Read Online I can make you hate by Charlie Brooker - Free Book Online
Authors: Charlie Brooker
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and shut up. The other day I was watching a report about the
The X Factor
charity single during an ITV news bulletin that followed
I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here!
It was the day Jordan went into the jungle. Jordan in the jungle, Jedward on the news. The media assumes you’re fascinated by both of them.
There’s not much to be fascinated by. Take Jordan. Ant and Dec announced her arrival on their gameshow in which celebrities eat live insects for publicity as though it was the most startling cultural event of the twenty-first century – a Festival of Britain for our times. She was presented as someone who divides opinion, which she simply isn’t. Everyone feels the same way about Jordan. She’s someone you’re supposed to dislike, and in disliking her you’re supposed to feel marginally better about yourself. So we all moan about this woman, moan about the weight of coverage devoted to this woman, and meanwhile this woman has herself sliced open and injected and sewn back together until she resembles some kind of rubbery pirate ship figurehead, a weird booby caricature looming at us out of the mist. But this mutilation only makes us moan all the more. No one’s coming out of this well.
At least Jordan herself seems oblivious. She hardly radiates emotion. Her voice is a perpetual low flatline, and she can’t or won’t perform basic facial expressions, as if she’s been unplugged on the inside. As fiery reality show catalysts go, sending in a mountain goat with a load of crude personal insults daubed onits flank would be a better bet. Instead, the best they can come up with is a boring tabloid story in boring human form.
Meanwhile, in the
X Factor
universe, we’re encouraged to love/hate two seventeen-year-old twins with videogame haircuts called John and Edward. Of course the phrase ‘John and Edward’ takes too long to read or say, so to our collective shame it’s been shortened to ‘Jedward’. Ha ha! Jedward! Ha ha ha ha ha! Jedward! Ha ha! SuBo! LiLo! Ha ha! Brangelina! Ha ha! Bennifer! Ha ha ha ha ha! I am loving that! I am loving that! Ha ha!
Let’s hope this stinking world comes to an end as soon as possible. Leswossible.
Simon Cowell keeps making proclamations about ‘leaving the country’ if John and Edward win
The X Factor
. Doesn’t he leave the country each week? He flies to LA every ten minutes to appear on
American Idol
. And on his way back he lands his jet on a private island made entirely of gold ingots, to spend his weekend strolling up and down the beach listlessly kicking clouds of powdered diamond into a sea of molten platinum.
Of course, Cowell’s yabberings are almost certainly a smart double bluff designed to ensure people continue to vote for the twins, because he knows they’re the most interesting performers in this year’s contest: while the others are merely boring, John and Edward are just a bit shit. This makes them the most interesting thing in the entire programme by default. We’re accustomed to Cheryl Cole, and the judges’ interpersonal bickering got stale some time ago, so the only other faintly diverting thing in the show is Cowell’s hair. Suspiciously jet-black, bristly and curiously flattened on top, as though he prepares for each episode by dipping his head in matt-black Dulux and painting his dressing room wall with it, Simon’s hair continues to mesmerise even after all these years.
Silly hair and shit singers: that’s
X Factor
, the nation’s sole mainstream conduit for popular music since the decline and fall of
Top of the Pops
. All the songs sound the same, all the singersare alike, and the only interesting acts are mediocre and officially sanctioned hate figures. One day we’ll emerge on the other side of this unprecedented cultural drought and wonder how the hell our imaginations survived.
Till then, enjoy what you’re given. And shut up.
Past Careying
23/11/2009
Last week Mariah Carey turned on the Christmas lights at the
The X Factor
charity single during an ITV news bulletin that followed
I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here!
It was the day Jordan went into the jungle. Jordan in the jungle, Jedward on the news. The media assumes you’re fascinated by both of them.
There’s not much to be fascinated by. Take Jordan. Ant and Dec announced her arrival on their gameshow in which celebrities eat live insects for publicity as though it was the most startling cultural event of the twenty-first century – a Festival of Britain for our times. She was presented as someone who divides opinion, which she simply isn’t. Everyone feels the same way about Jordan. She’s someone you’re supposed to dislike, and in disliking her you’re supposed to feel marginally better about yourself. So we all moan about this woman, moan about the weight of coverage devoted to this woman, and meanwhile this woman has herself sliced open and injected and sewn back together until she resembles some kind of rubbery pirate ship figurehead, a weird booby caricature looming at us out of the mist. But this mutilation only makes us moan all the more. No one’s coming out of this well.
At least Jordan herself seems oblivious. She hardly radiates emotion. Her voice is a perpetual low flatline, and she can’t or won’t perform basic facial expressions, as if she’s been unplugged on the inside. As fiery reality show catalysts go, sending in a mountain goat with a load of crude personal insults daubed onits flank would be a better bet. Instead, the best they can come up with is a boring tabloid story in boring human form.
Meanwhile, in the
X Factor
universe, we’re encouraged to love/hate two seventeen-year-old twins with videogame haircuts called John and Edward. Of course the phrase ‘John and Edward’ takes too long to read or say, so to our collective shame it’s been shortened to ‘Jedward’. Ha ha! Jedward! Ha ha ha ha ha! Jedward! Ha ha! SuBo! LiLo! Ha ha! Brangelina! Ha ha! Bennifer! Ha ha ha ha ha! I am loving that! I am loving that! Ha ha!
Let’s hope this stinking world comes to an end as soon as possible. Leswossible.
Simon Cowell keeps making proclamations about ‘leaving the country’ if John and Edward win
The X Factor
. Doesn’t he leave the country each week? He flies to LA every ten minutes to appear on
American Idol
. And on his way back he lands his jet on a private island made entirely of gold ingots, to spend his weekend strolling up and down the beach listlessly kicking clouds of powdered diamond into a sea of molten platinum.
Of course, Cowell’s yabberings are almost certainly a smart double bluff designed to ensure people continue to vote for the twins, because he knows they’re the most interesting performers in this year’s contest: while the others are merely boring, John and Edward are just a bit shit. This makes them the most interesting thing in the entire programme by default. We’re accustomed to Cheryl Cole, and the judges’ interpersonal bickering got stale some time ago, so the only other faintly diverting thing in the show is Cowell’s hair. Suspiciously jet-black, bristly and curiously flattened on top, as though he prepares for each episode by dipping his head in matt-black Dulux and painting his dressing room wall with it, Simon’s hair continues to mesmerise even after all these years.
Silly hair and shit singers: that’s
X Factor
, the nation’s sole mainstream conduit for popular music since the decline and fall of
Top of the Pops
. All the songs sound the same, all the singersare alike, and the only interesting acts are mediocre and officially sanctioned hate figures. One day we’ll emerge on the other side of this unprecedented cultural drought and wonder how the hell our imaginations survived.
Till then, enjoy what you’re given. And shut up.
Past Careying
23/11/2009
Last week Mariah Carey turned on the Christmas lights at the
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