So I've noticed in my ... oh 15 years on the internet where there comes a time in any web sites life where the owners and operaters stop being a legitamite source of news, reviews and opinions and just devolve into a bunch of whiny punks either wildly out of touch with reality or determined to prove thier opinion as fact, and anyone who dis agrees will be banned or attacked outright. and If they can't seem to get people to agree they will continue to add thier opinion to articles LONG after it has in any way stopped being relevant I've come to the conclusion that Gawker media has meached that point. now I only read IO9 and Kotaku. but Within the last 24 hours I've wanted to smack the writers of several of thier collumns upside the head. This morning Kotaku had an article on a new 3DS add on, but rather than update the article they have in fact...in the span of time I was alseep created THREE articles on the exact same thing.... that it is "Ugly" and is another example of how the 3DS is "Failing". Love it or hate it... it is entirly up to you what you think of the 3DS..... but Kotaku has a MISSION to make sure people view it negativly, they constantly speak of it's "Lacking" library compared to it's predecessor. I can't speak for the rest fo the world but in the 6 months since it's been released I have 3 games for my 3DS I play..... on the original DS....it took 1 YEAR for a game to come out that I wanted to play..... and that was the Episode 3 tie-in game.... As for IO9 thier problem seems to be two fold. Thier hatred of every BIG movie. and thier Racism that M. Night Shamalann commited that he MUST be punished for. With any BIG film IO9 follows a pattern. random articles in the months leading up to it. Daily articles about the movie to get you pumped for it the week of release. THEN.... a CRUSHING review on how TERRIBLE it was. then a week of sporatic articles on why that movie failed and how it could have been better. They've done it to Tron, pirates, transformers and most recently Conan. Now in the week leading up to Conan in one of the articles leading UP to the film, I posted how this would be what happened (And I was less than antogonistic) this comment got me banned....( Although it wasn't until almost a week later that the ban happened)....but sure enough exactly what I posted came true. Thier second annoyance is thier MISSION to make us all believe that "The last airbender" was the most racist piece of hollywood trash ever. Now whether or not you agree with the whole racebending debacle (which I don't) the movie has been out for almost 2 years, and yet they continue to post on it frequently, as recently as just yesterday.... and if you read the comments....most of thier readers seem to NOT agree with them, which is why they continue to force the issue. (Runwaways movie anyone?) Maybe I'm alone in my opinion, or maybe people will eventually reach where I am and think back on this insignificant rant, but two sites I used to enjoy quite a bit have completly lost any sense of unbiased journalism. even some media outlets have begun to blacklist them because too many of thier reviews are not just negative but rather antagonistic. which they cry foul on.... but if you spend enough time on thier site I would hope you can see it as well. Thankfully it is nothing I have yet to observe from the TFW staff in the 8 years I've been here.
I've been on the fence about the Gawker "News" groups ever since the whole Gizmodo iPhone debacle, to be honest, and the recent site redesigns and overall attitude over there (except for Jalopnik) have made me switch back to using stuff like N4G where EVERYTHING news gets posted for gaming news (and only pro-Sony/Anti-Microsoft stories get the top billing, but I don't care what people consider "Hot" news, to be honest) and is usually actually up-to-date on stuff that's going on.
Isn't their defense that they are a "blog" and not a news site? You just don't see a lot of editorial in the TF news sites to their credit. The Gawker sites are revenue driven and have paid staff, editorial content is what drives viewership. People love to hate. You, um...see where this is going.
I do understand, but I DON'T love to hate. and any revenue that could be gained by me personally is being driven away.
Negativity breeds readership and viewership. No one cares if "people", especially online media sites, actually like the things that you (the metaphorical you, not you personally) like. But say something negative to rile up the fanboys, and your viewership and participation skyrockets. You (and this time I do mean you specifically) have fallen for it hook, line and sinker. They have you talking about their sites elsewhere, sending people to them, to see what all the fuss as about.
Well thats certainly true. does that make them right? is a negative enviroment good? If it keeps thier viewership up and thier wallets fat does it make the approach or content valid? If your options are A) Be the best you can be (The TFW approach) or B) be the worst to get MORE money than A, which deserves a reader? Is it a conciouse decision or do they not realize what haters they are. If your familiar with TV-Nihon I'm sure you know to never go into thier channel or onto thier web site unless you plan on praising them, anything else (ANYTHING) will get your posts locked, deleted or your account banned. but a few weeks ago thier was a news post on thier site asking "why is everyone act afraid of us? we're not mean, we're not bullies.... so it seems a good portion of thier staff don't realize how they act or how the rest of the web views them.
A 100%, emphatic, YES. Any site's aim is to get as many people as possible. Numbers = Validation. Ask any executive in any business anywhere that question and they will tell you the same thing, "We don't care if you hate us, so long as you use us". "Deserve" has no place in online readership. It's not about deserving, it's about doing what needs to be done to get people talking about you and checking out your site. Their approach is to be critical of the things they follow, rile up the fanboys when needed and to make sure their sites are always out there. What they do works perfectly. I would tell you to simply stop visiting. But we both know that's not going to happen. The moment they say something against the mainstream fanboy mentality, like "The PS3 is so much better than the 360" or "The 3DS is an utter failure", you and a ten thousand other people will flock there to seethe and rant, and they wouldn't have it any other way.
My favorite thing is when they totally miss a trend's uprising, but when it goes mainstream they start talking about it as if they were there from the start.
And I don't mean the above as a demeaning statement. It's just human nature. Negativity is always a draw.
but then let me ask Joe.... and I say this in the most innocent actually questioning manner possible. why does TFW not follow that formula. Why don't you trash every crappy line? why don't you post scans of the TFCC magazine? why don't you call Michael bay a rapist of the dreams of the once innocent? you seem to maintain a pretty good relationship with Hasbro and I'd imagine that would be hurt by those actions, yet Gawker seems to still have a direct lead to all points in the industry despite thier negativity. many articles end "We have reached out for further comment" this site seems to maintain a pretty level head on the main page. and it seems to work well for you. speaking only for myself personally visiting this site is so hard wired into me I'll type TFW into my address bar...when I'm already AT TFW. but recently I have to remind myself to check Gawker, so I'm actually already phasing it out.... I completly agree that Negativity can be a draw....in the short run. But with every thing there comes a time to phase it out. In comics..... there was a time it was amusing to read Jeph Loebs latest trainwreck or Geoff Johns latest nonsensical retcon or Daniel Ways latest complete and sudden re-interpretation of a character. Before I got bored reading comics. In films ...... It was amusing watch Roger Ebert trash everything and be so out of touch before it got sad (And a little offensive once people started attacking his physical appearance) On the boards.... Transbots constant negativity and controlling of a thread was amusing for a time..... before everyone just starting adding him to thier ignore lists. too much negativity can end up turning people away. I used to go to IGN every day before it got deppressingly negative. EVERYTHING was crap...unless it was advertising on thier site.... or got big down the road in which case they'll behave as though they always LOVED it but I don't read IGN anymore
Two reasons for that. First, who has the energy for it? Really, it takes more energy to maintain the negative approach. And quite frankly, we all have lives outside this site. Transformers really makes up a small part of most of our lives, and we don't really care enough one way or the other. A lot of the guys on Gawker do nothing but that, so they can spend days upon days defending their stuff. Second, it's just not how we do things or have ever really done things. We don't have the millions of dollars pumped into it like the Gawker sites, we also don't have millions of people hitting the sites on a daily basis to become pro-level trolls. Not to mention that a lot of us have very good, close friends working on these things. TFW is but a small cog in the overall Transformer machine. But sites like Kotaku and Gizmodo wield a lot more power in their respective areas, simply because their numbers are too big to lose out on if a company wanted to cut them off. Negativity may seem to be a short term draw to the individual, but the masses will always come. For every person that leaves due to disagreements with articles, there are dozens more showing up every minute who haven't been exhausted on the subjects.
I, for one, think the negativity angle is a short term gain. Sure it riles up the fanboys/girls and draws in the curious, but longer term it churns and burns up people and more and more of us leave. So far, we're replaced by younger and more excitable noobs, but eventually this all may well catch up to them and long term they may burn too many of us out until it hurts their bottom line. I gave up on all Gawker sites a while back. I don't need the constant negativity in my life. Do they miss me? Hells no. I was replaced by 100 14 year olds hammering out in all-caps about the PSGAY or X-SUX360 or CRAPPLE or MICROSUX or whatever corporate identity they have currently hitched their fledgling personality to this year. Will these sites ever miss the "me" types who've left? It's possible that after they burn through enough of us they might. We tend to be the demo that makes more high-end buying decisions than the 14 year olds. But currently no advertisers look that far in the internet world; a click is a click, a pageview is a pageview. If ever advertising on the internet matures to the levels of TV/Radio advertising - demographics and such - things may start to shift as advertisers seek to put their revenues towards those who make purchasing decisions.
