Once every couple of months I go back to The Onion to see what it's like lately. It is, virtually without exception over the last few years, terrible and unfunny. When they first started doing online video clips they were putting out gems almost daily. Now, it's just complete trash. I don't know why I even check back at this point. I can't even remember the last time I laughed at one of their videos. Back when they were good though, they were fucking awesome. Another website that comes to mind is cracked.com. This one is less painful, mainly because their apex was so short lived. It was good for maybe a year before toxic politics and horribly researched opinion pieces ran it into the ground. Probably the most mentioned in the used to be good category is The Simpsons. Remember The Simpsons of the 90s? It was fucking brilliant. Try watching it now. To call it a shadow of its former self would be an exaggeration. This is a good run down of why the show fell apart. While there are many reasons the show collapsed, I'm of the belief that the collapse was inevitable. It was ultimately a refutation of the leave it to beaver-esque family shows that dominated the 80s. By the end of the 90s The Simpsons had outlived it's purpose. It should have been taken off the air decades ago. I really have no idea who is still watching it. Focus: What did you used to love that has since fallen far from its former glory? Only rule is no music. There are so many bands that put out 1 or 2 good albums and did nothing of note afterwards. No need to list the endless examples here. Alt Focus: What started out terrible and then hit its stride?
Focus: Id say VICE Media used to be way better. Originally Shane Smith did some crazy aspects of journalism like touring around North Korea and Liberia, documentaries that are still very interesting now. Then they got a shit load of funding, tried to going mainstream, and have devolved to click-bait nonsense and worship of weed culture. Not to mention his co-founder, Gavin MacInnes, went off the deep-end into alt-right politics. Another one that probably fits the Focus and Alt Focus is The Daily Show. Originally it was with Craig Kilborne, and it was just... okay. Then Jon Stewart took over, and found his groove and was a hugely popular and funny powerhouse that is emulated about 20-times over now. Then we he left, Trevor Noah tried to fill the void and replicate Stewart's schtick, but is neither as funny or clever as he thinks he is. Maybe he'll find his groove, but hes just not that good.
Focus: I loved the first season of South Park, and about half the episodes were funny until around 2007, but in the last decade it has gotten to be as bad as The Simpsons, at least in my opinion. I am a big fan of Kevin Smith's movies that feature the Jay and Silent Bob characters, but he has lost his mind since he started smoking pot. I saw him speak a few weeks ago and he was awful, but the crowd still loved him. I am still holding out hope though that the new Jay and Silent Bob film will at least be decent.
A very large - if not the majority - of his fanbase is dumb as hell and would eat up anything the spews out of his mouth. I'm sure that statement applies to fanbases of all stripes, but this one in particular annoys me because I know a few who think anything he says is hilarious.
Seconded. At one point, VICE seemed like the future of journalism. Investigating, deep-cover reporting that CNN is too chickenshit to do anymore. Now their big concerns include sexist emails and kissing TYT ass. Fuck them.l Focus: The Olympics. They used to be about athleticism and sports to me. That’s it, the best of the best decided. Now the Olympics are a curse on the host country, causing mass deficits, humanitarian crisises and mass corruption.
I used to be a big fan of Smith's, I grew up with him for Christ sakes. I didn't know him all that well but we had multiple mutual friends, and I remember running into him regularly in Red Bank either at Jack's music shop or the comic book store(which he now owns). I thought his early movies were funny, but like Czech said once he started with the weed he's just kind of gone off the deep end. Tusk and Yoga Hosers are perfect examples of this. I'm holding out just a glimmer of hope that he doesn't completely fuck up the new Jay and Silent Bob film, but I'm not holding my breath.
Beyond The Simpsons, I think Family Guy just hasn't been the same since it was brought back the 3rd time(?). While it's always relied heavily on one off gags it originally had cohesive stories and jokes that played into them. Now it's just an endless string of pop culture cut aways. It hasn't been in my rotation of shows in over a decade. I would have said South Park if they wouldn't have switched back to their old format. The season long story archs were getting old. I think they still have it this season.
TiB. Back in the glory days before the ecclectics were chased away and before it became a political shit storm.
I heard him on Joe Rogan's podcast and he addresses the criticism for those movies (which did suck, a lot) by saying that the reason his usual fan base doesn't like them is because they weren't made for them. They were made for the tween crowd his daughter's age and not the people who watch Jay and Silent Bob. So ya hopefully he's still got it in him to make movies for the old fan base.
Easy to say that... and I see everyone piling on with their reps... but fewer and fewer people are posting around here, from well before the political or serious threads came along. While I can see your point, what are the alternatives? In the end, this place is defined by those that post, not by those that lurk... so if you want to change the content to be something more in line with what you're looking for, then post, add content, and be that change. Ignore the threads that you don't like. As to chasing people away... this isn't a safe space. If you are going to come in and post stupid shit, you'll get called out for it. If you can't take that, or are unwilling to take that chance, then what are the odds that your point is worth making? I'd rather see this place dry up and go away than become a forum for the least common denominator. If anyone has any suggestions, or criticisms, please feel free to post them... don't hide behind shit like "I'm afraid of the repercussions". Grow a pair, and speak up. Or not, which is really the real problem around here.
FOCUS: Metal parts. Be they tools, or control arms on a truck... all the new Chinesium shit is crap and doesn't hold out anywhere near as well. For that matter, name brands that sold out. Bryers made some of the best ice cream around, and built up a solid brand. Then another company came in and bought them to capitalize on the brand, and started making it much cheaper, and filling it full of shit like guar gum. As a result, it tastes like shit now. Sears used to sell kick-ass tools with a kick-ass warranty... no questions asked replacement. For the last few years, it all went down hill. There's a reason they're liquidating their shit right now, and nobody is buying it.
While I have fond memories of this place during when Angel was referring to I think, there was also a lot of downside that came with that. It was a ton of content back then, but the value of that content, to me, wasn't very high. Now there isn't a whole lot of content being posted anymore, but I get much more entertainment from it and it is much more informative and not just stupid and there for the sake of being stupid and there... which I feel is a lot more representative of how the real world works. Good example, when toddamus said something about airplanes and I think it was a hurricane? Nett and some other people pointed out that he was wrong, and he threw a fit about it and disappeared. Sure, we probably lose a few posts here and there, but hell they were just giving the dude correct information, no worse than the real world when you are wrong at like work or something and someone corrects you. We all learned about the physics of how planes act in severe weather (which I found really cool), and just so happened one dude got weeded out because there wasn't a safe space for him acting like a child. So yeah, this place was entertaining back then, but I also found cartoons and scratch and sniff stickers entertaining when I was a kiddo. Now I watch documentaries and read non-fiction. Your interests evolve, and hopefully improve and become refined, with time, and so did this place. Sorry to derail the thread.... just offering my opinion.
Long time lurker here, with very few posts. I may be in the minority here, but I'm a big fan of the board at the moment. My interests have changed as I've aged (gack....) and I'm really liking the garden/woodworking threads.
I think some of you are forgetting how bad the RMMB had become towards the end. In the last year or two it was getting to the point where half the members were angry guys who hated women, and the other half were dip shit teenagers putting on a front because trying to look cool to internet strangers was oh so important to them. For example, I remember a thread shortly before the place closed where the topic was telling a story about a time you did something really stupid and practically every poster responded with "Oh man, there was this one time I was fucking this really stupid hot chick with a low self esteem, and I fucked her a few more times even though she was so dumb, fuck yeah." Just... cringe. Don't even get me started on the guys who would ask questions in the swingers thread like "Would you say most swingers are aggressive alpha males?" Don't get me wrong, the old board could be funny as hell at times, but a lot of the humor wouldn't be funny to me now, especially the endless stream of one liner insults. The reason the serious thread is there, or part of the reason, is because there isn't enough people creating threads anymore and they often don't make it past the first page of posts. I can see that the politics threads occasionally turn into a dumpster fire, but you don't have to read them, you know? Or better yet, start making some threads instead of just bitching about ones you don't like. I wish some of the posters, especially the really funny ones like black jesus had hung around, but this place has an expiration date and that's kind of inevitable unless someone has a way to draw new traffic. Even so, I would rather have a few smart/funny posters than a mountain of dumbasses, which is why I think the RMMB closing might have actually been for the best.
Maybe your tastes and mine differ, but I thought Cracked was really good until shortly before I went to prison in 2013; some of the staff writers (specifically John Cheese, Adam Todd Brown, and Christina H.) started getting way too preachy with their "funny" articles. When I got back from prison in 2015, the place was a total shit-show, and these days it's even worse. EVERY article finds a way to criticize Trump/ the Republicans/ White people, regardless of whether or not any of those people/organizations have anything to do with the article; they'll find a way to crow-bar it in there. The worst part is that I still check on there every morning... Anyway, to stay on topic: MAD magazine. I read that all the time when I was growing up, and once Li'l Bandit was old enough to read on his own, I started buying it for him. But I noticed that half of the content in the "new" issues was taken straight out of past issues from the 70's, 80's, and 90's.
Once they switched to full color Mad went down hill. You can blame Scripps buyout for Cracked's bullshittery. The whole company went full on millennial sjw bent to try and connect to modern youth. Newsy is fucking terrible.
So not a whole lot of people will know what Rugby League(NRL) is or the difference between that and Union but the NRL in Australia to me at least has been less and less watchable over the last decade or so as the officiating has gone down hill and the grappling and other bullshit tactics have come into the tackle area. Players are bigger, faster and stronger but the game feels clunky and scripted now.
It might be worth considering why it is, though? Like a deeper consideration than "we're too smart and clever, and everybody who doesn't post any more is whiny and dumb." That is, if it matters to you -- if the status quo is working, then by all means. We could try tweeting all of the really smart and interesting posts from here. Or maybe a Tumblr this time?
That's actually on me -- I didn't mean that you in particular said that, but I see how saying it after quoting you could make it seem like a direct response. Mea culpa.