Ed Andrews: Quality control
Exploring just some of the rubbish that is out there on the internet.
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It’s getting to that time of year when your inbox gets a little sparse and many of the emails you send come back with a cheery out-of office reply. So as a result, I’ve spent a lot of time trawling the internet for what we now refer to as ‘content’. And on this recent search in cyberspace, my god, I’ve found some shit.
First up is one of skateboarding’s favourite hate figures, Rob Dyrdek. Dyrdek used his career as a pro skater to flex his entrepreneurial muscles on a number of ventures including starring in two reality TV shows Rob and Big and Rob Dyrdek’s Fantasy Factory; creating some cartoon skate figurines called Wild Grinders; and turning skateboarding into some creepy Superbowl spectacle with his Street League contest. He’s done well for himself, and for his latest trick, he’s released a video of him getting a giant Monster energy drink logo ‘tattooed’ on his back. He calls it "permanent brand dedication". Good one, Rob.
I’m gonna stick my neck out and say it’s a fake though. My reasons are that Dyrdek has the acting prowess of a cardboard box and can barely keep a straight face, and for someone having ink bored and scratched into his skin for many hours, he seems surprisingly chipper at the end of it. Well, I’m never going to get those four minutes of my life back. But I suppose everyone’s a winner: Monster get loads of publicity, Dyrdek gets another swimming pool full of money to frolic in and I get to feel intellectually superior for a short while.
Another ‘gem’ lurking out there was from a new snowboarding video company called Givin. They’ve just dropped a video of pro snowboarder Forest Bailey sessioning a street spot in Aspen. But in order to help him on his jib quest, he sought the help of some cheap labour. Cue Bailey waltzing into a petrol station with a giant grin like he's some sort of rad Mother Teresa and offering two Hispanic men $20 to help him pull a bungee cord. He thought nothing of it as he got them to ride in the boot of his pick up truck, gave them patronising hugs and hand slaps, and finally dealt out the cash with more smug, self-satisfaction than a George Clooney Nespresso ad. “I think they’ll be pretty stoked when they see what’s going on,” said Bailey, without a faintest hint of irony in his voice.
I’m sure Forest Bailey was ultimately well-meaning but this sort of faux-benevolence troubles me. It’s the equivalent of throwing a few scraps off the table to those in need and thinking that it feeds the masses. It’s self-serving, plays on people’s desperation and pretty much robs those in need of any form of dignity whatsoever. The worst part is that Bailey was so amused by the whole thing and seemingly untroubled by their predicament. Crass is an understatement.
It's such videos as these that make me wonder why someone didn’t intervene and say, ‘Woah, stop, wait a minute. This is rubbish!’
And these are just two examples. I could go on indefinitely but it just goes to show that for all the attributes that the internet boasts, quality control isn’t one of them. There’s an infinite amount of irrelevant crap being churned out onto servers on an hourly – well, secondly – basis. Soon, we will all be drowning in a sea of digital shit.
And so in order to try to counteract this rising tide – or at least fashion a life raft – we are striving to keep the bar high on HUCKmagazine.com. We could dump endless videos, photos and brand-heavy chatter, but we strive to give you something we hope you’ll be interested in. And if you are not, please let us know.
As we go into the brave new world of 2011, we aim to bring you ever more quality content on this here website with new columnists, a greater number of web exclusives, special digital mini mags and some really big things we can’t quite tell you about yet.
And we promise, no pointless tattoo videos.
Sorry Rob.
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Quality control (text) by Ed Andrews is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
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