The 'Yous' Epidemic

Childhood was a nightmare. School bullying; cat got run over; broadband was called something like 'dial up'; and there was the unforgettable epidemic of 'yous'. Not 'use', 'yous'. As in, "I'll give yous a gold star if yous'd learn to speak English." Eugh!

Enduring the profanities of those whose pastimes it was to pick on kids richer than them, and for whom I felt sorry because it gave them little time for videogames, was cake next to other blasphemous obscenities with which my poor ears were forced to contend. Among them, 'yous' was the worst. I had my first encounter when I was seven.

"Mrs Black gets angry when we're late! Yous better hurry up."

The word was petrifying. Even when the bell rang, the sound of which normally sets my feet into action, I stood there. The playground emptied; tumbleweed hovered; I felt like I was floating. I blinked moisture into my eyes, but instead the memories came flooding back. His face, adorned with freckles and glasses, refused to fade from my mind. The lisp made his verbal abuse indistinguishable from 'youth'. And as he spoke, saliva sprayed from between his metal-plated teeth. The word emerged like a shark trying to speak while consuming its prey. Violent, traumatising and... unnatural.

Today I still remember the culprit's face; it's been tattooed onto my memory, black and white like a wanted poster's sketch. Except before he could be detained, his sick language infiltrated the minds of every other kiwi in this country. I hear it more than ever; and each time it revives the pain. Battle scars.

Such language isn't even remotely productive. Believe me, I've fought to justify its use: 'you's' as a contraction for 'you is'; oh wait, there's no situation where that works, ever. Or 'yous' for colloquial banter, like 'lols' for old people since, you know, old people say it! But even this doesn't hold water, since 'lol' is but a poor acronym whose lowly status has long been established. 'You', on the other hand, is a perfectly crafted word, like 'Raglan' without the 'D' and 'everything' without that vulgar 'K'! It is clear that 'yous' has no place in anyone's vocabulary.

I know there are others who've seen the light, those of you similarly afflicted by the plagues which haunt the English language. It is you who ask, "What must we do?" And, with great pain, I must say that there is no known cure. But hope is not lost, for I do have one suggestion: one other than, "It's 'you', without the 's'," since that response only turns you into a pedantic nut. My advice is this: mimic and exaggerate their mistakes,

"What are yous up to today?"

"I's gots as physicses labs ats ones, ands Douglases's gots twos tutses froms elevens untils twelves fifties."

With hope they'll realise saying 'yous' makes them sound like they're simultaneously being tasered.

Immediate results are unlikely; but the more we wait, the more the curse spreads. Even those once thought immune are finding the taint to be too much to bear. Ignorance and apathy are pitfalls which we're becoming careless to avoid. Well stand up, I say. For if you're finding yourself in one of these pits, then may my advice be a torch to light your way, or a map if your pit is, in fact, a twisted and abysmal cave crawling with 'yous'-spreaders. 

If it is, then we may already be too late.

Read More

Introverts 201

Introvertedness is a complicated term. It's also not a word. Needless to say, a few paragraphs about social energy are hardly sufficient to clearly explain the complicated relationship introverts have with their given state of 'limited social capacity'. So, here are some things to consider.

There are those who think they're extroverts (and everyone else also thinks they're extroverts), but, really, they aren't - at least, not entirely. Cynthia, a friend of mine who socialises nonstop and has far too many friends, recently told me that her energy for them is limited like mine, except, until now, she's never admitted it. She's like a fish with too much food, except she hasn't died… yet. You see, next to her social energy tank is an inability to say 'no'. One too many yeses later and she's wondering why she's feeling so drained. Tsk tsk, young Cynthia. "True courage is about knowing not when to [be social], but when to [not be social]." Then I proceeded to give her a sword.

via Memecenter

There are those whose introvertedness clashes with their fear of missing out. I'm one of these. I'll be playing a game, or watching a film when some intrusive friend decides to message me, "U shld come ova 4 a bbq @ Zed's plce! We gt salad, but nd meat." Up until this point, I would be content doing next to nothing. But now that there's a social event going on, I'm torn between accepting and declining, never mind the dwindling energy bank! Something about, "I can watch this film or play that game at any time, but I can't summon barbecues quite so easily. Also, people die."

Added to all this is the issue of who to hang out with. Think of each relationship you have with someone like its own slope. Some friends are easy to get along with. You can be yourself, say whatever, embrace awkwardness rather than shy from it, and there are no lengthy good byes, which are also awkward. These are the downhill-sloped people. They don’t drain social energy. They give it. By contrast, there are those with whom you don't really relate, those who'll stop listening if you talk about anything other than panel beating, or those who will probably judge you for having an interest in biodegradable objects. It quickly becomes a chore to talk to these folk. Some of them will drive you insane! These are the uphill ones. And in between the two are those who don't really give or take energy. Perhaps they don't talk much; perhaps they're mute. In any case, they're flat, like Hamilton. Basically, some people require more social energy than others. A barbecue has more than just food. It has people, too, and those people will impact on whether or not I'll bother. Of course, this is on a bad day.

If anything, be grateful when your introvert friend shows up. More often than not, they decided that spending time with you would be more worthwhile than not spending time with you, and they went to the effort to do so. Believe you me, there's always effort involved. You know, you have to go uphill before you can go down again.

------------------------------------

Introverts 101

Read More

What makes a good movie?

The answer seems simple enough. Acting, plot, director's passion, suspense, special effects, you name it. When all of these meet at the peak of quality, a good movie dawns, does it not? Perhaps. But is not each of these qualities subject to debate? You may think the storyline of a movie superb in its execution, while I find it clichéd and overdone. In other words, each person has his or her own views; and in the end, it would appear that we viewers determine the levels of each quality, and thus the overall value of a film. Yet, when 70 percent of people dislike a film and the other 30 love it, do we simply say it's a bad film, or do we deem it 'underrated'? What if 90 percent of people love it and the rest despise it? Is it therefore a good movie, or do only 1 in every 10 people truly appreciate art when and where they see it?

So we have ourselves a dilemma, and the conundrum remains: what makes a 'good' movie? The simple solution is to back away, concluding that 'good' and 'bad', at least in terms of quality, are relative to a person's individual tastes. Perhaps, at the end of the day, that is all we can be sure of. But such a conclusion, indeed I tell you, is lame. Let us instead veer our eyes to the abyss!

Take Breaking Dawn: Part 2, the fifth and final film in the Twilight Saga, for example. On Rotten Tomatoes, it scored 48 percent from critics and 88 percent from user ratings. According to the formula above, Breaking Dawn: Part 2 is a good film, and critics don't know what they're talking about. Now look at Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. This film scored 92 percent from critics and 92 percent from user ratings. Another good film, yes? Indeed, ignoring what critics think, both films are almost equal in their level of quality. Breaking Dawn: Part 2 falls just 4 percent short. But lo! The father of modern fantasy nearly beaten by sparkly white people? This cannot be!

Fortunately, there is a distinction to be made despite these films' similar user ratings. Such a distinction eludes our first glance, but it becomes clear once the veneer of fandom has been removed. Both Breaking Dawn: Part 2 and Lord of the Rings have massive fan followings. Take them away, and what are we left with? For the former, barely the skin of its teeth. When those who love the film - those with biased opinions - are excluded, what's left is a multitude of human beings who despise shimmering vampires and ravenous werewolves (which, by the way, aren't werewolves. Read the book.) who for some unearthly reason risk everything to help an annoying, age-obsessed girl named Bella… oh, and her daughter Renesmee, who, for the record, is cute in the same way the rain maker from Looper is cute; that is, creepy. There is hardly anyone, and I mean anyone, who thinks the movie is 'adequate', or 'moderately good', or 'disappointing'. It's either amazing (if you're already a fan), or it’s really bad (if you're anyone else).

By contrast, when you strip Lord of the Rings of its fan base, there is still much substance to be found. Unlike Breaking Dawn, hardly anyone despises Lord of the Rings. If you don't love it, you still like it. Over a decade since its release, I've yet to meet a man who's watched it and didn't enjoy it, let alone someone who hated it.

Still puzzled? Here are some skilfully-crafted graphs to illustrate my point.

You can clearly see that each film has a strong fan base. However, the distinction in quality is only revealed when you look past them. With Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, there is a gradual decline tending towards 'hate', while for Breaking Dawn: Part 2 there is no such decline. Forsooth, the middle ground is an abyss where rotting vampire heads and nonexistent plot lines lie in the darkness.

In these cases, at least, where huge followings of people obsess over given movie franchises, the quality of any iteration in a franchise depends not on how big the following, but on everything else. Fans of Twilight love Twilight not because it's good but because it's Twilight. Similarly, fans of Lord of the Rings love Lord of the Rings because, well, it's Lord of the Rings. However, for those simply looking for a good film - those who aren't so much 'fans' of either - they will judge either film on its constituent qualities: Acting, plot, director's passion, suspense, special effects, you name it. The smoother decline illustrated for Lord of the Rings implies that those with unbiased views, who critique the film based solely on its filmic qualities, rate these qualities of high standard. The opposite can be concluded for Breaking Dawn, what with its abyss.

Now, I know what you're thinking. These graphs don't prove anything because, err, I made them up. True enough. But they reflect what I've heard and read from others, and they are furthermore backed up by the reviews on Rotten Tomatoes. For Breaking Dawn, the difference between user ratings and critics' reviews is staggering, while there is absolutely no difference for Lord of the Rings. Critics allegedly hold unbiased views, so the consistency with regards to the latter film is undoubtedly something of which to take note.

So, in the end, what makes a good movie? I could conclude that consistency of high ratings and praise - from fans and non-fans like, but mostly non-fans - does. But I won't, for this still leaves those underrated films and those artsy shindigs that don't make it to major cinemas under scrutiny. For now, though, I think the underlying presence of the 'abyss' is a big factor in determining a film's value. Lord of the Rings doesn't have one. Twilight does. Think on literature or music, and the same distinctions apply. If anything, rest assured that not belonging to a fan club doesn't make you a poor judge of good media. On the contrary, if such a judge was ever needed, you'd probably be shortlisted.

Read More