#the fucking 2010s era of we need to make sure nobody can see shit ever and also have flashing lghts as much as possible

[tylerbiard]

Y and Z

Do you guys remember when analysts, insiders, and marketers were trying to “crack” the Millennials (Gen Y)?  It wasn’t even that long ago when articles on figuring out how to connect with my generation were vogue.  My dad even attended a conference on how to integrate Millennials into the workforce, circa 2010.  It still happens from time to time, but now, things are shifting towards figuring out my successor, Gen Z.  Makes sense, I guess, considering they’re almost as large as the Millennials and the Boomers, and despite the oldest members being 21 (born in 1996), people haven’t really been looking at the differences between those my age and those born a decade later, largely because they’ve often been lumped in with Millennials.

I’m towards the tail end of the Millennials (born in ‘93), and so I have some friends that are at the beginning of Gen Z, but overall, my friends tend to be Millennials, both younger and older.  In some regards, I find more similarities with early Gen Z members than older Millennials, but altogether, I’d say my affinities are definitely more with the Millennials than Gen Z.  That’s not a slight against Gen Z, rather just a noted difference, which will probably become blurred as we all get older anyways.  Going back to school well past when most people do also puts into perspective a bit of the difference; many of my classmates in first year courses were fresh outta high school (born in ‘98) and it does make me wonder where things are headed as Gen Z grows and matures, and where the generation follows it takes us as a society.

With the Millennials, Boomers and Gen Xers had to learn how to professionally work with a generation that grew up with the Internet in its infancy, with a generation that was given so much from its parents, including growing up being told we’re each our own “special snowflake” and that we should reach for the stars, and so long as we got a degree -- any degree -- we’d be happy.  We were considered idealistic, liberal, and tech-savvy.

Well, now, everyone’s used to it, and perhaps because Gen Z is also very tech-savvy and educated and grew up being given participation ribbons, nobody sought out the difference until more recently.  But there are differences.  Gen Z is more conservative apparently (I don’t see it in terms of social issues), more into “branding” oneself and generally more consumerist.  Gen Z is also way more immersed in digital technology than I ever was growing up.  I remember into junior high knowing people who still didn’t have Internet or a cell phone; I can’t see that really happening now except in extreme scenarios.  Furthermore, they grew up with high speed internet, not that dial up shit I had. 

I’m still one to prefer browsing on a stationary, desktop computer, rather than on my phone.  The phone is often more handy when I’m out, but if I have a choice, I’ll always go for the computer.  Which is partly why I loathe mobile-specific social media for not being more browser-friendly.  Being a photographer is no doubt an influence here, as I like being able to view visual media on a larger screen.  But I also grew up with desktops, and was used to having to physically go home to chat with people on MSN, and when I was out, I was basically disconnected.  I had a cell phone, sure, but I wasn’t texting on it (which was expensive) or browsing the ‘Net on it (which was even more expensive).  None of that happened until I got a Blackberry in 12th grade.  Millennials grew up around the PC; Generation Z grew up around iPads and iPhones.  Apparently, on average, Generation Z does not value time offline, while I personally value being disconnected on occasion (not permanently -- I’m not that much of a luddite).  I know when I’ve spent too much time in front of screens.

Gen Z is also more visual.  Well, I’m a photographer, so I’m naturally a very visual person, so this works for me on some level.  And as a Millennial, I’m not unaware of short attention spans among my cohort.  As digital technology continues to make inroads, it only makes sense that attention spans continue to wane.  But even still, I’m here, writing long blog posts and I enjoy photoblogs which are more long-form as well.  They aren’t easily digestable, though, which is why there are less viewers.  It makes sense that social media, then, has moved towards less politicized, more mobile and visually-orientated platforms like Snapchat and Instagram, while Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr are waning, especially among Gen Z.  I’m not too happy about that, to be honest.  I find value in political discourse and believe that if we don’t fight for rights we may as well not have them.   You’re not getting discourse if you’re busy posting aesthetic selfies on Snapchat.  It seems like youth (including Millennials) have kinda accepted things as they are, and, perhaps due to overstimulation, are a bit fatigued at all the information out there, and so there is a certain sense of complacency.  The general mood of memes seems to be “yeah, the world is shit, I’ve accepted it doesn’t make sense and therefore I’m gonna shitpost rather than do anything about it.”  Maybe I’m reading into it too much but I’ve seen others corroborate this mindset.  It’s quite a different mentality from 7 years ago, when Twitter was at peak, which is all about discourse, often political.  I don’t think the interface of many websites now helps, which bombard you with ads and offers before you can see anything.

It’s a bit early to say, as the youngest Gen Zers are between 0 and 7, depending on who you ask, but I hope one thing that Gen Z and its parents (mostly Gen X) learn from the Millennials is regarding education.  It seems like the eldest members of Z were brought up with the same ideas as us, though.  I hope that they realize that it is important still to follow what you’re passionate about and you do need to find something of a career that you will enjoy, but I hope that there is more of a practicality about it.  My generation was told we’d be set as long as we had a degree -- any degree -- and I can tell you that that simply isn’t the case.  It isn’t that there are “worthless” degrees, but that there are degrees which require you to market yourself harder than if you got an Engineering degree and then becoming an Engineer.  I already know a few older Millennials who went down that path, and are or have gone back to school later for something more practical yet still enjoyable.  Academia works for certain fields, certainly, and the program I’m in is practical, but we’ve flooded universities too much because we’ve imbibed the idea that we need a degree to succeed, which is utter poppycock.  A lot of people in university would be better suited to a technical school or a diploma of some sort, which often yield great success without having to pay back a mountain of student loans.  I don’t know if Gen Z will learn this, as I know parents of Gen Z kids who’ve really imbibed the post-secondary ideal as much, if not more, than the Millennial’s parents.

I guess if you’re reading between the lines, I’m a bit sardonic about the future.  It’s nothing to do with Millennials or Gen Z specifically, as we’re both products of the time we grew up in.  A friend of mine joked that I was “born too late” and, considering how slow I sometimes I am with accepting technological trends and how much I like late 20th century pop culture, maybe he’s got a point.  But it’s always easy to romanticize the past.  The ‘50s were great, if you don’t factor in how close we were to nuclear annihilation or how discriminatory the hegemony was.  Furthermore, I’ve definitely become far more aware of things due to being able to access the Internet than if I grew up in an earlier time.  Despite the overstimulation, I think we can take for granted how much more aware we are able to be now; friction of distance has been reduced to rubble.  Also, my earlier comments about Gen Z favouring visual, favouring mobile, really apply to us all.  Millennials have orientated towards these formats, as well as older generations.  It definitely seems like my grandparents are more into their smartphone than they ever were Windows 98.  It’s just Gen Z is the generation that has no basis of comparison to a pre-mobile era, just like Millennials can’t compare to a pre-Internet age (except maybe some of our eldest members), and both have an influence on their respective generation.

Still, I’m not only curious how I’ll survive progress, but how society will as a whole.  America is in late empire, and there is no new Western power to take the helm like after Britain.  It’ll be interesting how that plays out for still-maturing Western countries like Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, but it seems like we’re shifting to a pre-Columbian paradigm dominated by the East.  As with any change, there’s uncertainty, although America will likely remain a major player in geopolitics for the long term, even if less hegemonic in scope.  I’m even more curious about what will become of us once those degrees we hammered thousands upon thousands of dollars on are rendered obsolete by AI.  Some say the singularity is nigh, some say it already happened and we were too busy tweeting to notice.  But I don’t think it has happened in the Kurzweilian sense, and once that happens, it’ll be interesting to see where things go.  If we can “survive” it, we’ll probably be better off.  But then there’s still climate change.  Maybe once we become a (hypothetical) Kardashev Type 1 civilization, we’ll have progressed towards not killing ourselves over differences and will have finally survived progress. 

But for now, I still have to live in a world ruled by filters and brands, all-the-while we became increasingly connected yet disconnected.  Maybe I’ll fuck off to Dawson City before having to bear the full front of our digital future.  Sounds nicer for someone unwilling to embrace digital advances like so many of my peers.  Then again, how different, really, is seeing a bunch of people, disparately glued to their phones, from seeing a different bunch of people glued to their books.  Despite being social animals, we’ve long desired our own “space” and privacy, at least in the Western world.

[splitshortsyeah]

Blu 'Her Favorite Colo(u)r'

-Matt Duelka

Nobody gets to where you need to go without someone there to show you the way. Anyone who tells you otherwise, well, fuck ‘em.

I had a dude, a guy, a mentor if you will, that saw some potential – as small as it may have been – and decided I was worth the trouble. I mean, I wasn’t. BUT NEVERTHELESS, HE PERSISTED.

It’s 2007 and I’m prepping for a radio show during my junior year of college – a classic rap song, some indie dude I came across that might be good, yeah that’s the stuff. I’m pretty oblivious to what’s trending and any artists that have gained traction amongst the internet’s graces – but I like what I know and that’s what I’m gonna play.

“You gotta play this tonight”

*Throws CD at me*

That’s the dude. Anything he said I took as gold, so I scratched a few songs I thought were slappers (they definitely weren’t) and scribbled the ‘Promo Only’ CD into my 2am to 4am set.

“Listen to it first. It’s all fire. This kid is gonna be a game changer.”

I got some time. So I loaded that disc into the 1997 boombox in the corner and began an impromptu lesson on rap.

“Bllllluuuuuuuuuu-uuuu-uuuuuuuuu”

Tuggle was my guy -- DJ Tuggle. First time I met him was when I went to go see about becoming a radio DJ. He said “I just did an interview with Method Man. Fuckin’ A, man.” A few weeks later I was sitting in the staff room, meeting all of the radio DJs. I told them my favorite rap album was Atmosphere’s ‘God Loves Ugly’. As stupid as that was, I think I earned some points for not just going with ‘Illmatic’ or ‘Ready to Die’. Many years and rap debates later I asked Tuggle to DJ my wedding. He asked “You sure?”. No one could have made that night better than he did.

“This kid is from LA. Could be the best rapper ever some day.” Maybe he didn’t say that. But he wanted to. Tuggle knew his shit.

I’m sitting in the staff room listening to ‘Below the Heavens’ by the rapper Blu (produced by another southern LA guy named Exile). FLOORED. Literally, jaw to the filthy, dusty, hasn’t-been-mopped-in-years ground. It wasn’t a typical west coast jawn, though. Exile learned by listening to LA-based Madlib, and Detroit’s King of Beats J Dilla. Blu found Exile while collabing with Aloe Blacc (who was in a group with Exile called Emanon). Blu has said to be influenced incredibly by Common – trying to be a calm and composed -- yet compassionate rapper. Exile saw him perform and loved the style – the two meshed. ‘Below the Heavens’, now, is a way to know if someone knows their shit about rap music. It’s a classic, should be a globally acclaimed masterpiece, but only the folks who know what’s up know how good this album is. So now I’m a Blu STAN, stalking his updates for any bites on new music. Singles and collabs here and there (‘Johnson&Johnson’ – a joint album with Mainframe -- was a solid taste to hold me over) but I needed a bigger plate of Blu to keep satiated.

[Quick break of the 4th wall – I may be cheating because the mixtape I am about to talk about actually came out in 2009 on Blu’s Myspace, but then eventually became an album sometime between 2010 and 2011. I can’t recall, but I wanted to write about it, so here I am, and here we are].

As one does on the internet, one gets lost in the searches, and ‘next’ and ‘next’ and you’re on page 14 with 9 tabs open at 3:30am and you don’t know why you haven’t given it a rest. But that’s when you most likely will come across gold. I can’t recall exactly, but it’s 2009 and I’m probably 10 Busch Beers in and there’s a link on a blog with not much to it.

‘Download BluHerFavoriteColour.mp3’. Sure. Let’s see what the dude is up to. Maybe it’s a new single, maybe he’s on a new track with Exile. Worth checking out.

[Download. Open. Check length] 31mins long. Huh. No tracks, no explanation. Just a 31min track drop at 3am on a Friday. Welp. Here it goes.

[7 plays through on loop later0.

Yeah. I have no idea what this is, but please, give me more.

Blu released ‘Her Favorite Colour’ on his Myspace. Just randomly threw out it there and, artistically, it was one of the inspirational things I had listened, or absorbed, in quite a while. Since ‘Below the Heavens’ had come out, Blu seemed to be evolving. As I mentioned, ‘Below the Heavens’ was a classic. But it was a rapper and a producer doing a thing really, really f’n well. All of Blu’s stuff after that seemed to want more. I compare it to what Phonte (Little Brother, Foreign Exchange) said about a lot of fans complaining that Foreign Exchange’s albums that followed their first one (‘Connected’) weren’t in any way the same, even though ‘Connected’ was also a classic album. Phonte basically said ‘Connected’ was what it was but they could never just do a ‘Connected 2’. They had to move on because they succeeded in what they wanted to do -- but in order to progress as artists, they needed to evolve themselves into something different musically (their future albums’ sound, he has said, is more of why they formed Foreign Exchange in the first place – not just to be a rapper and a producer, but more than that). Blu wanted to do more and ‘Her Favorite Colour’ was his foray into that.

Blu seemed to take sounds and techniques of producers he worked with, but also what he did mostly was want to emphasize his childhood in his music – utilizing gospel-esque sounds and old jazz with a lo-fi mood. At this point, we all knew Blu could rap, so this tape seemed to be a test in the waters of ‘why not?’…what did he have to lose?’

The tape was birthed not just from his inspirations and childhood tunes, but also from a severed relationship which I could only assume, but definitely have no sources to confirm, was the relationship consistently mentioned in ‘Below the Heavens’. Sucks it didn’t work out, but glad something positive could come out of it.

[Billie Holiday “Am I Blue” Horn Solo] “I used to have…”

As is with some other mixtapes, I originally expected some interesting but already very produced beats (maybe renditions of other popular rap) with just Blu rapping over them. But the cover art (or better yet, Thumbnail art?) spoke to me a little different. It was telling me this was something more than a 50 Cent type deal. And from the gun this tape had my eyes open and ears peeled to the speakers. You think you get the jest of what artists are gonna do – or what they should do in order to showcase talent and get you to listen to their jams. Even though this tape isn’t monumental, and the production value isn’t top tier, it takes a lot to be SURPRISED these days, and this was something that even Left Field didn’t have on their radar.

I have to admit, it took me a few days of constant listening to even UNDERSTAND what the tape was. There were no tracks, I couldn’t tell if there were interludes or parts of songs. You couldn’t, and still can’t, pull a few minutes from that tape and try to sell it as a single, or “Hey give this a listen what do you think?” It’s 31mins or bust.

Sure, I’ve probably hyped this tape up to ‘Da Drought 3’ levels, so sue me. But it made an impact for numerous reasons. The first would be the simplicity of it all. Blu took old era jazz, and instead of turboing up a Thelonious Monk piano riff, he cut and lo-fi’d the hell out of it. But I was still sitting in the jazz club. And it was me and the 30 others who were rifling the internet for something different. I’ve got a cheap gin martini, cigarette smoke everywhere. That’s the vibe. Billie Holliday and Ella Fitzgerald HAUNTED this tape. Their voices eerily present – I can feel it in my bones. But it’s not sad. Like, I’m not in my feelings. There’s a definite broken heart involved, but nobody is crying.

“Goooood Moorrrrrning…”

Ella’s sample on “Morning” is most memorable for me. The voice is great, but it’s not 100% the main reason why the sample and track stand out. More so because of how the music and how Blu splices movie dialogue over it – they juxtapose each other so well. And the fact that there is nothing BUT movie dialogue – but we will get into this one a little deeper in a little bit.

My favorite sample – well co-favorite —is Astrud Gillberto’s “Corcovado”’s sample on “Silent”. It’s 35 seconds long, no rapping, but the IDEA of what this track could become is what makes it incredible. I can imagine a 4 and a half minute SLAPPER of a track and I git GIDDY. Nothing about the 35 seconds should scream at you, BANGER, but to me, it’s a lovely and jarring coupla cuts of Gillberto’s voice, the piano is perfect, but the MVP is what I believe to be in-between breaths that Blu spliced in, very specifically. It’s flawless.

PHEW.

The other sample that shares high honors for a COMPLETELY different reason is Radiohead’s “You and Whose Army” on “Untitled(Loveu)2”. It’s mainly because – WHY THE FUCK IS BLU FLIPPING, LITERALLY FLIPPING, A RADIOHEAD TRACK. The answer is, because he fucking can. The lyrics on this one are split into 2 entirely different thoughts yet sewn together quite nicely. At first he’s LITERALLY explaining why he’s making this tape, and what you should be expecting from him (in comparison to other rappers).

“I plotted, planned it for a year or so Hoping folks hear Below And see I'm not the same as Lil Wayne They say I bond with the spiritual But hollar if you hear me though”

He also jumps in on his breakup, which is the MAIN arching theme of this tape – giving him an outlet to get what needs to off his chest. This “track” is also located towards the end of the 31mins so it could be a wrap up of everything he’s been talking about and what he wants everyone to know moving forward.

You can listen to this 30, 40, 50 times (which I did for the first 3 days) and you can solely enjoy the smooth offerings of the musical interpretations that Blu is delivering without focusing on the other things. To be honest, this tape was one of the first recordings where I actively searched for the samples used because they were so blatant, but also so alluring. It’s become quite the pastime over the last 10 years, and I HIGHLY recommend playing this game with all of your friends. I also am able to SEE the samples in these, and imagine CREATING the finished product, and get so inspired by it. If I ever dove into music production, I’d have this tape as my blueprint for what I’d want to create. I’ve never been as jealous of a recording as I was this one. Nothing too fancy, but able to alter the sound just enough to create a new atmosphere around it.

At some point, though, you need to stop and focus on the other, maybe MORE, interesting aspect of this tape (MORE!?!?!). Blu not only samples some stellar jazz tunes, but he also splices in movie clips from some fairly middle of the pack independent flicks that just you make say “Of course he did.” There was no Scarface, no Godfather clips. Pitfork said it best in their review – “Blu seems like the kind of rapper who’s really proud of his DVD collection.” I’m talking Punch Drunk Love, The Life Aquatic, and the best one in there was from Closer (best maybe isn’t the BEST word for this…).

Oh man.

I teased it earlier, but needed to time to warm up into discussing this. If you’ve never seen the movie ‘Closer” I highly recommend you do it. But not because the movie is that good (I actually don’t remember how good it was. It was probably okay. I saw it in the theatres while in High School. Maybe I was in over my head), but because this would make a lot more sense. On the track “Morning”, right after Ella welcomes us, if you didn’t know the movie, you’re immediately hit with an incredibly vulgar-for-no-reason interlude that lasts way way too long. If you did know the movie, you immediately know you’re knee deep in a vital part of Clive Owen and Julia Roberts’ relationship issues (maybe similar to Blu’s? I hope not). I was floored that a young rapper from LA decided this, THIS was the clip needed for his tape.

If you didn’t want to be happy for 2 hours, I’m sure you can find time to watch the flick, but otherwise this part of the 31min tape does hit a big plot point – and is easily the most memorable “track” for no other reason than you have to cringe the entire few minutes (yes, this goes on for minutes) the two are jawin’ at each other. Just haymakers at each other right smack dab in the middle of the tape. If it’s your first listen, it’s hard to get through, but as soon as you get used to it, you start to get the popcorn ready and await a Ali/Forman-size rumble. But, make sure you’re by yourself, because if your wife or in-laws are around, you’ll definitely regret it.

“It tastes like you, but sweeter.”

“What in the HELL are you LISTENING to?!?”

The marriage of the samples from both the music and movies really opened my eyes to what is possible out there. I mean, Blu took this project on his own, without any funding or help from others, and just put it out there for everyone to see – “hey, I know I can rap, I know that shit was dope. But look at this. I can do it all.” I was a 22 year old when this first entered my life, and I was trying to figure out how I could bring unique, fun, and meaningful content into this world. This project was something I looked up to – even to this day – and I don’t mean “I’m gonna splice up some movie quotes and samples and send it out like he did.” More like, I can try something a little weird and a little unconventional with the talents I have and see if the world takes it.

And to anyone telling me none of this is revolutionary – I get it. The ground didn’t shake, and oceans didn’t part when this was dropped. But it hit me, it was like a whack on the funny bone and I’m sure it did the same to others too. But if someone wants to splice some movie clips on eerie jazz lady vocals and lo-fi that shit up – HIT ME WITH IT, I’M OPEN. I’LL EAT THAT UP ALL DAY.

It’s been 10 years, maybe 11. And I have to admit that I haven’t been able to push myself to doing that thing that this SHOULD have inspired me to do. I don’t know what my version of “Her Favorite Colour” is but I’m not afraid to keep looking. I cheated my way into writing about this for a reason. Accountability is key. I feel like Blu held himself accountable to become more than just that dude that rapped on ‘Below the Heavens’. I’m gonna be more than some dude who wrote this.

[adambstingus]

5 Reasons Wrestling Fans Are Giving Up On The WWE

In the late 1990s, something weird happened that made everyone suddenly start giving a crap about wrestling. It was called “The Monday Night Wars,” and it basically boiled down to this: Two wrestling programs went head-to-head every Monday night in a battle to nut-slap each other out of existence. What made it so damn addicting was that you could watch these organizations being pricks to each other in real time. They poached each others’ stars on a regular basis. WCW would announce WWF spoilers live on the air to prevent people from switching over to their show (which was taped). Hell, at one point, WWE sent a group of wrestlers to interrupt WCW’s live broadcast, which was being performed in the next town over.

Eventually, Vince McMahon won. He bought WCW, and that was that. Unfortunately, ratings have been dying ever since, and they recently admitted during an interview that they don’t know how to fix it.

I do.

Don’t get me wrong here. I’ve never worked in the industry. The only people I’ve ever wrestled didn’t know it was going to happen until I pounced on them. I don’t know how contracts work or the process they use for creating an episode of RAW. But I do know what made me start watching wrestling, what made me continue watching wrestling, and what eventually made me say “Fuck wrestling.” And I know a whole titload of people who feel the same way. The short version is that WWE has lost sight of what makes a TV show (not just a wrestling show) interesting. The long version is a lot more complex. So for the people who aren’t afraid of words, let’s break that down …

#5. The “Creative Department” Basically Doesn’t Exist

Some time around 2008, the WWE switched its content from beer, cursing, blood, and ass to a TV-PG rating. Wrestling fans love to speculate as to why that happened, but there’s no single underlying reason. You could easily write several books on possible causes, ranging from the double-murder/suicide of Chris Benoit the previous year to an attempt to clean up so they could sell more toys and video games. They’re a publicly-traded company with stockholders to protect. So be it. But there’s a reason I’m bringing this up, and it’s a pretty important point.

When fans talk about how the Attitude Era was so much better (and they talk about it constantly), they often attribute its high ratings to the adult-oriented content. While I’m sure that cursing and titties did play a role in its popularity, what they forget to factor in (aside from the fact that the Monday Night War itself was a huge selling point) was that in that era, every major character had a storyline. Stone Cold was fighting back against a corrupt boss who was actively trying to keep him from becoming the face of the company. The Undertaker had a dark secret from his past: a little brother, whom he thought had died in a fire, was found to be alive and coming for revenge. Mick Foley was slowly going insane and developing split personalities. He was easily manipulated by Vince McMahon, and was being used as a pawn in a greater plot.

Nobody does a “fuck your mother” look quite like Vince.

It sounds silly, doesn’t it? Then again, Star Wars was about a boy with space magic and a sword made out of light who defeated his robot father with love. The point is that everyone had a deeper motivation than just “I want to be the champion.”

I can’t remember the last good storyline in the modern era of wrestling. They’ve started a few, but it doesn’t feel like anyone in the company knows how to follow through and deliver on them. For instance, they created a mysterious redneck cult called “The Wyatt Family” who are super creepy. They often speak in vague, ominous riddles, which is pretty cool, because it makes you want to stick around to see what it all means. For months, the WWE built up their coming debut, and when they finally arrived, it was pants-shittingly awesome:

So they’re coming after Kane? Awesome. Why? What do they want with him? In the following weeks, we’d find out that they were going to show him the true meaning of the word “fear,” and they were going to turn him into the demon that they know he is. Even more awesome. So they’re going to recruit him into their cult? Turn him to the Dark Side?

Nope, they had a match, and after the Wyatts won, the plot was over. Kane didn’t join their cult. The Wyatts didn’t progress into a bigger, better story. It turns out that Kane just needed some time off to go film See No Evil 2, and having the Wyatts “injure” him was a means of explaining his absence from TV.

Keep in mind, this is the most interesting story they’ve had in several years. The majority of the others boil down to, “I want to win this match because I can wrestle better than you.” They set up a match between The Rock and John Cena one year in advance, based entirely on the storyline “John Cena talked shit about me.” That’s not an exaggeration. That was the whole story: a “meet me in the playground after school” beef. And what that tells us as fans is, “If these two extremely popular guys wrestle each other, you will buy tickets or subscribe to our network, no matter what.” I’ve put more effort into wiping my ass than the “creative” team put into that booking, and that’s become par for the course in the WWE.

So how do they fix that? A good start would be to come up with defined stories for every single person who enters that ring. Give them a reason to be there. Hell, give us a reason to be there — make us come back next Monday because we have to find out what happens next. This isn’t some radical idea. This is TV 101. It’s something they understood back in the Attitude Era, and I’m blown away that they don’t understand it now.

#4. There Is No Longer Any Suspense Or Surprise

In the industry (and for hardcore fans), championship titles mean one thing: This is the person the WWE has marked as the company’s highest standard. For most other fans, it is a prop. It’s the reward that a hero receives for overcoming the odds and defeating the villain, or the trophy a villain receives for being extra good at evil. Either way you look at it, whoever holds that title is the good guy or the dickhole, as both a performer and a character.

There’s a very simple formula that all of wrestling has used since the invention of pay-per-view, and it goes something like this. Good guy wrestles bad guy every week for a month. He loses most of those matches because the bad guy is a cheating asshole. They then have a match at a pay-per-view, and the good guy finally wins the title. The audience feels vindicated. Now, you either up the ante for their story and take it to the next level, or that match becomes the ending point to their feud, and you introduce a brand-new story with a brand-new dickhole.

And you know his name is Chad.

It doesn’t always play out that way, but that’s the general idea. It’s Pavlovian; you feel good when the hero wins, so you keep coming back for that payoff. It’s emotional heroin. It’s a way to coax people into buying tickets, and it totally works. If you’re going to see a title change hands, you’re going to see it there, so you might as well buy a ticket and see it firsthand, right? Actually, it’s not quite that simple.

Let’s go back to 1999, when WWE hit their highest ratings. Because of the Monday Night War, both companies had to constantly surprise the audience. They were forced to do something every week that, if you missed it, made you think, “FUCK! Why did I pick that night to feed my kids?!” The easiest way to accomplish that was by throwing away the old pay-per-view payoff format and make new champions on the totally free TV show. That year, the WWE World Heavyweight Championship changed hands 12 times. Six of those times happened on regular TV.

In 2015, the title changed hands four times (two of which happened in the same pay-per-view). Of those four, exactly one happened on RAW. In fact, if you don’t count the one time they held a tournament to claim a vacated title, the last time a heavyweight championship was “legitimately” fought for and won by a challenger on regular TV was November of 2010. Before that, June of 2009. Before that, July of 2006. Before that, September of 2003.

And the belts are really weird-looking now.

But that’s the big title, right? What about the Intercontinental Championship? It’s not as important in the eyes of regular fans, so there should be more flexibility in moving it around. In 1999, that one changed hands 10 times (technically 11, but that’s the year Owen Hart died, so there was a special circumstance involved). Five of those were on TV. In 2015, it happened five times — only one of them wasn’t on a pay-per-view.

So what am I tuning in for, exactly? There aren’t any compelling storylines, so it’s definitely not for that. I’m not being surprised by an underdog coming out of nowhere and upsetting the champion. Any time they introduce a match and say, “This is for the title,” I can say with near-certainty that the title is staying right where it is. You can predict the outcome of those matches before they even start. It takes away 100 percent of the suspense. At that point, I’m just watching two guys pretending to fight … and that’s just kind of weird.

If the WWE wants people to start giving a crap again, they’re going to have to reintroduce the element of surprise. If not with the championship titles, then at least with some good old-fashioned heel turns (good guy suddenly turns bad) or face turns (bad guy suddenly becomes good). That used to be a weekly occurrence back in the height of wrestling’s popularity, but now they follow the same rules as title switches, which is “NOPE! If you want to see that, you’ll PAY for it, fucker!”

#3. There’s Something Modern Wrestlers Don’t Understand About Their Roles

One of the most valuable assets in all of wrestling, regardless of the company, is a good heel. Someone the fans genuinely hate. It’s a lot harder than it sounds, because a lot of guys who try end up sounding like an actor who’s playing the role of a villain, instead of a man with genuine disdain for the audience. The person who can do that is vital because when he finally gets the shit kicked out of him by the hero, the audience feels retribution. His defeat is their reward for tuning in week after week. He is an emotional catalyst.

But there’s a second part to that role. Given enough time, most heels will inevitably develop a following. Or another wrestler will need to take over that spot in order to prevent the show from becoming a bucket of dead squid. At that point, the villain needs to flip and turn into the hero. Very few people are able to do that.

For example, here’s what Alberto Del Rio looks like as a heel:

Every part of that is fucking vile. Not just his actions — beating up a lowly ring announcer — but also the look on his face, the sound of his punches and kicks, the way he smugly holds up his belt to the crowd as if to say, “There’s not a goddamn thing you can do about it.” Watching that makes you want to hurt him.

That is what Alberto Del Rio was born to do: Be a remorseless punching machine. He plays the part of an evil turd perfectly. Here’s what he looks like as a babyface:

Every part of that is fucking vile. Not just his ridiculous “I’m a good guy now” speech, but also the way the words unnaturally flop out of his stupid suckhole. The fake gas station manager’s smile. Trying so hard to convince us that he’s on the level. He wasn’t trying to trick the audience there — he’s just that bad at playing a babyface. Watching that makes you want to hurt him.

Now I want you to take a look at Stone Cold Steve Austin as a heel:

That’s a pretty damn good heel. It feels like he’s going to come right out of the screen and kick your ass, just for having the gall to watch him on TV. Let’s see what he looks like as a babyface:

Oh. Well, hell. It’s almost like he kept the same exact ass-kicker attitude, except he pointed that aggression toward established heels instead of established faces. Huh. That’s weird. I thought that when a wrestler went from villain to hero, he had to put on a big-ass smile and give everyone an enthusiastic thumbs-up. I mean, I know that Stone Cold became one of the biggest stars the WWE has ever seen, but surely he was a fluke, right? Nobody else could make that work …

This is why people have a hard time accepting guys like The Big Show, Roman Reigns, and John Cena as babyfaces. When they’re playing heels (or at least thugs), all three of those guys can pull off “scary ass-kicker.” We know that when they enter the ring, someone’s getting skull-fucked. But when they switch roles and become babyfaces, they turn into smiling, thumbs-up, pandering jackasses, and it’s embarrassing. It’s not that the audience doesn’t believe in them as good guys. It’s that we don’t want them representing us.

Let me put it this way, because this is a huge topic of debate among wrestling fans:

The hero in that ring represents the audience. He or she is a projection of who we want to be. They’re not just defeating the villain for their own purposes … they’re saving us from his bullshit. When we see ourselves projected into the spot of the good guy, we want that representation to be badass. We don’t want to be Superman. We want to be Wolverine or Deadpool or Punisher. Sometimes, Bugs Bunny:

The people who want to see John Cena turn heel aren’t just saying it because they’re sick of him playing Superman. That’s a big factor, but it’s not the whole reason. A huge part of their argument is that they know what happens when you take a stale, played-out babyface and inject him with ruthless brutality and anger: He becomes unpredictable, he becomes a threat … he becomes interesting. Then, after a year or two, when you finally switch him back to the hero role, he keeps that ruthless attitude, and we back him 100 percent. Every guy in the videos I linked above has gone through it, and it made them better characters.

But what you don’t do is start high-fiving audience members and sucking their assholes for cheap pops. Am I right, people of beautiful NORTH CAROLINA?! The second a babyface starts doing that is the second we start firing up the “boooooring” chants.

from All Of Beer http://allofbeer.com/5-reasons-wrestling-fans-are-giving-up-on-the-wwe/ from All of Beer https://allofbeercom.tumblr.com/post/174253353677

[allofbeercom]

5 Reasons Wrestling Fans Are Giving Up On The WWE

In the late 1990s, something weird happened that made everyone suddenly start giving a crap about wrestling. It was called “The Monday Night Wars,” and it basically boiled down to this: Two wrestling programs went head-to-head every Monday night in a battle to nut-slap each other out of existence. What made it so damn addicting was that you could watch these organizations being pricks to each other in real time. They poached each others’ stars on a regular basis. WCW would announce WWF spoilers live on the air to prevent people from switching over to their show (which was taped). Hell, at one point, WWE sent a group of wrestlers to interrupt WCW’s live broadcast, which was being performed in the next town over.

Eventually, Vince McMahon won. He bought WCW, and that was that. Unfortunately, ratings have been dying ever since, and they recently admitted during an interview that they don’t know how to fix it.

I do.

Don’t get me wrong here. I’ve never worked in the industry. The only people I’ve ever wrestled didn’t know it was going to happen until I pounced on them. I don’t know how contracts work or the process they use for creating an episode of RAW. But I do know what made me start watching wrestling, what made me continue watching wrestling, and what eventually made me say “Fuck wrestling.” And I know a whole titload of people who feel the same way. The short version is that WWE has lost sight of what makes a TV show (not just a wrestling show) interesting. The long version is a lot more complex. So for the people who aren’t afraid of words, let’s break that down …

#5. The “Creative Department” Basically Doesn’t Exist

Some time around 2008, the WWE switched its content from beer, cursing, blood, and ass to a TV-PG rating. Wrestling fans love to speculate as to why that happened, but there’s no single underlying reason. You could easily write several books on possible causes, ranging from the double-murder/suicide of Chris Benoit the previous year to an attempt to clean up so they could sell more toys and video games. They’re a publicly-traded company with stockholders to protect. So be it. But there’s a reason I’m bringing this up, and it’s a pretty important point.

When fans talk about how the Attitude Era was so much better (and they talk about it constantly), they often attribute its high ratings to the adult-oriented content. While I’m sure that cursing and titties did play a role in its popularity, what they forget to factor in (aside from the fact that the Monday Night War itself was a huge selling point) was that in that era, every major character had a storyline. Stone Cold was fighting back against a corrupt boss who was actively trying to keep him from becoming the face of the company. The Undertaker had a dark secret from his past: a little brother, whom he thought had died in a fire, was found to be alive and coming for revenge. Mick Foley was slowly going insane and developing split personalities. He was easily manipulated by Vince McMahon, and was being used as a pawn in a greater plot.

Nobody does a “fuck your mother” look quite like Vince.

It sounds silly, doesn’t it? Then again, Star Wars was about a boy with space magic and a sword made out of light who defeated his robot father with love. The point is that everyone had a deeper motivation than just “I want to be the champion.”

I can’t remember the last good storyline in the modern era of wrestling. They’ve started a few, but it doesn’t feel like anyone in the company knows how to follow through and deliver on them. For instance, they created a mysterious redneck cult called “The Wyatt Family” who are super creepy. They often speak in vague, ominous riddles, which is pretty cool, because it makes you want to stick around to see what it all means. For months, the WWE built up their coming debut, and when they finally arrived, it was pants-shittingly awesome:

So they’re coming after Kane? Awesome. Why? What do they want with him? In the following weeks, we’d find out that they were going to show him the true meaning of the word “fear,” and they were going to turn him into the demon that they know he is. Even more awesome. So they’re going to recruit him into their cult? Turn him to the Dark Side?

Nope, they had a match, and after the Wyatts won, the plot was over. Kane didn’t join their cult. The Wyatts didn’t progress into a bigger, better story. It turns out that Kane just needed some time off to go film See No Evil 2, and having the Wyatts “injure” him was a means of explaining his absence from TV.

Keep in mind, this is the most interesting story they’ve had in several years. The majority of the others boil down to, “I want to win this match because I can wrestle better than you.” They set up a match between The Rock and John Cena one year in advance, based entirely on the storyline “John Cena talked shit about me.” That’s not an exaggeration. That was the whole story: a “meet me in the playground after school” beef. And what that tells us as fans is, “If these two extremely popular guys wrestle each other, you will buy tickets or subscribe to our network, no matter what.” I’ve put more effort into wiping my ass than the “creative” team put into that booking, and that’s become par for the course in the WWE.

So how do they fix that? A good start would be to come up with defined stories for every single person who enters that ring. Give them a reason to be there. Hell, give us a reason to be there — make us come back next Monday because we have to find out what happens next. This isn’t some radical idea. This is TV 101. It’s something they understood back in the Attitude Era, and I’m blown away that they don’t understand it now.

#4. There Is No Longer Any Suspense Or Surprise

In the industry (and for hardcore fans), championship titles mean one thing: This is the person the WWE has marked as the company’s highest standard. For most other fans, it is a prop. It’s the reward that a hero receives for overcoming the odds and defeating the villain, or the trophy a villain receives for being extra good at evil. Either way you look at it, whoever holds that title is the good guy or the dickhole, as both a performer and a character.

There’s a very simple formula that all of wrestling has used since the invention of pay-per-view, and it goes something like this. Good guy wrestles bad guy every week for a month. He loses most of those matches because the bad guy is a cheating asshole. They then have a match at a pay-per-view, and the good guy finally wins the title. The audience feels vindicated. Now, you either up the ante for their story and take it to the next level, or that match becomes the ending point to their feud, and you introduce a brand-new story with a brand-new dickhole.

And you know his name is Chad.

It doesn’t always play out that way, but that’s the general idea. It’s Pavlovian; you feel good when the hero wins, so you keep coming back for that payoff. It’s emotional heroin. It’s a way to coax people into buying tickets, and it totally works. If you’re going to see a title change hands, you’re going to see it there, so you might as well buy a ticket and see it firsthand, right? Actually, it’s not quite that simple.

Let’s go back to 1999, when WWE hit their highest ratings. Because of the Monday Night War, both companies had to constantly surprise the audience. They were forced to do something every week that, if you missed it, made you think, “FUCK! Why did I pick that night to feed my kids?!” The easiest way to accomplish that was by throwing away the old pay-per-view payoff format and make new champions on the totally free TV show. That year, the WWE World Heavyweight Championship changed hands 12 times. Six of those times happened on regular TV.

In 2015, the title changed hands four times (two of which happened in the same pay-per-view). Of those four, exactly one happened on RAW. In fact, if you don’t count the one time they held a tournament to claim a vacated title, the last time a heavyweight championship was “legitimately” fought for and won by a challenger on regular TV was November of 2010. Before that, June of 2009. Before that, July of 2006. Before that, September of 2003.

And the belts are really weird-looking now.

But that’s the big title, right? What about the Intercontinental Championship? It’s not as important in the eyes of regular fans, so there should be more flexibility in moving it around. In 1999, that one changed hands 10 times (technically 11, but that’s the year Owen Hart died, so there was a special circumstance involved). Five of those were on TV. In 2015, it happened five times — only one of them wasn’t on a pay-per-view.

So what am I tuning in for, exactly? There aren’t any compelling storylines, so it’s definitely not for that. I’m not being surprised by an underdog coming out of nowhere and upsetting the champion. Any time they introduce a match and say, “This is for the title,” I can say with near-certainty that the title is staying right where it is. You can predict the outcome of those matches before they even start. It takes away 100 percent of the suspense. At that point, I’m just watching two guys pretending to fight … and that’s just kind of weird.

If the WWE wants people to start giving a crap again, they’re going to have to reintroduce the element of surprise. If not with the championship titles, then at least with some good old-fashioned heel turns (good guy suddenly turns bad) or face turns (bad guy suddenly becomes good). That used to be a weekly occurrence back in the height of wrestling’s popularity, but now they follow the same rules as title switches, which is “NOPE! If you want to see that, you’ll PAY for it, fucker!”

#3. There’s Something Modern Wrestlers Don’t Understand About Their Roles

One of the most valuable assets in all of wrestling, regardless of the company, is a good heel. Someone the fans genuinely hate. It’s a lot harder than it sounds, because a lot of guys who try end up sounding like an actor who’s playing the role of a villain, instead of a man with genuine disdain for the audience. The person who can do that is vital because when he finally gets the shit kicked out of him by the hero, the audience feels retribution. His defeat is their reward for tuning in week after week. He is an emotional catalyst.

But there’s a second part to that role. Given enough time, most heels will inevitably develop a following. Or another wrestler will need to take over that spot in order to prevent the show from becoming a bucket of dead squid. At that point, the villain needs to flip and turn into the hero. Very few people are able to do that.

For example, here’s what Alberto Del Rio looks like as a heel:

Every part of that is fucking vile. Not just his actions — beating up a lowly ring announcer — but also the look on his face, the sound of his punches and kicks, the way he smugly holds up his belt to the crowd as if to say, “There’s not a goddamn thing you can do about it.” Watching that makes you want to hurt him.

That is what Alberto Del Rio was born to do: Be a remorseless punching machine. He plays the part of an evil turd perfectly. Here’s what he looks like as a babyface:

Every part of that is fucking vile. Not just his ridiculous “I’m a good guy now” speech, but also the way the words unnaturally flop out of his stupid suckhole. The fake gas station manager’s smile. Trying so hard to convince us that he’s on the level. He wasn’t trying to trick the audience there — he’s just that bad at playing a babyface. Watching that makes you want to hurt him.

Now I want you to take a look at Stone Cold Steve Austin as a heel:

That’s a pretty damn good heel. It feels like he’s going to come right out of the screen and kick your ass, just for having the gall to watch him on TV. Let’s see what he looks like as a babyface:

Oh. Well, hell. It’s almost like he kept the same exact ass-kicker attitude, except he pointed that aggression toward established heels instead of established faces. Huh. That’s weird. I thought that when a wrestler went from villain to hero, he had to put on a big-ass smile and give everyone an enthusiastic thumbs-up. I mean, I know that Stone Cold became one of the biggest stars the WWE has ever seen, but surely he was a fluke, right? Nobody else could make that work …

This is why people have a hard time accepting guys like The Big Show, Roman Reigns, and John Cena as babyfaces. When they’re playing heels (or at least thugs), all three of those guys can pull off “scary ass-kicker.” We know that when they enter the ring, someone’s getting skull-fucked. But when they switch roles and become babyfaces, they turn into smiling, thumbs-up, pandering jackasses, and it’s embarrassing. It’s not that the audience doesn’t believe in them as good guys. It’s that we don’t want them representing us.

Let me put it this way, because this is a huge topic of debate among wrestling fans:

The hero in that ring represents the audience. He or she is a projection of who we want to be. They’re not just defeating the villain for their own purposes … they’re saving us from his bullshit. When we see ourselves projected into the spot of the good guy, we want that representation to be badass. We don’t want to be Superman. We want to be Wolverine or Deadpool or Punisher. Sometimes, Bugs Bunny:

The people who want to see John Cena turn heel aren’t just saying it because they’re sick of him playing Superman. That’s a big factor, but it’s not the whole reason. A huge part of their argument is that they know what happens when you take a stale, played-out babyface and inject him with ruthless brutality and anger: He becomes unpredictable, he becomes a threat … he becomes interesting. Then, after a year or two, when you finally switch him back to the hero role, he keeps that ruthless attitude, and we back him 100 percent. Every guy in the videos I linked above has gone through it, and it made them better characters.

But what you don’t do is start high-fiving audience members and sucking their assholes for cheap pops. Am I right, people of beautiful NORTH CAROLINA?! The second a babyface starts doing that is the second we start firing up the “boooooring” chants.

from All Of Beer http://allofbeer.com/5-reasons-wrestling-fans-are-giving-up-on-the-wwe/