organizedkaos

To be fair the internet allows for greater understanding of others viewpoints too. I'd argue a decent chunk of the fervour around all this is because people are suddenly hearing what it's like to be <insert minority> and understanding better how the system still lets people down along with how even with the best of intentions our language and actions can contribute to a problem. Whilst I do know trans adults (who transitioned as adults) my understanding of what it's like to be a trans child and the parent of a child has in part come from this thread (and in whole come from reading people's experiences either online or in other media) It's arguable that the internet allowing people to understand the difficulties others face has led to more urgent attempts to rectify things that can seem outlandish to those for whom <insert minority> is still a confusing thing (along with the general "these people are coming to attack/rape/murder you/your wife/your children" rhetoric that people love to use to drum up hate) It's the companies vying to be your only mechanism of experiencing the internet that becomes the problem. They control what you see along with controlling the form through which you express yourself (thou shalt not use more than 260 characters to have a converation). They're the ones who using outrage to gain your time and money. Sure without these giant machines of money making you'd still potentially be exposed to hate and horror but the original idea (or one of the original ideas) was stuff like this. People setup a space where people can communicate. Sure they can instill rules and regulations and decide what is said but it's arguably run by people for the love of doing it.. Instead we gave so much of that up because massive tech companies offered us an easier solution - the cost simply being that they would encourage outrage and arguments rather than genuine conversation (Obv this is all a little idealistic but it makes me sad reading tech stuff from people involved in the 60s/70s... they had such high hopes for what could be)

Tintin in the Congo is pretty wild. Tintin kills a lot of animals in increasingly inventive splatterfilm ways. And loads of racism. Remember stumbling across it as a kid (a french copy, i'm not sure it was published in english at the time? i certainly remembering thinking this was curious because i'd not seen this Tintin book before) and even then realising it didn't seem OK.

I don't think it is? I stopped watching WWE around Chris Benoit and outside of maybe a couple of shows I've not watched since. Myriad of reasons but as time passed and I was tempted to start watching again the fact the general concensus was bad wrestling + no confidence in storytelling I never went back. I kinda assumed what I said applies exactly the VM era of WWE but also i've not watched so can't comment. I'm invested in AEW being good because it's the only wrestling I want to watch and when it's good it's a delight. There's so much there to like but as someone who digs long form storytelling and like you, doesn't want petty real life fights on screen I worry about these things cos if continues like this I'll stop watching and no more wrestling again.

It can pay some great results but it doesn't install much confidence in the audience - we're completely at the mercy of the what Tony Khan wants and whilst he wants an audience he only wants them on his terms... That feeling when a TV show is hitting on all cylinders, the excitement of "oh my god, I can't wait to find out what happens next"? That's often because the writers have instilled a trust in the audience. That confidence that the person has the abilities and ideas is a powerful one be it in TV or live music, standup, whatever - knowing the captain of the ship is sorted allows the audience to relax in the confidence/hope that they're going on a journey and it's going to be excellent. Tony Khan has some good ideas but there's also clearly flaws in the way he writes. To some extent when he's just writing normal wrestling shows it's less obvious because he has so many good performers that much of the experience is coming from the wrestlers more than the bookers. That's great fun, lots of us like good wrestling and it's awesome to have it weekly, for free, with high production values. But this latest thing is a reminder this isn't someone who's honed their craft, there's no reflection on their process, whatever they want to do they're going to do because the reason they have this position is because of the money they have. If the child suddenly decides they don't like a toy, that toy isn't TV anymore. If the child suddenly decides they want to re-enact some vendetta against a school bully, we have to watch that. This analogy is extra when it comes to TV as the creator is supposed to be invisible. I'm not watching a fictional reality with AEW, suspending disbelief and getting invested in the story. I'm simply seeing Tony Khan and hoping his writing creates a good performance... It also makes it hard to get invested because there's a sense we're just experiencing the whims of the emporer. They might bestow on you favours because of their mood but conversely they might decide to burn everything down. It might produce something entertaining, it might not and I can't trust Tony Khan to consider what's entertaining to us only what entertaining to him. It reduces any excitement in the future of the product and that's a less fun experience even if the product may still produce good things.

https://www.reddit.com/r/LegalAdviceUK/comments/1bycove/im_a_professional_wrestler_and_have_a_question/ uncertain

Heart in mouth when I opened the thread and it skips straight to last post

Yeah it's significantly dropped my interest in the company. I know that might sound a bit hyperbolic but i think there were two narratives I had when thinking about AEW. One is of wrestlers getting to do the wrestling they want to do (to be more pretentious, artists getting to create the art they like). The other is a spoiled billlionaire playing toys with his petty childish friends. Both are true, this doesn't change that. But it really reminds me I'm watching Tony Khan's product rather rather than the wrestler's product and the former is less interesting. And I'll echo what @LaGoosh said, I have no desire to watch actual conflict on the nice fun fake conflict TV show I watch to unwind. This Dynamite sounds completely skippable anyways (never done that before but now feels as good a time to start)...

I assume they made some excellent wrestling compilation tapes?

It's a bit the problem with social media again isn't it. Everything is a statement, either people actively making one or others assuming everyone is doing something to present a character. So you get people making jokes about people who have their pronouns in their bios or suggesting it's OTT to do such a thing and thus it becomes all about some perceived grand gesture. Dickheads can then weaponise this to suggest that people are being disingenuous or trying to hard to something that is anything other than... this is quite useful and normalising it is good. I work for a multinational corporation. You enter your pronouns into the work database just like you enter your date of birth. Most people have then in their e-mail signature along with their name and other basic human information - if it's not there it can be looked up in the employee database. Cos it's useful and avoids grief. Normal thing to do in the workplace, not woke gone mad or bullshit like that.

I'm not sure "AEW has a great track record on delivering what we advertise, and it is real footage,” said Khan, who remained guarded over the specific content that will air from All In. “The Young Bucks will show backstage footage from All In, the most important event in AEW history" is explicit? I still think the wording they're using is all leading to this being a sweve. Although really don't see either outcome being a positive for AEW. Its either petty bullshit of the highest order or a combination of carny bullshit and the smug bte humour that doesn't play on TV

I think you have to be the right age and the right sort of teenager here. Finding Kevin Smith in the late 90s early 0s felt like a revelation. These low budget slackery comedies that actually felt real (even though they're completely heightened and cartoonish). Characters talked like how I imagined me and my friends talked, about subjects we talked about. It made being dissafected bored teenagers doing boring jobs or hanging out somewhere seem cool and magical. The shared universe gave you all the "secret handshake" things you could spot that made you feel like you were getting something others weren't (always a powerful feeling when you're 16) Then Judd Apatow does the comedy/hangout bit better, with actors better suited for these roles. Community and a million other things do the meta nerdery stuff better. The bit of me that remembers being 16 still sees the original view askew films as something of value (still got a couple of the figurines on shelves in my flat). However adult me realises there's just better versions of it all out there, and thus the only value is nostalgia. And as things can be with nostalgia I'm quite happy with the original things, I don't need to see those characters

It's the internet, it's always the time for some sort of pop culture reference/secret handshake

Surely there's an interesting part of this where if some of the people listed here had come along now the wrestling landscape might be fairly different due to the fact they didn't exist in the past? Does Dynamite Kid/Owen Hart/Jerry Lynn have a place in today's wrestling world if they're not there to influence the style so heavily? Or is the general shift in wrestling caused by enough different people's styles that if you remove Dynamite Kid and have him be born in the early noughts you still get roughly the same Bryan Danielson? Arguably people are more open to more varied styles these days and that's as much on the rise of VCRs and the Internet as technologies and yeah no one wrestler is likely the reason wrestling is in it's current form but yeah an "interesting" thought that occupied me whilst i wait form something to compile

Also seems an antithetical attitude to posting on an internet message board for wrestling

Amazing! Last I'd checked (which would've been years ago) they hadn't released the show.. I'd forgotten the entourage he had. Will have to watch in full some point, see if I can spot 19 years old me Was a pretty good show, early Kevin Steen and El Generico made an impression and the main event was nuts - I'd never seen a deathmatch live before and Sexxxy Eddy was p mindblowing (this was pre TOD where he got recognition but it was a similar experience going from "what is this idiot in stripper trousers doing here?" to "OH MY GOD THIS IS THE MOST LUNATIC WRESTLER I'VE SEEN")