Links

Thursday, February 28, 2013

Preface To Shock: Shock Jocks

Apparently this fellow here, named Roy O'Connor, has written a book called Shock Jocks: Hate Speech & Talk Radio, which has some very polarized opinions about its quality on its Amazon page.

I haven't read it, & probably never will, but I'd probably agree with the author about the hate speech part.  Except I don't think Roosh Limboo & Shawn Hammertime (I'd hate for people looking for those guys to find my blog) (you know who I'm talking about anyway) as "shock jocks."  The Wikipedia says a shock jock is "a type of radio broadcaster or disc jockey who entertain listeners or attracts attention using humor &/or melodramatic exaggeration that a notable portion of the listening audience may find offensive."  I don't think right-wing radio guys are interested in shocking anyone except the people their desired audience hates.  They are more interested in delighting their desired audience - & offending their perceived enemies makes the talk radio hosts lots & lots of money.

But here's the weird thing.  Imagine you've written a book.  It's out of print, but surely you're proud of it.  You've even registered your own domain name: http://shockjocks.org.  Except when you go to that site, you find a boring placeholder page comparing bogus fad exercise devices.  Dude!  You wrote a whole motherflipping book!  How do you let your domain names lapse?

I've actually known a lot of people who've let their domain names lapse.  It reminds me of the ephemeral quality of this ubiquitous internet.  It still sort of shocks me when it happens.

Meanwhile, isn't Howard Stern a better example of a shock jock?  & isn't the jock in "shock jock" from "disk jockey"?  Have any of those right-wing guys really handled an actual disc - an LP or a CD - any time recently?

Boom!  I just dissed an out-of-print book.  You can't wait to see what I'll do when its copyright lapses.

No comments:

Post a Comment