He used to write the Cybertwats cartoon at the back of PC Zone too. A long journey from there to becoming a high-profile tv ‘showrunner’ and marrying Konnie Huq.
I first came across "wanking for coins" on his much missed TV Go Home website, a parody of the Radio Times that perfectly skewered the dumbing down of television. TVGH also gave us Nathan Barley which I recently rewatched for the first time since it was first broadcast - satire so accurate that every character in it was essentially someone I knew when working in Hoxton in the very early 2000s.
That same Charlie Brooker who he, along with his wife, has spent the vast majority of their careers getting “Wanks for Coins” on the BBC and Netflix creating content that people will either like or won’t like and have the option to watch or not watch and get paid for it either way?
Other than quality - and legacy media/tv shows require the quality to be much higher at the start because there is a finite amount of air time it has - I see no major difference in someone creating a show for Netflix/BBC/ITV/Sky/whatever than those that chose online platforms such as YouTube, twitch etc. It’s all the same thing - providing entertainment for your audience in exchange for getting paid.
Or wanking for coins, as some might say.
As for the apparent “dumbing down argument” that’s one that has running since the invention of television.
Subscribes likes and clicks are just the 21st Century version of the ratings wars of the 20th century that drove who got paid the most in the entertainment biz.
“remember when Christmas Eastenders got eleventy billion viewers every year”
You’re just getting old, as am I, and you don’t like the new fad or thing the kids are interested in that’s generating money. Just like it was with my parents generation and the generation before that and before that and before that.
Christ, imagine what those that came back from the Second World War thought of Python et al. They were just doing silly voices and walks while mocking religion hoping to get a high enough viewer rating to demand a second series.
Where as I and perhaps you, thought it was and is great
Things move on. Not everything is for you. And that’s ok.
No really, you have, you're completely missing the key part which is that the subject needs to have so little dignity that they're willing to debase themselves for the entertainment of others - it was regularly used to describe Big Brother. I don't like Eastenders, but nobody involved in that show is debasing themselves - they're working hard to produce something that millions of people find entertaining for some reason.
Absolutely agree that it's not for me, but it makes me sad both on the level that there are people out there for whom stuff this inane actually is for, and that there's an endless supply of bottom feeders willing to do whatever it takes to get the clicks.
I am old. I get that Tik Tok and a lot of Social media content is not for me and can be just the equivalent of the over-enthusiastic footy statto, boring stamp collector or Moon Landing nutter in the pub on a larger scale, but the amount of numbskullery, disinformation and hatred that can be generated I find depressing, even if you're not seeking it out.
The worst thing about it all for me...is that the (hate the phrase) 'mainstream' now feels it has to try and compete not so much with the quality stuff that is definitely knocking about but with the the stuff that attracts that audience so standards fall and 'personalities' coarsen in a desperate race to the bottom.
When ITV revive a show that had become too awful for C5 or pay appalling politicians millions to spout off in between Ant and Dec links, we're in a bad way.
I find some of the newsreaders and reporters sound like they've never read a word out loud before...or knew anything about the subject before they were given the job of covering it. That may be so...but the idea is to at least sound like you do.
I just turned on Radio 4 to hear the BBC Political Editor going into great detail about how tired he was after his terrible journey (that I'm paying for) to Samoa to cover the Commonwealth conference. It may be me, but I don't give a toss.
'Robin Day has been sent to Cairo to interview President Nasser about the Suez Crisis and the threat to World peace...'
'Well, Richard, had a terrible night in the Dakota flying over, had an overland trip in an Army Jeep with an overly chatty driver, the hotel in Egypt is appalling, it will struggle to get one star in my opinion, and then I had to bribe one of the waiters and get some decent black market Scotch Whisky...'
In someone else’s opinion it’s not true. Your opinion doesn’t make it fact.
I tend to agree with you btw. And Charlie Brooker for that matter. But I’m not as arrogant as him to sit in my ivory tower looking down on people that:
A: are entertained by that or
B: get enjoyment (and a wage) carrying out that work.
I never found Jackass funny. Or Dirty Sanchez for that matter - the former started nearly quarter of a century ago! Long before YT existed. But I’m also not going to sit here and say that they were debasing themselves or anyone that watched it was wasting there time. You could say that they were a group of guys having a laugh and entertained millions of people and some got very wealthy doing it
My point is - this is life. There will always be things that as you get older you shake your hand and wonder WTF people are going with their lives to find “that” (whatever it is) funny or entertaining. All you are doing is look down your nose at it and scoffing at them thinking you’re better than them.
You’re not.
i’m willing to bet your parents felt the same about the shit you watched when you were young.
Guess what. Congrats. You have become your parents.
TV Go Home was eagerly awaited in the office I worked in around 1999. Only the IT bloke had internet access, so he'd screen grab it and email it round. Absolute genius.
Comments
He used to write the Cybertwats cartoon at the back of PC Zone too. A long journey from there to becoming a high-profile tv ‘showrunner’ and marrying Konnie Huq.
I first came across "wanking for coins" on his much missed TV Go Home website, a parody of the Radio Times that perfectly skewered the dumbing down of television. TVGH also gave us Nathan Barley which I recently rewatched for the first time since it was first broadcast - satire so accurate that every character in it was essentially someone I knew when working in Hoxton in the very early 2000s.
That same Charlie Brooker who he, along with his wife, has spent the vast majority of their careers getting “Wanks for Coins” on the BBC and Netflix creating content that people will either like or won’t like and have the option to watch or not watch and get paid for it either way?
Other than quality - and legacy media/tv shows require the quality to be much higher at the start because there is a finite amount of air time it has - I see no major difference in someone creating a show for Netflix/BBC/ITV/Sky/whatever than those that chose online platforms such as YouTube, twitch etc. It’s all the same thing - providing entertainment for your audience in exchange for getting paid.
Or wanking for coins, as some might say.
As for the apparent “dumbing down argument” that’s one that has running since the invention of television.
I think you've fundamentally misunderstood what the term means.
I don’t.
Subscribes likes and clicks are just the 21st Century version of the ratings wars of the 20th century that drove who got paid the most in the entertainment biz.
“remember when Christmas Eastenders got eleventy billion viewers every year”
You’re just getting old, as am I, and you don’t like the new fad or thing the kids are interested in that’s generating money. Just like it was with my parents generation and the generation before that and before that and before that.
Christ, imagine what those that came back from the Second World War thought of Python et al. They were just doing silly voices and walks while mocking religion hoping to get a high enough viewer rating to demand a second series.
Where as I and perhaps you, thought it was and is great
Things move on. Not everything is for you. And that’s ok.
Some things on YouTube are good (like Jet Lag the Game, or HbomberGuy), a lot is bad.
I think that’s the same with most forms of media.
No really, you have, you're completely missing the key part which is that the subject needs to have so little dignity that they're willing to debase themselves for the entertainment of others - it was regularly used to describe Big Brother. I don't like Eastenders, but nobody involved in that show is debasing themselves - they're working hard to produce something that millions of people find entertaining for some reason.
Absolutely agree that it's not for me, but it makes me sad both on the level that there are people out there for whom stuff this inane actually is for, and that there's an endless supply of bottom feeders willing to do whatever it takes to get the clicks.
I am old. I get that Tik Tok and a lot of Social media content is not for me and can be just the equivalent of the over-enthusiastic footy statto, boring stamp collector or Moon Landing nutter in the pub on a larger scale, but the amount of numbskullery, disinformation and hatred that can be generated I find depressing, even if you're not seeking it out.
The worst thing about it all for me...is that the (hate the phrase) 'mainstream' now feels it has to try and compete not so much with the quality stuff that is definitely knocking about but with the the stuff that attracts that audience so standards fall and 'personalities' coarsen in a desperate race to the bottom.
When ITV revive a show that had become too awful for C5 or pay appalling politicians millions to spout off in between Ant and Dec links, we're in a bad way.
I find some of the newsreaders and reporters sound like they've never read a word out loud before...or knew anything about the subject before they were given the job of covering it. That may be so...but the idea is to at least sound like you do.
I just turned on Radio 4 to hear the BBC Political Editor going into great detail about how tired he was after his terrible journey (that I'm paying for) to Samoa to cover the Commonwealth conference. It may be me, but I don't give a toss.
'Robin Day has been sent to Cairo to interview President Nasser about the Suez Crisis and the threat to World peace...'
'Well, Richard, had a terrible night in the Dakota flying over, had an overland trip in an Army Jeep with an overly chatty driver, the hotel in Egypt is appalling, it will struggle to get one star in my opinion, and then I had to bribe one of the waiters and get some decent black market Scotch Whisky...'
And that’s all true - IN YOUR OPINION.
In someone else’s opinion it’s not true. Your opinion doesn’t make it fact.
I tend to agree with you btw. And Charlie Brooker for that matter. But I’m not as arrogant as him to sit in my ivory tower looking down on people that:
A: are entertained by that or
B: get enjoyment (and a wage) carrying out that work.
I never found Jackass funny. Or Dirty Sanchez for that matter - the former started nearly quarter of a century ago! Long before YT existed. But I’m also not going to sit here and say that they were debasing themselves or anyone that watched it was wasting there time. You could say that they were a group of guys having a laugh and entertained millions of people and some got very wealthy doing it
My point is - this is life. There will always be things that as you get older you shake your hand and wonder WTF people are going with their lives to find “that” (whatever it is) funny or entertaining. All you are doing is look down your nose at it and scoffing at them thinking you’re better than them.
You’re not.
i’m willing to bet your parents felt the same about the shit you watched when you were young.
Guess what. Congrats. You have become your parents.
TV Go Home was eagerly awaited in the office I worked in around 1999. Only the IT bloke had internet access, so he'd screen grab it and email it round. Absolute genius.
Jackass definitely wanking for coins, also definitely a work of genius.
Jackass certainly took its toll physically and mentally on the cast.
I loved Charlie Brooker's put-downs and satire, in TV Go Home and Screenburn, he could be absolutely brutal, but he was fuelled by a genuine love for good television. I still think his tribute to Oliver Postgate is some of the loveliest writing I've read in a newspaper: https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2008/dec/13/charlie-brooker-screen-burn-oliver-postgate
If any kids or big kids play FIFA I’m reliably informed the Kone card is sick.
6 in one comp game!!