Terrible Article is Terrible

Watching TV news is honestly a form of self-inflicted torture, but unfortunately, articles can often be just as bad. I was sent a link to an article recently, and I found the story so absurdly, idiotically terrible that I absolutely had to write about it.

For reference, this is the link to the article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/27/upshot/how-social-media-silences-debate.html?_r=0&abt=0002&abg=0

This, of course, is how the article wants you to react: 

How Social Media Silences Debate? What a title! I'd better click on it to read more, which will also give them some advertising revenue!

But this article is not news. It's not newsworthy. It's sensationalist hyperbole.

The article asserts that social media platforms stifle dissenting opinions on the internet. It alleges that people are unwilling to voice their opinions on social media outlets because they fear the backlash of saying something other people disagree with. And that this phenomenon is creating a "spiral of silence" that polarizes opinions online.

When explained like that, it almost sounds reasonable.

HERE'S THE PROBLEM:

The conclusion that social media stifles debate is based on ONE study on ONE news event and measures people willingness to express opinions on that event on TWO social media platforms: Facebook and Twitter.

It even admits this: "These findings are limited because the researchers studied a single news event."

This is not science. This is a fallacy of composition.

What this study found is that people didn't always like expressing opinions about a news event (in this case the Snowden story) on Facebook and Twitter. What it didn't find is that people don't express their opinions on all social media. Because Facebook and Twitter are not the entirety of social media. What is really didn't find was that the entire internet causes people to stop sharing their opinions and discussing news events. 

AND YET: "The Internet might be a useful tool for activists and organizers, in episodes from the Arab Spring to the Ice Bucket Challenge. But over all, it has diminished rather than enhanced political participation, according to new data."

What about reddit? Tumblr? People's blogs? This article could have exclusively examined the reddit thread ChangeMyView and asserted that the entire internet was a perfect place for thoughtful political discourse. Or it could have looked at YouTube comments and declared that the whole internet is a cesspool of uneducated masochists. It's amazing what conclusions you can draw when you only use two pieces of the internet to diagnose the entire internet.

Reading the original study upon which this article is based is a slightly better read. ( http://www.pewinternet.org/2014/08/26/social-media-and-the-spiral-of-silence/ ) But even then, it's not going to tell you something you don't already know. People don't like expressing complex political opinions on Twitter, a social media outlet that only allows 160 characters per message? What a shock. People who know their Facebook friends have different political ideologies are slightly less willing to discuss political topics with those friends in person? OH GOD WHAT HAS THE WORLD COME TO. The phrase "avoid politics and religion" is a pre-internet sentiment, people. Social media isn't worsening a divide, it's just showing you that there is one, which you knew already. 

If the stupidity article can be summed up at all, it's with this quote: "Interestingly, those with less education were more likely to speak up on Facebook, while those with more education were more likely to be silent on Facebook yet express their opinion in a group of family or friends." Fascinating, isn't it. The smarter someone is, the more they realize that Facebook isn't a great outlet for comprehensive political discourse. They know that shouting a controversial opinion on Facebook is like shouting your opinion to people on the street. It's useless and they're not going to get anything done there. They know that they're better off in person, where the setting is more intimate and they can usually get a better grasp on what other people actually mean, because they can see their expressions and hear their tone of voice. They also know that the internet is made up of many, many more websites and social media outlets than just Facebook and Twitter, which is more than I can say for this article.

My Top Fives

A friend recently asked me to give him a list of my 5 favorite songs. He told me he was making a playlist of all of his closest friends’ favorite songs, like a Friendship Playlist. I loved this idea. It was honestly really touching. So I gave him my list—after deliberating about it for a few days.

I was really struck by this exercise, by how strangely and enjoyably difficult it was to complete. And when he shared the final playlist with all of us, and we each got to see each other’s choices, I was slightly surprised that nobody had picked the same song as someone else.  I know there are a lot of songs out there, but since we were such a close group of friends, I was still a little bemused that our tastes were so different.

A little more recently, a different friend asked me about my top 5 movies. As he asked, he mentioned that he thought my favorite movie was still RENT, as it had been when I was in junior high. I told him that my list had changed, and we talked about favorite movies for a while, and again, I was quite surprised. I realized that your taste in music or taste in films can really say a lot about you, and that I hadn’t necessarily shared my tastes with people I consider some of my closest friends, and that this fact might say a lot about how close I perceived us to be versus how close we really were.

From all of this I’ve decided to compile a list of my Top Fives for every artistic medium I can think of. It’s been an enjoyably difficult exercise on all fronts. Your taste says a lot about you, and it’s been fun getting to know myself a little better.

SONGS

Cosmic Love – Florence and the Machine

Eyes Wide Open – Gotye

The Fear – Lily Allen

Let Go – Frou Frou

Hide and Seek – Imogen Heap

(What I find most interesting is that some of my favorite artists didn’t make it on my list. MIKA, for example, has to be my favorite music artist of all time. He’s never written a song I didn’t like. But I didn’t put anything by him on this list. I was fascinated by my own decisions here.)

FILMS

The Prestige

Memento

Scott Pilgrim vs. The World

V for Vendetta

Cabin in the Woods

(I find myself particularly attached to this list. To put it simply, I feel that each of these movies transcends the limits of film as a form of media. They’re not just movies; they’re works of art.)

VIDEO GAMES

Prince of Persia: Sands of Time

Legend of Dragoon

Super Mario 64

Left 4 Dead 2

League of Legends

BOARD/CARD GAMES

Magic: the Gathering

Betrayal at House on the Hill

Battlestar Gallactica: The Board Game

GO

Cards Against Humanity

TELEVISION SHOWS*

Sherlock

Psych

Friends

Scrubs

Pokemon

(*I don’t watch much TV anymore. Specifically I’ve been told to watch Game of Thrones, Orange is the New Black, Doctor Who, and Breaking Bad, among several others. I’m sure many of them would make it on this list if/when I watch them, I just haven’t yet. Sorry L)

BOOKS

Harry Potter and the [insert title here] – J.K. Rowling

The Fault in Our Stars – John Green

Nineteen Eighty-Four – George Orwell

The Great Gatsby – F. Scott Fitzgerald

Catching Fire – Suzanne Collins

(Seriously, huge Potter fan right here. That series was my generation’s Star Wars)

MUSICALS

Into the Woods

Wicked

The Book of Mormon

Company

Avenue Q

POEMS/SHORT STORIES

Good Country People – Flannery O’Connor

I heard a Fly buzz - when I died – Emily Dickenson

The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas – Ursula K. Le Guin

The Negro Speaks of Rivers – Langston Hughes

Mirror – Sylvia Plath

MAGAZINES/RADIO/NEWSPAPER

No.

So, those are the top fives. 

I chose not to include paintings and photography for this exercise because their names are frequently ambiguous, not widely known, or often just untitled, and accessing the images themselves is actually quite difficult. 

I may do a blog post later on that includes my favorite photographers and painters, as well as my favorite authors, directors, actors, music artists, YouTubers, etc. It’ll be interesting to see how those lists compare with all of these, and especially interesting to see how (and how frequently) these lists change over time.

Ranking the Sherlock Episodes

WARNING: SPOILERS. IF YOU HAVEN’T WATCHED SHERLOCK GO DO IT RIGHT NOW. ALL OF THEM. RIGHT MEOW. 

9 The Empty Hearse (S:3 E:1)

                This episode… doesn’t work. In fairness, it was under tremendous pressure; the anticipation for Season 3 was so great it’s possible NOTHING would have satisfied fans. But even excusing that, the episode itself doesn’t seem to come together. There’s no tension in the main conflict, the scene where they explain Sherlock’s faked suicide is overly convoluted, especially since it isn’t really clear whether it’s just another one of Anderson’s delusions, and the kidnapping of John Watson is entirely out of place. While the episode is commendable for bringing some heart to rekindling the relationship between John and Sherlock, the thing that really kills the episode is that it completely wipes away the ending of Season 2. Fans were looking forward to watching Sherlock fight in the shadows, for him to claw his way back into the light after Moriarty made him out to look like a phony. But right off the bat we’re told Sherlock’s name was cleared, which just didn’t make for as good a story.

8 The Hounds of Baskerville (S:2 E:2)

                I probably like this episode more than most, but yes, it has some problems that it just can’t recover from. The bad special effects of the hound itself are enough to deter most viewers, but the real problem is that the episode just isn’t that mysterious. Sherlock is always supposed to be three steps ahead of everyone else, but the viewer can easily figure out the secret of Baskerville almost half an hour before Sherlock himself gets there. That’s just not a feeling you should ever have when watching a mystery, let alone a Sherlock mystery. That said, the rapidly-spoken monologue about the out-of-work fisherman and his widowed mother is some of Cumberbatch’s best work.

7 His Last Vow (S:3 E:3)

                While this episode proves to be more entertaining and ambitious than Hounds of Baskerville, it suffers from a lot of the same issues; namely that it, too, doesn’t feel as mysterious. While it’s commendable that the show developed a new villain for Sherlock to face off against, the journey getting there is a bit rough, and you can see the ending coming from a mile away. Plus it’s kind of awkward that the phrase ‘mind palace’ gets used so much in this episode, when it was originally used as a sly joke in the Baskerville Episode. His Last Vow is entertaining, and the cliffhanger ending is intriguing enough, but the tension between Sherlock and Magnusson just isn’t as potent as it is between him and Moriarty or even him and The Woman. Also, I’m just gonna say it: I really dislike the twist where Mary’s some super-crazy-awesome assassin. It’s just too big a coincidence, and as Sherlock and Mycroft noted about coincidences in an earlier episode, “The universe is seldom so lazy.”

6 The Blind Banker (S:1 E:2)

                I don’t suppose there’s anything technically wrong with this episode; there’s a fair amount of mystery, a dangerous gang of smugglers, and the turn where they think John is actually Sherlock is pretty entertaining. The only real issue with this episode is that it’s just kind of boring. Where the pilot episode led off with a bang, this one just kind of fizzles. It’s still good, and it shows off the depth and danger of Moriarty’s network, but if it begins to feel a bit like a filler episode about halfway through, well, I can hardly blame you.

5 The Sign of Three (S:3 E:2)

                This is the episode of Season 3 I actually really like. It’s funny, charming, and while I’ve heard most people think Sherlock’s best man speech is a little overlong, it actually does a really good job of keeping you on your toes. The best thing about the episode, though, is how well it calls back to the pilot episode; simply put, this episode is a riddle. The Bloody Guardsman and the Mayfly Man are really intriguing stories Sherlock uses to demonstrate his admiration for John, and once you figure out that they’re actually clues to a dangerous mystery, you’re right there with Sherlock, desperate to keep a deadly situation under control and trying your damndest to figure out the solution before the killer gets away, just like you felt in the pilot episode. This one has some real heart, and the relationship between Sherlock, John, and Mary is so touching you can almost forgive The Empty Hearse for stumbling so badly. Almost.

4 The Great Game (S:1 E:3)

                Man, was this a tough call. I actually kind of feel bad for putting this episode only at number 4, because it really is intense. The introduction of Moriarty, the ticking clock as Sherlock completes a difficult challenge only to find a new and more sinister one awaiting him, the amazing HOLY-WHAT-WHERE-IS-MY-REMOTE-I-HAVE-TO-WATCH-SEASON-TWO-RIGHT-NOW ending… this episode is a ride. It’s quintessentially Sherlock; this is exactly the kind of cat-and-mouse game you want to see between two dangerously intelligent masterminds. The only reason this places number four is because the next three really crossed the threshold into groundbreaking cinema.

3 The Reichenbach Fall (S:2 E:3)

                Between this and A Study in Pink, I’m not sure which is the most-watched episode of Sherlock, but I’d put my money on this one. My family and friends rewatched the ending of this episode dozens of times to figure out how Sherlock faked his own death. The stakes are high, and exactly where they need to be: not just Sherlock’s life is at stake, but the lives of everyone he loves, and we get to see not only Sherlock’s brain at work, but also his heart. Moriarty’s turn as Richard Brooke is downright scary, and the finale leaves you excited, speculating, and head-over-heels in love with the series thus far. Part of the reason The Empty Hearse felt like such a letdown was because of just how damn good this episode really is.

2 A Study in Pink (S:1 E:1)

                Due service has to be paid to this for being the pilot episode, the one that got it all started. We live in a world of useless reboots, recycled plots, and lame reimagining of stories that aren’t even a decade old (Amazing Spiderman, I’m looking at you). But this episode announced to the world that it understood not only what a reboot on an old series had to do to befit a modern audience, it also announced that it deeply understood, respected, and paid homage to its own source material. Sherlock as a consulting detective, Moriarty as the consulting criminal, John as a blogger, and intricate puzzles in a digital age take you on a spin so wild you’re amazed you’d never thought of all this yourself. It just seems so obvious, so right, and that’s not a feeling that a lot of other Sherlock-inspired shows (ahem, Elementary, ahem) can successfully manifest. It’s a work of genius.

1 A Scandal in Belgravia (S:2 E:1)

                This isn’t just the best episode of Sherlock, it might be the best episode of any television series that’s ever been on the air. It might be one of the best things that’s ever been filmed. The reinterpretation of Irene Adler as a dominatrix is inspired, and the sexual tension in her cat-and-mouse game with Sherlock is exactly the right twist to make her another unique and dangerous villain that we place on a pedestal along with Moriarty. The Coventry Conundrum is perfectly foreshadowed in the most amazing way, and pleasantly creepy. The metaphorical resonance of Adler as a dominatrix that brought a nation to its knees is fantastic. And the answer to Adler’s heart, the password to her hypersecure phone, is so brilliant it still occasionally gives me goosebumps. This isn’t just an episode, it’s art, and it’s not just art, it’s a masterpiece.