rideside.net

Posted by mahatma chani on 2009-03-31 10:59:05 +0000

Dear Bill Simmons:

You cannot chastise newspapers for being slow to pick up new technology (like blogs) in last week's podcast and then make fun of Twitter during your first mailbag column this week. Double standards!

Look, we all know you were bullshit that the Herald never gave you a fantasy column back in the day, but get with the program. You built your following on the Internet! That was an unthinkable courageous plot for a writer! Continue to embrace the new technology, dude. I agree that Twitter is (at times) utterly dumb, but in the right hands it's an amazingly effective tool. Case in point: the vast majority of my new traffic to my blog is through Twitter (second only to Google ads). Even better: my Twitter followers retweet their followers to go to the site.

Mr. Simmons, I love your stuff, but you are slowly becoming a stodgy old man and a hypocrite. This basketball book better be fucking amazing because you're slipping.

Signed,
Mahatma Chani

Posted by ConorClockwise on 2009-03-31 13:49:45 +0000

Twitter is gay.

Posted by MF DU on 2009-03-31 13:58:54 +0000

In an attempt to raise 10 Diamonds from the Rideside dead:

<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/sWS0GVOQPs0&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/sWS0GVOQPs0&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>

Posted by TheFullCleveland on 2009-03-31 14:08:29 +0000

Love that. A+.

Posted by jbcardinale on 2009-03-31 14:31:35 +0000

Simmons has probably peaked, but at least he psoed a link to this.
<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/8Yw8GTNOECY&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/8Yw8GTNOECY&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>

Posted by ConorClockwise on 2009-03-31 14:40:50 +0000

Calling tommy for a comment!

Posted by dyedon8 on 2009-03-31 15:10:03 +0000

I'm throwing it out there:

1. By making fun of Twittr, Bill is embracing it in the pomo ironic style of the day (and, to be fair, of a lot of his previous work). I'm way more tired of irony than Twittr.

2. I know what you're getting at with your criticism, but maybe he's zeroing in on Twittr users more than the application itself -- he probably gets a lot of hits from it, too.

3. That said, he is slipping.

Posted by mahatma chani on 2009-03-31 16:26:33 +0000

1. I, too, am sick of irony. It'd be nice if things meant something again.
2. If that was his intention, it didn't come across like that. It came across as disdain for something he doesn't understand, or care to understand.
3. I repeat, that basketball book better be fucking amazing.

Posted by mahatma chani on 2009-03-31 16:27:33 +0000

I've watched this three times. Still amazing.

Posted by TheFullCleveland on 2009-03-31 17:00:11 +0000

1. The aughts ought to be the age of irony. It's amazing to me how much irony has taken root in such a widespread fashion during the past ten years. With the decade coming to a close, I'm hoping for Ironic Death by 2010.

Posted by dyedon8 on 2009-03-31 17:05:41 +0000

9/11 offered a glimmer of hope, which has fallen by the wayside.

Posted by TheFullCleveland on 2009-03-31 17:26:14 +0000

I think irony of the decade is partially a result of 9/11. Like an odd, prolonged cultural response to it.

Posted by mahatma chani on 2009-03-31 18:19:06 +0000

The 90s were pretty ironic, but now that I'm thinking about it, it seems to me that irony is the defense mechanism of the immature. Case in point: me for decades.

Posted by tgl on 2009-03-31 18:23:54 +0000

RE: 1.
You're assuming things once meant something. Shakespeare? Ironic. The Bible? Ironic.

Posted by dyedon8 on 2009-03-31 18:28:08 +0000

I rest my case.

Posted by dyedon8 on 2009-03-31 18:29:04 +0000

The immediate response -- which may very well have been shock -- was that everyone meant what they said. It was a great week in that way.

Posted by dyedon8 on 2009-03-31 18:29:26 +0000

And Pavement.

Posted by TheFullCleveland on 2009-03-31 18:33:33 +0000

Yep, absolutely.

Posted by TheFullCleveland on 2009-03-31 18:40:25 +0000

Hm. That could be (about the 90s being ironic). But was irony mainstream by that early on? I'm thinking of what mainstream culture buys into.

Posted by pamsterdam on 2009-03-31 19:21:36 +0000

I *heart* Wanda Sykes.

Posted by dyedon8 on 2009-04-01 01:03:48 +0000

Pavement, more than any other band, made irony cool.

Posted by Miriam on 2009-04-01 01:13:00 +0000

Beautiful. And classier than what I said to someone once.

Posted by G lib on 2009-04-01 10:50:30 +0000

I read the thread twice, and don't get what case you can rest. Enlighten me?

Posted by pamsterdam on 2009-04-01 11:00:37 +0000

I believe that he's resting this (taken from his comment at 2009 Mar 31 - 10:10am):

"I'm way more tired of irony than Twittr."

Like, he's tired of it because it's been around for, like, ever. Like.

Posted by TheFullCleveland on 2009-04-01 11:12:33 +0000

Which advertisers and marketers seized upon in the aughts and fed to audiences of all ages everywhere. Youth culture gone wild!

Posted by MF DU on 2009-04-01 11:33:41 +0000

NO Logo delves into that 'irony marketing' idea a bit. Interesting book - although a lot of the info is out of date at this point.

Posted by TheFullCleveland on 2009-04-01 13:32:19 +0000

I'd meant to read that a while ago and never did. I'm currently reading Commodify Your Dissent - essays from the Baffler from over a decade ago, but still very relevant. Wish I'd read it in college, good stuff!

Posted by dyedon8 on 2009-04-01 15:19:02 +0000

tgl said:

 You're assuming things once meant something. Shakespeare? Ironic. The Bible? Ironic. 

...which is ironic.

Posted by dyedon8 on 2009-04-17 03:46:48 +0000

If the book is like <a href ="http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/090416&sportCat=nba"> this, </a> all is forgiven.

Posted by mahatma chani on 2009-04-22 18:04:22 +0000

It's over. <a href="http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/090422">This</a> was the laziest article he's done lately, and that's not saying much.

Posted by dyedon8 on 2009-04-23 21:46:29 +0000

Yeah, that shit sucked. But I only dig Simmons for like half the year -- his basketball columns usually bore me to tears because I don't really care.

Posted by mahatma chani on 2009-05-05 11:50:33 +0000

Jesus, dude, <a href="http://sports.espn.go.com/espnmag/story?id=4137488">another article</a> pissing and moaning about technology? He even displays a complete lack of understanding what Skype does.

Posted by ConorClockwise on 2009-05-05 12:42:33 +0000

What the f are you talking about, MC?

He mentions Skype once in the context of communicating. What do you think Skype does?

Posted by TheFullCleveland on 2009-05-05 13:11:42 +0000

I'm with CC on this one. He's not pissing and moaning, he's just saying "the times, they are a changin'". The wrap-up: "This isn't a good thing or a bad thing. It is what it is, and maybe how it always should have been."

Posted by dyedon8 on 2009-05-05 13:44:06 +0000

I don't see a lot of pissing and moaning. Not from Simmons, anyway.

Posted by MF DU on 2009-05-05 13:54:15 +0000

What does Skype know-how have to do with writing a sports column? Maybe it would have been wise not to drop the skype reference, but I don't ultimately see what M Chani is getting at here, either.

Posted by tgl on 2009-05-05 16:27:58 +0000

Oh, Snap!

Posted by dyedon8 on 2009-05-06 05:25:58 +0000

Sayin'.

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Dear Bill Simmons: