Wednesday 13 April 2011

HERMIONE HOBY CONTROVERSY

I've been following this brouhaha with interest (original post here).

I find it difficult not to judge some of the guy's comments misogynistic (eg. the bit about pony riding lessons) and there's a good deal of unhinged vitriol. But some of his criticisms are just so damned pithy. Puncturing the PR bubble that much arts journalism currently resides in is always a totally worthy cause. We need much more of it.

And what's even more shocking about the whole thing is the level of the counter-attack on Twitter, like as soon as you try to challenge the power structure (even with a single blogpost), down come those bricks ... Twitter does seem to have the potential to be used by the culture and media industries as a sort of nepotistic Blitzenkrieg.

The Conor McNicholas bit deserves repeating too:
Conor McNicholas … remembers exactly where he was when he first heard [The Strokes]: in his car, listening to the radio, on London’s Stroud Green Road. “‘Last Nite’ came on,” he says, “and it was one of those moments where you go: ‘Fuck. Popular culture will never be the same again.’”
Quite.

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