Thursday, December 18, 2003
The Good, the Bad and the Aesthetically challenged
I've been giving the Flying Chair Conundrum some thought, and I think I've gotten a handle on it now. After a short email exchange with Phil Ingram, founder of The Flying Chair (which is basically a blog, just like mine, and presumably, yours) I've come to realise the Why of Why He Did It in the first place.
Phil had good intentions. He wanted to bring publicity to asian blogs, which he felt weren't popular enough. In order to generate this publicity, he set out entirely on his own to create the Asia Weblog Awards 2003 (which from here on I shall refer to as The Flying Chair Awards since it sounds spiffier and more Emmy-esque). Looking through his site, I can see that he's put a helluva lot of effort into it. There are pieces of code there that I, as a layperson, will never be able to *cough* decode, much less understand. There are pull-down menus. There are security systems tighter than the Queen's Ars... err Royal Bedchamber. Hmm. Better make that safer than the Crown Jewels. We All Remember the crazed nutcase who scaled the palace walls and ended up on the Queen's bed asking her for a fag, don't we? A likely story, indeed. Who was smoking who's fag, I wonder?
Phil did it all consummately, except for one thing. He didn't reckon on there being different types of Asians with different cultures. And different cultures promote different values and ethics, and attach different significances to publicity. Almost daily I read him bemoaning the sheer extent of cheating that's going on, the number of votes he's had to cut from idiotic repeat-clickers.
Phil's good intentions, and the sheer effort he put in have also resulted in him becoming defensive. I pointed out to him that there is evidence of damage being done - people for instance, like dablindmouse who asked for their nominations be withdrawn because of the pressures they felt from an invisible audience, to perform. To rack up votes from the faceless public, and win that number one spot. That ordinary people are turning into narcissists pimping for votes, and that previously readable, ordinary everyday journals are turning into spiffy eye-catchers designed to woo an audience. To put it in a nutshell, it's the problem with Schrodinger's Cat (one of the parables upon which Quantum Physics is claimed to be founded).
Phil didn't agree; in fact, he didn't reply to my subsequent emails. He refuses to see that any damage has been done, and he thinks that everyone who's taking the competition seriously is a lamer. Xiaxue, to his mind is Doing it Right and taking it as a laugh (although, strangely to my eye she's one of the few who's really taking the whole thing Seriously, and in typical Singaporean fashion, preening in the limelight and pulling out all the stops to get votes - including slagging blogs like Metastasis off for having ?unintelligible names!) That's where it all falls down - Singaporeans are compulsive narcissists desperate for attention, and as ethical as... as... Tony Blair (HA!) when it comes to winning. And who doesn't know all about our thirst for number-one spot, bred into us all by a meritocratic government? (number one airport, number one ministers, regional hub, world hub... you name it, we're best at it.)
I don't think Phil did anything wrong, to begin with at least. He fell into the cultural-difference trap which even a South East Asian could have done, easily. Phil sees himself as embracing of oriental / asian culture (it's obvious from reading his blog that he sees himself as a man of the world - or at least the asian part of it) and to a large extent, he is. The lamers who flamed him as a Nazi for starting his awards were way off the mark. But Embracing is a different kettle of fish from Understanding. And even I don't understand many of the other cultures around me in South East Asia - or in England, for that matter. Phil wrote in response to an irate Mainlander flaming him for making fun of the prostitution scandal in China that he could "more than Empathise" with him - but the truth is he can't. I can't. I'm Chinese, but the closest my family came to the Mainland experience was my grandfather being beaten nearly to death, for being an "English Collaborator" during World War II - clearly evidenced by his perpetration of the heinous crime of being an English Teacher in a public school. None of my relatives died, and none of them were raped. I can try to empathise - but I simply can't "more than" empathise.
And Phil, as much as he would like to imagine he can - can't even Begin to empathise with South East Asians - because we're such a diverse, and confused lot.
Phil can go on defending his awards. Tomorrow, after all this has blown over it will become but a memory, till next year when he reopens them (if he does). Xiaxue will win her little trophy, and flaunt it shamelessly I have no doubt. She writes like a teenager with a head-injury. Quirkily In Your Face, and blatently self-centeredly. She has no qualms about making personal attacks on Named individuals, and she slags pretty much anyone else who disagrees with her off. She deserves her number one spot, in this little mock Blog-Idol that Phil has created, simply for the level of melodrama to which she's carrying the whole thing. It does have it's entertainment value, I'll give you that. Nevermind the countless thousands of un-named blogs that had that touch of class, that were that much funnier, that much more interesting. That much more sincere.
But I'd like to fix all that - and I have a Plan. (Yeah, capital P)
Who am I to even dream of trying to right this "wrong"? I'm a nobody.
I'm as much a nobody, as Phil Ingram is. I just write in my little blog-thingie... and I don't even do it right - I write a journal. But I write - and I Can write. I don't have Phil's HTML skills. I can't make fancy menus, and I don't think I'll be able to do this alone. So I'm asking for the help of a few good men. I have full knowledge that this project falls apart right here - because there aren't many Good Men / Women around anymore, who'll want to stick their necks out like this.
But this is what I propose :
Asian Blog publicity? I'll give you publicity. All of you...
Not the Flying Chair Awards
No numbers. No ranks. No prizes.
No fanfare. No audience ratings, and therefore no cheating.
Just a team of three or more impartial reviewers, writing about the blogs they've read. What's good about them. And what's bad. Why we liked them AND why we hated them. Who might like to read them, who wouldn't - much the way Gamespy reviews computer games, or www.TAMEC.com reviews computer-game maps or the way the Home of the Underdogs reviews abandonware.
And a "reviewers recommendation level" at the end of it : readable / recommended / highly recommended" Something to that extent.
No winners. No losers.
Just reviews - tonnes of them. And when the Few Good Men that started the project pass, a few more to step up and take hold of the baton. To continue in their wake. And so on, ad infinitum.
Blogs may be nominated for reviews, in much the same way they are nominated for voting on the current Flying Chair. Perhaps even nominated for second or third opinions.
And all the blogs will occupy a single, scrolling page with a synopsis of their recommendations (perhaps just the recommendation level) accompanying them, offering viewers a chance to delve deeper and read the full reviews.
It's a big project. And I'm probably insane to even envision this taking off - but it could mean something. Something that The Flying Chair failed to get a grasp of. Something that might last for posterity.
I'll email a few of you for help. Anyone who wants to join up, drop me a line on drgoat2002@yahoo.com - If any of you have HTML skills, that'd be great.
re-minisce.
I've been giving the Flying Chair Conundrum some thought, and I think I've gotten a handle on it now. After a short email exchange with Phil Ingram, founder of The Flying Chair (which is basically a blog, just like mine, and presumably, yours) I've come to realise the Why of Why He Did It in the first place.
Phil had good intentions. He wanted to bring publicity to asian blogs, which he felt weren't popular enough. In order to generate this publicity, he set out entirely on his own to create the Asia Weblog Awards 2003 (which from here on I shall refer to as The Flying Chair Awards since it sounds spiffier and more Emmy-esque). Looking through his site, I can see that he's put a helluva lot of effort into it. There are pieces of code there that I, as a layperson, will never be able to *cough* decode, much less understand. There are pull-down menus. There are security systems tighter than the Queen's Ars... err Royal Bedchamber. Hmm. Better make that safer than the Crown Jewels. We All Remember the crazed nutcase who scaled the palace walls and ended up on the Queen's bed asking her for a fag, don't we? A likely story, indeed. Who was smoking who's fag, I wonder?
Phil did it all consummately, except for one thing. He didn't reckon on there being different types of Asians with different cultures. And different cultures promote different values and ethics, and attach different significances to publicity. Almost daily I read him bemoaning the sheer extent of cheating that's going on, the number of votes he's had to cut from idiotic repeat-clickers.
Phil's good intentions, and the sheer effort he put in have also resulted in him becoming defensive. I pointed out to him that there is evidence of damage being done - people for instance, like dablindmouse who asked for their nominations be withdrawn because of the pressures they felt from an invisible audience, to perform. To rack up votes from the faceless public, and win that number one spot. That ordinary people are turning into narcissists pimping for votes, and that previously readable, ordinary everyday journals are turning into spiffy eye-catchers designed to woo an audience. To put it in a nutshell, it's the problem with Schrodinger's Cat (one of the parables upon which Quantum Physics is claimed to be founded).
Phil didn't agree; in fact, he didn't reply to my subsequent emails. He refuses to see that any damage has been done, and he thinks that everyone who's taking the competition seriously is a lamer. Xiaxue, to his mind is Doing it Right and taking it as a laugh (although, strangely to my eye she's one of the few who's really taking the whole thing Seriously, and in typical Singaporean fashion, preening in the limelight and pulling out all the stops to get votes - including slagging blogs like Metastasis off for having ?unintelligible names!) That's where it all falls down - Singaporeans are compulsive narcissists desperate for attention, and as ethical as... as... Tony Blair (HA!) when it comes to winning. And who doesn't know all about our thirst for number-one spot, bred into us all by a meritocratic government? (number one airport, number one ministers, regional hub, world hub... you name it, we're best at it.)
I don't think Phil did anything wrong, to begin with at least. He fell into the cultural-difference trap which even a South East Asian could have done, easily. Phil sees himself as embracing of oriental / asian culture (it's obvious from reading his blog that he sees himself as a man of the world - or at least the asian part of it) and to a large extent, he is. The lamers who flamed him as a Nazi for starting his awards were way off the mark. But Embracing is a different kettle of fish from Understanding. And even I don't understand many of the other cultures around me in South East Asia - or in England, for that matter. Phil wrote in response to an irate Mainlander flaming him for making fun of the prostitution scandal in China that he could "more than Empathise" with him - but the truth is he can't. I can't. I'm Chinese, but the closest my family came to the Mainland experience was my grandfather being beaten nearly to death, for being an "English Collaborator" during World War II - clearly evidenced by his perpetration of the heinous crime of being an English Teacher in a public school. None of my relatives died, and none of them were raped. I can try to empathise - but I simply can't "more than" empathise.
And Phil, as much as he would like to imagine he can - can't even Begin to empathise with South East Asians - because we're such a diverse, and confused lot.
Phil can go on defending his awards. Tomorrow, after all this has blown over it will become but a memory, till next year when he reopens them (if he does). Xiaxue will win her little trophy, and flaunt it shamelessly I have no doubt. She writes like a teenager with a head-injury. Quirkily In Your Face, and blatently self-centeredly. She has no qualms about making personal attacks on Named individuals, and she slags pretty much anyone else who disagrees with her off. She deserves her number one spot, in this little mock Blog-Idol that Phil has created, simply for the level of melodrama to which she's carrying the whole thing. It does have it's entertainment value, I'll give you that. Nevermind the countless thousands of un-named blogs that had that touch of class, that were that much funnier, that much more interesting. That much more sincere.
But I'd like to fix all that - and I have a Plan. (Yeah, capital P)
Who am I to even dream of trying to right this "wrong"? I'm a nobody.
I'm as much a nobody, as Phil Ingram is. I just write in my little blog-thingie... and I don't even do it right - I write a journal. But I write - and I Can write. I don't have Phil's HTML skills. I can't make fancy menus, and I don't think I'll be able to do this alone. So I'm asking for the help of a few good men. I have full knowledge that this project falls apart right here - because there aren't many Good Men / Women around anymore, who'll want to stick their necks out like this.
But this is what I propose :
Asian Blog publicity? I'll give you publicity. All of you...
Not the Flying Chair Awards
No numbers. No ranks. No prizes.
No fanfare. No audience ratings, and therefore no cheating.
Just a team of three or more impartial reviewers, writing about the blogs they've read. What's good about them. And what's bad. Why we liked them AND why we hated them. Who might like to read them, who wouldn't - much the way Gamespy reviews computer games, or www.TAMEC.com reviews computer-game maps or the way the Home of the Underdogs reviews abandonware.
And a "reviewers recommendation level" at the end of it : readable / recommended / highly recommended" Something to that extent.
No winners. No losers.
Just reviews - tonnes of them. And when the Few Good Men that started the project pass, a few more to step up and take hold of the baton. To continue in their wake. And so on, ad infinitum.
Blogs may be nominated for reviews, in much the same way they are nominated for voting on the current Flying Chair. Perhaps even nominated for second or third opinions.
And all the blogs will occupy a single, scrolling page with a synopsis of their recommendations (perhaps just the recommendation level) accompanying them, offering viewers a chance to delve deeper and read the full reviews.
It's a big project. And I'm probably insane to even envision this taking off - but it could mean something. Something that The Flying Chair failed to get a grasp of. Something that might last for posterity.
I'll email a few of you for help. Anyone who wants to join up, drop me a line on drgoat2002@yahoo.com - If any of you have HTML skills, that'd be great.
re-minisce.
