Ian Caronia said:
kroldok said:
"_There is never a reason to show footage like the one he used other than for shock value."
True, it is shock value, but that does not mean he is wrong, and I would maintain it is pure and simple fact that it is indeed subjective.
*snip*
Your argument that 'real journalists' don't use shock value sounds strange to me, I see shock value on the news all the time (case in point the footage used by Sterling). What exactly do you mean by 'real journalists'?
Yes, opinion and feeling is subjective. The use (and in this case misuse) of snuff footage for shock value is not. It shows a lack of ingenuity from the journalist for having to resort to snuff footage, especially when it isn't even part of the topic (man committing suicide =/= war and the desire for real violence in videogaming), and to parody it at the end shows, as I said, a callous disregard for the death you tried to use to illustrate your point.
All of that shows that it is not only unnecessary (fact) but also used wrongly, since it makes Jim look like an ignorant hypocrite for showing a death, saying it's not something people react to with anything other than horror, and then making fun of it. This is fact. Opinion would be "I think he's an asshole for using that footage". Fact is "He made himself look ignorant and hypocritical for not only including it, but misusing it and ruining his point with the crude parody he thought was funny."
_A real journalist is a rare and hard to find thing. They are the types of journalists who don't use cheap tricks (which in turn cheapen their point as I explained) to get across facts or even their side of an argument. The reason you don't see many like this is because, like respectable artists and real reviewers, respectable journalists are a dieing breed.
_As for the news thing, I would go into it but that's a whole other discussion.
"Fact is "He made himself look ignorant and hypocritical for not only including it, but misusing it and ruining his point with the crude parody he thought was funny.""
I fail to see how this is fact, Sterling chose a video that
he felt would illustrate his point, how tasteless the video is on a scale 1-10, is still a question of opinion. Same goes for the joke.
Define misusing the clip, does using it for shock value automaticaly make it misuse, and if so is that true for all things used to shock, and if so how can you factualy argue what is shock value and what is not (soldiers dying in CoD vs the rape scene from the movie 'Irreversible' for instance)?
Wether or not the point is ruined is once again an individual thing, the fact that you (and indeed I) personaly feel the point is better made in another way does not mean
everyone on the planet have to concider this pointless, someone might actually view this and with it formulate new thoughts and ideas, and as such i would once again argue that it's more subjective than objective.
Lack of ingenuity in the sense that he could have used words instead, or even another, gentler videoclip? yes, very much so, still doesn't make him factualy wrong in his approach though, just extreme (and possibly moronic).
"A callous disregard for the death"
Yes it is, but the same could logically be applied to
any death, including the death of Adolf Hitler, and i personally have never found myself being upset by anyone making fun of Hitler, or his mustache, or his clothes, or his death.
"...when it isn't even part of the topic (man committing suicide =/= war and
the desire for real violence in videogaming)"
Again he could have used something else, or nothing at all, but it is certainly part of the topic, 50% of the topic to be precise: 'Real violence vs Videogame violence'
Firstly: nowhere in the video does he state that death in videogames have never had emotional value(nor did I), it is however very obvious that it is not real (cartoonish), even when there is a strong emotional context, and people who play videogames for the most part know this.
Okay, firstly cartoonish does mean it's not real, however the word is used when talking about something that is outrageously or comically unreal. Jim was making this point, which showed he didn't know what he was talking about because nothing that has "strong emotional context" can be "cartoonish". That cartoon cyote falling down a canyon? Cartoonish. Elmer Fud getting blown up and then seeing his spirit rising into the sky while riding a cloud and playing a harp? Cartoonish. Ethan Mars cutting off his finger? The death of [spoiler not said] in LA Noire? Any of the main characters' deaths (during the game's plot not gameplay) in Persona 4? Not cartoonish.
_It's how the word is used, and Jim was being painfully ignorant in saying videogame deaths are cartoonish.
Secondly: to note here is that he did not call it 'humdrum' he called it boring, and Dictionary.com does not result in humdrum as a definition but rather a synonym, and they are different (witch is not to say that my source is better than yours, but they are apparently different). What source did you use?
FreeDictionary.Com:
Boring: Uninteresting, tiresome; dull
Synonym: A word having the same or nearly the same meaning as another word or other words in a language.
Yeah those were synonyms I used, but they meant the same thing. Boring cannot, does not, and should not be allowed to inhabit the same room as "real murder/war". Jim, again, was being painfully ignorant.
Admittedly synonyms mean the same thing, but that train of thought can be used to link 'boring' to 'Interminable'.
From Dictionary.com:
Interminable (Synonomous)
?adjective
1. incapable of being terminated; unending: an interminable job.
2. monotonously or annoyingly protracted or continued; unceasing; incessant: I can't stand that interminable clatter.
3. having no limits: an interminable desert.
And not all definitions of 'Interminable' are applied to 'Boring', 'Humdrum' comes closer to boring than 'Interminable' so you are barking up the right tree, but it's still a trade-off witch sits a bit ill when the word 'Fact' is thrown around as much as it is.
Another thing (and correct me if I turn out to be using the wrong link here):
Neither http://www.freedictionary.com/
or http://www.freedictionary.com/
actually send me to a dictionary, they both send me to what looks like a non-occupied domain name containing:
-A sign at the top stating "Inquire about this domain"
-A search bar that does not provide dictionary results but rather a list of "sponsored links" containing the word i have typed (in this case boring, resulting in the top result 'Boring Cat' on Youtube).
-A list of five links that redirect to other places.
If you could send me an actual link that would be much aprecciated, especially since different dictionaries cough up different results from time to time and communication might improve if there is common ground to go from.
(Sidenote: english is not my first language, and it struck me there is a chance that the value of common terms used in an uncommon fashion is easier for me, as I am not used to hearing them in daily speech and therefore have "big-picture-hearing" perhaps placing emphasis on the subject as a whole, and interpreting single words from within the context to a greater degree)
That...makes a lot of sense.
I'm not being cruel when I say- Don't get into a debate on the words of a language that isn't your primary one.
This... looks a bit like the writings of someone who dismisses me based on my linguistical prowess or lack thereof, a lacking that I myself took time to explain.
And I'm not being cruel either when I say you should take note of what is actually written there, instead of jumping on the 'English is not my primary', producing the following quote:
For future reference: Cartoonish is used as a way of saying something is outragous to the point of being hilarious. Literally: A ridiculously oversimplified or stereotypical representation
without a reference, and then being done with it.
To explain myself further, take the following phrase:
"There is a clear value in favour of society's safety in keeping watch over the previously incarcerated to assure they do not harm other people"
This sounds very 'big brother' but none the less makes
some amount of sense when talking about US prisons of the Super-Max class (Assuming there is even a chance that they ever leave, but Wikipedia makes no mention of that, so ill take my chances).
On the other hand, if talking about the jews incarcerated during the holocaust, the statement is nazi propaganda (or at least a direct result of nazi propaganda).
As someone who does not speak english as a first language i tend to go for context first (accumulated during the course of the video) and single words later, witch is not to say that single words don't matter, they do, but I feel you missed the point of my statement, (admittedly, perhaps
because of my poor linguistic skills... damn), that point being that within the context of the subjectmatter and the article he refers to in the description (an article that the video is for all intent and purpose a 'reply' to), Sterling does (in my opinion) manage to produce solid input, although as stated crude, and shock full of shock value.
Also, having looked around the web for awhile I honestly cannot come up with a word that on the one hand properly encompasses the fake-ness of VG violence due to it being pixel-based and obviously unreal, while at the same time lending an honesty to the emotional context that some games boast, but words like 'Unreal/Gross', or 'overstated' don't seem to lend much more credibility than the word 'cartoonish'.
/With Greetings
