On and On About Harry & Meghan Part 4

[Ran]

5 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

Part of the blame certainly rests with Spotify in giving $20M to two people with not much discernable talent or creativity.

Apparently Spotify has been making the point that the contract was worth up to $20 million, but that depended on meeting certain milestones and metrics. The implication seems be that they did not achieve that, so got less out of the deal.

[Varysblackfyre321]

35 minutes ago, Ran said:

the Obama-Springsteen podcast that was much ballyhooed but it turns out that most who listened to it fell asleep because there was no spark or energy, it was just bland because there was never any conflict. And no one can say Obama and Springsteen aren't very talented individuals... within certain spheres. But podcasters, it seems, they are not.

This reminds me of the fact Biden had a podcast.

I have no interest to though I like the man and think he’s the best President within the last 40 years—I would listen to a trump podcast even though he’s a fascist.

I do have a morbid curiosity about Megan’s podcast only to see if she says anything that I can see a royalist getting reasonably offended at like there’s something to the rage other than Sam he has(had lol) a podcast.

Edited June 19, 2023 by Varysblackfyre321

[Tywin et al.]

38 minutes ago, Ran said:

You keep saying this claim that he has no talent, after acknowledging that he's created a number of things that require talent.

As a personality he's an everyman pop culture and sports crank, but as an impressario he has created and overseen multiple award-winning, chart-topping podcasts, documentaries, and books. He's very solidly talented.

EPs don't actually do that much and that's really what he is. Just take 30 for 30. He created it, but almost all the actual work was done by other people. Likewise the best stuff Grantland did was by other people. What Simmons did was find a way to create a space for more talented people to flourish. All he can really do is bitch and moan about Boston sports, which the Massholes do love, however overall he does not offer very much. This isn't unique to the sports industry btw. A lot of C level talents rise to the top of the org chart. Is Simmons really any better at his job than Sean Hannity?  

[Varysblackfyre321]

6 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Is Simmons really any better at his job than Sean Hannity?  

Sean Hannity is fine at his job.

I feel this is coming from a dislike towards the notion your political opponents could do anything entertaining.

[Ran]

6 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Is Simmons really any better at his job than Sean Hannity?  

Hannity's talented within his sphere (demagoguery), so... what's the point? Just because you don't like their talent or how they use it doesn't make them not talented!

And again, two NYT bestselling books that he wrote. He was for a time the most widely read sportswriter in America. You don't need to like his writing, but pretending he has no talent as a writer ís just quixotic tilting at windmills.

 

[Tywin et al.]

5 minutes ago, Varysblackfyre321 said:

Sean Hannity is fine at his job.

I feel this is coming from a dislike towards the notion your political opponents could do anything entertaining.

 

6 minutes ago, Ran said:

Hannity's talented within his sphere (demagoguery), so... what's the point? Just because you don't like their talent or how they use it doesn't make them not talented!

Hannity is terrible at his job or at least what his job should be. He can barely make a coherent statement. Fox has just dumbed down its viewers to such an extent that he's passible. However low they've fallen they still claim to be a journalistic enterprise and if you think Hannity belongs there Idk what to say.

Quote

And again, two NYT bestselling books that he wrote. He was for a time the most widely read sportswriter in America. You don't need to like his writing, but pretending he has no talent as a writer ís just quixotic tilting at windmills.

I doubt he did a lot of the work on those books. JFK famously really only wrote the first and last chapters of Profiles in Courage. He did some of the work in between, but not the bulk of it. This is pretty common. And yet more than a half century later he still gets the credit.

As for sports writing, do you read much? Almost all of it is pretty useless. I adore Greg Cote because he makes me laugh on podcasts, but as a writer, and he was called one of the ten best in the US recently, it's pretty basic shit most people who post regularly in the sports threads could do, and he even admits he gets help on his articles. Most sports writers do not offer up anything more. Rarely do you find one who can write in a way that really makes you think. Recently I read David Remnick's King of the World, a biography about Ali's younger years. That dude can write. Bill Simmons will never make anything close to that and when he's speaking again, he just sounds like a random guy at the bar. I appreciate that he was able to help others succeed, but don't confuse that with him actually having a lot of talent or that his views should carry much weight. His opinions on M&H should be meaningless. It just sounds like he's mad he couldn't make more money off of them. That's really what his complaint is all about at the end of the day. 

[Cas Stark]

Isn't he the spotify executive who is in charge of monetizing podcasts? 

Wouldn't that mean that his opinion on Meg and Harry's podcast career is something more than 'meaningless'?  

ETA...the capacity to recognize and nurture talent IS a talent.

Edited June 19, 2023 by Cas Stark

[Raja]

Bill Simmons gonna Bill Simmons tbh

His MLK/ Memphis stuff is the funniest thing he's said in a totally absurd way 

[Toth]

I suppose it fits here, given that it's technically some kind of royalty thread, but... I'm kind of baffled about something I incidentally stumbled across yesterday. Is everyone close to the power in Britain related?

So I was researching for a lesson about the English Revolution and somehow stumbled across a Sir Winston Churchill. In the 1650s. Made a bit of a double-take and it turns out it's truly an ancestor of the later Winston Churchill, with the latter being specifically named after him. Neat. But while scrolling through his Wikipedia page, I notice he had a granddaughter named Anne Churchill, who married a certain Charles Spencer. Spencer? It couldn't... then I look down his family true and it was. So Winston Churchill was Princess Diana's cousin of the 7th degree. Meanwhile Anne also had an aunt named Anabella Churchill who was a mistress to King James II., which doesn't amount to anything, given said revolution I was researching about, but still. This whole family tree looks like a damned pretzel.

And now I want to play Crusader Kings again...

[Tywin et al.]

1 hour ago, Cas Stark said:

Isn't he the spotify executive who is in charge of monetizing podcasts? 

Wouldn't that mean that his opinion on Meg and Harry's podcast career is something more than 'meaningless'?  

ETA...the capacity to recognize and nurture talent IS a talent.

Since we're talking about a Masshole, let's use Belichick as an example. Greatest NFL coach ever. Not sure many would disagree. Also, kind of an awful GM and shit at evaluating talent. Simmons knows what sells in sports media even if a lot of it is due to others and his personal opinions are lazy and uninteresting. There's no reason to assume he'd be good at producing and marketing a podcast about two former royals who as I've always said are not very interesting. I'm sure they're both a pain in the ass, but he probably is too. 

[Maltaran]

15 minutes ago, Toth said:

I suppose it fits here, given that it's technically some kind of royalty thread, but... I'm kind of baffled about something I incidentally stumbled across yesterday. Is everyone close to the power in Britain related?

 

Probably, especially if they’re Conservatives.

[Cas Stark]

13 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Since we're talking about a Masshole, let's use Belichick as an example. Greatest NFL coach ever. Not sure many would disagree. Also, kind of an awful GM and shit at evaluating talent. Simmons knows what sells in sports media even if a lot of it is due to others and his personal opinions are lazy and uninteresting. There's no reason to assume he'd be good at producing and marketing a podcast about two former royals who as I've always said are not very interesting. I'm sure they're both a pain in the ass, but he probably is too. 

I wonder how BB would be as a podcaster?  Probably no middle ground, either fantastic or terrible.  Yes, he is terrible at evaluating talent, I could never understand how that was possible.

The salient point for me here is that he calls them, not lazy, untalented, boring, rambling, but grifters.  There has to be a lot that went on behind the scenes for him to use that particular word.  

[Varysblackfyre321]

3 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

Hannity is terrible at his job or at least what his job should be. He can barely make a coherent statement. Fox has just dumbed down its viewers to such an extent that he's passible. However low they've fallen they still claim to be a journalistic enterprise and if you think Hannity belongs there Idk what to say.

He’s fine at his job of a propagandist and rhetorician.

And being able string a coherent sentence together makes him leagues above the people who actually think what he says makes any sense.

[Varysblackfyre321]

2 hours ago, Toth said:

But while scrolling through his Wikipedia page, I notice he had a granddaughter named Anne Churchill, who married a certain Charles Spencer. Spencer? It couldn't... then I look down his family true and it was. So Winston Churchill was Princess Diana's cousin of the 7th degree.

This kinda makes me curious on the familial relations of people who serve in echelons of military high command.

Side note I’m curious if there’s ever been a poll on the military on what they’d do if a monarch democratic suspends elections and just say he’s exercising their Legal authority to whatever they want.

[Tywin et al.]

1 hour ago, Cas Stark said:

I wonder how BB would be as a podcaster?  Probably no middle ground, either fantastic or terrible.  

I'm gonna say 95% chance he's terrible. If you got the real dude players and coaches say he can be perhaps it would be a lot of fun, but he's probably just going to turtle up and be intentionally boring. 

Quote

The salient point for me here is that he calls them, not lazy, untalented, boring, rambling, but grifters.  There has to be a lot that went on behind the scenes for him to use that particular word.  

They're mostly all grifters. He probably just felt cheated and knew that would get headlines. So just to switch to a different big name in sports media, Colin Cowherd. I think much like with Simmons he's a pretty marginal talent, but knows how to get attention and has turned it into a huge career. However, there's a game on one of the shows I like where they have random celebrities pick against him during the NFL season and they usually beat him.  Or Take Stephen A. Smith, ESPN's top basketball expert who got six or seven straight Finals predictions wrong. These people largely don't know that much about the sports they're paid to cover. And they sure as shit don't know much about things outside of them.

35 minutes ago, Varysblackfyre321 said:

He’s fine at his job of a propagandist and rhetorician.

And being able string a coherent sentence together makes him leagues above the people who actually think what he says makes any sense.

He's really not. It's just that so many people are lazy, dumb and want to hear what they believed be reenforced. Why do you think Fox didn't want him to testify? 

[Varysblackfyre321]

10 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

He's really not. It's just that so many people are lazy, dumb and want to hear what they believed be reenforced.

Yes  a large part of his job is literally to take advantage of that.

Im going to challenge you to demonstrate you’re not speaking out of pure vitriol to the man’s politics.

 

Can you point to ANY conservative talk show host who you personally find horrendous but proficient at their job? 

[Tywin et al.]

1 hour ago, Varysblackfyre321 said:

Can you point to ANY conservative talk show host who you personally find horrendous but proficient at their job? 

I think Joe Scarborough is an actual conservative, I watch his show most mornings and he's certainly someone I could talk to even if we'd disagree on a number of things. Hannity isn't actually a conservative because he's never thought about anything. Dude claims to read the bible everyday and yet seems to not understand a word of it (and to be clear, I doubt he ever reads it). He's just a fraud. Chris Wallace is another conservative I would watch with some frequency in the past. 

The thing is most "conservatives" in the media sphere don't actually give a shit about political ideologue. They're largely just chumming the water to make as much money as possible. A lot of news shows I watch have real conservatives on them all the time who can have sane debates. 

[Varysblackfyre321]

20 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

I think Joe Scarborough is an actual conservative, I watch his show most mornings and he's certainly someone I could talk to even if we'd disagree on a number of things. Hannity isn't actually a conservative because he's never thought about anything. Dude claims to read the bible everyday and yet seems to not understand a word of it (and to be clear, I doubt he ever reads it). He's just a fraud. Chris Wallace is another conservative I would watch with some frequency in the past. 

The thing is most "conservatives" in the media sphere don't actually give a shit about political ideologue. They're largely just chumming the water to make as much money as possible. A lot of news shows I watch have real conservatives on them all the time who can have sane debates. 

I didn’t ask if you liked  or respected any conservative talk show host or in media.

I asked if you can point to any conservative talk show who you find personally horrendous, like you can comfortably say you hate them, and yet still recognize they’re good at their job, they’re talented at doing at what they’re being paid for or assigned to do.

This mindset of people you disliking/hating having to be incompetent is unwise.

 

[Tywin et al.]

31 minutes ago, Varysblackfyre321 said:

I didn’t ask if you liked  or respected any conservative talk show host or in media.

I asked if you can point to any conservative talk show who you find personally horrendous, like you can comfortably say you hate them, and yet still recognize they’re good at their job, they’re talented at doing at what they’re being paid for or assigned to do.

This mindset of people you disliking/hating having to be incompetent is unwise.

 

Why would I say someone I find to horrendous personally is good at their job when their work is why I find them horrendous? Rush Limbaugh was good at his job in the sense he made a lot of money for himself and those he worked for. But he was a complete piece of shit who lied to his audience and warped a generation of pathetic white men. So overall no I don't think he did a good job. 

There are plenty of conservatives I disagree with, but find to be relatively good people who are also good at their jobs. I'm not going to say the clear and obvious grifters who sowed hate to make money are. 

[Varysblackfyre321]

23 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Why would I say someone I find to horrendous personally is good at their job when their work is why I find them horrendous?

Oh because with the acknowledgment you can actually know how best to deal with them or how to advise others to deal with them.

The thought the people you hate have to be incompetent is comforting—but it’s not always true.

Being talented at something doesn’t equal virtue and using that talent for horrible ends doesn’t detract from the talen

27 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Rush Limbaugh was good at his job in the sense he made a lot of money for himself and those he worked for.

He made a lot of money because he was really talented making an entertaining show that even people who absolutely despise him for him for his politics could hate-listen to for entertainment.

28 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

But he was a complete piece of shit who lied to his audience and warped a generation of pathetic white men.

Yes.

29 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

So overall no I don't think he did a good job. 

you keep doing this where you’re conflating competency and proficiency, talent at accomplishing a certain goal  with moral virtue.

30 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

There are plenty of conservatives I disagree with, but find to be relatively good people who are also good at their jobs. I'm not going to say the clear and obvious grifters who sowed hate to make money are. 

A strong respectable ethical framework is at best unnecessary for propagandists like rush and hannity at worse major impediment.