Tag: trends

#oneaday Day 22: Trends Have Made the Internet Boring

See? I told you I’d be back. And I thought I’d talk about something other than Final Fantasy XIV: Dawntrail. Specifically, as the title says, I want to talk about how trends have made the Internet boring. Or perhaps more accurately, why everyone all wanting to do the same thing all at once makes things deathly boring.

There are a few practical examples I’d like to give. First is a YouTube channel I was introduced to recently called Obscurest Vinyl. This channel is run by a designer and musician who found some joy in creating fake record sleeves for songs with names you definitely wouldn’t have gotten away with in the eras they’re parodying. Songs like the wonderful Pullin’ Out My Pubes (She Loves Me Not) by The Sticky Sweethearts:

You’ll notice from that video that the record label now has some music attached to it. I was initially a little perturbed to discover that the person behind the Obscurest Vinyl YouTube channel had been using AI music generation to create the tracks, though my mind was set somewhat at rest by how he had written the lyrics (which are generally far too offensive to be the product of the typically rather po-faced Large Language Model AI bots) and tinkered with the initial output to make it flow properly, incorporate all the filthy language and sound consistent with the other works from the same fictional “artists” on the channel.

Of course, what the YouTube algorithm then did was go “oh, you watched a video about a fake record with lyrics about someone gluing their balls to their butthole, HERE, HAVE A MILLION MORE OF THEM”. And it became very apparent that Obscurest Vinyl has a lot of copycats out there, none of which have anywhere near the same magic; these other channels are just trying to ride a trend.

This, of course, is symptomatic of one of the main things that is killing the Web right now: excessive Search Engine Optimisation or SEO. Have you ever searched for some information on something, only to find a billion unrelated websites all magically having articles headlined “What Time Is The Superbowl On?” or “Where Do You Unlock Pictomancer in Final Fantasy XIV?” That’s SEO at work, and that’s a problem that is only getting worse with the amount of AI sludge that is being fed into the Internet at large. Sites want quick and easy clicks, so they look at what people are searching for — the trends of the hour — then provide a hyper-specific article about the thing.

Helpful? Arguable. I hate it, because I’d rather have the information directly from the original source — in the latter case above, for example, it took me a fair bit of scrolling before I got past all the websites jockeying for SEO juice to the actual website for Final Fantasy XIV, the thing I was looking for.

More than being frustrating if you want the information straight from the horse’s mouth, it just makes the Web boring as fuck, because every site (including a lot that should really know better) are doing the exact same thing. Daily Wordle solutions. Individual articles for things that would have been much better incorporated into an FAQ. Outright copying and plagiarism of other sites. It really is a shame to see what online media has become — and frustrating to see that certain portions of the creative types on sites such as YouTube are more obsessed in chasing trends with transparently copycat material rather than, you know, being creative.

I don’t know what the endgame of all this is. I hope we’re in a “things will get worse before they get better” kind of situation, but honestly right now, it feels unlikely that the “get better” part will happen. The Web gets demonstrably worse, less useful and less fun day by day. And we’ve all let it happen. I don’t know if we can undo that.

Want to read my thoughts on various video games, visual novels and other popular culture things? Stop by MoeGamer.net, my site for all things fun where I am generally a lot more cheerful. And if you fancy watching some vids on classic games, drop by my YouTube channel.

#oneaday Day 56: Trendsetter

Trends are bizarre, inexplicable and ultimately meaningless if you have a mind of your own. I find it impossibly difficult to fathom sometimes how one minute something can be excellent, popular, wonderful, critically acclaimed and all manner of superlatives, then the next it is shit, awful, bollocks, crap and proof that you are a complete fuckwit if you dare to admit you like it in the company of anyone with a face.

There are few places where this is more apparent than in the world of “celebrities”—and my God how much I hate that word, but that’s an entirely different story. I have one specific example in mind and that is the comedian Michael McIntyre. He appeared on the scene a year or two pack, mostly on panel shows such as Mock the Week, and he proved himself to be an entertaining, clever, well-spoken funnyman with floppy, silly hair that I could relate to. We started seeing some of his stand-up on TV, and I thought his material was very funny and a little different from other acts around at the time. At some indeterminate point in about the last year or so, it became fashionable to hate him and slag him off.

To be perfectly honest, I wonder exactly how many people who use Michael McIntyre as a whipping boy for what is supposedly the lowest of the low comedy have actually watched his whole act, and how many of them are simply following the trend. Who decided it was time to hate McIntyre? Why? Where did that “trend” originally come from? It must have started with someone and spread virally. Public opinions don’t do complete U-turns without some sort of influence—and McIntyre himself is the same as he’s always been.

It happens in all media too; Square’s Final Fantasy series, once beloved by most gamers (or at least the ones who liked JRPGs) is now belittled and complained about by almost everyone. The games aren’t any worse (I’m playing FFXIII right now and while it could be argued to be a step backwards from the complete change of direction that was FFXII, it’s certainly not a bad, boring, stupid, dumb game like some people have ranted at great length about) and sure, Square could probably stand to re-release the first four games in the series a few less times and the others a few more times… but Square hate is also in fashion right now.

I’m not objecting to anyone having opinions, you understand. People are free to like or dislike whatever the hell they want, whether it’s music, games, movies, books, celebrities, foods or even abstract concepts. The idea of people belittling each other based on what they enjoy, though? That’s just stupid. I hate The X-Factor and related TV shows, for example, and have even moaned about them a great deal in the past. But I figured out that there was absolutely no point in doing so, because even if it is the shittest of the shit (and it is) there are people out there who enjoy it and aren’t going to listen however much you try and convince them otherwise.

So here’s a thought, then. Why don’t we start a new trend—a trend of saying “I like this, give it a try, it’s cool if you don’t”? Okay, sure, as slogans go it’s not the catchiest one out there. But it’s better than “I hate this and you should too even if you have no idea what I’m talking about!”