Being 'into politics '

luka

Well-known member
Worse but all part of the same universe. The same specific social grouping. The same mode of consciousness. The same lazy assumptions and prejudices. The same overestimation of their own intelligence and wit. The same chortling dinner party.
 
Last edited:

john eden

male pale and stale
I've realised now that all of this stuff is even worse than Mock the Week.

I think it is because Mock The Week is clearly billed as entertainment but your commentariat (it's not really journalism) really seem to believe that making comments about Boris' demeanour will carry some kind of political weight.
 

craner

Beast of Burden
I think it is because Mock The Week is clearly billed as entertainment but your commentariat (it's not really journalism) really seem to believe that making comments about Boris' demeanour will carry some kind of political weight.

That's why it's more insidious. People who chortle along to Hyde think that their chortling is a mark of intelligence, superiority, discrimination and even a form of participation. Every now and then Hyde lets the snark mask slip and gets passionately angry about something for effect, although the only time I really saw her get angry was when Aaron Bastani said something about his anxiety issues which really pissed her off for some reason that was probably to do with her broadsheet clan.

These people are parasites, not satirists.
 

vimothy

yurp
"The press is a gang of cruel faggots. Journalism is not a profession or a trade. It is a cheap catch-all for fuckoffs and misfits—a false doorway to the backside of life, a filthy piss-ridden little hole nailed off by the building inspector, but just deep enough for a wino to curl up from the sidewalk and masturbate like a chimp in a zoo-cage." (Hunter S Thompson)
 

vimothy

yurp
"The press is a gang of cruel faggots. Journalism is not a profession or a trade. It is a cheap catch-all for fuckoffs and misfits—a false doorway to the backside of life, a filthy piss-ridden little hole nailed off by the building inspector, but just deep enough for a wino to curl up from the sidewalk and masturbate like a chimp in a zoo-cage." (Hunter S Thompson)
unfortunately, journalism no longer has as much character
 

vimothy

yurp
looking back on that false doorway to the backside of life as a veritable golden age of the medium compared to today's antiseptic shitshow
 

Leo

Well-known member
That's why it's more insidious. People who chortle along to Hyde think that their chortling is a mark of intelligence, superiority, discrimination and even a form of participation.

this is the same issue I have with social media, how people think they've accomplished something by retweeting a writer's smug column or pithy observation. fuck right off.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Also, with the Miliband thing people get super excited but it makes absolutely no difference to what is going to happen. What might make a difference is that law and order Tories revolt maybe.

I agree, to a point - it does make you wonder what the opposition is really for, when the government has such a big majority. Should Labour MPs just avoid Westminster for three years, concentrate on constituency issues and then come back when it's time to gear up for the next general election? Which sounds kind of defeatist - "letting them get away with it" - but, as you say, they're getting away with it anyway.

Same with Private Eye (mainly) and Marina Hyde "artfully skewering those idiots in Westminster" - it's just smug. Making sure you laugh at the latest bit of the political soap opera, oh it is all so terrible and how can they possibly get away with it (same as last week).

Not sure the Eye, which still does proper deep investigative journalism, is really in the same category as Hyde's "skewerings". But what's surprised me over the last few months has been the level of criticism from the right-wing papers. It'd be quite funny if the eventual undoing of the Johnson-Cummings project (or Cummings-Johnson project, rather) turned out not to be the Guardian/Observer, Independent and New Statesman, but the Murdoch titles, Telegraph and Mail.
 

sufi

lala
this is the same issue I have with social media, how people think they've accomplished something by retweeting a writer's smug column or pithy observation. fuck right off.
It's more than just empty posts on social media, and posing in MSM, though,
Being "into politics" is like being into Game of Thrones, it's a sophisticated hobby for educated people who appreciate really visceral real life entertainment.
the effect is the same - complete lack of engagement, so it's like a safe space that people can mouth off in to impress their cohorts
 

john eden

male pale and stale
@Mr. Tea - yeah the "mainly" for Private Eye is recognition that they do also do decent investigative stuff. I'd argue that most of their content is Hyde-esque humour about how hilarious the incompetence of politicians is though. Or cartoons about oikish skinheads / north London luvvies.

Opposition - I mean I'm not your man to advise of party poltics but yeah I guess they haven;t got much choice except to make Boris look dumb and come up with some killer lines that cut through. But not be so self-congratulatory about it. It's more the fans cheering on from the sidelines really, that annoy me.

Boris will be in power until it suits the Conservatives for him not to be. I doubt he will be the leader when it comes to the next election so we have a bloody leadership battle to look forward to. But this won't happen until coronavirus and the fiddly bits around Brexit negotiations are over. Then suddenly people will find all sorts of reasons why he is terrible and this will be front page news.
 

john eden

male pale and stale
Boris being outsted (eventually) will be a magickal ritual in which all the govts sins are washed away. Lessons will be learnt but we must really now look to the future, chaps.
 

john eden

male pale and stale
And then in 2024 we get the chance to put a cross in a box and decide who will manage the oppressive machinery of capital and the state for us for the next five years.
 
Top