Techcrunchywag
So I’ve been following this “story” about the “Team Cyprus Video” (if I have to keep using quotes this much, people are going to start thinking I’ve got Ron Conway ghostwriting for me) with umm, what’s the opposite of earnest? Is there a word for that? If so, that’s what I’ve been following it with. Apathy maybe? Yeah, that sounds right. I’ve been following it with apathy.
Anyway, for those lucky enough to have never heard of this yet, here’s the basic gist of it. 20 or so younger Silicon Valley types went to Cyprus and rented a house together. Employees of Google, Facebook, some startups nobody outside of California has ever heard of, etc. Sounds like fun actually, and I’m a little pissed I wasn’t invited. Only a little because I’m pretty sure I’ve never met any of them. Still, total strangers email me every day about buying Viagara, expatriating money from the estate of dead Somalian royalty, or watching them fornicate with various equine mammals (including, but not limited to, a zebra) so you’d think I could at least get a heads-up on a Turkish vacation.
Anyway, they had the audacity to go on a holiday they almost certainly planned months ago even though the economy was tanking. And, on top of it all, they had fun! What’s wrong with these people? Don’t they know that any time anything bad happens, you’re supposed to sit home and feel bad for everyone? Or at least, if you must spend a week chugging raki, have the decency to act like it sucked when you get back?
Then, as if having fun on vacation wasn’t rude enough, they topped it off by making a video that nobody who wasn’t in it could possibly ever give a shit about of everyone lip syncing to a Don’t Stop Believing.
Arrington says:
Team Cyprus: Alcohol + Bad Judgement + Really Poor Timing
Well, I’ll give him the alcohol. And hell, it was a Journey song, so I’ll give him bad judgment too. But poor timing? What were they supposed to do, go all McCain Campaign and wait a week? How’d that work out for old Johnny Boy?
I think we all really need to step back and ask ourselves “what’s news about this?” The only thing I can see that might pass as noteworthy is that there appears to have been a couple cute chicks hanging out with a bunch of geeks. Hard to say for sure, because it looks like cell-phone camera quality, but there’s a chance and I’ve been to enough Web 2.0 parties to know that’s headline material.
As I said yesterday, fair or not the video video will always be associated with the end of Web 2.0.
Umm, no it won’t. That “video video” (as opposed to an audio video I suppose) will always be associated with some Googlers having awful taste in music. It will always be associated with TechCrunch finally completing a long descent into Valleywagville, and their RSS subscriber count dropping by 10 as all remaining readers with a three digit IQ blow their brains out in disgust.
But Web 2.0 can’t end because it never really started. It was stillborn. It’s a concept that nobody outside of a 50 mile radius around Palo Alto has ever given a single thought to. It translates loosely into “take your site and add Geocities to it.”
And that video is nothing but some people having fun on their vacation to a really, really awful soundtrack. People are calling it “fiddling while Rome burned” which would make sense if any of them were the Emperor and could do anything at all about the stock market crashing. If they were George Bush, it would be pretty bad (and it would be called “Hurricane Katrina”). Really though, it’s just a few peasants who had a little too much ouzo and a really cheap video camera.
Also, what’s with all the girls wearing the same outfit? It’s like Satan dug up Robert Palmer, reanimated him, and said “You know what? The world hasn’t gone entirely to hell yet, which means you must not have unleashed enough shitty music videos during your first lifetime. I thought for sure when you came out with Addicted to Love, chaos would reign and I’d be able to release the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. But it didn’t happen. So I’m gonna bring you back for one more. Make me proud.”
And he did.
October 11, 2008 at 2:45 pm
Amen. The bubble Arrington lives in where this is news is part of the insular little tomb that Web 2.0 is headed for. When this becomes newsworthy, it's safe to say fundamentals no longer have any meaning. Thanks, Mike.
October 11, 2008 at 3:37 pm
Thanks for summing this up. I'd followed a link on twitturly earlier which resulted in me reading a techcrunch story for the first time in months. It bollocked on about the death of web 2.0 and then wrapped up by seemingly blaming everything on some crappy video. I was confused and just assumed I'd missed out on something important but now I know it was just Arrington being a cuntrocket again.
October 11, 2008 at 3:49 pm
Thank “God” I didn't actually read the article in question or I'd probably be dead from the sudden quadrupling of my blood pressure. Every single TC article I have read in the past couple weeks, meaning almost exclusively those posted to HN, have made me want to kill babies. I wish I could go back in time and never read read them, like I did with Valleywag. Then I wouldn't have to know how ridiculous they've become.
October 11, 2008 at 4:43 pm
“least get a heads-up on a Turkish vacation”
I'd like you to correct that. Cyprus is GREEK! It has been for the past 3000 years.
Welcome to my home country.
October 11, 2008 at 6:47 pm
Arrington is self-important toad, and I agree that this video is nowhere near newsworthy.
October 11, 2008 at 7:18 pm
You know the thing that bugs me. There are companies like HP, Micron and eBay laying off thousands and TechCrunch focuses on Seesmic laying off a grand total of 7 people. I know a layoff is a layoff, but honestly.
Good post BTW.
October 11, 2008 at 7:54 pm
You know, I thought so but one of those articles about it said Turkey and geography is my worst subject so I just trusted it.
October 11, 2008 at 7:58 pm
Seesmic is what happens when you get a bunch of the tech gliterati together to work on a product that nobody could possibly ever want.
October 11, 2008 at 9:06 pm
actually Cyprus has a greek part and a turkish part to it.
It is splitted, with alot of tension betwen the sides.
October 11, 2008 at 11:15 pm
I think is the first time I end up laughing after reading a tech blog post, and that puts you high up there on my scale (not that it would mean anything to you, but nonetheless…).
Thank's a lot.
October 12, 2008 at 1:46 am
You don't seem to know your home country well, nor its history. Cyprus is neither Greek nor Turkish, Cyprus is Cyprus! The fact that is has a population composed of ethnic Turks and ethnic Greeks doesn't make it belonging to either of those 2 states. That would be the same as claiming the Belgium is either Dutch or French, or Switzerland is either French, German or Italian.
Why Matt calls it “a Turkish vacation” is a mystery to me. A “Cypriot vacation” would have been fine.
October 12, 2008 at 2:05 am
I so totally agree with you on the utter irrelevance that TC has become. Some of the editors there still put out stuff I like to read, nothing from the pen of Arrington has had any impact on me lately. Except for the gaffe on “Turkish” this was a refreshing article. Well done.
October 12, 2008 at 3:54 am
Because the LA Times says:
“20 world Internet citizens met in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus”
So if it's a gaffe, which I'm doubting at this point, it isn't mine.
October 12, 2008 at 3:57 am
I laughed as I was writing it. It's not often I get to express my hatred for Journey and Robert Palmer.
October 12, 2008 at 4:15 am
I do know the history of my country and it sais that for the past 3600 years is Greek whether you like it or not.
Just because Turks came in Cyprus in late 15th century suddenly is turkish? It's like calling US is Greek because there 3 million Greeks there.
I agree calling it a Cyprus vacation would be of the correct thing to do so not to cause tension. I didn't request to call it a Greek party not it would be correct if there wasn't a Greek among them.
October 12, 2008 at 4:16 am
I don't blame you, because it's obvious it's one of those turkish propaganda that is continuesly occuring everywhere.
October 12, 2008 at 6:59 am
Thank you Matt. This is the most rational summary of this whole fiasco I have read to date. I am enjoying the sweet sweet irony the whole thing: Hundreds of professional bloggers and in turn hundreds of man hours discussing how this vacation video depicts a group of people NOT PAYING ENOUGH ATTENTION TO THE ECONOMIC CRISIS.
Amazingly hypocritical
October 12, 2008 at 8:11 am
Got to love the line “..few peasants who had a little too much ouzo..”
Excellent post…
October 12, 2008 at 8:14 am
Mukund, have been thinking of the same thing. 7 people laid off is being touted as the end of civilization!
October 12, 2008 at 11:41 am
Nice perspective. I'm surprised TechCrunch went so nuts about it given there are so many more important issues it could have focused on.
October 12, 2008 at 2:29 pm
From an article I read recently, the Dow average just dropped back to where it was three years ago, just before the housing bubble began. If the numbers are now much closer to reality than they were last week, isn't that a good sign? Why was it considered a good thing to have an unrealistically high Dow average during what was becoming well known as the makings of a housing bubble as early as 2006?
October 12, 2008 at 2:39 pm
“take your site and add Geocities to it.”
This is the best description of web 2.0 ever!
October 12, 2008 at 5:52 pm
Effective linkbait though…
October 12, 2008 at 9:38 pm
Shark jumps TechCrunch. Arrington is lunch.
October 13, 2008 at 12:30 am
I don't know if I would call 600+ years suddenly.
October 13, 2008 at 1:20 am
It was a mildly entertaining video. No sin committed – at least not out in the open.
October 15, 2008 at 8:34 pm
nice dose of reality, thanks