A few weeks ago, I published an article about the almost incidental manufacturing of consent which some of the most common shows on TV engage in. A layer behind that ultimate observation was that these shows were made, usually, from laziness rather than malevolence, and showed how little craft is required to get something on the box if you know what buttons to push. This follow up will be about two separate but related kinds of media: 1) so-called ‘prestige’ TV and 2) specialist YouTube long-form channels. In both cases, the perception of quality is key to their success, but frequently, old-fashioned preconceptions about new and established media obscure the levels of craft involved in each kind of production.
I don’t plan on extensively analysing all of the prestige TV of recent years, but I would like to explore some that I have tried, and even liked, but which I’ve recognised tired trends in. To introduce this, I would like to start by discussing one of my favourite British comedies of this century: The Thick of It, because it presents a microcosm of the problem.
The Thick of It is the work of, among others, comedy legend Armando Iannucci and is a kind of modern day, occasionally gritty but mostly always absurd rendition of the all too real struggles and shortfalls of government ministers and civil servants. It’s timing is fascinating as, over the span of it’s broadcast, it depicts thinly veiled versions of both the end of New Labour and the new coalition government, showing what we already know – that they’re more similar than different behind the scenes. The buffoonery, the burlesque depictions of those with the most power wielding it clumsily, and the sharp, memorable barbs between characters made the show addictive and and often very funny. Arguably the show is most remembered most now for the sweary diatribe of insults dished out by Peter Capaldi playing a shadow version of the shadowy ‘spin doctor’ Alistair Campbell. The mixture of it’s relative originality and the brutal believably of Capaldi’s delivery made it almost impossible not to enjoy his rants. Despite this being central to the collective memory of the show, there was more a lot more to the repeated back-and-forths shown on on screen. The satire itself was fairly gentle, but it was there – that political decisions are made recklessly, or selfishly, by political actors trying to advance their own career, that people and policies are disposable if they don’t fit the media strategy of any given day, and so on, and so on.
What happened in the making of the series didn’t, I think, negatively affect The Thick of It but it would affect future shows by the same creators and beyond. The problem was – and the realisation of this pained me – that Iannucci is a pretty clear cut classic Liberal centrist, and in researching for the show, he and it’s other creators fell somewhat for their neoliberal captors. You get the feeling that they started to enjoy and feel comfortable in the environment they were lampooning, and in the future, they would arguably pay homage to the political elites they would portray as much as lampoon them.
The Thick of It was undoubtedly a show featuring people in rooms talking, but it was original and dynamic alongside that. The same can’t really be said for it’s younger sibling, Veep. Veep is a fairly close copy of The Thick of It though it focuses on a more high profile politician and is tonally lighter. What it really lacks is the bite of it’s British elder, and more blindly follows it’s formula of quips and cringe. It falls in to the ever-familiar trap of keeping on going beyond workable use because they were given licence to. As the seasons go on, the main character, ably played by Julia Louis-Dreyfus ceases to be the ‘Veep’, becomes the president, and then falls out of front-line politics altogether in to some vague consultancy role. It was at that point I stopped watching. The titular role was no longer relevant and the the dialogue felt all the hollower for it. People talking in rooms, but to no end.
Writer Jesse Armstrong was only minimally involved in Veep but was heavily involved in The Thick of It, and would go on to take this … distinctive kind of show to the wider neoliberal world in HBO sensation Succession. I enjoy Succession. I have watched three seasons and will watch the fourth when it comes, but the third season felt like word soup fairly commonly. Like with Veep it has outgrown, it seems, it’s original premise and is treading water. Specifically, it has gone from a show about the intrigue surrounding an internal family power struggle for control of an incredibly powerful and influential corporation, to the re-telling of that story twice in different forms as well as general to-ing and fro-ing about some interminable bullshit or other. There’s an attempt to create drama, but it often drowns in dry business speak and forced one-liners. That is the issue with the show I think. They had a good premise for a show, told their story in one season with some interesting characters and some fairly generic satire, but they couldn’t stop. They fished out the bones of fairly repetitive story arcs and did it in a way that was held up by strong acting, sharp dialogue, and sumptuous settings. That’s all good and sometimes very entertaining, but it feels like people talking in rooms, about very little, until they’re ready for the series finale, which, to be fair, are often very gripping in Succession. The characters were entitled, competitive and delusional, but authentic enough caricatures to hold up for a season or two. By season three though, they started to stand out as what they are, admittedly well-detailed parodies of the likes of Elon Musk, the Murdochs, Jack Dorsey etc. As time has gone on though, they have used this broader palette to say less and less original. It’s not barren, but it has serious diminishing returns. In short, the craft has fallen away in favour of seeming like it’s dripping in quality, and while it isn’t a bad show by any stretch of the imagination, it’s now more sizzle than steak, and certainly not remarkable storytelling as it is often held up as.
Another high profile example I have of this, but with even less that’s particularly interesting to say for itself is Westworld. I don’t want to dwell much on the show in a negative way, but it’s also a perfect example of this dialogue-heavy sumptuous television making that people fall over themselves to laud. What Westworld amounts to though is a beautifully made first-year philosophy seminar. It isn’t it’s only philosophical premise, but it’s major one is basically ‘can robots gain … humanity?’ and amazingly, it seems some viewers have forgotten about Philip K Dick and sci fi in general because they treat it like the makers have delivered some novel philosophical brilliance where all I see are bloated conversations made mysterious by shifting timelines. They’re well written, to very little end; but it looks nice, sounds deep, and is on HBO so it has all the trappings of quality craft.
These are interesting shows that know how to give people what they seem to want – memorable shots and memorable lines, but they also fall prey to what have become circular expectations for TV shows and fans, and that is the need for neat ‘arcs and season finalés. Over the years, how seasons finish have become central to most TV ‘criticism’ and it really handcuffs how shows and stories come together, weighting multi-episode seasons in to only a few really impactful episodes, usually toward the end of the season, maybe with some exceptions. Then in reviews of the shows on both traditional media and fan media, you have a mix of simplistic talk of ‘arcs’ and whether moments were ‘earned’ or the most ludicrous of all, whether a characters actions are ‘realistic,’ as if everyone in the world doesn’t make huge mistakes or hasty misjudgments on a regular basis. This was the common refrain especially at the end of Game of Thrones which I really do not want to re-litigate in depth here. Briefly though, the final season was too short, and as a result, some of it’s biggest questions were resolved all too quickly by writers who it seems could barely spare the time. I enjoyed Game of Thrones immensely – it’s mix of complex intrigue, insightful metaphoical content, unpredictability, and yes, lots of talking in rooms. The dialogue in Game of Thrones was always sharp, but crucially, it was consequential, in a way that the dialogue in Westworld and especially Succession struggles to be, but fans all had their own grand unique view of how it should end and when it didn’t live up to that, it was dismissed as terrible. Flawed as that final season may have been, the overall quality shone through and comments outright dismissing it missed the mark.
But especially on YouTube, where I will turn my attention now, the range of criticism is near binary, from unquestioned awe, to contrived rants about how shows ‘suck’. That is what gets the clicks, I suppose. The problem is, neither is really criticism, but merely empty ‘content’ because it’s not sincere – it can’t be. I’m genuinely not sure what riles me more between the self-satisfied, short-sighted rants and the fawning where you hear things like ‘but because it’s Succession, we know something interesting is about to happen.’ Either way, they pre-judge the shows and then fill in the blanks during their ‘reviews’. These review videos are often well-made, have been either scripted or are done live with various guests and sometimes even on dressed sets, but that does not make these reviews or post-shows well-crafted or insightful. From here on out though, I would like to be more positive and briefly share some YouTube channels that are fantastically crafted and present brilliantly insightful and even necessary commentaries; or at the very least, genuinely entertaining.
It would make sense to start with a channel that deals with TV reviews, and so I would like to present Skip Intro
Skip Intro is being discussed here almost exclusively due to the host, Jackson’s, excellent ‘Copaganda’ series. As will become a pattern in most of the following recommendations, there are some ceators who are fantastic at specific kinds of content, even if I don’t enjoy everything they produce. Outside of the Copaganda series, Skip Intro has a thoughtful but still fairly fawning video about Succession, so clearly we don’t agree on everything, not that that’s a reasonable expectation. The Copanganda series is a well-researched, interesting, timely, witty, and smoothly presented series about a topic I obviously consider important based on the sister piece to this article. The sheer credulity of forces like the LAPD manufacturing consent for their activities using TV in TV’s earlier days to the ridiculous portrayals of crime, punishment, justice, and those who pursue it shines through in this series of sharp, efficient and intuitive videos. The arguments are made with an easy entertaining manner which is pretty disarming and conversely give them more gravitas. Not afraid to tackle even a sacred show like The Wire, which Jackson treats very even-handedly in a way that is extremely rare, the Copaganda series explores a range of popular shows and is either a great introduction to the topic or a fun angle on about as important a topic as there is related to TV.
At first glance, Harry ‘Hbomberguy‘ Brewis may appear to be the kind of internet grifter who peddles cynical clickbait, given some of his video titles are ‘The No Man’s Sky Rant [Epilespsy Warning]’, ‘Sherlock is Garbage (And Here’s Why)’ or ‘Pathologic is Genuis (And Here’s Why).’ The channel is certainly somewhat chaotic in terms of tone (as can be seen in the iconic moment pictured above) but also in focus, shifting from long-form game reviews, to alt-right takedowns, to issue-based longforms, but the quality and craft behind his content is usually exceptional. Thoughtful, insightful, and genuinely funny, Brewis’ angle on his chosen topics are always dynamic and unique. Indeed, despite all of the chaos i’ve described, he also has a number of ‘Measured Response’ videos, and that is exactly what they deliver.
Rising to prominence especially via his ‘measured response’ to climate denial video in which he delivered a perfect, searing roast (pictured above) to right-wing weasel Ben Shapiro, he has produced a number of exceptionally researched, incisive, and intuitive videos on important topics such as Flat Earthers, the ‘war’ on Christmas and the antivaxx movement. In the middle of this, he did a deservedly well-publicised, ridiculous, 100% run of Donkey Kong online as a fundraiser for Trans Rights charity Mermaids. Starting off as a well-deserved FU to Graham Linehan, it became a force of nature, joined by games developers, figures like Mara Wilson and Chelsea Manning, and most famously, AOC showing her support. After deciding to watch the 3-hour highlights video of the 50+ hour stream I donated to Mermaids myself. As Brewis would be the first to tell you, it was a kind of popular phenomena that he was just at the centre of, but he still seems to have a kind of natural charm and charisma to help educate and make outcomes like that possible.
The only criticism I have, and it’s a very meagre and even unjust one, is how infrequent Hbomberguy content comes out. His last release was 8 months ago (at time of writing) and there are generally several months between uploads. The reason this kinda bothers me is that he receives a lot of subscription money – tens of thousands per month, and while his subscribers get benefits, I think more output would probably be more welcome. I understand he puts in a lot of research, pays for better producation assistance and is likely taxed to all hell, but … still. To be fair though, in the words of Noah Gervais (who I will discuss to close out this article), subscription services like Patreon amount, really, to employment by popular demand – each of the near 11,000 of Brewis’ subscribers likely know their individual £2-8 per month isn’t materially affecting his output and that he likely doesn’t need it, but see value in his work regardless, and want to support it. While it surprises me that he doesn’t feel pressured to deliver more, i’m not the one ‘hiring’ him, and as long as his subscribers are happy, then it’s good for everyone.
Apparently perpetually ‘cancelled’ Natalie Wynn is the host and primary creator of the Contrapoints channel. This channel, initially charting Natalie’s journey as a trans woman and the workings of the alt-right, has become a much broader longform channel for a range of topics about politics, identity, and internet culture, such as that exists.
The output is increasingly exceptionally opulently produced in a way that contrasts at times with the incredibly raw topics and personal background covered. It is, seemingly, very carefully written, but performed emotively, surreally, or at least with full commitment to her many characters. The videos are indeed frequently emotional and intellectual rollercoasters, but they are also strongly anchored and well concluded.
Natalie is a bit more of a ‘Lib’ than I am personally, but with very strong, interesting, and well thought-out societal critiques, and so while I don’t always agree with her arguments or conclusions, her videos are still always enlightening and challenging. This is one of only two channels I have found compelling enough to watch ‘all the way through’ and though the same criticism leveled at Hbomberguy about income and output can be put to Contrapoints, so can the same defenses. Probably about as unique, well-crafted, and enlightening a channel as can be found online.
Shifting focus a little to … games journalism, i’d like to start with praise for James Stephanie Sterling and The Jimquisition. As with a few other channels I have mentioned, I don’t like everything Sterling puts out, but the craft and intent behind what they create is undeniable. When I say I son’t like everything on The Jimquisition, I fairly commonly disagree with their reviews, but where Sterling becomes crucial in an industry which is absolutely infested with scandal and impropriety, is in their journalistic and editorial output.
Sterling has been one of very few voices to take on damaging trends in video games such as lootboxes, plagiarism, poor craftsmanship on Steam, and most importantly of all, exploitative labour practices and abuse within the industry. Righteous fury, incisively delivered. A real maverick and a vital voice.
Oh and if you like wrestling, ‘Commander Sterling’ has done that ever-inspirational thing of finding a way to fucking do something they’re passionate about.
I think Superbunnyhop is probably the fist video game channel I ‘discovered’ and then sought out more from. George Weidman, the primary creator of the channel is a bright, welcoming, and insightful voice who is interested in a wide variety of games and cultures, including a clear fascination with Japan and Japanese gaming culture, but I always, unfairly, think of him as the Kojima specialist. Of course he is much more than that, but his videos on the entire Metal Gear series as well as Death Stranding were the first I had ever seen that were truly insightful, academic long-form commentaries on some of the games most beloved to me. His video on Metal Gear Solid 2 and how it’s brave, post-modern commentary on fan hype, memes, and echo chambers before those things even became popularly understood is probably his opus, but his offerings on the unexpected delights of Metal Gear Solid, the sheer campy joy of Metal Gear Solid 3, his bereft confusion about Metal Gear Solid 4, the boldness, insight (and weirdness) of the political setting of Ground Zeroes, the admiration of the technical masterpiece of Kojima’s MGS narrative and experimental death rattle with Metal Gear Solid 5, his remorseful longing for a fully fledged PT, and finally, the relief with and personal affection for Kojima’s new offering Death Stranding are all excellent and vital works for fans of Kojima or his games. Though academic in style, Superbunnyhop is accessible and instantly likable, and though my experience with the channel is centred on Kojima videos, he has videos about a lot of different, varied games, and games technology and culture, so it’s a must-try for anyone interested in gaming.
Now is the time to share the most fundamental reason for me wanting to write about quality YouTube talkers, and this article as a whole – it was basically because I wanted to share the work of Noah Gervais and my love for it because, against all the odds, the output of a kinda winging it games reviewer on YouTube turned out to be some of the most affecting media of any kind that I have watched (and re-watched). On it’s face, the degree of my admiration really is strange – not least because I have watched every single one of Gervais’ videos whether I have played the games discussed or not.
Noah Gervais would frequently pop up as a YouTube suggestion before I ever tried watching one of his videos. To undermine any idea that I follow interests in a logical basis, something about the double-barrel name and connotations with another ‘Gervais’ put me off, but I remember watching first his video on The Outer Worlds, a video game I had some fairly complicated feelings about and was keen to hear other views about. Indeed, I have a real compulsion to hear people talking about something i’ve watched or played. As long as it’s extensive and interesting, I will lap up everything I can find. There wasn’t much about The Outer Worlds that didn’t regurgitate the elevator pitch that it was an amazing ‘fallout in space’ which is in some ways accurate, except for how light, near hollow a version of that it was as a final package. Some fun, and funny ideas, and some good seeds of sci-fi metaphor too, but just not really enough to satisfy. Noah Gervais’ video was one of the only ones to discuss it on that level, showing much more accessible nuance than I’m used to. Obviously that whetted my appetite and I saw other videos he made about other games I have played.
Before I go any further, there are a couple of things to address. The first thing is the production style of Noah’s videos – they are … not perfect. The audio is shaky or inconsistent, he trips over lines and doesn’t edit them out – that sort of thing. I chose the picture above to show an example of this from his earlier days – as an appropriate homage. This sounds like a criticism, and I suppose in a sense, it should be, but for me, it speaks to part of the reason I got hooked on Gervais’ work. He started out as a guy with a passion for games and something to say, and he just gave it a go. He’s not an audio-visual professional by any stretch, but fuck it, he wanted to do it and just did it, and audio-visual qualities aside, he started producing these incredible, deep, personal video essays on the games that he cared about, and that mattered more than how the videos came across. Some of his fans are critical of this to this day, but I have always enjoyed the little slips in his productions – they almost confirm that he’s just some guy who happens to have the inclination and has made the time to share his deeply insightful thoughts, truly, on his experiences with games, as opposed to straightforward games reviews. For that reason, if you share his instincts, watching his videos is extremely satisfying.
The second note is that he has a secondary focus to his channel – his travelogues. These tend to be based on real life video game settings, such as his Fallout settings video or otherwise scenic or historic routes. When I decided to basically watch through his channel I decided to watch through these too of course and i’ll be damned if one or two of them aren’t some of the most powerful, relatable stories of growth i’ve ever heard. Someone describing ‘finding’ a piece of themselves but without the flowery nonsense that usually accompanies it. It’s hard not to root for that kind of person, especially when the stories are so personable and affecting.
I think that is why I decided to contribute to him on Patreon. There’s no real need to do this. His videos are released the same for everyone as far as I can tell, and while he’s a less known channel than the others mentioned, he makes a good deal of income from it by now. But as I mentioned before, he describes Patreon as ’employment by popular demand’ and well, I am asking for more. I want to support him because his work should be supported. There’s also no attempt to stretch a justification for his fee like so many others make, suggesting certain kinds of videos aren’t possible without a certain level of income, and you’ll get kinda BS ‘perks’ like early releases or bonus content for it. That’s obviously true, but once income gets above a certain point, it funds a YouTube video and then some. Gervais just offers you the chance to contribute and get your name read out, and provides a no questions refund if you’re not satisfied with something. As with everything else, there is effort behind even this, taking 10 or so minutes at the end of each video reading the names of his supporters one by one rather than just a graphic. Apart from a small hiatus to work on the quality of his output and use some of the money to bring in technical assistance and equipment, he is generally very conscientious about releasing at least one video per month to the point where his paying fans, including myself, often request he takes time off for a break as it seems the pressure of producing for his supporters can be a strain on him. He doesn’t want to let anyone down and though he may now earn well, he’s a decent guy and a working man, which shines through in his work.
Gervais relates a lot of himself in his videos. They are not so much reviews as they are reflections on how the games affect him. That may be why i’ve found some of his videos so genuinely moving. Like me, he is not afraid to invest an awful lot of himself in to certain experiences (videogames, travel, repairs, movies and literature) and he is certainly not afraid to express how something as seemingly silly as a video game can make him feel emotionally. Similarly, while Gervais isn’t explicit about his past, you get snippets about struggles he’s faced or created, experiences traumatic or life affirming, and generally how he has found a lifestyle that suits him and allows him to pursue his passions. Maybe it is because I want something similar for myself, but supporting that with a financial contribution that isn’t even really needed was something I really wanted to do.
Before I start to get ludicrously overawed, I want to finish by highlighting some of his videos that I particularly enjoyed. I enjoy all of his videos for their tenor and feeling, regardless of if i’ve played the game or not, and have found myself interested in trying games I never usually would based on Gervais’ videos; but they are all the more powerful when they are about games i’ve also played. This isn’t uniform, but I think another secret to his videos is that they are more often positive, and sharing a positive experience with Gervais is a wonderful experience. The first video I would like to mention is his retrospective on the ‘Last of Us’ series of games. This last installment came out to a media frenzy and a kind of hype that made nuanced conversations untenable for many. I won’t spoil the games or Gervais’ video, but within it is a story about a dog that has stayed with me and which shines a special kind of light on the common criticism the game faced for violence against dogs and how it was used. He also provides one of the most sensitive and sensible discussions of trans inclusion in this or any game i’ve ever heard. Most memorably, he made a point in the video which can be applied to all dramatic media, and which has been stuck in my head since the aforementioned Game of Thrones final season, which is that people don’t always act according to logic or predetermined ‘arcs’ and while many people criticised The Last of Us Part 2 as utilising violence cynically to make a cheap point about morality and guilt, Gervais saw it for what it was, something that characterised the different characters and their journeys. The violence is exhausting, and keeps going and going beyond being most kinds of fun. He doesn’t give the games unquestioned praise, but he gets them on the level I believe the developers intended, and indeed as I understood them too.
The second video I want to mention is one that, despite being ostensibly a review of a series of video games, and being over four hours long, is one I have re-watched multiple times. Gervais’ video on the Red Dead series of games is one that I have unironically said deserves a Pulitzer. Spanning the early days of xenophobic cultural appropriation, but mainly covering Red Dead Redemption and Red Dead Redemption 2, the video tells the little known tale of how the series got started, sensitively covers the racism that reared it’s head in early titles, before detailing a narrative approach that may be (unfairly) considered uncharacteristically subtle and powerful for a Rockstar title. Another of Gervais’ skills is considering how things like player control and the narrative roots of the game affect the gameplay experience and he does this with a depth and love that genuinely stays with me. It doesn’t feel like some thoroughly-researched work, it just feels like he has plenty of personal interest to inject. So when he talks about All the Pretty Horses, The Wild Bunch and True Grit, it made me want to watch them for the first time, to relate them to the games I loved and also, to be honest, because I trust that if Gervais in interested in them, I will be too.
The video is just full of what I would consider to be Gervais’ trademark sensitivity and personal insights, not that those elements are so deliberate as that makes them sound. He talks of lingering in the game world, in the rip-snorting good time of a fading frontier, describes partaking of side content as a ‘kindness’ to the characters of Arthur and his lingering flame, Mary Linton. Listed like this, it sounds over the top, but all I know is I felt the same. His personal experiences colour the content too. Speaking of lingering, he expresses regret at missing opportunities to hike more with his father, which was a reflection encouraged by the game and undoubtedly by it’s landscape too, but I think the personal insight I responded to most was a little less specific. Referencing the struggles of John Marston to find some bootstraps to pull himself up with, and his quest to convince a bank to back him in his sincere efforts to buy a ranch and go straight. To most reviewers, this moment would pass by their work even if they enjoyed it in the moment, but Gervais recognised that feeling that so many of us have had trying to justify our worth to an authority figure who holds your odds in their hands, and that extra light on even that small interaction adds so much depth and humanity to the video.
Over half of the video is about RDR2 and his personal journey with, primarily, Arthur Morgan. As someone who enjoyed the first Redemption, and who is wary of new protagonists, I was unsure when this unfamiliar figure showed up in RDR2, but by the end of the game, I too was an emotional wreck, role-playing as Morgan in desperation. I often worry about getting too emotionally invested in this kind of thing, but hearing Gervais, proud and mournful, discuss the ‘lively’ times he had with Morgan made me feel like I had a kind of kin. That’s perhaps a little dramatic, but I feel it is more or less accurate, and while I don’t need someone like Gervais to approve of my love for Arthur Morgan, or my complicated enjoyment of The Last of Us Part 2, it is at least heartening to hear someone who can help explain why I feel as I do in a way that I probably couldn’t even verbalise myself.
Gervais is by no means full of universal praise for the game, criticising the elements of it that need it, like more outmoded gags that slipped in to small parts of the game or the bigger issue of the crunch involved in making especially the ‘Guarma’ tangent in the game which arguably represented unnecessary excess but cost a lot of stressful extra hours for Rockstar’s staff. He may not achieve it with every video he makes, but he has a powerful ability to present an all-encompassing view of his subject matter which sees everything but doesn’t extrapolate any one thing to colour the overall tenor of the review.
It would be saccharine to say his words are like poetry, because they’re not, but they are like prose. Lyrical at times, and appropriate always, delivered in a unique way that hasn’t polished the character off of them. He is perhaps my prime example of just loving to listen to someone sitting in a room and … talking. Talking about something I love, or am interested in, or am opinionated about. It doesn’t have to be high art or important news, but listening to someone on your own wavelength about something you’re interested in is, at least in my experience, incredibly nourishing.
This is why I have started to find such diminishing returns from the style in the TV shows mentioned above – it’s talking for talking sake and though it can be entertaining, it’s not anchored to much but pithy pseudo philosophy or otherwise silly, vague plots. The talking is good, but in fiction, it needs to have more of a purpose. While too often on TV it doesn’t, there are other places you can find well crafted thought-pieces, and the ones I have suggested above are – hopefully – only the tip of the iceberg.
The point of this and the first article on the topic of ‘craft’ has been somewhat meandering, but I think the central tenet is that a focus on craft is crucially important to the making of interesting, powerful work, and while it needn’t always be hard work, it always tells in the final product. What’s more is that it may not always be where you expect it. TV, with the trappings of quality, prestige or at least professionalism is frequently fairly hollow, whereas children’s TV shows that can wash over you or hidden nuggets in the crapshoot of YouTube may well be among the few places you find genuine craft – something powerful or life-affirming in one way or another. When you recognise that in amongst the malaise, it’s worth enjoying, and celebrating. So hopefully through this wordsoup, I achieved that somewhat.
The Neon Idols 