To fully understand the following, read bonesiii's full post on It's Not Me, It's You

(Switches to British accent)

And now for a professional review:

Hurrah bonesiii! Quite a delightful essay if I do say so myself. A long and possibly taxing read, but one still ultimatly worth it. It leaves the reader with a sense of sorrow, and injustice, mainly because so few people will be reading this now that the forum has been abandoned. Jolly good thing you put most of that on your blog then. I found myself come to agreement to many of the points, points which I don't believe I can ever make again with a clear concience now that I know my words can never be said with the same eliquence and clarity as you just said them, and to try and make one of those points would just be injustice to the author I have certainly had a new insight with some of you points, and tried your excersice. However, it just reconfirmed that I infact dislike high-tech styled societies in the way Bionicle presented it because I was in fact so young that my taste was completely molded by early Bionicle.

This all ties in wonderfully into the age discussion, because it would appear I disliked future years because of the ones past. This is probably happening with new fans, who I know realize must dislike change more than us older folk. If Bionicle changes, they may dislike it because their set of likes were determined possibly exclusively by the thing that is being changed, which means almost no change can be good change. Now obviously this isn't entirely true, or no one would have liked the Rahkshi. But there is some wisdom to be gained here, I know that all my unexplainable quirkes in taste have derived from Bionicle. I LOVE flash animation to no end, and especially ones that harken to the MNOLG and Bohrak animations. Why do I love it? No good reason, except that the original animations produced by Bionicle gave me such imense joy that I now associate all flash animations with that. Most of my other loves have similar origins. Interesting how this world works, no?

Replied to your post here, Achillax. To specific things besides that:

It leaves the reader with a sense of sorrow

Darn, that's exactly the opposite of what I wanted to leave you with. XD But I know what you mean, yeah.

However, it just reconfirmed that I infact dislike high-tech styled societies in the way Bionicle presented it because I was in fact so young that my taste was completely molded by early Bionicle.

That's a very good point. I'd say that's somewhat true of me too. I really enjoyed Metru Nui, but I was a bit dissappointed in thinking that they could have put plants in more places and focused on a fused nature-tech style more than they did. And ironically 2001's example is why I had that reaction. Both because of the same sort of thing you said, and because I had enjoyed MNOG's semi-canon technology among nature aspects, which didn't usually get adopted by actual canon.

This is probably happening with new fans, who I know realize must dislike change more than us older folk. If Bionicle changes, they may dislike it because their set of likes were determined possibly exclusively by the thing that is being changed, which means almost no change can be good change. Now obviously this isn't entirely true, or no one would have liked the Rahkshi. But there is some wisdom to be gained here, I know that all my unexplainable quirkes in taste have derived from Bionicle. I LOVE flash animation to no end, and especially ones that harken to the MNOLG and Bohrak animations. Why do I love it? No good reason, except that the original animations produced by Bionicle gave me such imense joy that I now associate all flash animations with that. Most of my other loves have similar origins.

Yeah, I agree with that. I'd have added a clarification if you didn't (about the Rahkshi for example), but you did, so yeah.

What... are you talking about?

Really, I don't think it needed to be quite so complex, but anyway, I agree that you should try to enjoy something as much as possible. When I see a set review, I sometimes find myself trying to like the set's cons and disliking the pros listed in the review. The result is that I get to write a rebuttal for something like Click.

It may interest, you, bones, to know that I had no intent of imposing negative views on others :B

Think you rather misunderstood what I wrote there.

Really, I don't think it needed to be quite so complex, but anyway, I agree that you should try to enjoy something as much as possible.

If you haven't noticed already...that's bonesiii's thing.

-SK

It may interest, you, bones, to know that I had no intent of imposing negative views on others :B

 

Think you rather misunderstood what I wrote there.

Well, I had a feeling you didn't personally plan on it. But you did appear to say that if it happened, it would be okay. That's what I'm disagreeing with.

Really, I don't think it needed to be quite so complex, but anyway, I agree that you should try to enjoy something as much as possible.

If you haven't noticed already...that's bonesiii's thing.

 

-SK

Yeah.

However, I'm not exactly certain of what constitutes "setting your tastes to neutral" to you when it comes to media. You see, while I personally believe that the the quality factor of books, movies, etc is largely opinion related, I'm also under the opinion that there are certain cases where works are good or bad.

Well, I'm not talking about producing anything. I'm talking about reactions to what has already been produced.

A writer (or whatever) must try to appeal to some kind of tastes. You are absolutely right about that. If they fail to appeal well to the tastes they were aiming for, that's bad. Etc.

But what I'm talking about is as fans, viewers, readers, whatever, reacting emotionally to what we see, read, hear, etc. Learning how to be better able to appreciate a wider variety of styles.

That is, there are times when someone's taste is simply wrong

Wrong. Actually, yes, I think there may be situations in which a taste can be misused, but taste is inherently subjective. "Wrong" is simply not within the realm of a person's taste.

So, if someone finds themselves able to enjoy something that some other person (be they just a random joe or a high-falutin' Critick ) finds displeasing, even if the producer of it WANTED to appeal to the Critick but failed, then that's good. At least in entertainment -- where the whole point is to be entertained. If I as a fan of any entertainment am pleased by it, then personally that is a good thing.

The only way a taste could "be wrong" is if it spurs you to do an act or believe a thing that lies in the realm of objective right and wrong. Example -- if you enjoy adrenaline-laced battles in fiction, you could channel that into real life martial arts study, sparring sports, or you could wrongly channel it into harmful violence. What is wrong is NOT REALLY the taste, but how it is channelled.

and all of these situations relate to one thing: an increasement in the level of morally objectional content.

Absolutely. But I'm talking about things that clearly lie outside of the realm of morals. Remember that morals lie soundly inside the realm of logic, so these cannot logically be subjective (though some try to claim so; their arguments contradict themselves, i.e. "there are absolutely no absolutes" and such nonsense). Personal taste, however, lies outside the realm of logic.

Basically, what I'm trying to say is that, while setting our tastes to neutral is usually a good practice, there comes a time when we should draw the line

See, there doesn't need to be a line in the realm of personal taste. Setting your tastes to neutral cannot equate to setting your moral beliefs to neutral. The very reason setting tastes to neutral works is because it IS subjective, and outside the realms of logic and morals.

In fact, many moral problems come up when people confuse taste with morality. IMLogicalO, the two issues, though connected in some ways, are definately two separate realms. (And it's not really just my opinion but a basic factual tenet of logic, one of those basics that is so clearly true it actually proves itself and all arguments against it inherently contradict themselves.)

at how our favorite characters and media forms are being changed by recent developments, especially if these developements negatively affect the product as a whole. I'm not saying we should react badly if a hero experiences a difficult period of his life in the story - I'm only suggesting that we should not just let it slide by if one of our favorite characters suddenly is turned into a sadistic murderer for the sole purpose of shocking the readers

I agree with you there. But often it's hard to know for sure what the author's purpose is. I've seen lots of people whine about Matoro's death as supposedly merely intended for shock value, missing the clear good moral lessons to be learned from it, etc. They pretend to be telepathic to know what the author's "sole purpose" was, missing that there might be more than one purpose, or assume blindly that the purpose is bad. Violence for example -- if it's portrayed as wrong, it being featured in a story is not necessarily bad, depending on the age and temperment of the target audience, but portraying unjust violence as good would of course be wrong.

And some people, apparently from what they have said, actually do react badly when bad things happen in story, which IMO makes no sense, since stories are about conflict.

But again, what I am talking about is PURELY issues of style. Whether a set has gear joints or ball joints has nothing whatsoever to do with morals or objective quality -- it's purely a matter of taste. Whether kiddy style of voice-acting or more realistic styles of voices are done is also purely a matter of taste. Etc.

So, if something is not so clearly a matter of taste only, be careful with it. Absolutely. In that case, look at how much is taste and how much is logic/morals, and separate the two.

To me, making the tone of a story darker is only good if the writer is doing it for actual storyline purposes, rather than just for "shock value."

Well, it depends on how you define darker. If you mean dark as in, putting the good guys under an even more frightening threat, that can be done just for style purposes. Bionicle made such a change, judging that previously its story wasn't quite scary enough. Its bad guys' threats weren't believable. That isn't necessarily "storyline purposes" depending on what you mean, although it isn't really shock value either IMO.

Going "dark" by portraying evil actions as good, though, would be morally wrong.

Because seriously, a big problem with much of today's entertainment (particularly comic books and video games) is that "gorier and more explicit" = "more mature." And I sure don't think you'd agree with that, bones.

Right. The problem with explicit violence/etc. is that it's very difficult for it to be done without being gratuitous, and thus indirectly glorifying unjust violence.

However, for example there are some modern Christian writers who do not shy away from blood and guts in their stories where it would logically occur, and I have no issue with this (because of how a certain Book treats the issue ) because it's done not for gratuitous reasons but for various good reasons. Making the enemy more believable, realism, increasing the frighteningness, condemning their actions, etc. So I don't think explicit is absolutely bad, if it's handled right and is for the right audience. (For Bionicle it would be bad, IMO; explicit violence/etc. should never be seen by kids.)

So, just to make sure I'm understanding you correctly, are you basically saying that any crictical survey of any form of entertainment is in a sense already wrong, as by criticizing something you are claiming that it's not just an opinion that it's bad?

No, I'm saying nothing of the sort. I'm saying what I said, which I thought was clear... but let's review.

1) The goal of entertainment is to enjoy what you can. This should be everybody's top priority. (Some make a mistake, apparently, here by acting as if the goal of entertainment is to find stuff to whine about.)

2) Everybody has different tastes, and that's not only fine, but good.

3) Fully constructive criticism should focus on what will please the majority (at least on issues that are totally subjective, as most things with Bionicle are, and most other style questions), as opposed to what will merely please the person speaking.

4) Constructive criticism is also helped by explaining constructively what you personally want -- and if you are displeased by something, don't just whine about it, suggest better alternatives. Even if you're not thinking about the majority, suggesting alternatives is still very important. It could be that what you suggest is worth trying out, and might even please the majority better too.

5) Reporting "just for the sake of saying so" what pleases you and doesn't please you is good too, as long as you keep it reasonable and respectful of others, and don't treat your personal taste as a "LEGO should" opinion. For example, topics asking your favorite character, least favorite, favorite set, etc. These are purely "your personal reaction" questions, and that is good.

6) Finally, if you are intitially displeased by something, but as far as you can tell, it's merely a style thing, you might wanna try out my taste reset bars exercise, or something along those lines, to give the new thing a fair chance. You might actually like it. And that would be good all around -- you are happier, you don't need to communicate displeasure to others (although people often say something like "I didn't like this at first but it grew on me" etc.), and you certainly don't need to get into all the illogical mixing of "LEGO should change this because I personally dislike it" stuff.

But of course that's totally up to the individual to decide for themselves.

as by criticizing something you are claiming that it's not just an opinion that it's bad?

The only case in which that might be partly true is when people make blanket statements that people infer to mean "LEGO should" opinions, when they didn't actually mean to say that. In that case the advice is NOT "just plain don't criticize" -- it's "word things a little more clearly; when you're just talking your own personal taste, make it clear by saying something like 'Personally, I don't like...' etc.".

Sometimes people actually were implying LEGO should opinions with that. That too is a mistake -- the answer to it is, what LEGO should do doesn't depend on only one person. But that does NOT mean there's anything wrong with simply saying "I personally didn't like this".

And if so, does this mean that criticizing productions that are obviously shoddy and poorly made (technically speaking) is wrong as well?

The problem is that people often act as if they're omniscient or telepathic, and assume things are shoddy or poorly made, when they're really not -- they're just not aimed at that person. Aimed at someone else, with different tastes.

But this is beside the point. Criticizing is not wrong. Even if you're making logical errors in your complaint, if you don't post it or say it, nobody can see it to point out your mistake and help you improve. Posting the complaint, IMO, is more important than having everything right about it, 'cuz then we can debate from there. If you ARE right that it's shoddy production, then the debate will bear that out. (Of course, if there's a lack of objectivity in the debate, it is pretty useless, but anyways. ) On the other hand, any advice we can give to how to better think through complaints BEFORE posting is helpful too.

Criticizing with a wackily negative attitude is wrong, however, yes (and against BZP rules). But even with this, it's not like it's a crime -- if you post it, that also gives us a chance to help you (generic "you", I mean), which is better than "you" just quietly stewing. Especially on BZP, a warning for a minor flame is better for "you" than letting it build up to a banworthy offense later. And what is wrong there is merely the attitude. Not the act of criticizing itself. The way it is done. Flaming instead of mere criticism.

I'm just having a hard time trying figuring out what the extent of your beliefs are concerning this issue, as I don't know you personally and don't know what you feel.

Well, have you read my past blog entries on these subjects? Check out the important entries link to the right (it's out of date, but most of the important entries on this topic are old ones, so are there). I've tried to sum them up above, though.

As an example, if a twelve year old girl went up to you and said "Hannah Montana is waaaay better than boring Lord of the Rings," what would your response be?

XD I'd probably just laugh. And then I'd say something like, "Well, I don't know anything about Hannah Montana, so I can't judge." XP Or "whatever floats your boat" or the like.

And, you mean in real life? In real life, there's no time to explain all this stuff about personal taste. And I doubt a twelve-year old girl would want to hear it, lol. (Depends on the person.) On the 'net though I might briefly sum up the basics about personal taste.

Because I don't think you can really make a logical argument supporting that proverbial girl's statement unless you use the argument that "since it's her taste, it's not wrong or right."

 

I think the reason I'm rather put off by this kind of extreme is because I fear that a widespread acceptance of it would encourage laziness and a lack of originality in all forms of media.

Can you backtrack on this part and explain what you mean by the pronouns? What's the "this" of "this kind of extreme" there? I have said nothing even remotely extreme, so I'm a little confused by that statement. And what's the "it"?

BTW, although as I said I can't judge since I know virtually nothing about Hannah Montana, it's plain as the nose on Gimli's face that HM is targeted at a different audience than LotR.

If there's some kind of moral objection to HM, then okay, but I have no idea.

Also, what do you mean about laziness and lack of originality?

That's not to say that's already a problem, but if no one even questioned the quality of any sort of production (under the belief that it's totally a matter of taste)

I guess I'm not sure what you're saying, or what it has to do with this entry. Who said anything about "never questioning quality"? I guess I'll just refer you to my above answers for now.

then unoriginal, poorly produced media would run rampant, and quality works would be obscured.

So... are you saying that if everybody was pleased, there would somehow be a... problem? I mean, thinking about that, does it make any sense to you?

Just to make sure, we are crystal clear that we're NOT talking about issues of morality or objective issues like story logic or the like, right? We're only talking about issues of style, issues of personal taste here.

For example, when I was a kid, I used to dislike... okay, I know this sounds very random, but stick with me :-P ... real-world electric poles. I loved scifi and fantasy worlds that had nothing of that style. And real-world (as in American style) houses. Just bored the heck out of me, and thus I didn't like them.

But using this exercise, I have come to appreciate that style for what it's worth. I can now see it more clearly; realizing that though a wooden electric pole isn't very cool looking in a scifi/fantasy style, if you look at it a different way, you can actually see it as cool in its own way. It's cheaper, and that frees up resources for other more useful things. And houses are designed that way for similar reasons. (Although if I ruled the world I'd still opt for nonflammable, tornado-resistant domes. ) Whereas a lot of scifi/fantasy styles throw in cool looking appearances, but things that aren't really very practical, and when you think of it like that, realistic can even be MORE desirable than the more fantastic styles.

Now, when Bionicle in 2006 moved to a more real-world-ish style in its advertisements, I could have been tempted to be displeased with this, merely because I wasn't used to it in Bionicle. When I let go of that, though, I can appreciate it as variety, realizing that for example, chainlink fences make practical sense, etc.

Objectively, more real-world-esque styles there are only a problem if they 1) support anything immoral, or 2) displease most fans. (Possibly 3) canon consistency, but since those styles -are- practical, I think it's plausible.) Since the Piraka were bad guys, I didn't see any moral problems with the rap styles -- if anything it portrays rappers as evil, but I didn't see it that way. Rap as a style is perfectly fine, IMO (I'm a Toby Mac fan XD). It may have displeased most fans, I don't know, although sales were way up in 06 (but the style wasn't really brought back since then). But if everybody did the taste resetting thing on it, then it would NOT displease most fans, so there would definately be no problem.

So, again it comes down to this. Unless you can show some kind of moral problem, then how can what you said make sense?

You seem to be saying that "if everybody allowed themselves to like stuff, poor quality productions would run rampant". I think you must have implied several logical leaps there to arrive at that conclusion, and I'm not quite seeing them I guess. But that aside, "quality" is an inherently subjective word, when it comes to entertainment. If everybody is pleased by the new styles, that is by definition "quality" to them. So the statement appears to be self-contradictory.

Again -- all moral issues aside. And obviously objective quality definately exists in things beyond entertainment. Car quality, etc. (Even in these areas, there are aspects that are subjective, though. A car with leather seats might be quality to someone, but poor quality to someone else. Issues of safety, iefficiency, etc. on the other hand are objective issues.)

After all, if there's no clear definition on what is "high quality entertainment" and what is not

I don't see the point of this statement. Factually speaking, there IS a clear definition of what is high quality entertainment. There are many such definitions. #1 is "matching the tastes of the target audience." Again -- all moral issues aside. Considering moral issues, entertainment that teaches good moral lessons (like Bionicle ) is high quality. With things like storyline, logical story consistency would be another category.

Just about everything else falls into those categories. People often point to certain techniques used to please the majority (of target aud), and claim that these are "universal quality", but that's a misnomer. Those are merely how to have quality for that target aud.

And that confusion is often where debates/complaints/criticism topics and discussions center around. People take what they know about quality from something else, and apply it without thinking it through to other things.

Like with cheesy voice acting -- some people thought realistic voice styles matching human adults' intonation is objective quality, and complain about the Bionicle movies on those grounds, never considering that very young kids actually like cheesier, melodramatic voice acting better, and Bionicle movies don't get enough older viewers to outweigh that.

The basic lesson here is, there are no simple answers, no copouts work. When you're producing entertainment, you can't be so lazy that you just assume something is universal quality, and not be concerned about what your target audience majority wants. It is tempting to just want "clear definitions" that don't worry about being accurate, but it can get ya inta trouble.

That said, if you're producing something aimed at the same audience as people who have identified "universal high quality entertainment" rules, despite them being a bit confused about that, their advice will still probably serve you well, since what they are really telling you is how to please your target audience.

After all, if there's no clear definition on what is "high quality entertainment" and what is not, then the biggest factors in how a show or movie or whatever woud succeed is how much money and time the producers poured into advertising it to people and drowning out the competition.

The biggest factor is pleasing the majority. Which does, of course, naturally lead to more money. How much money and time they poured into it will mean diddly squat if they fail to please the majority -- they won't earn enough back in sales.

As far as "drowning out the competition in advertising" goes, if I read you right, that is debatable. If what they're producing really is objectively quality (which is defined as pleasing the tastes of its target audience), then lots of advertising can only be good, regardless of the competition. Otherwise, well then you get into the debatable matters. But in general, the audience pays for what it wants.

Now, you might be saying "what if everybody liked every possible subjective style?" due to my taste reset thing. You would be misunderstanding. As my blog entry made clear, at least some personal tastes come from our genetic wiring. Our natural strengths and weaknesses, which are beyond our abiility to change (although we can get better in both strengths and weaknesses in many cases). Certain people are always going to like certain things more than other things.

My taste reset thing helps you "like the things you don't already like", but it can never make you like things you're wired against as much as the things you're wired for. That will always influence sales, and so pleasing the majority taste of your target audience will always be important. (Age changes and the like factor in here too; although they do change, they change due to genetics. Also, some cultural influences of style might be basically "stuck" with us for the culture in question.)

Even if it could happen that anybody could like anything, and there would be no objective "this style equals quality for this audience", then what would the problem be? Everybody would like variety, so there would still be a market for many different styles. The specific ones that are most popular might differ from what they are now, but so what. The most popular tastes change over time anyways as culture and society changes. (Again, again, morality aside.) More people would be happier.

That, of course, is exactly the reason why fads like Hannah Montana are so popular - because the producers are so rich that they don't need to make a high quality product to succeed.

So, are you saying that Hannah Montana is low quality, in your opinion? Any particular reason why? Factoring that you're proooobably not in the target audience? (Likeisay, I know virtually nothing about it.)

By claiming that it's only an opinion as to whether things like this are good or not, are we only encouraging this kind of market behavior?

Z, there is no mere "claim" here. It is a proven fact that different people like different things. Personal taste is no myth. It's a real, proven phenomenon. Genetic tastes especially exist, and are good. Different people have different talents (which also means they have different weaknesses), which makes society as a whole healthier. A variety of skills, thus society can meet a wider range of challenges. It's also known (and BZPers themselves have been living proof countless times) that sometimes people develop or choose tastes that aren't genetic, or exaggerate their natural dislikes, and in those cases, having a more open mind can be better.

I don't know how far you're taking this kind of view

I'm not taking anything anywhere, as far as I know. I'm just reporting what I know, giving food for thought. That wording makes it sound as if I'm arbitrarily "taking" an opinion somewhere just 'cuz I feel like it -- I'm a logician. That's not how I roll.

Okay, might as well use the old "quote and then add personal comments in bold" method, seeing as I have a lot to reply to.

No, I'm saying nothing of the sort. I'm saying what I said, which I thought was clear... but let's review.

 

1) The goal of entertainment is to enjoy what you can. This should be everybody's top priority. (Some make a mistake, apparently, here by acting as if the goal of entertainment is to find stuff to whine about.)

 

2) Everybody has different tastes, and that's not only fine, but good.

 

3) Fully constructive criticism should focus on what will please the majority (at least on issues that are totally subjective, as most things with Bionicle are, and most other style questions), as opposed to what will merely please the person speaking.

 

4) Constructive criticism is also helped by explaining constructively what you personally want -- and if you are displeased by something, don't just whine about it, suggest better alternatives. Even if you're not thinking about the majority, suggesting alternatives is still very important. It could be that what you suggest is worth trying out, and might even please the majority better too.

 

5) Reporting "just for the sake of saying so" what pleases you and doesn't please you is good too, as long as you keep it reasonable and respectful of others, and don't treat your personal taste as a "LEGO should" opinion. For example, topics asking your favorite character, least favorite, favorite set, etc. These are purely "your personal reaction" questions, and that is good.

 

6) Finally, if you are intitially displeased by something, but as far as you can tell, it's merely a style thing, you might wanna try out my taste reset bars exercise, or something along those lines, to give the new thing a fair chance. You might actually like it. And that would be good all around -- you are happier, you don't need to communicate displeasure to others (although people often say something like "I didn't like this at first but it grew on me" etc.), and you certainly don't need to get into all the illogical mixing of "LEGO should change this because I personally dislike it" stuff.

 

But of course that's totally up to the individual to decide for themselves.

 

Ah, good to see that's cleared up. Actually, I completely agree on all of these points - however, I would add that there's usually a difference between style and quality. Just about any style of media can be used in a satisfactory way - but not all shows, movies, and other products succeed in their quest to satisfy the market. The reason for this, of course, depends on a lot of things, including how well it was marketed and how engaging it is to the target audience.

 

The only case in which that might be partly true is when people make blanket statements that people infer to mean "LEGO should" opinions, when they didn't actually mean to say that. In that case the advice is NOT "just plain don't criticize" -- it's "word things a little more clearly; when you're just talking your own personal taste, make it clear by saying something like 'Personally, I don't like...' etc.".

 

Sometimes people actually were implying LEGO should opinions with that. That too is a mistake -- the answer to it is, what LEGO should do doesn't depend on only one person. But that does NOT mean there's anything wrong with simply saying "I personally didn't like this".

 

Agreed, and this is the way I currently approach posting when related to lego and my other interests. I'm not the kind of person that makes statements like "this set is awful, how can anyone like it?" - instead, I phrase statments like "Personally, I feel this is one of the worst sets TLC has made recently," which, while still showing my utter dislike of a set, doesn't discount other people's personal tastes.

 

The problem is that people often act as if they're omniscient or telepathic, and assume things are shoddy or poorly made, when they're really not -- they're just not aimed at that person. Aimed at someone else, with different tastes.

 

But this is beside the point. Criticizing is not wrong. Even if you're making logical errors in your complaint, if you don't post it or say it, nobody can see it to point out your mistake and help you improve. Posting the complaint, IMO, is more important than having everything right about it, 'cuz then we can debate from there. If you ARE right that it's shoddy production, then the debate will bear that out. (Of course, if there's a lack of objectivity in the debate, it is pretty useless, but anyways. ) On the other hand, any advice we can give to how to better think through complaints BEFORE posting is helpful too.

 

 

Criticizing with a wackily negative attitude is wrong, however, yes (and against BZP rules). But even with this, it's not like it's a crime -- if you post it, that also gives us a chance to help you (generic "you", I mean), which is better than "you" just quietly stewing. Especially on BZP, a warning for a minor flame is better for "you" than letting it build up to a banworthy offense later. And what is wrong there is merely the attitude. Not the act of criticizing itself. The way it is done. Flaming instead of mere criticism.

 

Again, totally agree. In fact, one of the big criterias I use for deciding whether to become a member of another site or forum is seeing whether respect of other's opinions is the general practice. If longtime members come off as rather arrogant and assertive, then I don't feel it's worth my time to discuss stuff with them, as I have neither the patience nor logical genius to engage in a sucessful debate. This is actually the reason I left one particular board about a year ago, and why I've taken a break from another.

 

XD I'd probably just laugh. And then I'd say something like, "Well, I don't know anything about Hannah Montana, so I can't judge." XP Or "whatever floats your boat" or the like.

 

And, you mean in real life? In real life, there's no time to explain all this stuff about personal taste. And I doubt a twelve-year old girl would want to hear it, lol. (Depends on the person.) On the 'net though I might briefly sum up the basics about personal taste.

 

Yeah, I know that was kind of a silly example.

 

Can you backtrack on this part and explain what you mean by the pronouns? What's the "this" of "this kind of extreme" there? I have said nothing even remotely extreme, so I'm a little confused by that statement. And what's the "it"?

 

BTW, although as I said I can't judge since I know virtually nothing about Hannah Montana, it's plain as the nose on Gimli's face that HM is targeted at a different audience than LotR.

 

If there's some kind of moral objection to HM, then okay, but I have no idea.

 

Also, what do you mean about laziness and lack of originality?

 

Okay, let me explain what I mean by this. Basically, I've come to a point where I generally dislike the current way the entire marketing system is set up when relating to media. To me, the biggest problem with TV, movies, and other forms of entertainment today is not that they're necessarily low quality or unoriginal, but that they generally are marketed to specific groups of people. These days, aside from perhaps Pixar, the vast majority of companies prefer to make specific products for specific groups of people, rather than focusing much of their effort on making products that people of all types can enjoy. Hannah Montana is an excellent example of this - being a sitcom aimed at pre-teen and elementary age girls, the producers have have made absolutey no effort to make it appeal to any people besides those groups. The reason for this is because, no matter what the quality of the show and scripts, girls will still watch the show in droves, and thus bring in tons of money regardless of effort.

 

That bothers me, because I don't see why entertainment has to be that way. You see, since targeted marking allows people to make tons of money without necessarily making a high quality product, there's absolutely no desire to make shows that appeal to all sorts of audiences. Instead of spending effort making shows that can be promoted across the spectrum, producers would rather just focus on agressive marketing directed towards one group. In fact, the opening of tastes actually applies to this as well! The belief that target audiences don't need to be challenged to try new products leads to producers giving people the same old types of shows and movies, rather than innovating. Comic books are an excellent example of this - most comic book writers today don't make any effort in making them appeal to women as well as men, as they assume that "women don't want to read comic books." Thus, they instead focus on pleasing their largely male audience in whatever way possible, even if it involves questionable moral content that pulls at their natural reactions to "certain things." (if you catch my drift).

 

Now, keep in mind - I'm not necessarily condemming partisan entertaiment, and I realize that certain things are far harder to market to a wide audience than others. The whole reaosn why TLC markets Bionicle just to young boys is that girls largely won't find battling robots appealing (although there are some exceptions). However, I do feel that our current society has gotten far too used to that kind of marketing, to the point where its accepted that certain types of entertaiment will only appeal to certain groups. For producers, this means that there's no need to make Hannah Montana appeal to people besides young girls and to make comic books appeal to people besides adult males - and for the consumer this leads to prejudice against people who don't follow the norm.

 

By and large, however, the biggest problem with this outlook on entertainment is that it breeds laziness. The whole reason that we see so many productions with Batman as a title character and so many Disney shows revolving around young musical stars is not because they're new and unique, but because they will sell no matter what. With instant success almost undoubtedly guarenteed if producers use well established characters and concepts, they often feel no need to innovate and try new things, or even to try to improve on what has already been established. Of course, this isn't always the case, and there's still innovation every year, but not nearly as much as their could be. And that's really sad.

 

I'll post some more comments later, but I have to cut it off right now.

Actually, I completely agree on all of these points - however, I would add that there's usually a difference between style and quality.

Agreed. Style refers to different approaches in general, while quality refers to how well they are done. Both terms can be highly subjective, including how they relate to each other, but definately aren't synonyms in general. I do see many complainers mixing the two concepts up a lot, though; they assume some aspect of something is low quality because they don't quite realize the style it's aiming for.

Basically, I've come to a point where I generally dislike the current way the entire marketing system is set up when relating to media. To me, the biggest problem with TV, movies, and other forms of entertainment today is not that they're necessarily low quality or unoriginal, but that they generally are marketed to specific groups of people.

Alright, well, I've already read on, and I'll get to more of what you mean by this. But just let me make an aside here that in general, this principle here is a good thing. Different tastes get their own pleasure, rather than only having stuff designed to appeal partly to everybody. Doesn't mean you can't have the "for everybody" stuff too, but a full, healthy range of entertainment IMO should include stuff specifically designed to target certain tastes. And regardless of how common the tastes are, though naturally the less common ones are not going to capable of as much finances as the more common ones, and may sometimes be limited only to fanfics or the like.

These days, aside from perhaps Pixar, the vast majority of companies prefer to make specific products for specific groups of people

Well, I don't see how Pixar is the only such company to do that. But then it's so hard to judge this because tastes really are so complex and so varied and interconnected and yadda. Also, appealing to particular style-tastes is hardly a new thing. It's been done for as long as entertainment has existed.

But the good thing about those products that are designed for specific groups of people is that everybody is more fulfilled. When all that's available is something that's targeting everybody, most audience members are overall less pleased by it. It harmonizes less well with their soul. But things designed directly for them have a high amount of that soul-harmony that fulfills their tastes, strengthening their talents, improving the health of their psyche, making them better fit for life.

rather than focusing much of their effort on making products that people of all types can enjoy. Hannah Montana is an excellent example of this - being a sitcom aimed at pre-teen and elementary age girls, the producers have have made absolutey no effort to make it appeal to any people besides those groups.

In principle, what's wrong with that? Why should not pre-teen etc. girls get entertainment designed to please them especially well? Doesn't mean HM necessarily does everything right (likeisay, no idea ), but there's nothing wrong with choosing to target a specific group.

If literally everybody was making movies and shows and whatnot that purposefully avoided trying to appeal to a wider audience, as you seem to be saying with rare exception, then maybe there'd be a problem. But a balance of both is what I see.

The reason for this is because, no matter what the quality of the show and scripts, girls will still watch the show in droves, and thus bring in tons of money regardless of effort.

Yes, but don't forget it's not ultimately about the money, per se. (Maybe it is for the producers of HM, but I mean this basic principle.) The best results of this are about making the fans in question happier.

You see, since targeted marking allows people to make tons of money without necessarily making a high quality product

That's highly debatable. Look at Bionicle for example. When it didn't do such a good job of making high quality sets, as the dominant taste style for Bionicle defines it, sales were dropping and threatening the end of the line. When quality went up in 05, 06, 07, and beyond, sales soared.

The reason why Hannah Montana is so successful, I would wager, is because it IS being high quality for that taste demographic. You, not being among that group, probably aren't well qualified to judge its quality. But there have been other things targeted at this age group, and few so successful and such a household name. That's not a coincidence, methinks.

there's absolutely no desire to make shows that appeal to all sorts of audiences.

Well, I can only say that personally, there's so much good fiction shows on right now, at least the channels I get, that I can barely keep up with 'em. The CSIs stand out -- they are hugely popular with a wide variety of taste-types of people. Numbers is another good example -- it's a fun show even if you're not a math whiz like the main character because it's made undertandable to everybody. Hardly in the same category as Hannah Montana lol, but they come to mind. CSI itself is one of THE most popular shows on TV right now. They're definately still genre (but genre is nothing new, or bad); they're all crime dramas, but they also have a lot of variety.

Also, don't forget the value of self-expression. If only shows appealing to a wider audience are allowed (and not just shows), then people OF taste groups aren't free to express themselves in the ways that are THEM, taste-wise.

In fact, the opening of tastes actually applies to this as well! The belief that target audiences don't need to be challenged to try new products leads to producers giving people the same old types of shows and movies, rather than innovating.

I don't see how that's the case. LOST, Heroes, Flash Forward come to mind as very innovative shows, though granted with the exception of FF they're not new anymore (and morality issues aside, which any of these shows may have). The problem with innovation, of course, is that it quickly becomes yesterday's innovation. But I see innovation still happening.

You mentioned Pixar, for example -- but IMO Pixar is actually appealing to a demographic as well. Remember that there's no such thing as totally separate taste-groups. If you talk about a particular kind of taste -- young girls for example -- and then another -- people who enjoy Pixar's animation style for example -- both groups are going to overlap to at least some extent. Don't forget that though Pixar has a lot of variety, they HAVE established a certain style, overall, that they go for. You can pretty much spot a Pixar film among all the theatrical releases so far, with things like the style of humans, the way the lines and curves are handled on the inanimate objects (or the animate toys and robots ), the level of detail, the style of humor, the quality of dialogue in general, the types of cleverness, etc.

That's a big taste group that cuts across many smaller group lines, but it's still a taste group, and it's not a coincidence that Pixar includes some level of consistency from movie to movie in style. They probably believe that if they changed that style too much, they'd anger their current fans who like that style, and not gain enough new ones.

Comic books are an excellent example of this - most comic book writers today don't make any effort in making them appeal to women as well as men, as they assume that "women don't want to read comic books." Thus, they instead focus on pleasing their largely male audience in whatever way possible, even if it involves questionable moral content that pulls at their natural reactions to "certain things." (if you catch my drift).

I do catch it, but that's again a moral issue, and I'm talking purely about taste. Comic books could appeal largely to men/boys without sinking to that low, and frankly the comics of Bionicle are a prime example. I wouldn't know how much other comics do or don't break that moral standard, but I doubt it's literally all of them.

Now, keep in mind - I'm not necessarily condemming partisan entertaiment, and I realize that certain things are far harder to market to a wide audience than others.

I get that. Back to the Pixar example, though -- realize that it IS marketed. It IS partisan (a word that really belongs in politics, BTW, because it implies an objection to the other side / other sides. In the ideal world of people who understand and appreciate personal taste, there would be no objection at all but instead support for and even willingness to try out other groups getting their kinds of entertainment, morals aside -- but in the sense of Pixar is purposefully deciding not to use certain styles or types of jokes etc. it IS partisan).

It's just marketed for a taste group that is extremely common.

However, I do feel that our current society has gotten far too used to that kind of marketing, to the point where its accepted that certain types of entertaiment will only appeal to certain groups.

Okay, but what is wrong with that statement (in bold)? What is wrong with society accepting that certain entertainment will appeal only to certain taste-groups? That's exactly the sort of scenario I think is needed -- there needs to be MORE acceptance and understanding of varied personal tastes. If you've ever had anyone say "only babies are into Bionicle" for example, that's the sort of taste discrimination that is ended by this kind of acceptance.

for the consumer this leads to prejudice against people who don't follow the norm.

I don't think that's the case at all -- projudice against people who don't follow norms is the sort of thing that comes from failing to accept the goodness of varied personal tastes. Failing to understand taste. Ignorance on this issue. That's what I fight against. If someone truly accepts that Bionicle will be enjoyed by certain taste groups, and really understands taste, then it won't surprise them or anger them in any way to learn that some adults are included in that group, not just youth -- after all, if no adults like it, then there would be no adults to produce it for the kids.

That includes fanfics, online contests; the sort of thing I produce, as well as official sets and storyline produced by LEGO. The best way to appeal to the target group is to have producers who share their tastes, at least in major ways. Someone who has a full understanding of taste would get that.

By and large, however, the biggest problem with this outlook on entertainment is that it breeds laziness. The whole reason that we see so many productions with Batman as a title character and so many Disney shows revolving around young musical stars is not because they're new and unique, but because they will sell no matter what.

Well, I can't argue that laziness isn't common, but I do not see any legitimate argument that appealing to specific tastes is what breeds it. Laziness is human nature, sadly. Actually, laziness has its purpose, which many people don't appreciate (been planning to do a blog entry about this, but have been too.... lazy ). But laziness is misused, yes. Personal taste is human nature too, and personal taste is horribly abused and misused quite often. Just about anything in human nature is misused and abused by human beings all the time. You name it, there are cases of it being corrupted.

That does not mean that the aspects of human nature themselves are at fault. In fact they are very good when used properly. The real underlying mistake people make, that breeds these misuses, IMO, is a lack of knowledge of how to determine how to do things properly -- regardless of what it is exactly. (And of course I sure you can guess at what religious comments I would add to this if I could.)

With instant success almost undoubtedly guarenteed

That's not the case at all, IMO. Look at Pixar. Was instant success guaranteed for them? NO! They may not have known whether it would be so successful before they launched it, but they worked hard, practiced, applied their brains in innovative ways, and came up with specific styles and taste-targets to use in creating the first Pixar film. A lot of hard work, money, advertising, planning, test film shorts, discussion, experimenting, etc. went into that.

Can it be said that Hannah Montana, or CSI, or Heroes, or whatever were guaranteed to be instant successes? I say no -- they succeed at being higher quality for their target audience than other shows or whatnot, and that's why you hear about them more than other things that appeal to the same audiences.

And yet, the answer to all of the above may very well be yes in a different sense. Because they ARE quality, tastewise, for the target demographics, Pixar included, and because they were marketed well, there are physics that determine that yes, once you do everything right or mostly right you are pretty much guaranteed success.

But then arguments can be made against even that -- what if something else bigger and better had come out at the time and took off just before those things and they became seen as mere copycats and never became popular, then died?

Of course, this isn't always the case, and there's still innovation every year, but not nearly as much as their could be. And that's really sad.

How much could there be? I think this is the total wrong response. I think a far healthier response is to realize that there could be NO innovation, no even entertainment... in fact no human beings at all (we could all get nuked and you could be the sole survivor... okay that's unlikely but someone could be the sole survivor ). And appreciate each new innovation for what it's worth.

Theoretically, every single human being on the planet could be putting out their own entertainment series (and more and more are via online fiction, fan fiction, etc.), and by the logic you used there, anything less would be sad -- even anything less than each person putting out the maximum they could possibly have time for.

Also, there's nothing wrong with consistency either. I've said many times for Bionicle that there are some things that objectively should not change, at least not that often, because they're things that harmonize with the taste-group's soul more. That can be a major factor of quality; you cannot assume that only innovation equals quality. Like breathing air or drinking water compared to eating a specific type of food. Humans never get tired of breathing (fresh) air or drinking (clean) water. Well, they might very briefly, at least with water, but that boredom goes away extremely fast compared to if you're stuck eating the same food over and over.

There are many things in entertainment that operate on the same principle for certain taste-groups.

So theoretically, there could be a long time where nothing innovative is done, but certain taste groups are getting a lot of what they love most, and that could be quality for them. Of course, humans have a yearning for innovation too, don't get me wrong, but it's not like everything has to be all innovation all the time.