed we bought their next new album.
Oh dear......
Of course the album that followed the follow up (ie. the one we didn't buy because it's predecessor was such utter crap) were invariably hailed as a "triumphant return to form".
No-one listened. Or, rather, no-one believed it.
We all know a band reaches a creative peak. Slowly and relentlessly though this passes. Some do the decent thing and split (only to reform a couple of years later) others just provide evidence of the law of diminishing returns.
Returns which are no less just because some hack in a newspaper says otherwise, or rather tells us something they've told us about every follow up to the popular one.
So the next REM album is almost certain to be a triumphant return to form. I guarantee it.
And of course it is. Just like their last three albums have been "triumphant returns to form" or every single Oasis album since "What's The Story" or the rest...
We all bought "Automatic For The People", we all bought Moby's "Play", we all bought Air's "Moon Safari" we all bought "What's The Story". Etc. Etc. Etc.
Some of us were so impressed we bought their next new album.
Oh dear......
Of course the album that followed the follow up (ie. the one we didn't buy because it's predecessor was such utter crap) were invariably hailed as a "triumphant return to form".
No-one listened. Or, rather, no-one believed it.
We all know a band reaches a creative peak. Slowly and relentlessly though this passes. Some do the decent thing and split (only to reform a couple of years later) others just provide evidence of the law of diminishing returns.
Returns which are no less just because some hack in a newspaper says otherwise, or rather tells us something they've told us about every follow up to the popular one.
So the next REM album is almost certain to be a triumphant return to form. I guarantee it.
Sunday, February 03, 2008
I'll be back
And indeed I am, well for the moment anyway. I've been innudated with worried emails "where are you" they ask? Ok that's not actually true the only thing I've had here is a spam link to getting "a better erection", which is one more email than I got in the previous 18 months. Just goes to show not even the spammers like me. (Low self esteem? Yip)
Any way I've been rereading some of the old nonsense I've posted here and most of it still amuses me, however I've noticed that it does read like a tirade of "whinging". So to counter this I'll be mentioning things I like. Yes it is hard to credit but there are things I like.
Really.
They do exist.
Hard to believe I know.
Obviously it would be nice if someone, after reading what I thought decided "I might just give that a go" and then post here saying "wow you've great taste" but that rather depends on two key things. Someone actually being bothered and more importantly, someone actually reading this bloody thing.
Still the spammers may enjoy the recommendations.
So if you need a tune to keep you going while composing your email touting the cheapest viagra on the net I'd recommend "Industry" by The Modern. Think an updated Human League / OMD but without the obvious attempts at replication which Ladytron (and their like) are so guilty.
Any way I've been rereading some of the old nonsense I've posted here and most of it still amuses me, however I've noticed that it does read like a tirade of "whinging". So to counter this I'll be mentioning things I like. Yes it is hard to credit but there are things I like.
Really.
They do exist.
Hard to believe I know.
Obviously it would be nice if someone, after reading what I thought decided "I might just give that a go" and then post here saying "wow you've great taste" but that rather depends on two key things. Someone actually being bothered and more importantly, someone actually reading this bloody thing.
Still the spammers may enjoy the recommendations.
So if you need a tune to keep you going while composing your email touting the cheapest viagra on the net I'd recommend "Industry" by The Modern. Think an updated Human League / OMD but without the obvious attempts at replication which Ladytron (and their like) are so guilty.
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