BBC's "Sherlock" has returned, as some of the more brilliant among you may have deduced from the ad campaign, or the fact that I keep making excited, effeminate noises in conversation and squealing that "Sherlock" is back on.
With typical journalistic skill, the Daily Mail website (no, I'm not linking to it, go fuck yourselves) commented on the first episode of the new series and managed to get every single actor's name wrong. As many people pointed out, even the Mail probably isn't that stupid or out of touch, although it's debatable. The consensus, however, was that the Mail was doing it deliberately to generate site traffic.
This is one of the most unpleasant things about writing for the internet. Not on some ignored blog like the one you're currently reading, but when you do it for high-volume sites. Anyone who was aware of my brief sojourn into the hell of Sick Chirpse (I'm not linking them, either) will know where my experience comes from, but they seem to be pretty common to a lot of sites, from what I can make out.
There's an old Simpsons episode from the era when the show was past being great but was at least still good, where Sideshow Bob decides that TV is ruining society and vows to destroy it. It's a quaint notion from a 2014 perspective - TV is rotting our brains?! Wait until you meet the internet! - but he makes his announcement in a mass broadcast, signs off and then flicks back on to say that he's aware of the irony of decrying TV via a big screen, so please don't point it out. I'm doing the same thing here. I'm going to write online about how shitty writing online is, and trust everyone not to make an issue of it.
Pictured: Me.
As the Mail has illustrated, "click-bait" is everything when it comes to web traffic. It's why pop-up ads always feature little games to play, as everyone is aware. It's also why the same handful of worn-out buzz words crop up over and over again. "Insane Trick/Crazy Secret/Mind Blowing Facts" etc. It's all monumentally cynical, but what people may not be aware of is that a lot of the people writing this stuff start out with the best intentions, and often a better headline.
When it first emerged in the news that someone had made a 3D printable gun, I wrote an article about it that attempted to address the issues of freedom and personal responsibility, as well as the overall (in my opinion) recklessness of the guy who masterminded the invention. These were fairly complicated themes and I appreciate that it's a controversial issue that can be debated indefinitely with no clear resolution.
Luckily, the website posted it under the heading "Some Dumbass American Has Made A 3D Printable Gun", which made me seem judgemental, racist and lazy.
In person? I'm at least two thirds of those things. But I try to put my grown-up head on when it comes to serious news.
It's a shitty headline, but this is where click-bait wins out. You might click the article because you're a lazy, judgemental racist yourself and want to hear some good old fashioned abuse of other countries. Maybe you're none of the above and clicked the link to comment that it's a shitty headline and the author is clearly a moron. Either way, that's two demographics who might click the link, and therefore more traffic. Never mind that the headline was now almost nothing to do with the content of the piece. It was designed to generate traffic, with the fun side effect that I was left holding the bag because it was my name on the whole thing.
Luckily, I was savvy enough early on to decide not to ever, EVER get involved with comments sections. This was slightly double-edged in that sometimes someone would post something very nice about what I'd written, and I'd feel stuck up for not thanking them. But if I thanked everyone who said something nice, I'd also have to argue with everyone who said something unpleasant, or else look like a narcissist. And as anyone who's been online for five minutes knows, the internet never runs out of people willing to say something unpleasant.
There were plenty of people who were willing to say unpleasant things that were entirely justified, but often not my fault. Obviously I don't expect everyone to agree with me (at least not this side of the Glorious Revolution which will see dissenters sent to the camps...) but sometimes people would ridicule me for mistakes I had nothing to do with. In an article about Islamic terrorism, someone in editing inserted a random "not" into one of my sentences, and thereby completely reversed my point.
I was baffled, so went back to the draft version I had sent, and sure enough, there was no "not" in the sentence. What I'd submitted made sense, what they'd changed it into was completely contradictory, and once again, I look like the asshole because my name is on the piece.
It's also worth pointing out that I wasn't getting paid for any of this.
I joined the site which had vague promises of payment "in the future" if everyone kept their article rate up (at least three a week, on top of my full time job) and this meant that everyone working for the site was reduced to swinging at every pitch in the hopes of coming up with something decent. I wrote articles on Justin Bieber, for example, a subject I have no interest in no matter how violently his child stardom implodes.
Didn't matter. Had to write something, and there was nothing else I had even a vague opinion about in the news. Plus it was late, I was tired, and I needed another two ideas that week, assuming someone didn't beat me to the punch on the current, already flimsy one.
The alternative, of course, was to just write and publish absolute shite at a relentless pace. I worked really hard at not doing this, albeit with varying degrees of success, but some people I worked with were absolutely shameless. They'd type anything that came into their heads, press "publish," and that was that. The quality of the site was all over the place as a result, and the person most guilty of flinging shitty content like an enraged bonobo was one of the site's founders, and co-editors.
One month, Richard Branson lost a bet with a fellow billionaire and, as a result, had to dress as a stewardess and serve on his rival's airline for a shift. He did it, and the pictures were a sight to behold. I wrote about it and went with the title "Richard Branson: Good Sport, Terrifying Transvestite." The editor in question changed it to "Richard Branson Lost A Bet And Had To Dress Up As A Woman And It Was Completely Rank."
It was one of the reasons I gave up.
Idiots in positions of power aren't just a problem on hack sites, either. I've submitted work to sites I actually like (not saying who) but before your work even gets near an editor, it often has to make it through a series of amateur moderators. These are people who are employed (or sometimes volunteer) to read through ideas and decide whether they're worth passing up the chain or not. This is sensible in terms of saving the time and energy of the editors for more important things, but leaves submissions entirely at the whim of someone who is almost certainly unqualified. One of my ideas was shot down because, in the opinion of the first moderator to see it, it wasn't good sport to make fun of people who had died, even though the people in question had been killed in spectacular ways through their own demonstrable stupidity.
I can see their point, it is a little insensitive to laugh at the dead, but it becomes maddeningly inconsistent when you note that the same website (which bills itself as a comedy site) has published articles dealing with the Black Death, the Crusades, Vlad the Impaler, numerous serial killers, individual medical horrors, etc etc. I just checked the site in question, and today (5th Jan 2013) they made a joke about Auschwitz having "the worst showers this side of a dorm room."
Josef Stalin said that one death is a tragedy but a million deaths is a statistic, but in this case, five deaths were no laughing matter but genocide was fair game for a giggle. I think that's wrong, but I can't argue my case in front of anyone except the moderator who had already turned me down.
The problem with the internet is that, broadly speaking, it contains absolutely everything, and as such constantly needs more everything to fill it.
This means that there will always be websites hungry for content, and there will always be an absolute avalanche of submissions to fill the gaps. Most of them will be terrible, and then it becomes a case of either publishing anyway, or hiring someone to make snap decisions about what plays and what doesn't.
It's a perilous, luck-based, exhausting, fraught, desperate, cut-throat and above all infuriating experience, trying to break into writing. Especially if you're trying to hold down a job that's absolutely nothing to do with writing at all for at least 45 hours a week.
It's why I'm currently only typing away at myself in this tiny, ignored corner of the appallingly-named blogosphere. And it's also why updates around here are sporadic, alright?!
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