mister.drumz

Trends, oh how I hate thee

Right, realised I hadn’t posted anything of substance on here lately, I have been somewhat preoccupied and not had much time to myself. It’s not worth going into as it’s a growing list, latest being the horrible throat condition I seem to have developed and has made mornings impossible.

Anyway, I am going to be writing a wee bit about something that’s been bothering me recently but it will be interrupted as I’m going to be eating Chinese food shortly. So thought I’d try and cram something quick in. Enjoy, or don’t whatever, I’m just venting some steam anyway.

So trends, they’re a fickle thing aren’t they, well their definition dictates as much and so it’s for that reason I treat them with such disdain. Surely someone will have told you to listen to a band/see a film/watch this show or something similar at some point, telling you you’d love it (the absurdity of this statement can vary depending on how well you know said person) this would be fine if it was a friend of many years but if someone you’ve known a few months at best tells you my argument is that there’s a great chance that they’ll get it right.

It’s not just the ways that trends affect you in this respect it’s mainly when people seem to all like something at the same time. It’s a bit ridiculous when the masses all like something and normally with great mania over said band or film and well, it’s happened in the past such as Beatlemania (for damn good reason by the way) but these days I don’t see many things to get overtly excited about, still it seems I’m in a distinct minority.

How do I know this? Well I didn’t even need to conduct any social research, all you need to do, fair reader, is log in to Facebook and there you go, everyone’s status updates (myself included) will eventually show some sign that the person has caught on to some trend and decided to cleverly and narcissisticly proclaim this devotion to their “friends”. Oh joy, I could not have managed another day without knowing you’re in love with the new album by insert band du jour and even working some line or song title in….high levels of creativity and wit indeed!

The thing is that most of the people who will be taken in by these trends are the same people who are not so much loyal to bands, merely the trend they represent. I know a long list of crappy bands and films that get too much respect and attention, almost any long curly haired stick man with a six string and a drug habit can get a good crowd behind them for a few months and probably a die hard underground following of “hip cats” but to be honest they’ll only move on to the next trend as soon as it breaks.

Just like how the late nineties and early noughties (hate that expression, I use it reluctantly) dance/hard house/hardcore/scouse house (or as I call it, ear rape) was huge for people, now it’s the aforementioned curly haired guitar slingers. I suppose it’s a step in the right direction but if they want to find truly good music then they’re a good few decades late.

It’s no secret most modern music is severely derivative of music from the 70s or 80s, the true golden age of music, but then when I think about it most bands or artists I like were “the trend” at the time, so it’s now that I have become dangerously close to being labelled a hypocrite. Maybe I am, I certainly aren’t preaching to anyone about my tastes though. The most I’ll do when faced with a misguided soul drilling a band or film recommendation into my head forcefully then I’ll smile, nod and probably say I’ll check it out.

The truth is most of the time I’ll forget as generally most recommendations fall drastically short of your expectations, there’s only been one recommendation out of the three that I can remember that I actually enjoyed. That was a TV show that multiple people informed me that I had missed and it turned out to be greatly entertaining, the other two were a video game that as soon as I bought it, it was up on eBay within an hour. The third thing was a TV show that I already knew I hated, didn’t find it funny in the slightest and is exactly one of these trends with their maniac fans.

So that’ll do for now, trends suck, but not all trends, I think it’s more a case of how they are introduced to you. If it’s brought to your attention like you’ve lived under a rock all your life and your life will be enriched for following their advice then chances are, from my experience, it’ll suck. If it’s a passing mention or a friendly pointer then it may be pretty good and at least worth a shot.

So here we go, I’ve tried a little social experiment, I have done what the maniacs do and put an album title of an artist I enjoy on my facebook status, I’ll also preach here for a nano second: Seasick Steve, it’s good blues music and I saw him at Leeds Festival too. He’s getting a bit of attention on TV and such at the moment too but I’ve enjoyed his music for a good few months now.

I’ll see how many people catch on to my statement and who knows, I may even start something!

Top Five typical posts on Digg.com (aka Ranty McRanterson)

I’ve noticed quite a lot of “news” topics cropping up on Digg recently which instilled a great sense of Deja-Vu, and rightly so since they were submitted over a few months ago, enough for the users of the site to push it to the back of their memory but not the clever re-poster.

I’ve noticed five main things that keep getting submitted every few months, it’s annoying since I’ve sometimes fell into the trap of digging both the original and the repost….shame on me, anyways here’s my brief little list:

1. Top Ten lists of “strange” or “cool” things found on Google Earth/Maps - Yes, we get it sometimes a satellite tracking round the planet will take a picture of a plane flying over a suburb, or the map images may blend together strangely making a road disappear into nothing.  These were intrigueing the first time but it stopped being funny the thirtieth time I clicked on the topic.
2. Anything from TheOnion.com, cleverly not noted as fake news - I’m sure plenty of people enjoy this kind of humour but I don’t get it, fake news is annoying, sure your catchy headline with no indication that this is a convoluted attempt at humour will get you a lot of clicks but thr truth is I can smell these topics a mile off and will simply glance over it as I would a LOLcat picture.  try this site if you want to see it done right.
3. (speaking of which) LOLcat pictures - Hopefully this fad has now died a death and will never be unceremoniously resurrected, they were pretty cute with their juxtaposition of cute pictures of cats, dogs, walruses (what?) with semi-retarded excuses for the english language but posting every single one that tickles your fancy is annoying.  People who talk like that in reall ife too aren’t ironic, they need their skulls drilling and that empty space between their ears filling with concrete. KTHXBAI
4. xkcd cartoons - Right, stickmen, they’re funny aren’t they?  Remember those early flash animations where some joker would make a stickman take on a thousand stick ninjas, that was fun for ohh, five minutes.  Now the humble stickman has been rejuvenated in the wonderfully witty cartoons about “Romance, sarcasm, math & Language”, that itself sounds like a really bad day at high school, but they may have been ok if it weren’t for everyone one of them reaching the front page of Digg regardless of whether they’re even funny.
5. Ripping on political figures regardless of party - OK I would first point out I don’t vote, I’m in England so it doesn’t really matter as we get shafted for everything anyways thanks to taxes.  That may make me a bad person but it’s one less decision to make and I truely have no interest in who runs this country…into the ground.  Apparently americans do though, or so you’d believe.  The internet is awash with people saying they need to vote for Obama (admittedly a great prospect I guess) and not for the evil old pensioner.  Trouble is that if the media were to be believed they’re going to put a different party in to office because he’s not a Republican, in turn not George Bush.  But when you think they first of all put him in their eight years ago and when faced with a chance to bin that cowboy off they still voted to keep him right there.  I don’t want to be the errant stone being thrown on to this political minefield but it says something if you need people like P Diddy/Diddy/Poppa Diddy Pop to demand you vote…  Phew, anyway too much political stuff on Digg, that is all :)

I’m certainly not in  agood mood according to this aren’t !?  Didn’t mean to get all preachy and I do realise that I could have better spent the time on my review of the Apple announcements last week but in all honesty the news was so boring and recycled from other companies that I may jib it off all together.

Basically: new shaped iPods in time for christmas (wonderful marketing there Jobs!), lacklustre software update, pointless feature which has not been made into even more pointless, irrelevant and pretentious, oh and tiny tweaks to current models that haven’t been out a year yet still make your customers pay for updates, buy the latest model blah blah blah.  So what if that comes off as fanboyish, the simple fact is that I don’t like Apple stuff.  So sue me.

Anyway, I’m off to the pub tonight and, god willing, I’ll have a hassle free good time!  I say god willing but in actual fact I don’t believe in any god so guess I’ll take that back.

Yoink!

Laters