@civilianreader.com
Reader of books (biblio-Sisyphus), listener of music, watcher of movies, drinker of coffee & wine. (Same handle on Insta.) I also like basketball. Basically just ricocheting my way through life. http://civilianreader.com
TIRE TRACKS ON MARS: The Perseverance rover takes pictures of the sun through Martian dust, revealing sunspots invisible from Earth. Today was a little different. Perseverance skipped the sun and pointed its cameras at the ground instead spaceweather.com
i work with words for a living, so I am biased, but I really think we've got to bring back words. really useful if you imbue them with meaning and arrange them properly!
… what?
Unimaginably stupid.
🎯🎯
Online behaviour isn't universal.
If you don't like something, then it is VERY EASY to not do it online. (And, often, offline.)
The article is bemoaning an experience that is entirely avoidable.
The internet has convinced some people that they must pay attention to what they don’t like, or that it exerts an omnipotent influence IRL. When, really, it doesn’t have to.
Many people still choose what to consume based on the very same criteria they did before the internet turbo-charged reviewing and rating. Friend recommendations, store placement, cover art, etc.
For some, their hobby community is online, so yes some will “review online” as a way to talk about it with their fellow fans/community.
The article is a product of the Very Online Culture that the author is bemoaning. Not everyone immediately (or eventually) reviews everything they consume. Most people can (and do) just watch/read/listen to something and enjoy it or not. They can also just talk about it with friends.
“I would have liked the space to make up my own opinion about things.”
Who’s *forcing* their opinions on you? And about art? It is and always has been subjective. Don’t like it? Fine. Do like it? Great. You do you.
Reviews are not prescriptions. Never have been.
“Back then, you watched what film was on. On the TV, or at the cinema. And you were grateful. If you liked something then you would look out for the next thing by this person or staring this person. If you didn’t like it, you didn’t.”
Completely possible today.
Now that I think about it, I maybe do this more than I used to. After Amazon’s “you may also like” carousel became gamified to useless oblivion, there wasn’t really another option.
Go to the bookshop, ask a staff member for a recommendation, or just browse the shelves.
“I read books that I saw in libraries and bookshops that I thought I might like. I wasn’t even bothered about blurbs…”
An entirely replicable experience today. Yesterday, for example, I went to a bookshop and picked out a couple of books that I saw and looked interesting, no reviews consulted.
There is a valid criticism to be made that online reviewing can be manipulated and gamed — we can sometimes see it happen in real-time. (But do we really believe no print journalist ever gave a friend or colleague a positive review due to their personal connection?)
As review sections were shrunk or pruned from publications, those people who read them — and maybe relied on them for recommendations — looked elsewhere for the reviews. Online was where they found them.
But the popularity of reviews online suggests that there was a “market” for them. I remember the Great Book Blogging Explosion of… whenever it was. Dozens of review sites popped up, and got *traffic*. People wanted help finding stuff to try. It helped “smaller”, non-buzzy artists find an audience.
“There were reviews in magazines and newspapers of course, but I wasn’t reading them.”
While there are now fewer reviews in magazine and newspapers, you can also just not read reviews online today. This is an option readily available to you.
Strange piece. Exaggerated for effect, perhaps.
The thing is, though, I think it is entirely possible to still have the experience the author had: yes, the internet had led to an explosion in reviewing (my site is almost 20yrs old!), but… you can just ignore it.
Hawkeye (and the writers room) knew.
Well, the new plastic packaging for Weetabix is a disaster.
[Starting today as a Grumpy Old Man…]
Todd @ Why are we bothering with the Strait of Hormuz when we could simply do this? Explain it to me like I'm 5. Canal RIOS 508 MOUNTAIN HARD AND BIG, WATER NO UP. MANY MANY DIG DIG.
What kind of abomination is “The Shield of the Americas” going to be…?
New 'Daredevil: Born Again' S2 TV Spot with new footage 😈
Correction. Orwell never said this. He did however, warn that: "political language... is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.” (That's Politics and the English Language, one of my favorite essays)
the second Zodiac Killer letter written in a weird code
Good morning. Man, today's Wordle is really hard.
Kaleb Horton photography. No people--who needs 'em.
We said No War and the US government said "best we can do is every war all at the very same time oops we're almost out of bombs but that's probably fine when doing every war, all at the very same time idk we're drunk"
Nothing like a new convert who didn’t do the reading
