The Escapist vindicates snobbery

[Blarg]

Well everything is math so basically all magazines can be broken down as math magazines. Isn't that amazing.

[Plow]

Isn't this basically why The Simpson's lasted so long?

Why Adult Swim can't keep Anime going, why Frisky Dingo died (too densely written to be popular among enough people to get good ratings), and whatnot?

Hell, count the magazines at your local bookstore with articles on pure math or science topics, versus the ones on cars, games, or gossip.

at the same time... simpsons has way the fuck outlasted beavis and butthead

[Max™]

True, I wonder how one would rate the "grade level" of those various shows, B&B was a bit too low level, and too raunchy at times.

Simpsons seems to land just low enough for anyone to "get it", but high enough to wink at you, and make you feel smart for laughing.

[Plow]

It's hard to judge due to the whole "glorifying pyromania" etc. stuff. Nobody wanted the trouble of keeping B&B around.

[Max™]

Yeah, I've always thought the Simpsons was fascinating for the way it managed to ride that line so long without getting significant uproar directed at it.

Wonder how it would have fared 20 years earlier, or how M.A.S.H. would fare today.

[Tekoa]

What if you read it as being a degeneration of the public forum as a consequence its accessibility, replacing elitism with cheap populism?

Different opinions? Though I am inclined to lean more towards your translation of the article. Just trying to be optimistic? But fuck yeah electrolytes.

[Shalyn]

Damn you Ontario, ruining my joke for a select few people who are aware of Ontario's ye olde high school grade system!!

Fixed...
Everyone is a snob about something unless they're seriously no good at/have no interest in anything at all ever. We learn to appreciate things the more we learn about them, and our interest, no matter the cause, would bring us to become more knowledgeable about these things over time and become 'snobs' in some manner. A farmer might become a snob about the seeds he uses, or the kind of tractor he would buy; a makeup artists, or even someone who just enjoys makeup a lot, might be a snob about the brand of makeup they use, as well as the brushes to apply it. Etc examples. The hard part is making things interesting when the audience has no prior interest in it whatsoever. Until that is achieved, it is not likely that any kind of 'grade level' will increase in regards to the target subjects.

[Tempyst]

Isn't this basically why The Simpson's lasted so long?

Why Adult Swim can't keep Anime going, why Frisky Dingo died (too densely written to be popular among enough people to get good ratings), and whatnot?

Hell, count the magazines at your local bookstore with articles on pure math or science topics, versus the ones on cars, games, or gossip.

Adult Swim can't keep anime going because it's terrible

enjoy your cartoons

and now here's 50 pages of posts of people using this article as evidence of things they like dying off in season two while popular things undeservedly survive

[Plow]

The first time the South Park episode "Here Comes the Neighborhood" aired I was in college living with 3 other white kids and we had a really dumb black guy over at the time.

He got pissed off and left. I felt bad but... at the same time it was fucking hilarious.

[kuronosan]

Yeah, I've always thought the Simpsons was fascinating for the way it managed to ride that line so long without getting significant uproar directed at it.

Wonder how it would have fared 20 years earlier, or how M.A.S.H. would fare today.

MASH is still pretty popular.

Though I do have to say, Futurama is probably a better example of a show that exudes this idea of subtlety more than the Simpsons ever could.

Family Guy was the same way when it first started, because everything was a subtle reference and filled with high-brow humor that you had to be intelligent to "get". Now it's just one-liners and jokes littered with 80s and 90s pop culture so that your average 'dumbass' can get it.

I feel the same way about music and film, actually. It doesn't make me a snob when it comes to these, I just don't think it right to decelerate society by dumbing it down so that the idiots can 'get it'. That's not a step forward.

[Kuya]

Perhaps 'Power to the People' isn't always a good slogan.

[Therin]

Why Adult Swim can't keep Anime going, why Frisky Dingo died (too densely written to be popular among enough people to get good ratings), and whatnot?

Yes, it's exactly why they can't keep Anime going. Because 7th grade level animation is far too much to comprehend for the average 6th grade level Cartoon Network viewer.

[Blitzrahl]

I agree with the OP but at the same time I think there's a difference between high-brow content being actual high quality and just obfuscating ideas for the sake of showing off the creator's intelligence. In terms of decreasing quality/difficulty, I'd rate it:

- Execution of difficult material in an elegant way that appears simple, yet maintains conciseness (eg: absolute pinnacle of the medium)
- Execution of difficult material with no apologies made to make itself more clearly/widely understood (eg: critical darlings in music/film or university level literature)
- Execution of formulaic/mass appeal work that's derivative, but with strong technical polish (the better hollywood genre releases)
- Execution of material that complicates itself to no higher thematic or necessary purpose (eg: vanity projects, overtly ironic/meta postmodern navel gazing, overly wordy/pedantic forum posts.. )
- Mass appeal, bottom of the barrel drivel. Aims low, and doesn't even succeed reaching that mediocre bar. The majority of cultural product.

[Kuya]

Politics is probably the best thing i can think of when it comes to appealing to the lowest common denominator.

edit: partisan politics

[Maxxthepenguin]

If you think mass appeal is as simple as just aiming low, you try making a popular book, tv series, movie, song, or whatever. What Lady Gaga and Two and a Half Men do takes skill, even if you or I don't like it and just because you like it doesn't mean you can quantify it being strictly better than anything else.

Also: The Wire is better than any TV show mentioned ITT

[Pirian]

Politics is probably the best thing i can think of when it comes to appealing to the lowest common denominator.

edit: partisan politics

It's funny because the first president to "dumb down" his speeches so the common man could understand him was Abraham Lincoln, and literature scholars regularly ignore that it was done on purpose and pick apart his speeches for "mistakes."

[Kuya]

Does this take into account only the use of big words or does it actually consider whether whatever is being written makes sense? Hmm, perhaps people with high reading levels might be more capable of telling whether someone is full of shit than someone who is merely impressed by the verbiage, who consequently would have a lower reading level.

[Pirian]

Does this take into account only the use of big words or does it actually consider whether whatever is being written makes sense? Hmm, perhaps people with high reading levels might be more capable of telling whether someone is full of shit than someone who is merely impressed by the verbiage, who consequently would have a lower reading level.

They take into account grammar, language use, word placement, sentence structure, etc. - everything you would expect. Before him, presidential speeches were written very "high brow," and his ability to write his speeches in a way that the common man could comprehend was a big part to the success of his speeches and why he was considered a great speech writer.

[Max™]

You're right, it's totally just my personal enjoyment of cartoons that makes me attribute the ignorance of the masses to their downfall. Clearly I must feel intellectually superior in all things I do, now excuse me while I go quote more Wiki pages about the subject!


Futurama IS actually a perfect example, the show was clearly on a higher comprehension level with it's humor than the Simpsons, had much of the same people working on it, and people went "wtf is this shit?" didn't they.

Archer got decent ratings as I recall, it was still densely packed, but made a lot more jokes involving the penis density of various orifices, many of the Frisky Dingo people working on it, but it is a bit more obvious, so it may actually get a 3rd season if they keep it up.


I'm sure shows like Evangelion, Big O, One Piece... those were all super easy to follow, and totally encouraged people to watch them en masse... I'm just imagining that the most popular anime they've had recently is fucking Bleach, though to give a bit of credit, FMA: Brotherhood is doing pretty well, with it's whopping 390k viewers compared to the 1.1 million that Family Guy/KoTH get regularly on the same channel.

Hell, what happened to Samurai Jack?

[Maxxthepenguin]

You're right, it's totally just my personal enjoyment of cartoons that makes me attribute the ignorance of the masses to their downfall. Clearly I must feel intellectually superior in all things I do, now excuse me while I go quote more Wiki pages about the subject!

It's funny when sarcasm approaches truth.

Futurama IS actually a perfect example, the show was clearly on a higher comprehension level with it's humor than the Simpsons, had much of the same people working on it, and people went "wtf is this shit?" didn't they.

Futurama was most definitely not truly sophisticated and rarely approached actual depth. Death by snoo-snoo anyone? And early Simpsons actually had some keen observations about real life effectively put into a cartoon sitcom.

I'm sure shows like Evangelion, Big O, One Piece... those were all super easy to follow, and totally encouraged people to watch them en masse... I'm just imagining that the most popular anime they've had recently is fucking Bleach, though to give a bit of credit, FMA: Brotherhood is doing pretty well, with it's whopping 390k viewers compared to the 1.1 million that Family Guy/KoTH get regularly on the same channel.

There is nothing sophisticated or highbrow about any of those anime shows.

Hell, what happened to Samurai Jack?

Aesthetically great. Not even close to high brow.