Is the Guardian worse than it used to be?

She's sort of making the thing the artwork suggests come true - it seems to be saying 'We're such horrible people that we'd tie someone up and use them as a chair', or 'Somewhere, it is not unlikely that a chair like this would be for sale'. So actually using it as a chair, I mean

xpost Headlines online and print are almost always different. In print you can still have nuance, because the reader has the context of the whole page or article in front of them. Online headlines have to have all the key terms in, otherwise Google's alogorithms don't pick them up, which is why they all read so baldly. You could say that's clickbaity, but it's not actually trying to get to the reader so much as the search engine

I am just going to quote this particular review in the singles column, word for word:

Sheryl Crow - One (by Joe Bish). Sheryl Crow is the unequivocal queen of dad boners. If your old man is having trouble in the sack then just show him a picture of First Cut is the Deepest-era Crow and the blood will slowly march to his phallus like a stream of dutiful pallbearers on a busy Friday.

I especially want Dorian to read this. And to reflect that this is an actual review, which was printed in a national broadsheet, not the gutter press, not some fanzine, not the "would smash" threads of ILX, but a quality newspaper with national distribution, and presumably, the reviewer in question was paid to produce those words.

Now I want you to go back and read the comments about Ezra K and a few jibes about his eyelashes or his haircut or the cut of his casual slacks, and tell me, again, that the discussion between Alfred and I was problematic, or out of order, or even excessive, when compared to what is written up there above, in your own newspaper.

I mean, can you imagine someone reviewing the new Vampire Weekend single, saying "Ezra is the unequivocal king of mum boners. If your old lady is having trouble in the sack then just show her a picture of Vampire Weekend and the juices will start to flow until she's as lubed up and ready to rumble as a West Country holiday resort in flood season."

For real, that review is too stupid and too eye-rolly to get in any way upset over, but I just want to remind you the world that we live in, and what's problematic, and the environment in which mine and Alfred's comments take place.

Disclaimer: I'm friends with Joe irl. This is his schtick, he's a bratty 20yr old who takes the piss out of everything. It's a tossed-off sentence in a singles review...

Except it isn't. It is the entire culture in which women are judged (as artists, as musicians, as politicians) by their effect on male members.

if your "bratty piss-taking" is indistinguishable from the thing it's taking the piss out of, you are part of the problem, not part of the solution. Why does this dude get a free pass on it for "piss-taking" but Alfred and I equally making jokes and having fun gets out the pearl-clutchers of ILM?

I'm not pearl-clutching at this review, it's too fucking dumb to waste time on. But I do want to say that this is the environment and the context in which *my* remarks get problematised? Really?

amazing how bratty kidz just taking the piss are so often indistinguishable from sexist clichés that have been trotted out since time immemorial

lol xp

until she's as lubed up and ready to rumble as a West Country holiday resort in flood season

lolled a bit too hard at my desk tbh

I'd be FPd if I took that as a display name, wouldn't I? ;-)

did smirk, u shd tbh. start with 'as' for maximum effect

i think the consequences will be depressingly predictable

http://cdn.hitfix.com/photos/408221/vampire-weekend-holiday_article_story_main.jpg

can someone add the caption 'king of mum boners' to this pic of Ezra, thx

What happens on fridays?

OK, that’s it. The world doesn’t need any more “bratty 20yr olds who take the piss out of everything.” It needs proper writers who are capable of writing.

But I have to remind myself that this is the same paper which, over the last month, has run “thinkpieces” saying that Uk*p have a point and mass immigration does not, that Rachel Reeves cravenly copying Government policy on migrants is a refreshing addition to the debate, that it’s all right for male politicians to be “a bit creepy” (and that was the paper’s Chief Political Writer talking about the Rennard affair) and that old people are burdens on humanity who need to have their retirement toys taken away.

Also this is the paper which, despite their Christmas Eve letters page being entirely given over to angry readers threatening to take their business away unless the columnist who wrote the last article mentioned above was removed, continue to publish the columnist in question every Monday. What a great advertisement for young wannabe journalists; you want a column in the Guardian? Just break the law, lie to the police, get put in jail and have your old pals at the paper take you back when you come out. Why even bother with going through journalistic training when all the paper clearly wants is not good journalism but what Charlie Brooker correctly termed “yelpy clickbait”?

Then again, if you pay peanuts, you get bratty 20yr olds who take the piss out of everything.

I think it was just a pastiche that begged to be misunderstood, guys. Chill

I think "Proper writers" would be wasted on a review of Sheryl Crow - One.

I think broadsheet newspapers have a duty to inform, educate and entertain the highest common denominator of their readership rather than continually pandering to the lowest. Yes, it's elitist - but so is smugly assuming that your readers are so easily and stupidly pleased if you run nothing but hit-gathering clickbait.

xp Yeah obviously I don't like that review. I wasn't "problematising" your comments though. I made one comment, which was that Ezra's looks were being discussed in that thread more, and more negatively, than Warpaint's were. It's not like I was angry - someone else brought it up.

Now I want you to go back and read the comments about Ezra K and a few jibes about his eyelashes or his haircut or the cut of his casual slacks, and tell me, again, that the discussion between Alfred and I was problematic, or out of order, or even excessive, when compared to what is written up there above, in your own newspaper.

idk 2 wrongs don't make a right, the guardian is terrible but ilx doesn't need to sink to its level

nobody gets paid to post on ilx tbf

*keeps shtum about sponsorship deals*

I know this is getting off the point, but I would have thought Sheryl Crow was too young for 'someone your dad has the hots for' jokes, but then it occurred to me that if this guy is 20yrs old then All I Wanna Do came out within a year of his birth, and now I feel old

depends how old your dad is i suppose?

tbf i have no idea what specific quality one needs to become a queen of dad boners

The guest-writer-reviews-the-singles bit of The Guardian has been consistently terrible for years. I don't know whether it's down to the brevity of the reviews or a reflection on the declining importance of the single as a format but, more often than not, it's just a vehicle for lower-rung bloggers to throw out some lazy, unpleasant zings. Thankfully, the rest of the music section is different.

Not wishing to get into the meat of the complaint but if a good poster has outlined why they're uncomfortable with a particular line being taken in a thread, that's usually a decent reason to think twice - irrespective of how many times worse some clown who writes for Vice may be.

There are plenty of outlets for that kind of drivel w/o the Graun getting in on the party. At least do it somewhere I'm not likely to see it, pls.

Guide single reviews have always been mean-spirited - this isn't a new development.

This is his schtick, he's a bratty 20yr old who takes the piss out of everything cunt

fixed. Or what you said, basically. #bantz

wins and lex otm

I don't think anyone itt is objecting to mean-spiritedness, irreverence etc, just thick lumpheaded #LADBANTZ

The worst Guide revisw I've read was a couple of years ago, for a Tulisa single, where the reviewer saw fit to take the piss out of her allegedly deficient blowjob technique, which he'd watched on the tape that had just been leaked without her consent.

The vibe has always been snark and sometimes it's funny and more often it's cheap shots and strained obnoxiousness. It's been like that as long as I've been reading it.

"Bratty 20yr olds who take the piss out of everything" is a respectable school of writing, or comedy writing, when it's done well.

I recall one that was like 'This, this is what grey-skinned council estate children are listening to' in a singles review for a popular girl band

Also guardian book review section only reviews poetry books from a small list of high-profile uk poetry publishers and they are always puff-pieces, not reviews

think there's probably a stepping-off point between snark and misogyny but maybe i am just trying to score Marc Loi points

http://www.cjr.org/the_audit/the_trust-fund_newspaper.php

Add it all up and GMG would have a nearly $1.9 billion pile of cash or, conservatively, somewhere around $1.6 billion after taxes (UPDATE: if they apply. See above update). Even if that cash were to get zero return and The Guardian isn’t able to cut its $51 million annual loss, it could fund the paper until about 2045.

Charles Foster Kane:
"You're right, I did lose a million dollars last year. I expect to lose a million dollars this year. I expect to lose a million dollars *next* year. You know, Mr. Thatcher, at the rate of a million dollars a year, I'll have to close this place in... 60 years."

the level of quality one would expect of an extended january transfer window deadline day liveblog might not be very high but it's still worse than anything in recent memory on the guardian site including rhiannon lucy coslett's blog about onesies

I refuse to actually read the article but its existence was enough to upset me:
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/feb/02/delete-candy-crush-saga-from-phone

let's just agree to never read anything by stuart heritage

The Guardian is excruciating when it acts like yr fuddy parent. Be that wincing about modernity or trying to sell u £300 kitchen scales.

That aspect doesn't annoy me half as much as their half-baked attempts to attract the Younger Readership (see The Guide most weeks). Don't have the precise demographics to hand but I wouldn't be surprised if the majority of their readers are over 50 and don't have a smartphone, let alone know or care what Candy Crush is.

So is candy crush the same as bejewelled

no, bejewelled is a legitimate game.

in all likelihood, an interminable scene two thirds of the way through where the main character gets drugged, then everything goes blurry and he has a tedious epiphany about his childhood.

this was almost funny tbf

bad tidings to whoever put an urbandictionary link to 'eMpTyV' here

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/feb/06/russell-brand-philip-seymour-hoffman-drug-laws

I really can't be arsed to ever read that Russell Brand thing

Russell Brand: "Russell Brand".

he's in an invidious position because he doesn't get to discuss his ideas in the media except by dint of his persona, which inevitably draws the attention of his interviewer. but it might be interesting to draw comparisons with Rob Newman, who was surely once near the same level of celebrity as Brand, and who seems to have chosen to draw different conclusions about his own career from his political beliefs.

Brand's a lot more famous than Newman, but they've both got form WRT 'radical mouth, reactionary penis'.