Russell Brand - In Plain Sight

[scottsdad]

There have been a few interesting think pieces in the media examining the culture of the 2000s. 20 years ago and it was a very different landscape. 

There was a lot of fame hungry people getting an airing on TV and, to a lesser extent, the internet that wouldn't have beforehand and who made complete fools of themselves not really believing that this would stick to them years later. Think of a few Big Brother people and the likes who probably thought they would either be famous for life, or their behaviour would be forgotten about.  Now with Brand, he never walked past a camera without making a show of himself, hence all the "resurfaced clips" that are appearing. 

We had newspapers giving out "swordsman of the year" awards to the likes of Brand or that guy from Blue who went round shagging people. It's unimaginable now. 

It's amazing to thing that the decade that had shows like the West Wing, the Sopranos, the Wire, 6 Feet Under and Breaking Bad also produced at the bottom end of the pile a generation of instantly-famous celebrities with no redeeming qualities. And that's where Brand came from, and where he belongs. A z-lister who lucked out getting famous, thought he could act a certain way and has been caught out. 

[Florentine_Pogen]

9 minutes ago, scottsdad said:

It's amazing to thing that the decade that had shows like the West Wing, the Sopranos, the Wire, 6 Feet Under and Breaking Bad also produced at the bottom end of the pile a generation of instantly-famous celebrities with no redeeming qualities. And that's where Brand came from, and where he belongs. A z-lister who lucked out getting famous, thought he could act a certain way and has been caught out. 

Good post. There must be quite a few in the same boat as RB and are currently shiting themselves whilst they await to be outed on social / mainstream media.

Personally speaking, I would take great delight if that cvnt Jonathan Woss was one such Beast-in-Waiting.

[BFTD]

1 hour ago, Ziggy Sobotka said:

I suppose that living through it you don't get the full picture and it's really just isolated incidents you recall.

I think the current call out culture, 'cancellations' and, for want of a better word here, 'wokeism' is probably a direct reaction (and sometimes over-correction tbf) to this period where deeply unpleasant, often talentless arseholes were given almost free reign to behave appallingly (and often criminally) to whatever group or individual they fancied.

I've a feeling that they'd have been called out for it a lot more at the time if social media had been as popular then as it is now. Likely the same for most periods in history. It's not my cup of tea, but social media does give Individuals a voice in society that they wouldn't have had otherwise.

Most of the screaming about WOKE!!! comes from people who are panicking that their own behaviour might bite them on the arse at some point or people who, if they were being honest, couldn't care less about what their favourite politician/entertainer/sportsman does as it doesn't affect them personally. They consider it "virtue signalling" to feel empathy for others.

[scottsdad]

2 minutes ago, BTFD said:

I've a feeling that they'd have been called out for it a lot more at the time if social media had been as popular then as it is now. Likely the same for most periods in history. It's not my cup of tea, but social media does give Individuals a voice in society that they wouldn't have had otherwise.

Most of the screaming about WOKE!!! comes from people who are panicking that their own behaviour might bite them on the arse at some point or people who, if they were being honest, couldn't care less about what their favourite politician/entertainer/sportsman does as it doesn't affect them personally. They consider it "virtue signalling" to feel empathy for others.

Take, as an example, Danny Dyer. He had a magazine column where he advocated a guy cutting his girlfriend's face to make her less attractive to other men, cutting down the chances of her cheating on him. 

Yes, this happened. And yes, he's now apparently some sort of national treasure doing lovely travel shows with his daughter. 

[BFTD]

10 minutes ago, scottsdad said:

Take, as an example, Danny Dyer. He had a magazine column where he advocated a guy cutting his girlfriend's face to make her less attractive to other men, cutting down the chances of her cheating on him. 

Yes, this happened. And yes, he's now apparently some sort of national treasure doing lovely travel shows with his daughter. 

If he shat it out of beating up notorious hard man Mark Kermode, he certainly didn't have the minerals to be slicing up any women.

Poor Dapper Laughs was probably unfortunate not to have started his comedy career a decade earlier. Maybe "she's gagging for a good rape" might have become a national catchphrase.

[Stevie Kirk]

3 hours ago, scottsdad said:

Never fear...Barrymore's here

Barrymore should still be keeping his head down. If it wasn’t for blundering cops losing the pool thermometer and shed door handle he would be rotting in jail 

[VincentGuerin]

1 hour ago, scottsdad said:

There have been a few interesting think pieces in the media examining the culture of the 2000s. 20 years ago and it was a very different landscape.

I think it was quite an interesting time in many ways. I finished uni in the mid-2000s and emerged into the real world as a young guy in that environment. Saying it was a very different landscape is entirely accurate.

I was probably a bit off the pace as I genuinely always despised shite like Soccer AM, Big Brother, and Little Britain, but this stuff was an essential part of the culture in those days. I've got mates now who consider themselves (and are) as right on as f**k, but who in 2006 or so were lapping that stuff up and all that went with it. It was a very different time and hardly anyone was questioning it. I certainly wasn't objecting to Soccer AM's misogyny or waging some moral war, I just thought that it was a shite programme presented by utter bellends and designed for utter bellends.

Other people will do a much better job of summing this up, but my overall view is that we'd had the 90s where sex, bevvy, fitba, and the lad culture (and laddettes) became dominant, and the 2000s turbocharged that with the notion from the new wave of tv shows (starting with Big Brother) that anyone could be famous, being famous for its own sake was good, and that the main benefit of being famous was getting your hole all the time. As others have mentioned, our media was fucking obsessed with shagging, and openly cheered on the idea that sex was basically the only reason to do anything. What could go wrong?

Then came the WAGS... And of course, Bebo, Facebook, and the opening up of social media with the right to know everything and the necessity to record everything. There was always going to be a reckoning.

I really enjoyed the 2000s. I was in my teens and twenties, Hearts won the cup, I got a job, I enjoyed life. But even at the time I thought British culture was weird. I think Big Brother and the tv singing shows had a big impact. The idea that you could just be famous for absolutely fucking anything and once you were famous, you could basically do what you wanted, had a big impact on British cultural life, and I'm not sure we've picked through the effects yet.

And that's not even to mention 9/11, the impact of which, again, I don't think will fully be known or understood for some time. Certainly a very interesting decade.

Edited September 19, 2023 by VincentGuerin

[welshbairn]

Aye, right..

 

[Florentine_Pogen]

6 minutes ago, welshbairn said:

Aye, right..

 

Just waiting for the revelations about the 'NeverBrand Ranch'.

[Cheese]

1 hour ago, BTFD said:

I've a feeling that they'd have been called out for it a lot more at the time if social media had been as popular then as it is now. Likely the same for most periods in history. It's not my cup of tea, but social media does give Individuals a voice in society that they wouldn't have had otherwise.

I'm not so sure we wouldn't just have have had The Sun live tweet the countdown to Charlotte Church turning 16 rather than printing it.

[welshbairn]

Decent article saying that if anything things are worse now than in the Noughties. I remember being a bit shocked when I joined P&B in 2010 to find the answer to any annoying woman was a boot in the pie. Don't really think I've changed my attitudes to women much at all through the decades, my general rule has always been try not to be c**t, to whoever you're dealing with. Not claiming I've always lived up to that mind, I just don't think the excuse of "That's just the way things were back then" cuts it, even back in the Seventies.

The nasty noughties: Russell Brand and the era of sadistic tabloid misogyny

Edited September 19, 2023 by welshbairn

[diegomarahenry]

I can't speak for now but certainly in the early 2000's there were a lot of creeps about. a few of the guys I grew up with were jettisoned from my friends group around that time because of their behaviour. 

When something like the Brand story comes out, you inevitably get the "it's not all men" side and that is true, but what is also true is that if you look at the people you grew up with, or hung about with, you would all know at least one person who was a creepy b*****d. Then think of how many groups like that could be out in a club, bar or town any given weekend. 

[welshbairn]

9 minutes ago, diegomarahenry said:

I can't speak for now but certainly in the early 2000's there were a lot of creeps about. a few of the guys I grew up with were jettisoned from my friends group around that time because of their behaviour. 

When something like the Brand story comes out, you inevitably get the "it's not all men" side and that is true, but what is also true is that if you look at the people you grew up with, or hung about with, you would all know at least one person who was a creepy b*****d. Then think of how many groups like that could be out in a club, bar or town any given weekend. 

I think it's always been like that though, I don't think c***s like Brand and laddish media made much difference to people's behavior or attitudes. 

[Derry Alli]

To the surprise of nobody - Nacho Novo used to pick his lass up from my high school when he played for Dundee. 

[diegomarahenry]

2 minutes ago, welshbairn said:

I think it's always been like that though, I don't think c***s like Brand and laddish media made much difference to people's behavior or attitudes. 

Conditioning has a lot to do with it, you have generations growing up watching James Bond and the Carry On films, how do people think the youth were going to turn out ? Their first exposure to men chatting up women is some craggy old b*****d slapping the arse of a young blond or some bloke in a suit grabbing subordinates and forcing himself on them.  

 

[diegomarahenry]

2 minutes ago, Derry Alli said:

To the surprise of nobody - Nacho Novo used to pick his lass up from my high school when he played for Dundee. 

Nonco Novo

[PSJ.84]

6 hours ago, eindhovendee said:

 

The mother seems to have tried but the girl wasn't having it. Not sure I would have let my 16 year old daughter knowingly have sex with a man in his 30s but she has done and no doubt feels terrible about it.

The only one that comes out well is the taxi driver that begged her not to go in.

Haven’t watched the documentary, nor been following the story too closely, but that is vile. Horrifying. 

[Jaggy McJagface]

10 minutes ago, diegomarahenry said:

Conditioning has a lot to do with it, you have generations growing up watching James Bond and the Carry On films, how do people think the youth were going to turn out ? Their first exposure to men chatting up women is some craggy old b*****d slapping the arse of a young blond or some bloke in a suit grabbing subordinates and forcing himself on them.  

 

Yep, the social context of what behaviour is normalised probably plays a big role in stuff like that.

Not entirely related, but another good example of how the 2000’s were so different is the rampant casual homophobia in shows like Still Game or the Inbetweeners. Homophobic or ableist slurs were often used as generic insults in a way that people would rightly get pilloried for nowadays.
 

I don’t think either of those shows would get made today, at least not with the exact same content.

[welshbairn]

10 minutes ago, diegomarahenry said:

Conditioning has a lot to do with it, you have generations growing up watching James Bond and the Carry On films, how do people think the youth were going to turn out ? Their first exposure to men chatting up women is some craggy old b*****d slapping the arse of a young blond or some bloke in a suit grabbing subordinates and forcing himself on them.  

 

Nearly all the people I've known would never behave like that, at least in public where I'd know about it. People are capable of distinguishing between comedy and real life, until the internet was invented that is, now all the village idiots are connected and easily manipulated by cult leaders like Brand. 

[diegomarahenry]

2 minutes ago, welshbairn said:

Nearly all the people I've known would never behave like that, at least in public where I'd know about it. People are capable of distinguishing between comedy and real life, until the internet was invented that is, now all the village idiots are connected and easily manipulated by cult leaders like Brand. 

People, grown adults think wrestling is real.