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The Guardian Australia Did a Tik Tok Video on the Taliban and the only I can think is that they think young people are idiots

Stuntman

Stuntman

The Fallen
Oct 27, 2017
2,194
excelsiorlef said:
I'm starting to realize I was old at 7 years old.

Look I'm not ever going to be able to shake off how unnerving I find the borderline preschool tv show host style facial expressions, and just overall sense of vibrancy this thing has.
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I'm like you, when i was a kid if i wans't playing videogames i was reading newspapers and doing the difficult crossword not the shitty ones. But giving your reply your issue is more the style than the content? I absolutely get that but come on even the style is pretty tame considering today trends on social media.
 
perfectchaos007

perfectchaos007

It's Happening
Member
Oct 25, 2017
12,396
Texas
We should be less concerned about the medium of which information is delivered, and be more focused on the veracity of the information being delivered. As long as its not misinformation, I couldn't care less how its presented to the audience they are reaching.
 
Lastbroadcast

Lastbroadcast

Member
Jul 6, 2018
1,938
Sydney, Australia
Your friendly reminder that there are young adults alive today who weren't born when this war started. They are probably asking themselves the same question: "why the fuck are we there?"

It's crass, but we aren't the target audience.
 
Saturday

Saturday

One Winged Slayer - Shinra Employee
The Fallen
Oct 27, 2017
6,693
There is a argument to be made for fine-tuning the more subtle aspects of the presentation, but honestly that's down to personal taste. The content itself is quite serviceable for who its targeted for.
 
Pai Pai Master

Pai Pai Master

Member
Oct 25, 2017
33,489
Atlanta GA
As someone who was like, the only kid protesting the war in my school at the time I see no problem with this as long as young people are actually consuming and processing the information. I wish this kind of shit was more accessible to kids when I was the target age and it helped more of them give a shit
 
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excelsiorlef

excelsiorlef

Bad Praxis
Member
Oct 25, 2017
73,652
Stuntman said:
I'm like you, when i was a kid if i wans't playing videogames i was reading newspapers and doing the difficult crossword not the shitty one. But giving your reply your issue is more the style than the content? I absolutely get that but come on even the style is pretty tame considering today trends on social media.
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I mean the content leans way too much on telling kids this war was one with good intentions and was about nation building.... and outright saying they had won the war early on is like a lie, they allowed Bin Laden to escape to Pakistan

But I'm moving the goal posts by going after the content now because yes the style is unsettling to me, but like I'm nostalgic for news presentation style that even predates me (look I'm a weirdo 36 year old who has nostalgic for Edward R Murrow news style and 1970s earth tone home decor, and who considers 1950s-1970s music my music.... so you know I'm just your average Canadian obvi)
 

Deleted member 27751

User-requested account closure
Banned
Oct 30, 2017
3,997
The actual legitimate issue is that Guardian Australia thinks they are still relevant, and this is their attempt at keeping relevancy in Australia. They've done their fair share of licking the Murdoch boot despite claiming independence from said pressures, and I just can't take anything coming from them at face value. Our news media is atrociously fucked in Australia thanks to Rupert Murdoch and his bandwagon of what American's would call right wing media, especially in my state of Queensland with almost 100% news owned by Murdoch.

Now, the actual format of delivery is perfectly fine. ABC has their own young teenager styled news broadcast called Behind the News, and it achieves similar delivery methods of breaking down difficult content so our young are informed. Thankfully the TikTok wasn't filled with memes and "lol jet fuel melts steel beams" rubbish, but actual informative historical data.
 
JayCB64

JayCB64

Member
Oct 25, 2017
11,043
Wales
I can't say I enjoy the style of this, but its hard to find fault with them trying to educate people. Tiktok is used by kids who wouldn't have been alive when all of this stuff started, using a medium they engage with regularly seems like a smart way to try and get them to learn about a topic they'll overhear but not necessarily understand the context of.

Obviously it's a little "Hey fellow kids", but like, whatever, whats the harm here, so long as the information isn't fake or biased (I didn't watch it all ngl)
 
The Albatross

The Albatross

Member
Oct 25, 2017
39,536
I think it's fine. Plenty of young people get information from sober, serious content, but like others said the only way to break thru the algorithm on TikTok is to do silly presentation stuff. It's the medium.

Also back 20 years ago comedy central having a news program was considered like "what's wrong with millennials! They're getting their news from comedy central and mtv!" And within a decade all night time cable news would become the daily show, not the other way around.
 
Mik2121

Mik2121

Member
Oct 25, 2017
2,959
Japan
I think if any random TikTok user had done this, people wouldn't have that much of a problem. But when a newspaper does it at a level where it feels so painfully amateur, I guess it's a bit worrying.
But if their whole schtick for their TikTok channel is this, then whatever. If this is what they feel they need to do to get people to watch their news, that's their issue.

It says more about that specific newspaper than the world in general. Nothing dystopian about this.
 
Mesoian

Mesoian

▲ Legend ▲
Member
Oct 28, 2017
27,240
Look...

This wasn't for you. It's fine if you don't like it, but like...look at the state of north american media (yes, I understand this is australian). We're never going to get back to meaningful anchor styled news casting ever again. That's over, the industry killed it. We're more dependent now on independent voices speaking out against major topics and using whatever methods they can to try and galvanize attention and demand from whoever will listen, so if the only way you can hit people under 26 is fire up the rapid fire tiktok style trappings around a serious topic which, honestly, most people don't understand the intricacies of, then that's how its gotta be. Because in a lot of a cases, it's this or nothing. I won't lie, I get the majority of my news from a combination of Vice, John Oliver, Desus and Mero, my discord and HERE. That's not great (it's actually quite bad), but it's still better than CNN or Fox News.
 
Sayuz

Sayuz

Member
Apr 29, 2019
982
After seeing the full video, I agree with most here. There's nothing wrong with it. It sums up the issue more or less well within a couple of minutes.

Of course a 2 minute video won't be as in-depth as watching a 2 hours documentary on the subject. But that wouldn't be as in-depth as reading a 2,000 page novel on it. Which probably wouldn't be as in-depth as having spent 20 years living and digesting it.

But when taken as an evolution of the YouTube style of "cool" information, docu-style videos that have become mainstream in last 10 years, and condensing it for an audience who demands bite sized bites of entertainment and information, it's fine.

At worst, they'll watch it and learn nothing. At best it peaks their interest in geo-politics and you end up with a more informed generation of future voters. Seems fine to me.
 
HorseFD

HorseFD

Member
Oct 25, 2017
2,050
Melbourne
To be fair, people both young and old are idiots. Even people who are generally not idiots are still idiots in some area or another.

Note that I did not actually watch the video.

Edit: After watching this, I'm not really sure what the issue is. The video is quite informative, the only issue I can see if the way the presenter is floating on top of the video.
 
Transistor

Transistor

The Walnut King
Administrator
Oct 25, 2017
37,583
Washington, D.C.
I don't see the issue. It gets information to people in their preferred format, otherwise they might not get it. As long as the information is accurate, who cares about the format.
 
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