Back from Reality

Remember when you used to get documentaries on telly? Cutting Edge, Arena, Panorama, QED, each week a different story, a window into a part of life we were hitherto unfamiliar with. John's Not Mad springs to mind, the first time we became aware of Tourette's Syndrome. Now we have Tourette's: Let us Entertain You, a 3 part series that takes young Tourette's sufferers with musical talent and puts them in front of an audience to see what happens. Then of course there's X Factor, My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding, Eddie Stobbart: Trucks and Trailers. All of these shows could comfortably provide a single 1 hour documentary's worth of entertainment value but nowadays they are dragged out into series after series, spin-off after spin-off.

There's a real idea deficit in telly at the moment, it feels to me like the creative people in the industry aren't the ones dictating the content, that's a job that's left to the money people. And as much as I have nothing against accountants and appreciate that they do a job that needs to be done I don't want to rely on them to entertain and enlighten me.

You see that's the real problem with today's telly, it should be about more than entertainment. In most households the TV is on from dusk till dawn, whenever someone is in the house and awake the gogglebox is on. It's no longer something that's used to fill a couple of empty hours or provide escapism once the kids are in bed and the hoovering is done. TV is a constant in our modern lives, it is always with us and therefore it has great power to influence and educate us. To challenge us with thought-provoking content, provide us with knowledge and present us with ideas different to our own.

Telly should not just entertain, it should enrich. But for the most part it doesn't because its cheaper and easier to pitch to the lowest common denominator, the thinking seems to be that if the great unwashed masses who watch TV don't understand it they will switch off and watch something they do so let's keep it simple. It's patronising and insulting and it's making people dumber. Most homes now have a computer or an iPad or even a phone with the Internet on it, I'm writing this on my phone right now. When I watch something challenging and intelligent and something is mentioned that I don't understand or want to learn more about I go online and check it out. I learn. I don't for a second think I'm more intelligent than anyone else so I think it's safe to assume that others would do the same.




Don't get me wrong, there is a lot of intelligent, high-brow programming out there, the BBC don't have a "get out of jail free" card when it comes to accusations of dumbing down but on average they do provide slightly more intelligent and thought-provoking shows than the commercial channels. They still pander to focus groups and ratings concerns but they aren't a slave to advertisers to the same extent. It would be a terrible loss if they ever did away with the license fee. But the issue is that for every QI there's a Homes Under the Hammer. For every The Newsroom there's a Geordie Shores. And for every Frozen Planet there are 10 Take Me Out!

A great philosopher once said "With great power comes great responsibility" and the makers of television have great power. So step up guys and gals, why not do some good and create a generation of people who demand more, who ask challenging questions and insist on quality because its all they've ever known? Why not use your voice and the great weight that it carries for something more than Jeremy Kyle? Because nobody really cares what Jordan Did Next, they just watch it because you don't give them anything more interesting. In the absence of smart, witty and emotional drama people will watch minor celebrities eating bugs and will still buy the washing up liquid advertised in between courses but you shouldn't take that as a sign that we are all content. When the television is on from sunrise to sunset and beyond we will watch whatever you put on it but when you have the power to make society better instead of stupider and you choose not to use it, you are in danger of becoming the lowest common denominator yourself.




-- Post From My iPhone

Do Not Feed the Trolls

Troll face: the cheeky, mischievous, insane, grinning face that has come to represent those insane, mischievous, cheeky chappies who like nothing better than to go online and upset complete strangers for shits and giggles. Due to the anonymous nature of what they do it's impossible to say what percentage of them are male but I'm willing to bet it's a high percentage, in the 90s at least.

When the above image first appeared online in 2008 it was in a deviantArt comic by "Whynne" comparing what Trolls want you to think they look like to what they actually look like (which was basically a twisted and angry mess). The irony of them adopting this image is clearly lost on them as they are far from cheeky and mischievous, they are cruel, attention seeking, selfish and nasty. To most of us the idea of taking pleasure in others' misery and wearing it like a badge of honour is abhorrent which is how it should be, but then the idea of breaking the glass in bus shelters and writing your name on someone else's wall doesn't make sense to most of us either. It still happens though.

I honestly can't get my head round what motivates someone to go out of their way to hurt someone they have never met before, just to get attention. The recent examples of Gary Barlow and Tom Daly receiving abuse on Twitter spring to mind. In both cases they had recently gone through a traumatic and emotional time and for some reason two complete shit heads thought they would get famous by adding to their misery. I won't name them because frankly all they are after is attention and I won't be responsible for sending one more person their way, but in both cases the comments they wrote were every bit as vile as the guys who wrote them.

So what should we do about it? Nothing. Seriously, nothing.

I have a 4 year old son so I know a bit about attention seeking and I've watched my fair share of Super Nanny and the lesson is clear. Ignore bad behaviour. And you know what, it works!
Imagine this. You are on a parenting forum and the subject is labor. You decide to share the story of your labor which may have been traumatic, may have been heart-warming, may have ended in tragedy or elation. So you write your story to share with other likeminded and sympathetic forum members. The first post comes in thanking you for sharing. The next post comes in telling you that they found your post inspiring, perhaps offering comfort, the next few posts come in then suddenly a post appears telling you that you are a terrible parent, you don't deserve children and your story must be made up as you look from your profile picture like a 17 year old. Oh you are a 17 year old? Well in that case you shouldn't be a parent, you must be a slut. What happens next?

Well if you don't reply to it someone else certainly will and that's it. The troll's work is done. Then there will be outrage, then there will be talk of reporting the culprit, then banning them and so on and so forth. The troll will be delighted, he will have something to tell his other troll friends and they will soak the attention up as if it were affection.

Now imagine this. The offensive post appears and no-one pays a bit of attention to it. Then another more offensive post appears from the same anonymous coward but still no-one replies. The discussion continues as before and the troll moves on. If it's Facebook or Twitter you delete the post and it is forgotten, if it's a forum the moderator deletes the post and it's gone forever. What do you think would happen next?

Another trend I've noticed lately is starting pages on social networking sites to share sick jokes or in other words to court controversy. You will never hear about any of them unless you go looking for them and the only people who will look at them are the kind of sickos who find dead babies, cancer and kittens with tumours hilarious, unless of course someone on your friends list posts on their page to tell them how sick they think it is. Then it will appear on the page of everyone who is on their friends list. Maybe you will share their outrage, as will your friends, you may also wish to share your anger and before you know it the page is all over the internet, perhaps it might make the news, won't that be good? Then there will be campaigns to shut the page down, then talk of banning then....... you get the picture?

OK, I think I've maybe laboured the point a bit but basically the message is this, ignore the bad behaviour and it will go away. It do it when my 4 year old misbehaves and so far so good. To be quite honest with you he rarely does misbehave now but at that age kids don't have the emotional maturity to tell the difference between good attention and bad attention, they just crave any attention they can get. Just like the emotionally stunted trolls. And it's our job to teach them so we reward good behaviour with love and positive attention and give the bad behaviour no attention whatsoever. And they learn. And they stop. It's really not easy, it takes will power and it's frustrating but you have to stand firm and be the mature, responsible one. But the thing is it will only work if we all agree to do it. It only takes one person to reply to them and you have fed the troll. Let's see if we can all stand together and get rid of them once and for all.