Has The Game Changed Yet?

I can’t help but thinking that something is missing. Something big was supposed to happen. Things should have changed. Has another doomsday passed without incident? Something’s amiss.

Me?

Oh that’s right – what ever happened to that Kony guy? Wasn’t the ‘Get Kony’ campaign supposed to change the world? Does anyone remember what that was all about? Anyone remember it at all… Anyone?

No one remembers Kony. Just as quickly as these internet phenomenons crop up, people forget, go back to watching Big Bang Theory, and things are back to normal. Its like it never even happened. The game stays the same. Did anyone really think it would turn out differently??

That is, anyone, except for the 7pm Project and the so called ‘Social Media Experts’... They fell over each other to be the first to bang on about how the world as we know it had changed thanks to YouTube, Facebook and a video about Africa. The youth had mobilised and revolution was in the air! Really? Is that the same youth that have now gone balls crazy over the kids from One Direction?

Revolutionaries? 

Next time these social commentary experts think revolution by internet, they may want to hold off for a minute. Does watching a YouTube clip or clicking ‘Like’ on Facebook really mean anything at all? Justin Bieber songs take up 3 of the top 10 YouTube videos of all time, with over 1 billion views. What does this say? Nothing at all is what it says. YouTube is YouTube - entertainment. Not a revolutionary call-to-arms. People who watched the Kony campaign didn’t gain a social justice compass from watching a clip about kids in Uganda. They weren't mobilised. The next thing they did was watch a Bieber video.

YouTube top 10 March 2012

I wonder how the execs at channel 10 feel about jumping in head first without a parachute or a clue onto the Kony band wagon . Their screening of the YouTube with commentary from, ahem, ‘experts’ including Carrie Bickmore showed a desperate grab for attention and viewers. Although, as expected, Bickmore just yapped on inanely about her own kid, seemingly oblivious to why she was actually still at work. I hear the new leader of North Korea has made a propaganda movie about the ascendancy of North Korea over all other nations. Interested Channel 10?

Surely even Channel 10 could see that there was something not quite right about the whole thing? It was no shock when the stories about the movie and the organisation behind it started to surface. Reports of a shady, ultra Christian, anti gay, and financially secretive organisation with no action plan beyond supporting a questionable military had nobody surprised. And apparently their whole raison d’être, the villain at the centre of it all, Kony himself, hadn’t been around for years. Even the Ugandan Government said no thanks to Kony 2012!

The last thing heard of this story was that the guy behind it all ended up running around the streets of San Diego butt naked! 

Must Miss TV

And the Gold Logie Goes To (who's next?)...

Looking back at tv in 2011, its clear that it was the worst year of all time for television in this country. So many reasons for this, one of which was the Aussie entertainment tv that appeared. Who watches the likes of Hamish & Hamish? Who are these shows aimed at? Does anyone think they’re funny or informative?

If there is one thing we need on tv, its news that isn't hysterical, sensationalised and grossly inaccurate. I did have faint hope for the 7pm Project, but rather than report any news, the show just followed the Rove school of interviews, and gave the hopeful viewer nothing. All Rove interviews (and those of his proteges) follow the same script where the interviewer asks a question, listens to the answer, and then ignores any new conversational direction which may open up, and instead goes back to the pre-written list of inane questions.

"Sooo, umm, do you like being a celebrity?"

To make it worse, the 7pm Project is full of self promoting channel 10 stable celebrities. Bickmore just speaks incessantly about her child (no one cares Bickmore), Hughesy’s go-to is his unemployed bum back-story, but it’s just not believable anymore, and the other guy is so pious and condescending that I don’t know his name.

Another of Rove’s protege's, Hamish & Hamish provided one of the lowlights of Aussie tv in 2011. Their ‘Gap Year’ talk show program dug new depths of bad, and goes to show that it doesn’t matter if you’re in New York or Newcastle, no talent is no talent. As expected, these two ‘loveable larrikins’ (geez we Aussies love our loveable larrikins) used every outdated Aussie stereotype to try get a laugh (surely they wheeled out the old “can’t believe those silly yanks don’t like Vegemite” hilarity at some stage), while throwing backhanders at the unwitting Americans they encountered. Like we don’t have rednecks in Australia! As per Rove’s teachings, all interviews were uniformed, childish, and lightweight. And as is standard, Hamish & Hamish’s senseless jokes only got a laugh out of themselves, and belong more at the school assembly than on tv.

In the end, this 'Gap Year' turned into a 'Gap Few Months', and Hamish & Hamish returned home early. Apparently the poor lads were homesick. Wonder how homesick they would have been if their show had actually rated...

"Hamish, no one is laughing any more"
"Shuutuuup or channel 9 will can us"

One of the worst things to return to tv was a repeat of the Paul Hogan Show. Hot off the heels of Crocodile Dundee’s stellar performance in Australia’s brilliant World Cup video, some bright spark decided to wheel out the old Paul Hogan show from the 1970s. Surely the world hasn’t changed much since 70’s? Racism, sexism, and being a stupid backward Australian are still funny right? We haven’t grown since then? More recently we had seen Hoges under investigation for tax evasion, but surely we still love him, after all, he’s the original Loveable Larrikin! I pray the tapes of this awful show were taken by the Taxman, never to pollute the airwaves again.

"Pay tax? But I'm Hoges!"

But that’s not the first time there’s been misguided nostalgia for the good old days of Aussie tv. A few years back, to no one’s delight, Hey Hey its Saturday made its unwanted (but inevitable) return. This was music to the ears of Wilbur Wilde and Russell Gilbert who can normally be seen performing at train stations for loose change. The legacy of this show was the deliciously awkward moment when Harry Connick Jr was offended by an outdated and racist act on the show. Unsurprisingly, this return to the glory days was rubbish, and Hey Hey silently slipped away into the abyss of Australian television failure. Please, someone, plug the abyss so no more relics can find their way out, I can see Rhonda Burchmore coming!

There are so many more misses when it comes to Aussie television, but that is for a another day...

... Actually we’re talking Aussie tv misses, better make that days...