So Rage Against The Machine won. It's depressing. You'll have heard all the arguments as to why the thinking behind the campaign was utterly flawed from the get go, so I won't bother repeating them. As far as I can tell, Rage won because people wanted to make a protest against Simon Cowell. Fair enough, the man is a twat. But this wasn't the way to do it.
When people start saying stuff like “I'm only buying it as a protest against Simon Cowell” they end up sounding like those idiots you see on the news at election time who claim they're only voting BNP as a protest against the main parties. It's really bloody stupid. And massively depressing, as I mentioned.
Now, obviously, Rage Against The Machine getting to Number One is a far cry from the BNP gaining power. But it's this same kind of woolly thinking that's going to inform the next election. “I don't like Simon Cowell, I'm going to vote for something else” equates almost directly to “I don't like Gordon Brown, I'm going to vote for something else.” And we end up with fucking David Cameron as Prime Minister. You twats.
Or maybe it shows that when you present an attractive alternative, people will vote for it. Outsider parties like Respect and the Lib Dems could learn from this. The RATM thing has less to do with people voting conservatively because there doesn't seem to be an option and more to do with genuine democracy, e.g. optioning something by the consent of the people. If you wanted a different song to be number one, you could've chosen it and tried to compete with RATM. If only people realised that this is how our parliamentary democracy could work too, then we'd be in a much happier place vis a vis political alternatives.
ReplyDeleteWell Rage probably only won because the public were so incesensed and amused by the behaviour of the X-Factor judges once the possibility of a non X-Factor number one became realistic. Cheryl Whatsherface's rather embarassing attempts at emotional blackmail probably accounted for the 50000 extra copies that were sold, so maybe you should have a go at her instead.
ReplyDeleteI feel compelled to point out that in political elections a protest vote doesn't necessarily equate to a vote for the BNP. Voting for the Green Party or spoiling you ballot paper are common tactics, and in fact at the last election the high lib dem vote was largely due to labour voters who were angry about the Iraq War. So really that's an inaccurate and quite offensive analogy.
You should have a nice cup of tea and try and relax a bit.
If you were offended by the above post, it's because it is offensive. It's as stupid, negative and flawed as the campaign that propelled Rage to Number One.
ReplyDeleteI wrote that post to upset people, the same way people bought the Rage song to upset people. And now people are upset. And that's not nice.
What's my actual point? I don't know. Listen to songs you like, be nice to people and ignore Simon Cowell and he'll go away eventually. Something like that, I suppose.