The Saturday morning movie post begins with a coy introduction designed to make you curious about the video in the hopes of enticing you to watch it. Then it’s followed by a YouTube embed of the video in question:
Link (YouTube) |
After the video I’ll refer to the content more explicitly, and I’ll try to mention what parts I thought were interesting or perhaps what it is about the subject matter that caused me to link it in the first place.
And finally I’ll have the wrap-up paragraph, where I’ll say something in hopes of inciting a response or starting a conversation.
The Opportunity Crunch
No, brutal, soul-sucking, marriage-destroying crunch mode in game development isn't a privilege or an opportunity. It's idiocy.
Civilization VI
I'm a very casual fan of the series, but I gave Civilization VI a look to see what was up with this nuclear war simulator.
The Best of 2018
I called 2018 "The Year of Good News". Here is a list of the games I thought were interesting or worth talking about that year.
Gamers Aren’t Toxic
This is a horrible narrative that undermines the hobby through crass stereotypes. The hobby is vast, gamers come from all walks of life, and you shouldn't judge ANY group by its worst members.
Project Octant
A programming project where I set out to make a Minecraft-style world so I can experiment with Octree data.
I guess this is the part where we, the viewers of said video, post some sort of illuminating fact about what we just saw.
Or we simply go on saying something completely irrelevant to the discussion at hand.
In the end it’s pretty much your choice.
OT: nice one, it had me laughing quite a bit.
This is the part where I hijack the first post with an unrelated comment, but really I just want you to click on the link to my homepage that I included in my post.
Except I don’t have a page I want to share, so here’s something better: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmBtanGjziM
And here’s the part where some random internet troll pops in to tell everybody how much they suck. Oh, and long live the reign of the Republicans/Democrats/Labour/Torries/Greenies/Fascists/political party of your choice. Because all other politicians suck as well and are personally responsible for this terrifying news segment.
Well this is the part where some other poster ignores the troll and moves back on topic. Thanking Shamus for another amusing Saturday morning diversion.
Except it’s Saturday evening where I live
Eventually someone will post an reply to an earlier remark that is unconnected to its content, only ‘replying’ near the top in order to insure more people will see his contribution. Rather than posting the new thought near the bottom of the thread as etiquette dictates he should.
This brings up an actual question. Are people more likely to read these sorts of replies? (I usually expect, and do, the opposite, but I do end up as the unusual one in a lot of areas.)
(Or, in the style of the thread)
Than someone finds a tangentially related detail that sticks out, and asks a question related to that detail.
No, Actually I was going to complain about the fact that Shamus doesn’t write articles as he used to, about game design or game reviews…He keeps putting those lame ass videos and the LP for Fallout 3 that I’ve gotten tired of :(
This is a comment full of fanboyish glee and impatience and gibberish about the impending starcraft sequel.
This is a comment decrying foul and explaining in long, heated sentences why Starcraft II is going to suck, why Blizzard has sold out, and possibly some insults regarding the sexual orientation of the previous poster. Caps Lock and l33t-speak may or may not be involved.
Then someone takes the current running gag of the comments thread and goes meta with it by applying the gag’s format to the gag itself, possibly while referencing the Xzibit meme.
Don’t forget that there will always be people who post first, and only then actually start watching the video.
Edit: And after watching, time permitting, will edit their comment-for-the-sake-of-comment to actually include their thoughts on the video, in an effort to make the comment seem worthwhile and thought out instead of just claiming space.
And then some jerk comes along and completely disagrees with what has been previously stated and adds his own troll-like reply just to show the world what a great mastermind he is.
Then he adds a final paragraph, quite possibly involving something humorous at the expense of the previous poster. It might involve his mother and a horse performing something sexual, or worse.
There’s also the post made about the original poster failing to actually post first.
While simultaneously decrying the folly of posting for the sake of getting first place.
Then a reader posts a link that may or may not be relevant to the topic at hand: http://www.google.com/search?q=recursion
To understand the above link, you really must see this link first though.
http://www.google.com/search?q=recursion
Google says you mistyped the word and proposes to use this link instead:
http://www.google.com/search?q=recursion
I believe this is the part where someone showers your blog post with mindless praise/unrationalized ridicule without even looking what the post was all about.
But I did, and that was two minutes of genius.
Stumbled into this a couple of months ago. Enticed me to watch some more Newswipe, but none were quite as good as this one. Still funny stuff though.
Then some cxommenters will write how they saw the video long ago and that it’s now old.
And someone else will agree, but insist that it is still entertaining and worth a look.
Then he may wonder aloud to himself, typing the thought as he does so, how long this can continue before the entire page qualifies as a gigantic piece of spam.
how old is this?
LRR did something similar six years ago:
http://loadingreadyrun.com/videos/view/117/Quantum-Documentary
it’s actually the oldest video on their site
Haven’t seen the LRR video (it’s not loading), though I do know the Daily Show did a news deconstruction with debates on current events.
Having seen the LRR one a while back whilst trying to convince myself they were funny, the charlie brooker one is immensely better. Especially so if you live in the UK where this is exactly how the BBC news here report.
The LRR video says it requires Quicktime. After I went to so much trouble uninstalling it.
There is also this one
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFicqklGuB0
which is apparently not as original as I had initially assumed, but still pretty funny and well made.
LRR recently did a similar video in an informational presentation style. It had graphs. It’s a lot better than the quantum documentary one.
So I search for the mentioned video,and finally link it here:
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/loadingreadyrun/1645-Informational-Presentation
Funnily (or stupidly) enough, I’d go and see that movie if somebody really made it…
Obligatory irrelevant link
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2010/06/12/xcom-the-first-trailer/
Its the first trailer for xcom.
Apparently its Bioshock + X-files with x-com unnecesairily slapped on top.
UPD: As for the subject matter…yeaaah.
Modern News pretty much lost all respect and trustworthiness at this point, not presenting objective analysis of facts and events, but merely spoonfeeding “right” opinions to the Average Joe, these opinions being tailored according to interests of whatever power is holding the media outlets, or just saying what people want to hear.
Then I reply to one of the comments fuming with rage about something that I dont like.
I like how everything is in line with this “behind-the-scenes” recursive journalistic take and then there’s the animation of the whatever person getting beheaded by a lightsaber…
I suppose my love of British humor has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that my maiden name was Bottomley.
Nah…
It’s probably because I drink too much tea.
Leslee
Flame bait. Ban-worthy comment consisting of leetspeak.
Egregious hostile response by someone with easily injured self-esteem tied to a subject that may or may not be related to the subject at hand.
Second hostile response telling the instigator to go shove things into an inappropriate place, and then learn the basic values of English.
Third party reminding the two hostile commenters that they are giving the original commenter what he wants. Call for better moderation.
Double-post to lend more credibility to myself, in case people gloss over the names on posts.
LOLcat that is only tangentially (if at all) related to the topic at hand: http://icanhascheezburger.files.wordpress.com/2009/01/funny-pictures-cat-eats-your-newspaper.jpg
Troll-like post, irrelevantly questioning the sexuality of previous poster. Insulting ensues. Most likely in caps.
Post agreeing with last poster, while asking everyone to visit a link to a site that gives hair grow pills in exchange for full credit card access.
Stock picture of Picard facepalming. You know which one.
Spam post containing an auto-generated response stating how good the movie is and that everyone should watch it at s u s p i c i o u s w e b s i t e . c o m
Short post indicating approval of subject matter, quickly glossed over by 99% of those making comments.
Because the short post happens to be witty, one random person who obsessively reads comments will comment with approval for the comment.
I got my Journalism class to watch this. It is hilariously accurate, but I agree that not many of the other Newswipes are as good as that particular segment.
Oh, sorry, uh, and then this is the part where I participate in the ongoing joke, albeit poorly?
I remember a British advert I saw that did exactly the same thing for something they were trying to sell. It even included a black guy saying “I’m the token black guy in this commercial.” I only saw it once and it was 2 decades ago but I still remember it because it was so awesome.
So Shamus, you have forgiven Charlie Brooker? I seem to remember a text of his in the Guardian provoked some ire from you a while back…
I had ire because I didn’t realize the article was in jest. I’d never heard of the guy before and didn’t get his humor in print.
I guess it was like someone catching a transcript of Stephen Colbert and missing out on the fact that he’s satire. Embarrassing.
You may be interested to know that he’s a gamer, and did a fantastic one-off special called Gameswipe:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Brooker%27s_Gameswipe
I’ve done a few google searches and come up blank. I give up. When before did Shamus mention this Charlie Brooker bloke?
http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=1040
Cringe.
Dont feel bad.Good satire can be hard to spot,especially if it is in writing.
At least you weren’t one of the Americans who sent him death threats when he accidentally suggested that George Bush be the target of an assassin.
(well, he paraphrased some old British graffiti from the Thatcher years, which ran “Guy Fawkes, where are you now?” with “John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald, where are you now?” – this, he has since pointed out, works rather better when you aren’t writing it in a national newspaper which also publishes your articles online)
I do like Charlie Brooker though, I used to read his TVGoHome website when I was at University and am quite chuffed that he’s all famous now. Ish. In a ‘writes for the Guardian and has TV programmes on BBC4 and Channel 4’ way.
Down here, someone posts a comment without reading any of the comments above it because there’s too many of them, without bothering to make a point since he knows no one’s going to read his comment either.
Then someone posts a comment on this comment out of simple spite, just to demonstrate how truly unrelated to everything else it is.
Then somebody posts a comment where they declare themselves the first commenters, long after commenting has begun.
This is a post I make referencing te issue only tangentially, and asking Shamus why he hasn’t tried Dwarf Fortress yet.
At this point, it’s common practice for someone to step up and agree, and wonder if we’ll see a Let’s Play of DF somewhere down the line, while at the same time making a self-deprecating comment to make it seem less serious and fanboyish, even though it’s an entirely serious question, and super fanboyish.
Here another DF fan steps in to counter-point that though DF is an excellent game, and Author Of Site should definitely play it [place ellipsis here] this repondent’s claim is towards the unsuitability of it as a deprecative comedy medium. Respondent then suggests it be completely overlooked due to just mentioned unsuitibility.
Respondent then makes clever and suggestive remarks designed to provoke Author of Site into doing the opposite of Respondent’s suggestion.
Here’s where a fan of a completely different game with the same abbreviation (Dark Forces) posts a comment of approval without paying attention to the predecessors, setting off a personal spiral of shame and embarrasment for the rest of his life.
Grammar Nazi comment correcting ’embarassing’ to add to the aforementioned spiral.
I also post one witty comment somewhere,and probably add a tangent link:
http://giblar.com/games/click/link%20windwaker.JPG
A link to an actually relevant AND funny video:
http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1930825
EDIT: Then finds out that someone has already posted a link to the same video above… (explanation as to why one had missed that)
Oh, actually. That reminds me of a video that actually relates to this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFicqklGuB0&
I will now ruin the pattern by saying that this is the best blog post + comments ever.
It’s like a performance art piece, isn’t it? It all feeds into a biting commentary about pop culture.
This comment has been deleted
(Or whatever it says when a comment is deleted) The comment will than provoke curiosity from people wondering what was said that was so bad as to need deletion.
Despite the initial post in this thread being deleted, below it is an angry comment referencing a hot-button issue and the poster’s passionate stance in apparent opposition to the above poster’s opinion.
Charlie Brooker is a former games writer who used to work for PC Zne (a big UK PC gaming mag) in the 90s. He had a back page cartoon/column that once got the magazine removed from WH SMiths (the largest magazine retailer) for a cartoon called ‘Cruelty Zoo’. It was a cartoon which described a game in which the player shoot animals in the face all day as a comment on the Tomb Raider games which seemed to consist of killing every rare species on the planet. Not a comedy highlight but it showed a willingness to bite the hand that feeds (the magazine included an A4 apology the next issue).
Also worth finding is his quiz/comedy on tv tropes ‘You Have Been Watching’ (http://www.channel4.com/programmes/you-have-been-watching/4od may not work outside UK&I)
Snide comment on how this has been done plenty of times before this, rebuking you for your unoriginality despite the fact that that gag gets me every time.
If pushed I’d say that Charlie Brooker deconstructs the television experience in the way that you deconstruct the gaming experience with Yahtzee’s use of profanity.
I enjoy his work hugely.
And then a lesser blogger links to the post and tries posts a trackback in order to draw attention to his piddly, mundane blog. Unfortunately, his web-fu is weak and he ends up posting a spammerific comment instead.
Two weeks later someone who’s still catching up comes across the post and adds his comments, making Shamus wonder what that’s all about until he remembers the details of the post the comment was in reply to.
This is the part where someone who hasn’t been visiting this site for a few months decided to post a comment while reading the archives.