I’m not a journalist. I would barely call myself a writer. I’m just a guy who writes and does tons of other stuff. Which is why today I’ll be sharing my thoughts on Journalism.
I think that journalism is in a strange place. Anyone can create a news site and share their opinions on the world or things. The question is, should they?
Well, the answer is yes. I believe that if someone wants to share an opinion, then go for it. But the issue comes when it’s multiple people sharing an opinion to one platform.
News sites are often made up of a group of people, all leaning in the same political direction. This is what makes a station left or right-leaning. Some claim to stay biassed, but not all are.
I won’t be talking about that.
Instead, I’ll be talking about ones that are “virtue signalling”.
It’s not just virtue signalling, it’s also following the “trend”.
For those who don’t know, virtue signalling is the action of publicly expressing an opinion that is intended to show how “good” or “morally correct” you are.
In a tense political climate, virtue signally is everywhere. People would brag about how they are helping with a certain political issue just to share how good they are.
Typically this isn’t seen with most TV news stations as they are pretty cemented in what they stand for.
But where this does stand is social media journalism.
I don’t need to name them, but you probably know of at least one.
But for the sake of example, and because I’m not too keen on them, I’ll be speaking about Ladbible and Unilad.
These are two UK owned “journalists” who consider themselves to be “social news”.
What is “social news”? You ask.
Well, social news is searching through Reddit, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and reposting the most popular posts/events. Posts that make it to the top will almost always be reposted in some way. To give these groups some praise, they do credit the original.
But it’s how they follow the “status quo” that annoys me.
If on Reddit, someone posts about how they love Starwars Battlefront 2 and then goes on to name everything good about it. So will they. They will post it with some awful captions like “People are now remembering why Star Wars Battlefront 2 was so good, and I’m all for it.” When the person that wrote that has probably never played the game.
It’s a minor thing that for some reason really gets to me.
Apparently, Ladbible has 450 employees. Obviously, not all of them are writing articles, but let’s assume at least a quarter are, seeing as that is what they mostly do. That’s at least 100 different opinions. But the people typing away aren’t allowed to say what they actually think and have to just follow along for popularity and views.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the higher-ups made it a serious competition to see which depressed employee could get the most views just so they could eat well that day.
A lot of the articles are really short because they have nothing to say. The people writing them are clearly so disinterested in the topic they just have to do it to meet their word quota.
A good example that you may have seen is about the influencer Hasbulla. If you don’t know him, he is an 18-year-old Russian who is 3 feet tall.
That’s it.
Nothing really amazing, until Ladbible got a hold of him and never let go.
As I’m writing this, I needed to google his name because I don’t care enough to remember it, and the top result was Ladbible. They found one video, saw how the internet reacted and went crazy with him. I’d say Hasbulla got his fame around 5 months ago. It did die out but no one told Ladbible, because they still post him and act like he is the next Jesus. Even when people moved on, they returned to him. Either they were paid by him, or they are so tone-deaf to the public that they think people still care.
It’s quite funny reading the comments on those, as most people just simply don’t care.
The problem isn’t with Hasbulla himself, because if anyone was him they’d ride off the fame these ‘journalists’ give people.
Another thing that annoys me is the clickbait language. They use phrases like “This will floor you.” or “My jaw DROPPED when I saw this.” And you just know that the person writing this had zero reaction. It’s like sending someone a laughing emoji when all that really happened was a tiny bit of air flew out your nose.
And lastly, let’s speak about the adverts.
They are covered in them.
You may be saying “Isn’t your website covered in adverts?” and you might be right.
But I sadly can’t change that. I don’t have control over any adverts along the side, top or bottom. And personally, I think they are fine, they aren’t that intrusive. These websites have that infinite scrolling thing so you are always being recommended new articles even when you think you’ve reached the bottom. And halfway through the article, you are being met with new stories you don’t care about.
Obviously, they aren’t the only two. Buzzfeed is another example.
I’m not saying they need to change, because they can do what they like. I even follow them just because they post the most obscure rubbish that I wouldn’t find anywhere else. If it wasn’t for them, I never would have heard about Hasbulla. Of course, I’d probably be happier if I never knew, but I wouldn’t be writing this.
I recommend you check out their Instagram and the captions to get an understanding of what I mean. It might take a while for your mind to change because I originally liked them. When I started following them, as a 15-year-old, I thought it was the “funniest” thing. It was like proper ‘lad’ culture. But in reality, it’s a load of cringe.
That’s all for me today.
Thanks for reading. I mentioned last week that I’ve been super busy, so this post was really rushed, but hopefully, you understand.
I’ll be back next week where I’ll be celebrating the 3rd anniversary of this blog. How time flies.
As always, my links are down below.
Suggest ideas for me to post: https://forms.gle/qNi1LEMcJdAjagCbA
My links: https://linktr.ee/FabledByte
My Books: https://linktr.ee/owenpichelskibooks
Arbitrary Echo: https://linktr.ee/ArbitraryEcho
Help support me: https://ko-fi.com/slippyfoptv
SlippyfopTV's Random Ramblings 