daibakuha said:
mfeff said:
I am aware that Bob Chipman has taken university courses in film (he has mentioned it in other videos), however, I am not aware that he has ever been awarded a degree on the subject... mind you I "could" be wrong. Though the burden of proof is simply noting the degree and the date in which it was awarded.
I assumed he has a degree, for a couple of reasons though:
1) You don't see people talk about film the way he does without a degree, or at least extensive education on film. It would be very difficult for a lay person to have self taught themselves film crit on the level Bob does.
2) I would imagine it would be incredibly difficult to get a job as a film critic, if you don't have a degree in film criticism. Especially since their aren't a lot of jobs in that particular field.
I think it's a fair assumption to have. That being said I think your original comment was pretty close to being in the realm of an appeal to authority; which is fine... but assumes that the person from which one is referring is "in fact" an authority on the subject.
As it goes then, one may be challenged concerning the appeal, which is the burden of proof side of the coin. As I said there are some older videos where he mentions that he had some academic experience with film (subject), but a couple classes isn't a degree.
Shamus Young used to write some articles for the Escapist as a self proclaimed "Software Engineer", but he holds no degree on the subject from an accredited university nor has passed any relevant industry test which would merit such a title.
Extra Credits, Daniel and company "do" hold degrees of various merit, none of which are particularly technical degrees in software development. Daniel is a 2d artist, James on "wiki" is listed as a "games designer" which isn't particularly accurate. (His degree has more to do with staging, literature, philosophy... i.e. a fine arts degree), and Allison is another artist. (The joke here being that the only game any of them have ever worked on directly was James who worked on CoD) Then he founded a start up, and it failed... now he lectures academically... (an old saying that goes... those that can't... teach).
My point being is that in internet land, it's pretty easy to "sound" or "imply" one is a qualified speaker on a topic... and not really "be" qualified to offer up anything other than an opinion.
Now as far as your second position goes... most of the internet people that get on web-zines get started either through a friend of a friend association or they had some blog or YouTube channel that was leveraged onto the E-zine. Most people that are academically accomplished note those accomplishments pretty directly... if your not seeing the degree noted, school, dates, so on and so forth... the chances are, there isn't anything to note.
Most the "writing" that I have seen not only on this site but others... are not the penning of academically accomplished people. It's not a lie, unless someone is saying that "I graduated from such and thus", and it turns out they didn't. Assumptions fall onto the assumptive.
Themis media... I think that's who owns the escapist, will pay more or less anyone to create content regardless of the professional or academic background... they used to run ads on the site for it all the time. Heck get popular enough on YouTube and offer to move your channel over, I am sure they will at least hear you out and make an offer.
Don't really know about film magazines specifically, but for games... what you said is true, if you where interested in writing for "Game Developer", or perhaps something for gamasutra... but here...? Nah man. A pulse, a fan base, a spell checker, maybe a little better grammar than the average bear. To anecdote that, both Bob and Yahtzee started on Youtube, then migrated over here, for all practical purposes Escapist is the house that Yahtzee built.