Entering The Fray

Today in Tedium: If you’re someone who creates things, you have a giant target on your back, and you are at risk of sniping by people who weren’t involved in the creation of your work. Any commentator or critic who wants to can easily knock you down a peg. But what happens when the critic flips sides and takes a stab at creative output? Well, there’s a chance you’re going to create something great—but a much higher chance that you’re opening yourself up to a boatload of criticism. Just ask Marques Brownlee, who has spent the last week getting roasted for releasing a wallpaper app that many fans see as overly expensive and half-baked. Is it even possible to step out of your lane in that way? Today’s Tedium considers the fate of the critic-turned-creator. — Ernie @ Tedium

Today’s GIF is from The Critic, the great ’90s-era animated series with a Simpsons pedigree starring Jon Lovitz as wannabe Siskel & Ebert Jay Sherman. If you haven’t seen it, you’re missing out. Some old episodes are on YouTube.

Why the MKBHD app experiment didn’t work

Last week, when Marques Brownlee dropped his wallpaper app Panels, he did so in the midst of what is traditionally one of his most consistently successful videos: The annual iPhone review.

He clearly wanted a lot of eyeballs on it, his first foray into making his own technology product, after previously developing his own sneaker.

Unfortunately for him, the new app—and its flaws—undermined the review. On both the site I still call Twitter, and in his YouTube comments section, the iPhone review was completely ignored in favor of loud criticism for the wallpaper app. Fans widely criticized Panels for seeming like a sell-out.

The app proved controversial because of its design, its pricing model ($49.99 per year or $11.99 per month), its aggressive ad placements, its poor handling of privacy, and the mere fact that it’s an app for wallpaper downloads. I think the criticism of the last factor points toward a problem with his audience failing to respect creative work, but the rest is very much fair game.

So why did this blow up in a way that his prior attempt to sell a self-branded shoe didn’t? I think it was a combination of things. For one, the current iPhone isn’t that big of an upgrade, leaving people without much to talk about. Brownlee’s app filled the gap that the phone did not.

But then there’s the unique role that Brownlee fills in the critical realm. As I noted earlier this year, Brownlee is a hugely authoritative reviewer—with the ability to sink companies with a single harsh review. That makes him look like someone who needs to be knocked down a peg.

And while Brownlee is a famously detail-oriented reviewer, something about the app felt like it hadn’t received a similar level of care.

For him to release a tech product of any kind, even a good one, invites scrutiny. And, unfortunately for him, he didn’t release a good one.

Turns out people don’t want wallpaper apps!

As one comment in a recent video put it, “Imagine ruining your entire reputation for a wallpaper app.”

Here’s the thing, though. Even if it was good, I think people would have loved to take aim at him in this case. When you’re a big-time creator, people want to knock you down a peg, and he has gained a reputation as a startup-killer. When people see a cash grab from someone who should know better, they have good reason to react.

This happens with everyone, from small-time journalists to big-name pop stars. But it’s especially risky if you’re a critic with a strong parasocial relationship with your viewership.

Brownlee has nearly 20 million YouTube subscribers—and that makes him an easy target. And I don’t think he’s developing high art with a wallpaper app. Something tells me he didn’t do the coding himself.

But was there room for him to create something that didn’t suck?

From left: Paul Schrader, Roger Ebert. I bet you can figure out which is which in this section. (workinpana/Flickr; Wikimedia Commons)

A tale of two critics who dabbled in film: One became one of the best screenwriters ever. The other became the best critic ever.

In the late 1960s, two men were building names for themselves in the world of film criticism. One, based in Los Angeles, had parlayed his college-era film review work into a regular role at a prominent underground newspaper. The other, based in Chicago, worked as a reviewer in a more mainstream newspaper.

Early on, each would get the screenwriting bug. For one, it would be a one-time dalliance with the other side of film-making that was successful for what it was, though not critically adored. For the other, it would be the start of a massive career that would frequently put him in conversation with the best filmmakers of his era.

The two critics-turned-screenwriters in question? One was Roger Ebert, who eventually became the film critic all other film critics aspired to be. The other was Paul Schrader, whose early dalliance in film criticism for the Los Angeles Free Press led him to become Martin Scorsese’s screenwriter of choice during his early years, and later a director of hit films like American Gigolo. In 2019, he finally received his first Oscar nomination for Best Original Screenplay for his religion-themed psychological thriller First Reformed—arguably a belated honor.

Not all of Schrader’s films are classics—2013’s Bret Easton Ellis-written The Canyons, which featured Lindsay Lohan and porn star James Deen, notably proved unpopular with critics—but when you’re the guy who wrote Raging Bull and Taxi Driver, you can do what you want in Hollywood.

So, what to say of Roger Ebert’s film career, then? Well, in the late 1960s and early 1970s, he worked with sexploitation director Russ Meyer on Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, a satire of the prior box-office hit Valley of the Dolls. Meyer, primarily an underground figure, had never worked on a big-budget studio film before. Neither had Ebert, who took a sabbatical from his job to work on the film.

But, as the trailer highlights, the arrogance was a little strong. I burst out laughing when the voiceover guy hit on the final line of the trailer: “This is not a sequel. There has not been anything like it.” (Did Ebert write that?)

Technically, that line is accurate. Despite the fact that the film was originally intended to be a full-on sequel, when Meyer was brought in, that concept was thrown out, and Ebert essentially wrote a film-length satire of the original film. While not a cultural phenomenon like the original, it was financially successful and maintained a cult following.

In a remembrance of the film from 1980, Ebert noted it’s surprising that the film exists in the first place:

At the time Russ Meyer and I were working on “BVD” I didn’t really understand how unusual the project was. But in hindsight I can recognize that the conditions of its making were almost miraculous. An independent X-rated filmmaker and an inexperienced screenwriter were brought into a major studio and given carte blanche to turn out a satire of one of the studio’s own hits. And “BVD” was made at a time when the studio’s own fortunes were so low that the movie was seen almost fatalistically, as a gamble that none of the studio executives really wanted to think about, so that there was a minimum of supervision (or even cognizance) from the Front Office.

Ultimately, the gambit worked. Like the original, the sequel made money and later earned a cult audience. But no, it’s not the lead item in Ebert’s famed bio.

But honestly, good on him that he tried it. It might have just made him the next Paul Schrader.

Gay Dad’s Leisure Noise, a prominent example of the critic-turned-artist narrative.

When the artist knows which strings to pull: The story of Gay Dad, the rock band with the worst name ever

When I heard about the MKBHD app failure, I most assuredly was the only person whose mind immediately went to the story of Gay Dad. Largely forgotten now, they were a rock band that seemed tailor-made for its audience.

And no, the audience they were trying to reach wasn’t really record buyers in stores. It was the British music press, whose ability to generate buzz would ensure many more record buyers would pick up his album. During this period, British music press buzz was so effective that it could break a band in America. Case in point: The Strokes.

How well did Cliff Jones understand this audience? Well, for one thing, he named his band “Gay Dad.” You don’t lead off with that kind of provocation unless you know it’s going to cause a media frenzy. Certainly, it stood out a lot more than Travis did.

Earlier in the 1990s, Jones wrote for The Face and Mojo at a time when Britpop dominated the land. He wrote some of the earliest features about Blur and Oasis, and as a result, he had a reputation for generating buzz for emerging acts himself. (One of his features about Oasis had this immortal title: “Never mind the bollocks here’s the sex Beatles.”)

He always harbored aspirations of being a rock star, however, and during this period, he started Gay Dad, which released its first album, Leisure Noise, in 1999.

Unlike many critical-voices-turned-auteurs, however, Jones actually didn’t do terribly with Gay Dad, at least at first. They appeared on Top of the Pops, which is kind of nuts, considering that they were a new band that came out of nowhere. (Did Jones use his music-industry connections to get the appearance?)

As a Britpop-obsessed American at the time, I owned a Gay Dad record back in the day, and I will say their second single “Joy!” still holds up as a refracted distillation of glam. (The music video, full of old photos from what appear to be lad mags, really highlights the skeezy image that they were going for.)

But critics, seeing someone who knew all the tricks for a successful initial roll-out, responded with skepticism. Here’s an example from The Guardian:

Gay Dad are the consummate 90s pop band in their media savvy. They also exemplify the industry malaise of putting the marketing cart before the horse of content (in this case, the foal). After only one hit, the jaunty “To Earth With Love,” it's time to dispel the hype with an album.

Sadly, Leisure Noise (even the title smacks of marketing and research) doesn't deliver. It's not excruciatingly bad, but neither is it very good. In a desperate search for a new pop concept, singer and strategist Cliff Jones has gone for a post-prog, pre-punk revisionism which attempts a presumably ironic take on the 1976 era.

The hype on the album, driven by an artist who knew how to pull the pop-music levers, was ultimately a dead-end. While bands of its era like Oasis, Lush, and Blur have reunited to huge success, nobody’s asking for a Gay Dad reunion. While the initial record charted in the top 20 in the U.K., the second album sank like a stone once the shock factor of the name wore off. As a Blender review of that second album put it:

Nineteen ninety-nine: As Oasis sink into tabloid drug hell, the U.K. indie scene needs a new messiah. Gay Dad singer Cliff Jones seems to fit the crown perfectly with his Evan Dando pout and Gallagher-lite arrogance. Even better, the London trio’s glam-thrash debut single, “To Earth With Love,” promises a new wave of Britpop. Then—nothing: Gay Dad disappear, only to emerge three years later … as Aerosmith.

And it wasn’t like Gay Dad was a unit built on strong foundations. The band went through so many member changes that it’s hard to see it as anything other than a Cliff Jones solo project.

Still, though: If you’re smart enough to know how to get attention, you should use the tools at your disposal.

In a recent interview with Lachlan Keane for the zine Popscene: The Relationship of Britpop and the Media, Jones attempted to make a nuanced point about hype in relation to both how own band and Menswear, a similarly hyped band, drew attention through the media:

My band was one that was tagged with the label hype. It’s not really hype at all. It’s just not every band can have a number one, you know, I had a top 10 and a bunch of top 20s. Menswear did the same, not everybody can be Oasis. Hype is bullshit, it doesn’t really exist. If you’re cool enough to get column inches, and you cross over into the tabloids, that’s just you being good at what you do. Hype is something that people pin on things if the music doesn't live up to expectation. I would challenge anyone, go and listen to that Menswear album, go and listen to the Gay Dad record, it’s the equal of anything that was done by Blur or Oasis in terms of the actual songs. But not everybody can be top of the pile, that’s the way it rolls. Was it hype? It’s never hype.

I can see why Jones thinks this way, but I think he undersells himself by trying to undermine the obvious savvy his work clearly had from a marketing standpoint. At the time Gay Dad appeared, the biggest British band of the period was Travis, which opted for introspection over something more in-your-face. (The Man Who, released in the U.K. two weeks before Leisure Noise, and with a leadoff track clearly inspired by “Wonderwall,” remains one of my favorite albums.)

Ultimately, Gay Dad’s sound was at odds with where British rock was going, which favored mellower bands who didn’t call themselves Gay Dad. A critic can have a good idea of what other critics like, but he can’t see the future.