It's a bit like a "self-eating cake"

Last week I commented, for the first time ever, below an article on theJournal.ie, a website I frequent and enjoy on daily basis. The article in question was entitled, "Here’s what people thought of TV3′s crime documentary about Limerick." Now I have never been to Limerick, nor did I watch the documentary referred to, but this is not about Limerick, step away from the Limerick. This is what I said in my comment:

"Do a handful of tweets about a tv programme now constitute news? What if someone retweets this article and that tweet winds up on a similar tweet-based article which is then retweeted and featured in an article and further retweeted and then if the cycle was to repeat itself over and over again to the point that someone somewhere, possibly even TV3, were to make a programme or a feature about it and then people tweeted about that! AND then an article surfaced on theJournal.ie that told everyone about the reaction to that televisual feast. What then? I ask you, what then?"

Funny? Right? Witty? You know it! ... Incisive? Perhaps. I was trying to point out the pointlessness of such an article as well as the self-congratulatory relationship between the news, internet, social media and television. This type of article is all to common, a similar version appeared following TV programmes such as Love/Hate and the recent Charlie series, both on RTÉ. I actually have less of a problem with these given that they were presented differently as a handful of entertaining responses to what are essentially programmes that exist for our entertainment. When the programme at the centre of the article is something more factual, or to do with current affairs then presenting the piece as an all encompassing "what people thought," rather than "what some people thought," or "what some people who use twitter thought," is irresponsible, misleading, and frankly, does not constitute news. It was always predicted that twitter would gradually progress from reporting the news to becoming the news in and of itself as well, and this cannot be disputed when you see celebrity tweets or who they have followed or unfollowed being reported as significant news, both online and in print. As the title of this blogpost suggests, it's a bit like a "self-eating cake" to borrow one of Nicola Murray's phrases from The Thick of It. 

This same smugness and inter-dependence can be further seen in reality television which is more regurgitating itself rather than eating itself, with homogeneous "reality stars" moving from one show to the next, showing their face (or more), saying something stupid or offensive and thereby building their profile, so that they can be recognised as celebrities, though there may be little worth celebrating. Of course, this suits the tabloid papers and the internet just fine, as they can report on reality stars and their "juicy" lives instead of reality. 

Yet even the more so-called highbrow or intellectual programmes are not above this. Look at the celebrated Steven Moffat institutions of Sherlock and Doctor Who, for example, which have become sickeningly self-referential and deferetial towards their fanbase, the internet's reaction and the zeitgeist as a whole. The former incorporating the hashtag #sherlocklives into the show as well as dedicating an entire episode to provoking reaction from the internet through alternative and ultimately inconclusive get-out-clauses explaining how the titular character faked his own death. And as for Doctor Who, well, "Spoilers."

Is this a harmless trend, a demonstration of the widespread inter-connectivity thanks to the rise of social media, or is it something more worrying. Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno in their essay "The Culture Industry as Mass Deception" may have highlighted and predicted this issue when they wrote, "The attitude of the public,

which ostensibly and actually favors the system of the culture industry, is a part of the system and not an excuse for it." The "attitude of the public" now exists in the form of social media and has become an integral part of the culture insustry. Is it any wonder then, following a huge economic crisis which no other ideology would have survived, the people have barely stirred and capitalism endures, as they say, "The result is the circle of manipulation and retroactive need in which the unity of the system grows ever stronger." Dun. Dun. Dunnnn. (In short, blame all on Celebrity Big Brother and Limerick)

A journal piece about TV3

Led me towards the culture Industry

For problems with the internet

I blamed Steven Moffat

And became a Marxist revolutionary.

Joe.

Here's a link to THAT journal article: http://www.thejournal.ie/tv3-donal-mcintyre-breaking-crime-1866400-Jan2015/?utm_source=shortlink

The Tamaill Tiger

Sure hasn't it been a while - a tamaill - which just for old time's sake can be my (cue fanfare) Irish Word Of The Week! A word which has absolutely no connection with the Sri Lankan militant organisation, the Tamil Tigers. Though if we accept tamaill to specifically translate as the word 'while' and not just a period of time then that kind of makes sense i.e. those are some 'while tigers'. Thus after almost two years without writing anything in my sensually titled blog, I announce my return with a joke that is both obscure and largely dependent on you having a grasp of colloquially mispronounced and idiomatic Fermanagh-isms which should really be the subject of a lengthy post or thesis at a later date. Anyhoo I digress, to paraphrase the -Terminator - I'm Back!
Well we'll see what happens. The thing is, a lot has changed since I created and then slowly became less interested in this blog, but not too much I hope. I remember once being told by my year 13 Politics teacher that most peoples' brains peak at the age of seventeen and being utterly terrified and thinking, "Fuck! I'd better write my life-defining, legacy-leaving play/novel/tv-series/screenplay/short story/poem or just something!" So I eventually wrote a blog for a bit and then gave up.
Two years later and my portfolio of writing has not expanded to any great extent and, if Mrs. Beeson is to be believed, my best years are behind me. My mind is now gloop. And to make matters worse, I have become a 'recreational alcoholic', or 'student'. The little boy who achieved the heights of 'best academic in Year 8' has become this:

That's right. I am out of control.
The bottle pictured above may well have contained over a sixth of its maximum contents by the time I got my fiendish hands to it. Won't somebody please think of the children.
So I return to my pretentiously titled blog at a time in my life when, specifically, I am lying in bed at home in Fermanagh with self-diagnosed tonsillitis (an experience which may affect my relationship with my as yet unborn son who shall be named Tonsil) having come home at the weekend to play hurling only to be struck down with illness - oh the horror! But more generally I am midway through my second term at Trinity College Dublin where I am studying English Literature and I have realised that I am doing a lot more thinking. At first this thinking manifested itself in my return to Twitter, something which happens once or twice a year since I do tend to go through phases of stuff. But as I sat struggling with the immense pressure of being funny in my Twitter 'bio' I had a nice wee epiphany (these tend to be more frequent the more thinking I do). I thought why 'micro-blog' when I can 'macro-blog', or 'blog'. So I came back to Oftentimes, just to touch base (awful phrase) and hopefully it will be a little less awkward the next time I decide I'd like to write having got the initial reunion over with. I wanted to write about what I was thinking about when trying to cram everything about me into a limited paragraph or even a single phrase but that can wait for another day now that the pleasantries are almost complete.
On a more narcissistic note, when I type 'Oftentimes' into Google my blog is way down the list instead of where it should be and well, that just ain't right.
Finally, I glanced at my old blogposts and noticed one entitled 'Stupid like a fox', my fox favouritism and phrase usage has not waned in two years so I can't have changed that much. I think that's a good thing. I like me. #narcissist

Joe