28 Dec 2009
11:19 a.m.
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The Puck Stops Here
Tagged fail , mtv , puck , realitytv , win
Sorry Puck, but I'm blaming you for the rise of FAIL.
At the December meeting of my secret art society, we discussed the rise of fail and our concerns about it. The leader of the discussion compared the high traffic of the FAIL Blog and FMyLife to the relatively low traffic of positive sites like TED and ThankfulFor.
While we were chewing on the issue - the celebration of failure in our culture - I spit out a comment.
"I blame Puck."
Remember Puck? He was the bleached blond on the Real World: San Francisco. Season three of the Real World - back when I was still too young to apply (now I"m too old) - and before the show supplied jobs and created drama.
During the early seasons of Real World, the cast members already lived in the host city, had their own jobs and it was living together that made things interesting. The producers found drama in the stories of their lives.
And then there was Puck. David "Puck" Rainey was 25 during the filming of the Real World and was "perceived as the rebellious "bad boy" in the cast." On episode 11, he was kicked out of the house for his bad behavior and replaced.
Since 1994, we've seen Puck's spirit in the casting of "bad boys" and "bad girls" in reality TV and eventually crossing over to the evening news. I asked on Twitter for favorites and the first response was Puck.
-- this quote was brought to you by quoteurl
leahjones Who are your favorite "love to hate 'em" reality TV cast members of all time? (Writing a blog post and looking for quotes).
Over the last 15 years, reality TV or Humiliation TV as Tom Alderman called it in the Huffington Post, has grown in popularity and I think it has spun into our greater celebration of failure. TV Guide included a photo gallery of Reality TV's Most Evil Villains.
I don't think the leap is far from Puck to Humiliation TV to the FAIL Blog. Our fast stamp on things gone wrong as FAIL instead of a normal part of life. Saying "Fuck My Life" when things happen to us and then voting if the person has a life that sucks or deserved the bad moment. Even the New York Times has covered the change in the way we use the word 'fail'.
I think this topic is worth more than a blog post, but I'm not the MA or PhD to write it. I just wanted to stir up the questions - Do we celebrate failure too much? What should or can be done to turn this around? Do we need a change to our media diet?
How do we bring celebration of good back into our lives? How do we turn our collective attention to WIN from FAIL? What are you doing to battle this or should we even be concerned?
I'll close with Salon's commentary on their #2 Viral Video of the Decade: Susan Boyle on Britain's Got Talent.
There are days when it seems our entire culture revolves around the word FAIL. So when our expectation of public embarrassment is thwarted, when a seemingly drab and inconsequential individual proves herself a star, that, my friends, is the meaning of EPIC WIN. They all laughed when Susan Boyle took the stage of "Britain's Got Talent" last spring — and then she opened her mouth.
Zen Faulkes wrote 2 years, 4 months ago:
People like to feel smart. It's easy to feel smart when you see the stupid things that people do, as ably documented on the Fail blog.
jcg wrote 2 years, 4 months ago:
watching people fail helps us endure the pain of our own failings, but watching how other people like ourselves succeed just reminds us about what we could have done and how much of a loser we really are for not thinking of doing it first.
Bill the Lizard wrote 2 years, 4 months ago:
I agree, sometimes it seems like there are far too many sites that just point and laugh at failure when they could be doing something positive instead. I'm a computer programmer, and it seems unforgivable to me to laugh at someone's failure, then not post the correct solution.
is another positive site that provides a nice counter to the rise of FAIL.
Bill the Lizard wrote 2 years, 4 months ago:
My last comment was supposed to link to Succeed Blog, which I guess people can just search for. I understand cutting out the link, but the link text too? Fai... oh... nevermind. :)
EstherK wrote 2 years, 4 months ago:
I think it was the judges initial reaction to Susan Boyle, the "oh, how dreadful she looks, she can't have anything to offer," which was the epic human fail.
But I am for blaming Puck for reality TV, from "New York" to "The Situation." I haven't seen "Jersey Shore," but I know I will, and I know I'll be riveted, and I'll hate myself. #Shamespiralfail
Leah Jones wrote 2 years, 4 months ago:
Here's the link: http://succeedblog.org/
We're using spam-blocking on the comments, so sometimes they get edited beyond my control.
KevinP wrote 2 years, 4 months ago:
The Real World wasn't a comedy. FAIL Blog and FMyLife are designed to be funny, and they are. They have more in common with Jay Leno's Headlines, America's Funniest Home Videos, TV's Bloopers & Practical Jokes, Chevy Chase's portrayal of President Ford as a bumbling klutz, the Three Stooges, the Marx Brothers, Shakespeare's Comedy of Errors, etc,. etc.
Dubi Kaufmann wrote 2 years, 4 months ago:
I think the attraction of FAIL is that we learn something from it right away (what not to do) while a WIN or a SUCCEED can look like magic (unless it has a "the making of" or an explanation).
Erik F. Kastner wrote 2 years, 4 months ago:
While puck remains one of the greatest TV characters of all time, this whole concept predates him by a long, long time.
Sinefield was out before that season of the Real World.
schadenfreude made it from German to English at least by 1922: http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=schadenfreude
and stretching just a bit you have "Roman Holiday" from the 19th century:
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Roman%20holiday
I'd be willing to bet that it goes back as far as people do... we love watching people (who aren't us) failing. We've just gussied it up in a new dress... FAIL
Jen Consalvo wrote 2 years, 4 months ago:
Sometimes, as I watch people post on Thankfulfor.com, it strikes me how brave people are for publicly declaring things that in some sense, make them look extremely vulnerable or possibly even (gasp!) self-celebratory. Declaring gratitude is revealing.. a naked kind of honesty. I think that's what's so hard for our society. While thankfulfor does offer privacy options, for the most part it's meant to have people broadcasting what they are thankful for across their social networks - which can take many people outside of their comfort zones. I sometimes hear people describe the service as feminine or touchy-feely, which for many people, is the equivalent of weakness. The people (men and women) who embrace it seem to be those who are extremely secure and comfortable with their sense of self and their place in the world. They are not worried about who might smirk at their positive public declaration.
FAIL on the other hand, is easy as it gives us an immediate sense of belonging (no one will look at you funny). If I fail, we can commiserate together. If I succeed, I may alienate myself. The web embraces failure - particularly when wrapped in sarcasm and wit... and rewards it with a chorus of "me too" or "been there!"
I think there's room for both.. Right now it's skewed towards FAIL, which will hopefully create a hunger for positivity which will get us to a more balanced "media diet".
David Gardner - it's our job to figure out how to make it a commercially successful venture. It's the challenge that makes it fun, no? :)
Fun Joel wrote 2 years, 4 months ago:
Not sure if it predated Puck or not (and yes, of course I remember him, and all of the early Real World episodes), but there's also the long-standing "Darwin Awards." They've been "celebrating" epic failures for a long time.
To Kevin P, however, I'm not sure exactly how comedic these things get, though they are clearly designed to be such. I mean, taking Leno as an example, how funny is it really to see him do his Streetwalking and "revealing" how stupid some people are when you know that he had to move past so many smart people that he taped answering correctly?
I think Dubi's point, however, probably highlights some of why these things are popular.
(Just a few early-morning random thoughts...)
Stef wrote 2 years, 4 months ago:
FAIL vs WIN on Google Trends, and WIN still, er... wins!
http://www.google.com/trends?q=fail%2C+win
So have faith!
Leah wrote 2 years, 4 months ago:
The more I think about everyone's great comments, the more I see there are two tracks of FAIL.
The first is the more harmless quick fail - slipping on a banana peel, kick in the balls, falling into a pool. The stuff made famous by the Three Stooges and America's Funniest Home Videos.
The second, the one I blame on Puck, is the strand that lead us to Girls Gone Wild, Jersey Shore and American Idol tryout episodes. The thread that leads us to calling regular people "evil villains" and celebrating bad behavior that should be worthy of a detention or a mark on your permanent record.
I'll keep chewing on this idea and do what I can to avoid the temptation to say FML or FAIL.
Ry Jones wrote 2 years, 4 months ago:
Harmless kick in the balls?
As for the second fail track - have you read Unskilled and Unaware? Telling kids everyone wins at soccer might have more to do with this than Puck. People don't know they suck.
Of course, when I say people, I include myself in that bucket.
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David Gardner wrote 2 years, 4 months ago:
It seems that FAIL is everywhere these days. Check out the cover of Wired about the fall and rise of Alec Baldwin http://bit.ly/8WdApN.
It's refreshing to see ventures like Thankfulfor.com, LMyLife.com (L is for Love), WinBlog.org, and reality shows like Best Day Ever popping up with increasing frequency.
The real question is how do we make positive ventures as commercially successful as their diametric counterparts? Or perhaps the solution is not to position positive ventures as an alternative or a replacement to ventures that highlight or celebrate the negative but rather position positivity as its own movement.