Romey's Ramblings

Well this is a first – someone actually wrote a poem about me.  However, rather than being a love poem from my girlfriend, the first poem written about me is a satircal Dr. Suess spoof glossing me as the "Gromey" (after the Grinch), talking about how I stole SpectacleFest.  This is direct response to Friday’s entry about Buzz Out Loud and SpectacleFest.

First let me be clear about something – I’m not upset that people have decided to have fun at my expense.  If someone has that kind of time on their hands to write a 5 page, 1,363 word poem about this than more power to them.  However, I feel that it’s necessary to point out that the basis of their poem is based on a false premise, and that I essentially was personally attacked.  Again, I’m not upset, but I am annoyed.

I’m annoyed because while my comments were constructively taken on the show (they are setting up a completely separate Wiki & relegating SpectacleFest comments to after the show officially ends), people feel the need juvenilely misinterpret my comments as "those who would crush SpectacleFest".

I don’t hate SpectacleFest, and the essence of my blog posting was not to say that the joke itself was bad – but simply that the constant renditions of the joke were annoying listeners like myself.  While I did call out "the listeners" in general, I did not cast blame on anyone specifically and personally tried to go out of my way not to offend the hosts of Buzz Out Loud.  I was very conscious about not making any personal attacks, and I’ll let those who read the post decide whether I did.  The satirical comment I made about "it’s not funny anymore guy" was not targeted at anyone specifically and was made more to drive home a point.

Where I take issue is that I put these comments out on a blog so that people can read and respond appropriately.  There’s a comment mechanism that works well, and people have challenged my views in my blog before resulting in a fruitful discussion.  I enjoy being challenged, and enjoy engaging in thoughtful debate.  What I don’t enjoy is people resorting to personal attacks simply because they disagree with me, then do it in such a manner that’s basically behind my back.  I’m not saying Frank L shouldn’t have submitted the poem to the show, but at least give me the courtesy of writing a comment or emailing me.  I also must concede that I should have emailed my blog entry to the Buzz Out Loud hosts, rather than relying on their Technorati feeds.

It also frustrates me that Veronica decided to post this on her own blog, essentially taking a side in this issue and giving the impression that she took my critical feedback about show listeners personally.  This is definitely discouraging to anyone else who may share my views about the joke, or anyone who would like to submit feedback in general (If you don’t agree with what everyone is saying, we’ll vilify you).  Seeing this on her blog causes me to take this joke personally – there were probably better ways to communicate this poem (i.e the Wiki they are working on). 

Again, I’m not upset and I know I’m probably reading too much into a joke about someone commenting on another joke, but I wanted to explain why I don’t think this is very funny.

It’s 2am, I’m awake – so with it comes a random rant (my apologies in advance).

I’m a faithful listener to the Buzz Out Loud podcast: a daily, informative and entertaining technology show.  Back on Monday, July 31st, they were talking about the scaling-back of the E3 Gaming Convention (basically it’s cancelled in it’s current form and will be watered down to a modest media/developers conference).  In talking about the bells and whistles that consisted of E3, the BOL hosts spoke about the need for an over-hyped glitter convention and jokingly coined it as "Spectacle Fest".  This was a very funny, satirical insight on how the gaming (and tech) industry needs some kind of dog and pony show.  Everyone had a good laugh and the hosts joked about accepting pledges for Spectacle Fest.  In the following days audio comments and emails rolled in with fictional pledges.  Some funny items were pledged and we all had a good laugh.

Fast forward to two weeks later and BOL is still receiving emails/audio comments with Spectacle Fest pledges.  Listening to all of these, all I can think is "enough with this already!".  This was funny the first or second time, but what seems like 100 times later, this joke isn’t going to be funny any time soon.  What’s worse is that the "pledges" have leaked out of the podcast and are seeping into their discussion forums.  What began as a small satirical commentary has mutated into a large inside-joke that stopped being funny after the first 10 times.  Still, it seems that everyone needs to hop on this bandwagon.

The spectacle of Spectacle Fest isn’t the fault of the BOL hosts, they can’t help if they say something funny – this spectacle is on the show’s fans and the asynchronous media format of podcasting.  We all know that one guy who has no concept of aging humor – the guy who thinks the 20th rendition of a joke is just as funny as the first time it was told.  Unfortunately it seems like many of the comment contributors of Buzz Out Loud fall under this demographic.

With Podcasting, this becomes exacerbated.  If Buzz Out Loud was a traditional radio show, the comment would have been made, followed by 20 minutes of "pledge calls" before it was not funny anymore.  Since podcasting is asynchronous (meaning that the creation/recording and listening are done at different times) and live interaction with listeners is not possible, we’re prolonged the agony of having the 20 minutes of calls spread out over 2 weeks. 

Listeners: let’s move on from this joke!  I can guarantee that Tom, Molly and Veronica will say something witty and insightful for your future gravy-training.  I’m a big proponent of podcasting and asynchronous media, but this seems like huge liability for this format.  We need to monitor "it’s not funny anymore" guy more closely with this media.  Bartender, cut him off!