Daft Punk Get Lucky. How a middle aged man can enjoy the ‘latest thing’

There is a saying ‘I don’t know much about art, but I know what I like’.  I guess we could extend that to: ‘I don’t know much about music, but I know what I like’ as well.

I am always for the lookout for new music to be put on my iPad which provides a musical background to most of my weekends as I do the usual chores.  So inevitably I heard the hype about the new Daft Punk album and I thought that I may want to hear if anything took my fancy.

As someone who gave up keeping up with music around 1987, I didn’t really think that Daft Punk had much to offer.  The only songs I remembered were Da Funk (which had a video which for some reason irritated me)  ‘One more time‘ and ‘Around the World‘.  (where this time I loved the choreography in the video).  The music was initially appealing,  but it’s repetitiveness I think would drive me up the wall if it was on shuffle on the iPad.  I always thought this music was designed for dance parties (something that I never been to, or interested in) where the repetitiveness is part of the deal.

So I went on youtube and searched for ‘latest Daft Punk single’ and ‘Get Lucky’ came up.  Immediately from its first notes I recognised the music immediately, it was a disco song.  A good one, an intelligent one, but it was late 70′s disco to me.

And this is music that I know, as a middle aged 52 year old.  Because this was the music that was played on commercial radio in my late teens – and then I hated it.  Probably because it coincided with an unhappy period of my life, struggling as a young fat teenager just after migrating to Australia.  But the most listened Top 40 radio station in Sydney at that time was 2SM (sister station to 3XY in Melbourne) and disco was played quite a lot.

It was when I was able to come to Melbourne and start listening to 3RMIT-FM, later to become 3RRR during my HSC year that I discovered music that I liked, like Buzzcocks, Talking Heads, XTC etc. Disco was for the commercial pap radio.

Later in life, as the personal negative connotations of disco evaporated I was able to enjoy it ‘ironically’ such as my 30th birthday party where there was a bit of disco played.

So it was quite a surprise when I heard ‘Get Lucky’.  It sounded almost straight from 1975.  Of course my uneducated ears may be wrong.  Someone who knows about modern music, Pete Paphides talks about the new Daft Punk album in his blog and titles the post thus: “It’s not actually a disco album per se.”

He writes:

……it’s a love letter to the disco era, a sometimes poignant memorial to the unquenchable optimism of pre-Aids dance music – but not actually a disco album per se.

Dear People Who Seem Convinced That It’s All Been Done Before. Listen to Get Lucky. Then go back to your record collection and try and find a song that really sounds like it. I tried it the other week. I pulled out all of my Chic records. I pulled out Diana Ross’s Upside Down. I pulled out Sheila B. Devotion. None of them scratched the itch that Get Lucky scratched. The deep, foetal bass of Get Lucky couldn’t have been laid down in a pre-techno era. The gradual mutation of the vocal melody into robot-ecstasy – I haven’t heard that on any other record of the era.

Which is fair enough.  I haven’t the depth of knowledge that Paphides has, however my brain reached for its databank of music and immediately went to ‘Shame Shame Shame’ by Shirley & Co.

What got me to think about the song is the constant back rhythm of a strummed guitar which goes 1-2..3-4….1-2….3-4 for the whole song, which is something that ‘Get Lucky’ does as well.

The same strummed guitar, and a song that feels that it also shares a similar chord progression is ‘Shake your booty’ by KC and the Sunshine band.

I reckon that someone, somewhere is going to do a mush up of these two songs, which will be interesting.

What it is also interesting is that these two songs, were released in 1975 and 1976 respectively, which is basically the same time when the two Daft Punk musicians were born.

For me, well it is cathartic.  After all this year I can enjoy disco as a 52 year old and feel OK about it.  Even sharing it on ‘cloud’ with my 13 year old son.  Who would have thought.

Kevin Sheedy and Western Sydney: Not racist. Not xenophobic. Just ignorant.

 

 

 

Jock: You did some nice things last week. Not one of your best games but you did some nice things. Glorious mark you took in the second quarter. You just seemed to go up and up.

Geoff: I felt like Achilles.

Jock: Who’s he?

Geoff: A Greek guy who could really jump.

Jock: [nods] Some of our new Australians could be champions if they’d stop playing soccer and assimilate.

The Club, Act 1. David Williamson – 1977

 

I’ve used this quote before, it is one of my favourites because it encapsulate very well a lot of the attitudes towards migrants, who the 1960’s were termed ‘New Australians’.  A term that was implicitly  assimilationist.  You come to Australia, leave your culture behind and become assimilated in our culture.  And of course Australian Rules Football was part of that.  Especially in Australia Rules Football states, where the game was an expression of ‘Australianness’.

If you haven’t seen the play this scene is between Jock, the vice-president of the football club, who I would guess is in his 60’s representing the ‘Old Australia’ of post war picket fences and white bread, and Geoff a young star recruit who goes to University and is questioning the ‘old traditional’ values of the Club and football in general.

The play uses the football club to expose the changes occurring in Australia at the time.  The late 60’s early 70’s were a great moment of change in Australia.  The Vietnam war radicalised many young people. The Whitlam government reflected the change after years of conservative government with progressive policies.

The exchange between Jock and Geoff has a comical dimension when Jock doesn’t know who Achilles really was, but I thought of the last sentence in this passage when I heard Kevin Sheedy’s comments linking the immigration department to the success of the Western Sydney Wanderers.

I suspect that Sheedy is more read and knowledgeable than poor old Jock, and would know who Achilles was, but ultimately share the same opinion about football and the place of migration in Australia.

Sheedy was born in 1947, and would have experienced in his childhood the first wave of post-war migration.  He went to de La Salle College in Malvern, Melbourne which I don’t know would have had many students of Non English Speaking Background (NESB) in those days.   I think he has a strong sense of fairness from his Catholic background, and this has influenced his efforts in being inclusive with Aborigines and also NESB players.

Therefore, unlike some twitters, I don’t believe that Kevin Sheedy’s statement is in any way racist or even xenophobic.  What it does show however, is that his world view hasn’t kept up with the developments in Australia over the past 20 years.

I think the main source of anger is that Sheedy again has slotted football in the ‘foreign game for migrants’ category.  I can understand why football fans in general, but Western Sydney Wanders ones in particular object to this view.  Sheedy explained his comment with this tweet.

What he has shown is that he fundamentally completely unaware of the person who supports the Wanderers and the links towards the team.  He is ignorant of the social make up of the area that his team is representing in the AFL.  I haven’t done a survey, but I would venture that most fans did not go anywhere near any  ‘Immigration Department’ having been born and bred in the Western Suburbs of Sydney.  They may not have an Anglo or Celtic background, but does that makes them less of an Australian?

Sheedy seems to have this idea that Western Sydney is full of fresh arrived migrants that are unaware of the game of Australian Rules Football.  He should have been informed that that Western Sydney has a large proportion of Australian born, who are probably very aware of the AFL, but it is not part of their tradition which is football and rugby league.  As a Victorian I know that there seems to be this messianic urge about Australian Rules football, that it is such a good game so why anyone wouldn’t want to play it or watch it?  I love footy, but you can’t ignore the culture of the area which was founded on generations playing other codes.

Sheedy should also be aware that as a Victorian, he’s also an outsider in Western Sydney.  In the parlance of headline sub-editors everywhere when they deal with football, Sheedy did a spectacular own goal.  Mis-representing the potential fans for your team is not a good strategy.

 

 

How the west was won..and almost won everything else

Wanderers fans do The Poznan – from W. Major (http://www.flickr.com/photos/91701029@N02/)

So another season has finished, and boy I’m going to miss my weekly dose of the A-League.  There will be football before the next ball will be kicked for the 2013/14 season but it won’t be as enjoyable.  I find the World Cup qualifiers very stressful and not enjoyable at all. The fact is that we are perilously close in not qualifying at will make them even more anxiety-producing.

As a non believer of the exhibition game, I won’t go to the Liverpool one.  I know these sort of games create revenue for Club but I find them as exciting as a limp forgotten leaf of iceberg lettuce at the bottom of the fridge vegi crisper.  Give me a meaningful match with Bangkok Glass in the Asian Champions League any time.

Anyway, the whole talk this year seems to have been around Alessandro del Piero (very cunningly dubbed the The Del Piero Effect™ by Ancelottery  ) and of course the Western Sydney Wanderers.

Before the season started I was very interested about the creation of this club.  Ever since the start of the A-League this was dubbed a mystical land, the cradle of football in Australia etc. etc.  It became some sort of Garden of the Hesperides of football, a magical place where any team had to ‘get it right’ lest the unforgiving Gods of Australian sport would be angry and destroy the A-League and football in Australia as we know it.  (Interesting though is how ‘Western Sydney’ has also become a place of importance for politics and the AFL).

Of course, as we know, there were the naysayers saying that it was rushed and it was going to be a failure etc. etc. Being negative and predicting doom and gloom which is part and parcel of being a fan of Association Football in Australia. But as I followed the process I could see that unlike previous teams’ creation, the FFA was going about it the right way.  It set up forums across the region, asking about everything, including the colours, where to play etc.  This meant that it created a strong sense of ownership amongst at least a core of the supporters.  Unlike other A-league teams where it was basically a ‘Build it and they will come’ model, the Wanderers immediately were ‘owned’ by the fans.

This was also aided by the fact that the ‘West’ has a definite sense of identity, so the team had already an opportunity to express a sense of representation, something that it took much more time for other teams which were presented to us to support in the first season of the A-League.  This sense of identity and community is gold for any team, and to their credit this time the FFA was able to capture it, and the results are there to be seen.

The other masterstroke was to engage Popovic as coach. Not only he was well credentialed as the assistant coach at Crystal Palace, but most important of all he was from Western Sydney, and fans immediately saw him as one of their own.

There is no doubt that for other supporters (especially Victory ones, who up to now were seen as being the benchmark of support in the A-league) all the gushing commentary by the Sydney media about the Wanderers and their supporters is somewhat irksome.  Partly I think that part of this enthusing commentary comes from a sense of relief that such an important team, for such an important area for football in Australia didn’t look like going the same way as the Gold Coast United or the North Queensland Fury.

Another thing though that the Wanderers seem to have succeeded is that even the non-active sections get involved.  The Northern Terrace is probably still the most organised, (I would venture the Southern end couldn’t care less, as they are there for the beer and to have a good time) but from what I can gather the whole Parramatta Stadium gets involved one way or the other, something that doesn’t happen at Victory matches.

However I think that there still something Victory supporters have over the Wanderers.  Unlike the success of the Wanderers, Melbourne Victory had a dismal first season, finishing second last and being only saved by the ignominy of last place by the New Zealand Knights.  The fact that fans still kept going after that, and that apparently crowds never fell below 10K is a source of pride for Victory supporters.  The proof of the pudding for the Wanderers will be when, as inevitably all teams do, they will not perform as brilliantly. Will the some supporters fall away?  There is a type of ‘supporter’ that instead of going to the match to encourage the players no matter what, go to the match to do the opposite.  That is to derive satisfaction from winning, to identify with the winners and fell good.  When the team loses these ‘supporters’ tend to stay away.

As a supporter of football in Australia first and foremost, and therefore of the A-league as a whole (in fact I made a point to travel to Parramatta in November to watch the first Wanderers-Victory encounter, as a way to support the competition) I have been very happy for the Wanderers success and the way the support has grown.  And hope this continues.  I’d rather have perhaps over the top commentary from a Sydney journo about the Wanderers’ fans than a depressing one about a dismal turnout.  It also raises the bar for other fans, which is great.

Imagine if non-active Victory fans could get a bit more involved….a Victory – Wanderers Grand Final.  What a moment that would be.

The day I lost my Twitter innocence – I got blocked

I’ve been on twitter I think a couple of years or so. And as I stated in a previous post, twitting can be a dangerous thing.

As I also explained there, I’ve have been very cautious and avoided getting into a twitter fight, firstly because I am not very good at arguing online anyway, and secondly because it is even worse when all I have is 140 characters.

This policy meant that I’ve never been blocked by anyone. Except now.

What could have caused the ire of that person? It is a question I’m asking myself as well.

Well, I have mentioned this person before. It is none other than Rita Panahi. The commentator that wrote two articles about Association Football fans. One is the now infamous one about ‘Chairgate’ while the other was one asserting that ‘soccer’ fans were nasty.

 

The strange thing is that I believed I wasn’t part of those nasty evil soccer fans she talked about. In fact quite the opposite. As her article online was paywalled – and I can’t bear to pay any money for that nasty, anti-working class, xenophobic, Murdock owned, pro-Liberal biased rag called the Herald Sun – I had an opportunity to read it a few days later in a café after I took my son to his orthodontist.

I thought the article was uninformed and pandered to the usual stereotypes. But, the overall it was balanced FROM A NON FOOTBALL FAN POINT OF VIEW. That is that from someone that may not a dyed in the wool Association Football fan it was a reasonable, if misinformed, article. But mostly I didn’t think it warranted the level of aggro that was directed at her. And also because insulting anyone is not really conducive in changing anyone’s mind.

So I did tweet something to her (and this was the first and only tweets I sent her)

 

Those tweets were risky in a sense that I’ve might have pissed off many of my football followers who were really angry with Ms. Panahi, so I did stuck my neck a bit.

She responded:

I thought that her term of ‘disgraced themselves’ was a bit matronly, but I let it pass.

I did include the handle @RitaPanahi in some of the discussions with others who were more vocal in her disapproval. And perhaps I was blocked collaterally so she could not see others in her feed.

Perhaps it was the title of my by blog post: The Panahi/Elliott affair. Time to move on. Maybe it was ambiguous and I was implying that she and Mr. Elliot had an illicit liaison?

 

Who knows. If she read the post she would have read that while I was critical of her opening that we can’t call football…football in Australia (which I reiterate for the umptimph time I don’t really care, but go to the post if interested where I explain why it could have raffled some football fan’s feathers) she would have seen that the ‘us vs. them’ mentality really gets us nowhere. For sure criticise and debate, but being insulting may make us feel better but solves nothing.

But also I said: “Ms. Panahi has written uninformed articles, but offensive, misogynistic and racist comments directed at her are unacceptable and drags us all down.” I have read tweets calling her a ‘bitch’ and a ‘curry muncher’ and I repeat: THIS IS TOTALLY AND UTTERLY UNACEPPTABLE. She expressed an opinion that we think is wrong. We think that she mis-represents us and our code. Being racist and misogynist dickwads does nothing for the overall debate.

As I was never intending to be one of her followers I don’t care being blocked by Ms. Panahi. But at least I have now been blocked by someone. I am a fully fledged twitter.

 

The Panahi/Elliott affair. Time to move on.

There only one word about it.  A tweeter shitstorm has been occurring amongst football fans and some members of the media.  About the the Etihad Chairs incident (surely to get a TV Underbelly treatment soon) and consequently comments made by some about the behaviour of soccer fans etc. etc.

I am fairly certain that most people reading this would know the whole sorry saga.  But for a nice summary you can read an article written by Michael DiFabrizio in ‘The Roar’.

That article also points out that The ‘us against them’ mentality no point to any of it.

Both sets of fans are right and both sets of fans are wrong. Some of what they say is bang on, some is well off target.

Ultimately, they can keep throwing grenades at each other until the cows come home, but unless everyone on each side takes the time and effort to become truly informed on what’s happening either side of the fence, there really is no point.

In fact, you don’t need to jump the fence to realise there isn’t a point.

Michael is absolutely right.  However it may be useful to perhaps think where all this outrage comes from.

When SOME commentators who are more fans of Australian Rules Football, rather than Association Football comment about Association Football they have the tendency to use a language of exclusivity. Overall, while I disagreed with most of it Ms. Panahi article, it wasn’t neither here or there (even though we heard the arguments before). But she started with the statement: “And let’s set the record straight: it is called soccer in this country. Football is played with an oval ball on an oval ground.” Some (and that includes me) may go ‘meh’, I don’t really mind.  But for some it reads like: “We – AFL supporters – will decide how your sport will be called. It’s called soccer. We don’t give a fig if it’s called football in other countries. Football is reserved for games of the mainstream (AFL + NRL) while your sport is something else. It doesn’t belong in here. It’s not in the same league”

Oversensitive? Perhaps. But I have noticed that many reasonable and thoughtful writers such as Michael that may (and I am ready to be corrected) not have followed Association Football for many years, either because they were following something else, or they are too young, tend to be surprised and question the reaction. But after decades of being told that the sport we love was basically a second class citizen this has developed a sensitivity amongst the supporters.

Think of the time when there were no defenders in the media for Association Football AT ALL.  When we missed out for qualification for World Cups for thirty years, and some of our fellow Australians instead of commiserating with us were scornful (It’s a shit sport anyway mate, who cares joining all those primadonnas at the world cup etc. etc. ).  All those jibes at work, and especially at school, where in many cases the Aussie Rules/Cricket boys were the exhaulted ones , while those playing soccer were ignored at best, or labelled wogs or sissies.

Then you can understand the irritation towards media outlets such as 3AW virtually ignoring Association Football, even when attendances match or even exceed cricket and Rugby League ones  but taking notice only when something negative happens – and when it does emphasising the ‘nor part of Australia culture’ argument.

Michael and other journalist take the example of what’s happening with the drug scandal at Essendon at the moment as proof that the AFL is not spared scrutiny.  Which is true.  Just read the scathing article today by Caroline Wilson: “Would you want your son playing AFL footy?”    But rarely I’ve seen Association Football journalists, hoeing into AFL and questioning it’s existence and value in Australian culture like SOME AFL journalists or at least AFL friendly media personalities such as Tom Elliot.

Perhaps this unawareness of the resentment some of us carry about how Association Football is treated  is why when some commentators such as Ms. Panahi criticise the sport she is startled by the backlash.  Many twitters have written that we (Association Football fans) have been taking shit for years but now we’re fighting back.

But perhaps we should try ‘fighting fair?’ Of course it takes two, and we know that some media outlets like to antagonise Association Football fans (they must get a shitload of hits).  If that is the case we perhaps just not engage. After all after these ‘Soccer Shame’ media hype have occurred regularly since the inception of the A-League and despite attendances going up and down we do get plenty of people watching, especially in Melbourne.  Both at Etihad and AAMI Park I am literally surrounded by families, so whatever they say doesn’t really affect things much.  When we get the comment ‘the sport will never grow because of the hooligans’ it is false.  The game has grown and it continues to do so.

We don’t have to be touchy.  Ms. Panahi has written uninformed articles, but offensive, misogynistic and racist comments directed at her are unacceptable and drags us all down.  Also I think we need to be more sophisticated in identifying commentators who are against our sport denying its value instead of being angry against anyone who makes a criticism (whether justified or not).  So for instance Rebecca Wilson is a confirmed soccerphobe that will take any opportunity to belittle Association Football in Australia and its place in the sporting culture.  But then you have writers such as Greg Baum and Richard Hinds that have written complementary and critical articles about Association Football.  But because they have been writing a lot about Australian Rules (after all whether we like it or not it is the most popular code in Melbourne) even critically they are suspect and ‘AFL stooges’ which it is not really the case.  All I can say is ‘Know thy enemy’

Perhaps it is also time to shrug off the feeling of inferiority.  We are not wogball anymore and now we are in a position that if someone demeans our sport we can laugh not get angry.  When we go to the finals and we are together with 40,000 of our brotherhood/sisterhood we’ll know that a silly article will be in next day’s recycling bin, and that one radio commentator is really there to re-enforce prejudices of people who will not come to a match anyway and is there to sell denture adhesives.  Nothing to get hot under the collar about.

Misbehaviour at the football: The triumph of the immature egoist

(picture taken by @ludbeyheraldsun)

Two things seem to be happening regularly in the Australian media at the moment. One is ALP leadership speculation every time there is a bad Newspoll and soccer hooligans commentary by commercial media every time something bad happens.

A small mercy is that it is not as bad as it used to be. The fact that the A-League is much less of a marginalised sport has allowed mainstream sport journalists such as Francis Leach, or Gerard Wheatley to realise that going to a football match is an experience that is fun and safe.

But it can’t be denied that there is an element that likes to do some mischief let we say.

This leaves us football fans in a bit of a no win situation. On one hand we can’t really condone any wilful damage, nor any action that can be dangerous. But on the other we feel affronted by the usual commentary (all by followers of the other football codes) that paints the fans of our sport as a bunch of dangerous criminals. Adding to the injury is knowing that even worse incidents at AFL matches have hardly been mentioned.

I discussed the issue about why football crowds are perceived differently in another post that I wrote when again incidents got the conservative media out in force.

Fans know that like shonky builders and horror neighbours commercial media especially is at the ready to write ‘Soccer Shame’ headlines when any incident occur. So why these events still persist?

David Hards writes in his blog that sometimes us football fans can be our worst enemies. He writes:

We must be smarter A-League fans, stop the flares, save the chairs and pull your heads in.  Real football fans work tirelessly improving the image of our games, countless hours are spent by players and staff promoting the game through all facets on the community and our reputation is tarnished by those few who cannot move forward with the league itself.

Flares, crowd violence and a poor media reputation should have been left behind when the A-League established itself and relinquished the ethnicity ties of the various clubs the NSL represented.  On the most part this has worked with great success but we must remember we are only as strong as our weakest link.

A similar sentiment is expressed by Adrian Musolino :

Without the flares and bottle and chair throwing, there would be no story.

So sure, the media may overplay what’s going on in the stands. But deprive them of the excuse and the headlines would inevitably disappear or the media become more desperate to seek a negative A-League story……

So, to the active supporters out there, behave. Sing, dance, chant, cheer, make banners, boo the opposition and so forth. This sort of atmosphere is what differentiates football from other codes and will help attract new fans and keep them coming, therefore helping the A-League to grow in stature.

But don’t resort to the flares, violence, chair throwing, racist chants and so forth. They don’t add anything to the fan experience and only fuel the negative headlines.

Meanwhile a Victoria Police statement said that: “There are some issues with the soccer that in some ways we don’t totally understand. I’m not sure why it happens”

Perhaps I can venture an explanation. Before I continue I have to say that mine are opinions based on impressions that I have gathered by reading football forums, social media and by observing people at football matches. It is not based on a survey or formal research, but here is goes.

One comment about the chair incident from Facebook

Regardless of the chairs that were broken, we’ve already adopted to footballing culture from Europe decades ago…it is something that no one can prevent! If thick minded people think that soccer is just a sport to watch with no atmosphere (flares) then what’s the point of being a spectator?

Criticism of the type of support the FFA wanted back in 2004:

Yeh, overseas flares are a norm, they are not seen as violent, they add better atmosphere to games, you MVFC have listened to the Australian media too much.
No wonder you will be boring supporters, you will just sit there and occasionaly clap like its some game of golf.
Look at the other clubs like Perth & Adel Utd, never seen them wankers light one flare at a game, boring!

People may go to football matches for a variety of reasons. But perhaps there is a small minority that really doesn’t care about the A-League, doesn’t care about whether the sport of Association Football becomes a major one in Australia, and probably doesn’t care about their team either. They only care about themselves.

Maybe they are young and immature. Maybe they don’t care about football’s image because they are so self-absorbed that all they really care is big-noting themselves in front of their mates, showing how brave they are in ripping a flare or breaking a chair and throwing it without being caught. Maybe they are thrilled by the ‘danger’ of doing something ‘dangerous’.

When I see active fans, especially those who do the choreo they seem to be male and young. While 99% of them are only interested in jumping, chanting and waving flags, I think is really just a few that are using it as a selfish way of big-noting themselves.

I am no skip – they do it over there but we don’t do it here.

While the ethnicity issue has been largely taken out with the advent of the A-League, there seems to be a persistent belief amongst some fans that if we don’t copy what they do overseas, then we are not ‘real’ football fans. A great example of sporting cringe. These individuals go to sites like these drool about the flares in Europe and think that something like that has to be reproduced in Australia. When you point that the Australian sporting culture is different they snide that it is an inferior one, and tell you to ‘piss off back to the AFL’ where it is bland and boring.

And here is the issue that perhaps those who take flares in the ground, those who use the idiotic initials of A.C.A.B (All Cops Are Bastards) those who do damage, are wannabe Ultras and use football as a vehicle first for self-aggrandisement as explained before, but second also as a rebellion against the ‘Australian’ culture, that include the AFL and the NRL. Criticisms by soccerphobes in the media can actually enhance this feeling of isolation and perhaps even motivate them to misbehave even more (You can criticise me all you like you skip bastards, get fucked the lot of youse, here’s another flare!). I think many couldn’t care less if there were only 500 people at a match, as long they were ‘true fans’ like them (unlike wishy washy AFL types). Couldn’t care less if football became a marginalised, ignored, irrelevant sport again as long as they can get their jollies at the weekend (in fact it could be argued that the NSL almost reached that point).

The Solution?

So can this behaviour be changed? I think it can but it would require a shift in the belief of not dobbing. In Australian culture dobbing is already a crime. This is enhanced by the fact that it seems that even if active supporters don’t like flares, or misbehaviour (I’ve read one being really pissed off that hours spent in creating a banner was ruined when someone ripped a flare when the banner went up) seems reticent to report them to security. With the chair issues at the Melbourne Heart section how long this went on? I don’t think 100+ chairs could have been broken in seconds. If someone alerted security the responsible people would have been ejected and only a few chairs would have been broken. The fact seems to be that even those who disapprove won’t ‘dob’ someone else to the police or security. There still may be the feeling that dobbing is always a low act.

So like other youth behaviour (albeit a minority) such as binge drinking, taking risks with driving etc. which is resistant to change, I think that unfortunately it will be very hard to eliminate flares or other immature acts by some individuals. You can lecture all your like about ‘pulling their head in’ but I think this won’t change many unwanted behaviours.

It has been proven by psychological studies that some young people who misbehave tend not change their behaviour with punishment (in fact may make thing worse) but will from peer pressure. So perhaps instead of evicting offenders and charging them, they will be identified and later other active fans will meet with them and tell them that they are dickheads and their actions are not wanted in their group, and next time they will be on their own, maybe things may change.

May not work. But maybe worth a try. Otherwise we will be caught in this merry-go-round of: ‘incident – anti football media hysterics – football fans being pissed off’ forever.

Dangerous Twitter

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I love twitting. But it is deceptive. So easy to use but so potentially dangerous.

Twitter has developed into a very interesting social media phenomenon. It is incredibly accessible (anyone with an internet connection and a device/computer can access it and use it in minutes) but also very powerful. You can send a tweet to someone ‘famous’ and chances are that he/she may see it (much more than in previous times where a letter would be probably vetted by some media manager). The flip-side is that anyone can say anything it comes up in their head which is then broadcast in seconds to potentially millions. The ‘retweeting’ feature means that even if you have a low number of followers, some outrageous/offensive tweet can be re-tweeted exponentially and be seen by lots and lots of people who then will comment etc. A frightening case of amplification.

Twitter is also very dangerous of communicating dissent or disagreements. Times I have seen fairly innocuous comments flare up into raging and hurting exchanges. It is difficult enough to show the nuisances of arguing a point without any clues offered by facial expressions or tone of voice, with the limit of a 140 character limit. It sort of goes like this ” I think that X are a bit sensitive to be offended by statement Y” Then someone will respond “What you mean? You heartless person. I have same problem as X” Then I am not heartless, they are exaggerating” “You wouldn‘t say that if you knew. You arsehole” “Who you are calling arsehole? You dickehead” etc. etc.

There was a case of what I thought was a fairly innocuous response to one of my comments and was picked up by another of my followers and then another that didn’t agree with her and it quickly blew into a full raging argument. it felt like when your relatives argued over Christmas dinner. I felt I had to intervene (and risk the unfollow of some of my followers, that I all liked) but ultimately I felt that perhaps things were said that they wouldn’t have been said if this exchange occurred face to face over a beer.

That is why I approach Twitter with a 10 foot pole, which admittedly makes my tweeting a bit bland but personally I would find it a bit depressing to spend my time arguing with others all the time. I heard (maybe it’s an apocryphal story) that in India some Hindus don’t read newspapers until the afternoon, because they are full of stories about bad events, or criticisms etc. and it is not good spiritually to start the day with that negativity.

I feel a bit like that on Twitter. The internet has always been the refuge of the angry and the disempowered. This is the same on both sides of the political spectrum. Of course there are plenty of ‘burn the witch’ Alan Jones-loving right wing beasts around, but I don’t follow them. I do follow many on my side, but even then I do feel irritated by some and their attitude and their seemingly completely tunnel vision. One example is the tweets about the ABC, especially ABC24 TV channel. I do agree that the 24 ABC channel sometimes seems like more of a publicly funded FOX News than a balanced news channel (how many times do we need to hear the biased opinions of ex Howard minister Peter Reith?) however the persistence some have about tweeting about its bias seems a bit obsessive. While they are right that there is a bias, what’s the point of continuing watching the channel, be outraged and tweeting about it all the time?

Same is with social media ABC reporter Latika Bourke. Now, I also have misgivings about some of Ms. Bourke’s interpretation of the events in Canberra. I do think she seems to concentrate on the shortcomings of the government rather than the opposition, and her reporting can appear somewhat shallow (which could be the medium she’s using) but the invectives from some twitters I think has been excessive. As the social media journalist, and on twitter all the time she appears to attract all the opprobrium of all twitters angry about the press gallery in general.

Clementine Ford in an article in Fairfax Sunday paper magazine (sorry, can‘t find a link) makes a very pertinent comment about the ‘exclusive cliques’ in the internet, and twitter in particular ….who enjoys the kudos of followers but will only pay attention to those he or she considers equals.

Some exclusivity also exists amongst those who are ‘famous’. I don’t talk about the ‘One Direction’ type of famous, but maybe some comedians, journalists etc. that ignore those outside their milieu but respond only to colleagues. This may not be necessarily to slight, but just a way to limit their tweet time to exchanges that they may consider more meaningful. I know this so if I see a comedian live on TV and I thought he was great I won’t do a complementary tweet, because (a) it would be lost amongst the thousands of other complementary (or even fawning) tweets about it and (b) because he will respond only to another comedian tweet. So we can be spectators in the interchanges between journalists, actors etc. talking about books, or a film they liked. A bit like a stranger overhearing them in the next table in a café. Any attempt to join the conversation will be treated in the same way. With the twitter equivalent of a stare, silence and being ignored.

Personally I don’t mind following some ‘famous’ person and not being followed by them, in fact quite the opposite. I noticed that at one stage that Annabel Crabb was following me and I felt really embarrassed. What she would think of my ‘Dad Jokes Tweets’ and exchanges about Melbourne Victory? I felt a bit self-conscious. Every time I tweeted something I thought “what Annabel Crabb would make of this?” Fortunately I think Ms. Crabb unfollowed me so now I can stupidly tweet freely.

I still love Twitter. I’ve stopped talking about it amongst acquaintances and friends, as someone will inevitably proclaims that “I’m to busy to be on twitter” (which inversely means that unlike them, you live a useless and unproductive life to ‘waste’ on such activities) and frankly I am tired to justify myself all the time. I’d rather be tweeting.