Current: A New TV Network for Masochists and Douchebags

This looks really fascinating.
Well, its a little over a week old, and Al Gore's brainchild TV network has overwhelmingly confirmed all of our expectations for its pandering shittiness. As I applied to work for the San Francisco-based network about 74 times, for a variety of jobs (mostly writing), I was eager to see what kind of brilliance the writers they DID hire were going to come up with. And boy, was I ever impressed.

After viewing the channel for approximately 30 minutes (which was all I could stomach), I surmised that they must've hired a couple shitty political bloggers, a jokewriter from Nickelodeon and the people responsible for Mountain Dew commercials. Because that's basically what the whole network is: a boring "news segment" with a vague underlying political message, introduced with a couple lame-ass jokes delivered by some Abercrombie-model flunkie jackoff, then a bunch of "extreme" whiz-bang graphics and techno music. Oh, and the constant commercials, whose sound and fury is almost (but not quite) as irritating as the content.

Imagine "Channel One", that TV show many of us were forced to ignore during homeroom, except now you're not at school. You're in your own living room, holding a remote control, eating chips with beer and the total freedom to watch a show that isn't uninteresting, poorly-written, pseudo-educational garbage. That's what watching Current is like.

See, the whole "Extreme Games Rebellious Youth" image the entire network is trying so hard to project is flawed at its core. Its the embodiment of the establishment's complete misunderstanding of youth culture, and what is "cool". We don't want "extreme" anything because we're not all a bunch of hyperactive crackhead morons with no attention span who like to jump out of planes on snowboards and shit.

If this channel truly understood their demographic, they would at least be marginally aware of things like irony, apathy and humor -- which are our preferred methods of communication. Nobody my age gives a shit about your "revolutionary new form of television" with youthful minorities running around with digital cameras, videotaping fucking break dancers and graffiti artists. Did you not even bother to observe the stuff that HAS connected, like the Daily Show or Best Week Ever or Ali G or even Bill fucking O'Reilly?

What is it exactly that Current thinks makes itself so "revolutionary"? The fact that viewers can submit their own videos and news stories, that the youth can "take over the media and make their voices heard"? Yeah, that sounds great, then I see Al Gore out peddling the big "viewer's content" prize winner, which was essentially 7 minutes about people who like to parachute off cliffs. Did nobody alert Mr. Gore to the existence of the Discovery Channel, ESPN 2 through 87, the local nightly news or the 76 million other places one could find a boring story like that?

Also, I know they're hard up for advertisers, but running a bunch of ads for a band like "Flipsyde" isn't doing much to help Current's cause. But in some ways, it makes certain kind of unintended sense. "Flipsyde" (with a fucking "y" - what is this, the 80's?) is basically the Current TV of the music industry - a boring and unremarkable pastiche of misunderstood trends and blatant unoriginality. It could be the soundtrack to the entire network.

Also, choosing to format the network with 5 to 7 minute "pods" instead of real full-length shows is one of the most insulting and moronic decisions of them all. Basically, they thought the "younger folks" would be incapable of paying attention to anything longer than a music video, but the result is an entire channel of incoherent, repetitive randomness broken up by commercials for bands that intentionally mis-spell their name to seem cool.

And if all this wasn't bad enough, to add insult to injury, they have that stupid little "progress meter" in the lower left hand corner of the screen to let us know, at all times, how much is left in the segment that we're watching. Let me assure you, Current - knowing when your crap is going to be over with doesn't make your crap any less crappy.

Am I just bitter because I didn't get hired? A little, yeah. But mostly because I'm tired of seeing this much money, opportunity and potential squandered on yet another depressing example of the establishment trying to appeal to youth by pretending to be anti-establishment, then looking like a total fucking baboon in the process. Bravo, guys. I might not get to write for your "revolutionary new form of television", but at least I won't be out of a job in 6 months (tops).