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The Internet In Stupid is my collection of a number of articles from the internet in the past week which go some way to highlight the amount of shoddy journalism out there from overlong headlines, to headlines that are complete gibberish, to articles which are just utter, twisted rubbish.
Maybe they already get so many hits, from people who don’t like to have to think, that respectable journalism is not something with which they have to concern themselves?
Of course, I could’ve called it “10 reasons why these are the words headlines of the week”, but any title that begins with an unnecessary number just makes me want to scream. I’ll explain more of my moans as we grow.
1. Viral Clip Shows Celebs Not Clapping for Jenny Beavan During Her Oscars Win
Short pieces of footage will never tell the story, especially when they’re a three-second Vine clip, this one showing costume designer Jenny Beaven heading to the stage to collect one of her Oscars awards for Mad Max: Fury Road, seemingly showing a number of audience members, including The Revenant director Alejandro G Inarritu, sitting there, so disgruntled at the fact she’s won that they’re refusing to clap.
That was the assumption that The Epoch Times made, and also sounds like they believe the “bag lady” comment Stephen Fry made at the BAFTAs about the lady, who’s actually a good friend of his and was a joke, despite it leading him to flouncing off Twitter (again).
The full footage, including a GIF from the director, here, shows that he and others were giving plenty of applause to the winner. Oh, and the title highlights another of my bugbears – an entire title made up of capitalised words.
The Epoch Times: http://www.theepochtimes.com/n3/1979162-viral-clip-shows-celebs-refusing-to-clap-for-jenny-beavan-at-oscars/
2. Forget Leo, Ennio Morricone finally won an Oscar after 500 movie credits
The Internet is stupid in this headline because it’s one of so many posts these days which, instead of being snappy, is more like a rambling sentence. Generally if you want your website post to be seen by a lot of people, you have to adhere to using SEO (Search Engine Optimisation). This includes having a succinct title and putting the focus of it at the beginning. But no, when it comes to The Independent, still claiming that quality journalism will exist in their online-only form, this is one of those headlines which meanders on so long that by the time it has finished, I’d nearly forgotten who they were talking about.
And, yes, I know Ennio Morricone deserves an Oscar, but not for The Hateful Eight. While this is the first time director Quentin Tarantino has commissioned a score, instead of just raiding the music archives – (a) he still DOES raid those music archives, such as an early use of The White Stripes’ Apple Blossom, and (b) most of the Morricone has been lifted from The Exorcist II: The Heretic and The Thing. Hence, let’s not go throwing awards at him for his small contribution to THIS movie.
The Independent: http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/news/forget-leo-ennio-morricone-finally-won-an-oscar-after-500-movie-credits-a6904671.html
3. Kanye West reads MusicRadar, appears to go on Pirate Bay and gets slammed by Deadmau5
MusicRadar give themselves some free publicity with their rambling headline which equates to “Pop star uses the internet”.
It gives the impression that Kanye West was downloading something without paying for it, yet later states “Now, this doesn’t provide proof that anything untoward was going on”. Throwing in a response from a house music producer, and it’s another non-story.
Chalk this up to shoddy journalism.
4. Osborne just tried bullying one of Britain’s finest journalists and it totally backfired
Another rambling title and one which throws in the redundant word “totally” as it’s the kind of thing you’d expect a 12-year-old to say. Unless The Canary hires 12-year-olds as writers. I don’t really care who’s right and who’s wrong in this. I’ve seen Paul Mason (right) on Channel 4 News, but if he’s “one of Britain’s finest journalists”, why have they just given him the boot?
The Canary: http://www.thecanary.co/2016/03/03/osborne-just-tried-bullying-one-britains-finest-journalists-totally-backfired/
5. Would you eat a Creme Egg pizza? Someone has created one – and we’re not sure how to react
A British organisation filling space with a preposterous “story”, using an American style ‘reaction within a headline’, namely “we’re not sure how to react”.
And it also throws in the achingly loathsome waffle of “Someone has” within a headline. When did that become a ‘thing’?
Daily Mirror: http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/weird-news/would-you-eat-creme-egg-7485471
Go to page 2 for the other 5 examples of The Internet In Stupid for this week.
6. John McAfee better prepare to eat a shoe because he doesn’t know how iPhones work
The FBI are getting pissy because Apple are siding with the terrorists and won’t let them see what’s in one of the baddy’s phones, and here’s an article about the man behind the anti-virus software which quickly gets uninstalled from any PC I buy, in favour of the free AVG software.
However, Arstechnica are putting the ‘Ars’ in the internet with this nonsensical title. “John McAfee better prepare” should read “John McAfee should prepare”. Or perhaps they had ‘better’ come up with a more succinct headline.
7. The New Ghostbusters Trailer Is Here and Everything Looks Perfect
Capitals! Capitals! Capitals! Yes, it’s the return of every word in the headline being a capital, except for the coordinating conjunction, i.e. ‘and’, courtesy of IO9. And rather than starting the headline with the focus keyword, “Ghostbusters”, they start with two words that have nothing to do with the focus keyword and is bad for SEO.
IO9: http://io9.gizmodo.com/the-new-ghostbusters-trailer-is-here-and-everything-lo-1762501978
8. Fan Edited Trailer For The New Ghostbusters Is So Much Better and Someone Recut the New Ghostbusters Trailer and Made It So Much Better
Two for the price of one, as both follow-up the Ghostbusters official trailer with a fan-made one. What did I call it on my website? “Ghostbusters (III) FanCUT Teaser Trailer HD (RECUT)” because all of that – apart from the (III), which I’ve added in because it IS film No.3 – is in the original title. But for the two headlines I’ve listed here, they’re all so loquacious, and all so much… waffle.
Kotaku: http://kotaku.com/fan-edited-trailer-for-the-new-ghostbusters-is-so-much-1762907527
Slate: http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2016/03/04/someone_recut_the_new_ghostbusters_trailer_and_made_it_so_so_much_better.html
9. Marcel Vigneron on His New Restaurant, Ditching Molecular Gastronomy, and Why He Doesn’t Watch Top Chefon His New Restaurant, Ditching Molecular Gastronomy, and Why He Doesn’t Watch Top Chef
Do you remember the headline regarding Kanye West? Yes, this one is also in three parts, each of which are of similar disinterest. And There’s All The Capital Letters.
Los Angeles Magazine: http://www.lamag.com/digestblog/marcel-vigneron-wolf-top-chef-molecular-gastronomy/
10. It’s snow day! Children across the country take full advantage of a day off school to go out and play in the white stuff as up to four inches of snow hits parts of Britain
And trust the Daily Mail to top the bill in having the most lengthy title of them all. But then the Daily Mail have a lot of problems. Not least in the fact that that is their editor on the right…
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.
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