Figgy's Airing of the Grievances: TWOP's Jacob Part 2

How much I hate TWOP's Jacob: Part II.

So, remember when a while ago when I posted an angry rant against that most ridiculous of Television Without Pity's recappers?

Here's a refresher:

http://figgylicious.blogspot.com/2009/03/figgys-list-of-grievances-today-twops.html

This is part 2.

*****

The other day I decided to take a trip to TWOP to check out the recaps on American Idol. It makes me sad, but after years of being a huge fan, I've largely come to dislike TWOP recently. It started slowly, sometime after the site was bought out by Bravo and the big changes started coming around. Any loyal reader will know what I'm talking about. The changes are enormous, and pretty horrible. They're now covering every single show on television. All of them. Sitcoms. I remember when TWOP had the strict policy of not covering sitcoms--why would you?

They added movie recaps. Ridiculous and stupid photo galleries. useless video content. Their most talented writers deserted. Everything that was good about TWOP-- the community, the writing, the simplicity of it (it's a site for TV recaps and discussions! That's IT!) is gone.

But they kept Jacob.

Oy vey. The guy's just been getting worse. I think his mind has finally becoming unhinged.

How do I know?

The recap for the American Idol finale.

Now, I didn't watch this season's AI. I'm glad I didn't. But as a pop-culture freak, I had to know who won, and apparently the finale was full of craziness and I thought maybe I'd see what TWOP had to say about.

Big. Mistake.

I just wanted to read the ending. I don't even know why. So what's the logical thing to do? Jump to the end of the recap, right? Oh, no, dear readers. Not with Jacob.

I jumped to the last page and this is what I see as a first paragraph:

I just know that something brings us here. To the TV, to the hearth, together, in future ways and in normal ways. It wouldn't matter what they were fighting for, because it has to be something we all love equally, and that's music. It's dreams.

.......................what?

I went cold. I couldn't even finish reading that paragraph. Or the next three. In fact, there is not a SINGLE mention of American Idol or the finale (which, remember, is what THIS RECAP IS SUPPOSED TO BE ABOUT) in the last THREE PAGES of the recap. Not one! It's just...Jacob's Last Will And Testament. Or something horrible like that. It's the ridiculous, painful ramblings of someone who seems to believe that this is the Jacob Hour. And it is just unbelievably fucking laughable.

He rambles on for three and a half pages about how he got the job at TWOP (oh how we all rue the day). Then it just gets progressively more nonsensical, descending into a veritable word vomit that belongs to a pretentious freshman at a writing seminar. You can hear the groans and see the eye rolls of his classmates as he keeps rambling on, sure that he's the Next Huge Thing And Oh My GOD I am So Good At Writing. Everyone wants to kill him.

I wanted to be dropped into a world that cared, really cared, and didn't mind talking about it, or telling me how it works

I will GLADLY drop you. Hard.

Thank you for telling me this show, and what it means: how much it says about our country, every year, and why it's worth fighting for, and yelling for, and crying for. How important it is, how we must keep fighting just to know it, ourselves and our country.

*facepalm*

It's American Idol, you gigantic freak. It's not a UN Peace Resolution. Get some perspective.

Thank you for reminding me that's all that's really required. Only connect. Just say it. The worst thing you're thinking, say it. Tell somebody. It's what fixes us as people, and it's what fixes us as a country.

Believe me, this wouldn't make any more sense if I told you the context. I have no idea what he's going on about. Apparently American Idol is the answer to every evil in the world. All I know is that it's some of the most laughably bad writing I have ever read in my life. And I know Stephenie Meyers.

And thank you for fighting with me, and showing me the areas of my own blindness, which I'm still learning. This show has affected my politics, and more importantly my religion, more than any one thing. I don't want to talk about that, because it's super weird, but you know, I think, what I mean by that. It's more important to reach across the static and pull something back. You are your territory.

Jeebus. They pay you for this? Really? I mean, listen guy, the internet is full of people who think they're fantastic writers, and some of them are, but most of them are just crap. But they don't get paid for it, or post it in one of the most popular websites on the internet. They have the decency to keep their literary monstrosities in their poorly designed LJ pages with little dancing gif bananas, and nobody ever looks at them. They don't vomit it forth for bewildered American Idol fans to read through. But you do. And you should be ashamed.

And the cherry on top of this Fail Sundae:

Thanks for assuming I have a point. This job, like any transformative experience, has been learning in public. You've been beyond patient, beyond kind.

....REALLY?

Does anyone? Alright, I'm sure Jacob has a lot of fans, but I know that a lot of people are tired of his schtick. And really, do fans of these shows and TWOP have any other choice but to wade through his recaps? They're not patting your head and letting you keep your job, Jacob--they have no other choice. From what I hear, he beats down every dissenter in the forums, arbitrarily striking down anyone who dares say anything against him. So, no, Jacob. Only a very impressionable twit would think you have a point.

And I'm just wondering why. Why does he do that? Just because you have a huge audience and a tall podium doesn't mean you can do anything you want with it. You have a job. That you get paid for. Just fucking do it and keep your personal crap away from it.

And...why does this make me so angry? It really shouldn't. But the thing is that I loved TWOP, and it honestly hurts to see where it's gone. And Jacob is everything that is wrong about TWOP and the internet in general*. It's just bad, and I'm sick of it. And I am against talentless hacks infecting the world with their crap. I take it personally. I shouldn't, because eventually things get so bad that you want to destroy the world. But I can't help it. And if I have to fight these people one at a time, then Jacob is a good place to start.

I'm coming for you next, Stephenie Meyers. Ask Dan Brown. Dude cried for three days straight. He's such a wuss.

One last question: was he fired? or did he quit? Or what? Because otherwise there's no reason to hijack a recap for your own wanking purposes. That's just rude.

*This massive generalization courtesy of the Jacob School of Writing.

***EDIT**
In case you're wondering, this is the recap I'm quoting:

http://www.televisionwithoutpity.com/show/american_idol/finale_results.php?page=1

See how far along you can get. I managed two paragraphs. The really GOOD stuff starts on page 17.

Figgy's List of Grievances. Today: TWOP's Jacob.

Jacob is one of the writers who does tv-show episode recaps on TelevisionWithoutPity.

I love TWOP. Always have. Most of their reviewers are insightful, and it's a good way to catch little details you might've missed in a show.

But oh, I hate Jacob. Have you seen his recaps? I stopped reading the American Idol ones because he started doing them. Same thing with his Gossip Girl recaps I also stopped watching Americal Idol and Gossip Girl years ago, but that doesn't matter here). I went to the site today to see what TWOP had to say about True Blood--a trashy, addictive show I just started watching. And then I found out Jacob was doing the recaps. I went "grrrr" and closed the site.

OK, before I closed it I tried reading. I did. I gave him another chance.

Then I realized each of his recaps is THIRTY PAGES LONG (a 45 minute show, for frak's sake!). THIRTY PAGES of his rambling, incoherent rants that are only 10% actual scenes from the SHOW and 90% filler that seems fueled by one or more hallucinatory drugs. Oh, Sookie is angry? Let me not only say that she's angry, but write a 2 page treatise on the origins of anger, the consequences of anger, the love of anger that makes no sense at all and makes me sound like a pretentious idiot who loves to hear himself talk.

Here's an example:

"Hey, Tara! This is Randi Sue. Come join us. It's beautiful!" And it is. The world is sufficiently big that nobody holds anything against anybody else, because we are one. The sparks in the magnolia and the sparks just across Randi Sue's skin, you can see them: they are the same. What need is there to feel alone ever again, to try to fuck your way across the line, when you've discovered the secret of the universe is that you're already across the line. And they are in you, and you two are only parts of the universe meeting in a kiss, and saying in your pleasure, "I remember you. Welcome home."

Excuse my language here but:

What the HELL does any of that even mean?

NOTHING. Big fat load of NOTHING.

And it's not only a nonsensical, pseudo-philosophical, oh-look-at-how-profound-I-am bout of nonsense, it's also BAD WRITING. Just awful writing. How does this man keep working?

Do your job, Jacob. Your job is to do a run down of the episodes, and add helpful, relevant commentary every now and then. The recap should be about the SHOW, not about YOU. And you are making it all about you. For THIRTY pages. Thirty pages of you trying so desperately hard to be profound that the reader is left hating your guts for being unable to write a single, simple sentence without going into a three-page ramble.

Just stop it.

Alright, I didn't mean for this to go on this long but...this has been eating at me for a long time, and seeing Jacob get more work at TWOP was just the last straw. I can't take it anymore. Somebody stop him.

Living skin, dead matter, separated by bullshit you can only see in context; all this matter and the sparks inside it are the point: they matter. They are significant and alive, whole in themselves, full of life and beauty. It's just nature, and nature's all we have.

....

NO.

Jacob...Shut. Up.

***

I wrote a second part to my rant:

http://figgylicious.blogspot.com/2009/06/figgys-airing-of-grievances-twops-jacob.html