OMG totally lost track of what he was saying as soon as I noticed you spelled 'preying' as 'praying' ... Just seemed incongruous on a video of Will Self
Why does it take Will Self 7 1/2 minutes to say - The internet is commercial, it's anonymity is abused, it reduces human contact, it's not as good as talking to someone face-to-face. There, 10 seconds tops and everyone already knew all those things anyway. I'm sorry but Will Self is so egotistical and pretentious that he agrees to an online video of himself to berate online a-literacy. He's incredibly intelligent but absolutely not very clever at all.
@hellowacko2003 That's the basics of what he's trying to say, but the real value of this video is in the rich way he conveys these points. It promotes a deeper understanding - I wouldn't be interested at all if he merely said "the internet is all of these things". Yes, he may be egotistical and a hypocrite to the point where his own message is a form of social media, but he certainly highlights the points in an engaging and economical way.
@sagaciospianoman I agree to a point but I find his rhetoric steeped in self-absorbtion and he has always conveyed a belittling of his subject matter. Which more often than not is the human race. He is a deeply bitter man who finds solace in the virtues of his own intelligence and lives for the affirmation that his views are special and deeply intellectual. They aren't, they are pretty shallow, unoriginal and peppered with vacuous, self-gratifying, long words.
I've been reading Will Self for many years now and always find his work and ideas to be intelligent and thought provoking. I have developed a simple rule of thumb when discussing his work with other people. If someone says they find him pretentious it generally means that they are too dumb to understand what he is saying.
@Squareeyes23 I agree with this. I think people term him pretentious because of his rich vocabulary. However it is precisely the way he uses words that makes his ideas so easily understandable and interseting.
I FELL SICK :( i don't know how i ended up here ,i remember seeing this guy about 15 years ago ,i always thought he was a creep then ,and now that i see hes still working for the same corporate greedy white collar thieves ,i say whats NEW ! :(
Yes, I agree about the internet part, but where I live (Barcelona), the clerks in the bookshop I go to would rather not be bothered-that's the signal I get anyway. And then if we go to the larger places (mega book chains), they have run the smaller ones out of business, so why should I care about supporting them? And maybe a few clerks do care about books, etc., but most don't give a damn I think. They'd rather get home and watch the latest tv series or get on facebook or whatever it is they do.
@bryant12361 Amen to that. There are very few bookshops that deserve to stay in business, and those that do deserve it probably will. Amazons servers are much more friendly than the average bookshop.
After almost two and a half decades on this planet, I can probably count the light conversations with store staff I've had on one hand... Let alone complex, mediated or personalised experiences. Most shop staff either aren't paid enough, or don't have the level of depth or knowledge to recommend or push you towards purchases anyway. And I don't blame them for that in the slightest, I just don't see how it's a mark against the internet when all my shopping experiences have been just as simple.
Also google "U Want Me 2 Kill Him?" for a vanity fair interview on the subject. Seems the only time in history someone has arranged their own murder. Not insurance fraud i'm not really dead murder but real murder.
Shit i think "two boys" is about the stabbing that happened near where i used to live. We used to smoke weed in the alleyway exactly where the stabbing happened. Shit. Google "Boy, 14, 'posed as spy to arrange his own murder'". Haven't heard of a similar case before or since and one or boy of the boys was obviously mentally ill but it could only have happened through the internet. Ok maybe it could have been possible through written correspondence and snail mail. I had forgotten all about it.
actually, if im going to buy something i would almost prefer to have no interaction with some twat pretending to care what im looking for...its far simpler clicking a mouse!
his views of friendly bookshop sellers are horribly out-dated!! most people working in shops couldnt really give a shit whether their customer gets good service or not....they just want the paycheck to go through before the weekend!! "real" business has become this way too im afraid to say Will Self....due mainly to global corporations, retailers, companies controlling everything with little value on anything except making more money.
Contingent, mediated, nuanced, paradigms, nascent, egregious, blah blah blah - lots of big words to tell us that hey, sellers on the internet aren't really our friends, but simply trying to sell us stuff. Wow, I had no idea. (And LOL at trying to walk into my local bookshop and finding that anybody who works there is remotely interested in talking to a potential customer).
@aman9619 You need to find a new bookshop to go to. The experience of a real conversation with someone that has a history of recommending books and who is themselves a big reader is invaluable.
As far as the big words go, give me smaller, single words that are the equivalent in meaning to each of the big ones you've listed and then you might have a case for disparaging their use.
Watching this, I can't forget how rude he was when he met K. Pilkington. He can be as interesting and clever and insightful as he wishes, he'd still be an asshole to me.
i think Will has a great mind! but i dont fully agree here. i dont think the internet makes people promiscuous or somehow feed the notion of the psychotic within in some way. as an example, i formed a relationship with my beautiful girlfriend over facebook, we have been together for quite a while and we're happy! we chatted as friends first as i chat and discuss with many other people on it. as is always the case, the integrity of the invention is in the user! in my opinion
Fuck it. Book for 99p with reviews, or nine pound ninenety nine with a @recomendation@ from a cock munger!!!! I'd rather trust my own buckhasts!!!! Get live and swell, no time for guthers and guthersender.!!! ok ! ..... Not got! good sorry ok i didnt know, now but theyn could understand the rest of my elbows, of govk off. fuck ooffffffffffffffffffffff
@BelfastAtheist You come across as quite a volatile person. The person commenting was stating that he expected pretentious people to come and comment due to being butthurt about what WS says, he wasn't saying the video was pretentious. I think you reacted because deep down you think WS in a pretentious cock so instantly associated it with him. In this I would agree with you. He is a pretentious cock.
Loneliness in the real world leads to the need to poke and be 'promiscuous' in an online context.
Is this why Self has a Twitter account? I do enjoy Will's journalism, commentary and his insights on society, but this is very much an attempt to distance himself from a phenomenon that he has become part of.
@kitchenaut Not really since his twitter account just links to his website blog which itself is mostly excerpts from newspaper articles he has written.
Yes. That should be "preying on", as in "predator": not "praying", as in "meditating on". Quite logical really. Another wrong version you often hear is "it's been playing on my mind". No. Preying. As in "predator".
Don't agree with this piece at all, btw. Automated buying advice is an easy target, but online communication is much richer. I know social outcasts who abuse social media, and others who shun it entirely. But glad Self got to pull all those phrases out of the humidor with authoritive headlining.
Book retail isn't personalized. The alienation of eCommerce is just the alienation of capitalism. It just pushes the values of capitalism even further.
@manychefsbroth You missing the point maybe? Self lives in a world were the internet is a prominent means of disseminating information, this being disseminated through the internet is something that is unavoidable. I don't think its particularly problematic to critique the internet on the internet, if you want to change something you don't withdraw from it. No one says you can't publish book that exposes anti-capitalist because it the publishing industry is capitalist.
Am I missing something? I'm confused how Will got from using an online, impersonal experience of book retail to a friend advising you on time you spend reading books or money spent buying them. The fact I purchase any item online does not stop friends of mine 'in the real world' being conscious of my activity and thus sharing their thoughts. It just so happens I shop online because I can browse at my leisure without being persuaded and pressurised by poorly trained and pushy sales people.
It's the relationship with "pushy" salespeople that I think Will wants you to experience. It's the clever act of bartering that helps us to read people. It helps us to reward ourselves, often at the expense of those "poorly trained pushy salespeople" you speak of.
It helps you to develop people skills that you really can't learn by shopping and clicking on an Amazon web page.
I love these guys with very little idea of life, peddling his with pompous self satisfied ideas, labeling and devaluing as much as he can intellectually surround. Will ! youre a first class fuck wit !!! I mean that in the nicest possible way :), but really who really are you to make all these summary poorly founded judgements. I guess if you speak slow and look ernest, enough some folk will will grimace and shake their head seriously in agreement. But really ?????
OMG totally lost track of what he was saying as soon as I noticed you spelled 'preying' as 'praying' ... Just seemed incongruous on a video of Will Self
nags2bitches 4 days ago
Why does it take Will Self 7 1/2 minutes to say - The internet is commercial, it's anonymity is abused, it reduces human contact, it's not as good as talking to someone face-to-face. There, 10 seconds tops and everyone already knew all those things anyway. I'm sorry but Will Self is so egotistical and pretentious that he agrees to an online video of himself to berate online a-literacy. He's incredibly intelligent but absolutely not very clever at all.
hellowacko2003 2 weeks ago
@hellowacko2003 That's the basics of what he's trying to say, but the real value of this video is in the rich way he conveys these points. It promotes a deeper understanding - I wouldn't be interested at all if he merely said "the internet is all of these things". Yes, he may be egotistical and a hypocrite to the point where his own message is a form of social media, but he certainly highlights the points in an engaging and economical way.
sagaciospianoman 1 week ago
@sagaciospianoman I agree to a point but I find his rhetoric steeped in self-absorbtion and he has always conveyed a belittling of his subject matter. Which more often than not is the human race. He is a deeply bitter man who finds solace in the virtues of his own intelligence and lives for the affirmation that his views are special and deeply intellectual. They aren't, they are pretty shallow, unoriginal and peppered with vacuous, self-gratifying, long words.
hellowacko2003 1 week ago
i feel inspired to write a comment, as it seems everyone else has.
PretendNorwegian 3 weeks ago
I've been reading Will Self for many years now and always find his work and ideas to be intelligent and thought provoking. I have developed a simple rule of thumb when discussing his work with other people. If someone says they find him pretentious it generally means that they are too dumb to understand what he is saying.
Squareeyes23 3 weeks ago
@Squareeyes23 Yeah, or they haven't read any of his stuff at all
grazingabout 2 weeks ago
@Squareeyes23 I agree with this. I think people term him pretentious because of his rich vocabulary. However it is precisely the way he uses words that makes his ideas so easily understandable and interseting.
sagaciospianoman 1 week ago
Comment removed
paulb511 3 weeks ago
is he trolling... what planet does he live on? lol!
heeerro 1 month ago
2:44 - should read 'preying' - evidently whoever produced the transcript is not as smart as Will.
aaybtfw 1 month ago
I FELL SICK :( i don't know how i ended up here ,i remember seeing this guy about 15 years ago ,i always thought he was a creep then ,and now that i see hes still working for the same corporate greedy white collar thieves ,i say whats NEW ! :(
badslabber 1 month ago
Yes, I agree about the internet part, but where I live (Barcelona), the clerks in the bookshop I go to would rather not be bothered-that's the signal I get anyway. And then if we go to the larger places (mega book chains), they have run the smaller ones out of business, so why should I care about supporting them? And maybe a few clerks do care about books, etc., but most don't give a damn I think. They'd rather get home and watch the latest tv series or get on facebook or whatever it is they do.
bryant12361 2 months ago
@bryant12361 Amen to that. There are very few bookshops that deserve to stay in business, and those that do deserve it probably will. Amazons servers are much more friendly than the average bookshop.
stevenally 2 months ago
Think Will would be well pissed off if he'd seen that 'praying/preying' gaffe.
veracity74 2 months ago
After almost two and a half decades on this planet, I can probably count the light conversations with store staff I've had on one hand... Let alone complex, mediated or personalised experiences. Most shop staff either aren't paid enough, or don't have the level of depth or knowledge to recommend or push you towards purchases anyway. And I don't blame them for that in the slightest, I just don't see how it's a mark against the internet when all my shopping experiences have been just as simple.
ArtificialIdiot 2 months ago
@ArtificialIdiot Maybe in big cities and large urban areas but not for shops in smaller towns.
bobokk 2 months ago
I agree with a lot of his points but I have never had a complex, mediated or personalised experience in a bookshop or any other shop for that matter
tescocadaver 2 months ago
Every time I didn't understand a word I googled it, I've got 17 tabs open now
TheSludgeMan 2 months ago 2
"People may be praying on that exact gulf"?
Did you mean preying? ;)
Gr4Ss13 3 months ago
Also google "U Want Me 2 Kill Him?" for a vanity fair interview on the subject. Seems the only time in history someone has arranged their own murder. Not insurance fraud i'm not really dead murder but real murder.
annuity100 3 months ago
Shit i think "two boys" is about the stabbing that happened near where i used to live. We used to smoke weed in the alleyway exactly where the stabbing happened. Shit. Google "Boy, 14, 'posed as spy to arrange his own murder'". Haven't heard of a similar case before or since and one or boy of the boys was obviously mentally ill but it could only have happened through the internet. Ok maybe it could have been possible through written correspondence and snail mail. I had forgotten all about it.
annuity100 3 months ago
WIll Self comes out as a dreamy romantic.
BBCZero 3 months ago
actually, if im going to buy something i would almost prefer to have no interaction with some twat pretending to care what im looking for...its far simpler clicking a mouse!
daner31 3 months ago
his views of friendly bookshop sellers are horribly out-dated!! most people working in shops couldnt really give a shit whether their customer gets good service or not....they just want the paycheck to go through before the weekend!! "real" business has become this way too im afraid to say Will Self....due mainly to global corporations, retailers, companies controlling everything with little value on anything except making more money.
daner31 3 months ago
Contingent, mediated, nuanced, paradigms, nascent, egregious, blah blah blah - lots of big words to tell us that hey, sellers on the internet aren't really our friends, but simply trying to sell us stuff. Wow, I had no idea. (And LOL at trying to walk into my local bookshop and finding that anybody who works there is remotely interested in talking to a potential customer).
aman9619 4 months ago 2
@aman9619 You need to find a new bookshop to go to. The experience of a real conversation with someone that has a history of recommending books and who is themselves a big reader is invaluable.
As far as the big words go, give me smaller, single words that are the equivalent in meaning to each of the big ones you've listed and then you might have a case for disparaging their use.
frantorazzo 4 months ago
Watching this, I can't forget how rude he was when he met K. Pilkington. He can be as interesting and clever and insightful as he wishes, he'd still be an asshole to me.
surementpas 4 months ago
@surementpas omg exact same experience for me.
ryandrums1001 4 months ago
@surementpas He was taking the piss.
TheDensley7 3 months ago
@TheDensley7 Still can't believe people take that seriously!
rulesandwisdom 3 months ago 2
i think Will has a great mind! but i dont fully agree here. i dont think the internet makes people promiscuous or somehow feed the notion of the psychotic within in some way. as an example, i formed a relationship with my beautiful girlfriend over facebook, we have been together for quite a while and we're happy! we chatted as friends first as i chat and discuss with many other people on it. as is always the case, the integrity of the invention is in the user! in my opinion
alhazed 4 months ago
What is the music at the beginning please
uzideath 4 months ago
@uzideath From 'Two Boys', by Nico Muhly
Could well be the Overture, but that's a guess.
l2ockstar 4 months ago
@l2ockstar Thanks for that it is by Nico Muhly the track is called Mothertongue Pt1
I wouldnt have found it, Cheers
uzideath 4 months ago
I met him once. He was very rude.
brunsk123 5 months ago
@brunsk123 Really? In a patronising way? Where did you meet him too?
TheDensley7 4 months ago
@brunsk123 he comes off like a bit of a gasbag (:
heeerro 1 month ago
Great vid but you spelt 'preying' incorrectly ;-) 2.48
MartyFunkhouser00 5 months ago
Hmmm. I've never actually been into a shop and had someone pay me any real attention as Will is describing. Maybe I'm too young.
amberience 5 months ago
Fuck it. Book for 99p with reviews, or nine pound ninenety nine with a @recomendation@ from a cock munger!!!! I'd rather trust my own buckhasts!!!! Get live and swell, no time for guthers and guthersender.!!! ok ! ..... Not got! good sorry ok i didnt know, now but theyn could understand the rest of my elbows, of govk off. fuck ooffffffffffffffffffffff
signogun 6 months ago
yes, pretentious youtube soapbox philosophers, let the butthurt flow through you.
ttasi7 6 months ago 5
@ttasi7 I often hope that people who use the brainless phrase "butthurt" will be evetually hit by a speeding train.
nakedmambo 5 months ago
@nakedmambo lol, you're one of those butthurt tiresome douche
ttasi7 5 months ago
@ttasi7 You seem to know a lot about it faggot boy.
nakedmambo 5 months ago
@ttasi7
How is this pretentious? Can you give examples or are you merely thowing the word around erroneously; as people usually do?
BelfastAtheist 2 months ago
@BelfastAtheist You come across as quite a volatile person. The person commenting was stating that he expected pretentious people to come and comment due to being butthurt about what WS says, he wasn't saying the video was pretentious. I think you reacted because deep down you think WS in a pretentious cock so instantly associated it with him. In this I would agree with you. He is a pretentious cock.
SilentSlumber3 1 month ago
@SilentSlumber3
That's not nice. Glad to hear you agree with me, but I love Self. :(
BelfastAtheist 1 month ago
Some english people really do look like muppets.
Papachair 6 months ago
This has been flagged as spam show
@Papachair Let's see what you look like then buddy
1978deus 5 months ago
@Papachair Is it worse than behaving like muppets? The default position of some nations.
nakedmambo 5 months ago
@nakedmambo haha, this made me laugh
heeerro 1 month ago
blah blah this stuff is stupid
pmidnite420 6 months ago
how silly, the internet allows us to see the messages explicitly
instead of being blinded by the differences in appearance, social courtesy, bull shit to delay us from the truth
plus the internet is more time consuming
who is to tell me that interaction on the internet is not just as rewarding if not more than interactions in real life
sex drugs and sports are great but i cant be doing that at work
try living in LA and not getting lead roles
MrFan32 6 months ago
i would like to have a chat with this guy :D
kouradoman 6 months ago 6
Loneliness in the real world leads to the need to poke and be 'promiscuous' in an online context.
Is this why Self has a Twitter account? I do enjoy Will's journalism, commentary and his insights on society, but this is very much an attempt to distance himself from a phenomenon that he has become part of.
kitchenaut 7 months ago
Comment removed
roomonfire500 6 months ago
@kitchenaut Not really since his twitter account just links to his website blog which itself is mostly excerpts from newspaper articles he has written.
1978deus 5 months ago
Yes. That should be "preying on", as in "predator": not "praying", as in "meditating on". Quite logical really. Another wrong version you often hear is "it's been playing on my mind". No. Preying. As in "predator".
I feel better now.
lewisrain 7 months ago
Will needs to understand how recommendation systems work before bashing them.
mlokane 8 months ago
preying, not praying.
Don't agree with this piece at all, btw. Automated buying advice is an easy target, but online communication is much richer. I know social outcasts who abuse social media, and others who shun it entirely. But glad Self got to pull all those phrases out of the humidor with authoritive headlining.
nostriluu 8 months ago 2
This stuff is for grown ups
djrinpoche 8 months ago
Book retail isn't personalized. The alienation of eCommerce is just the alienation of capitalism. It just pushes the values of capitalism even further.
clouddonshore 8 months ago
Wonderful - every commentator here is such a graphic representation of what Will is describing :D Oops, does that make me the same?...
dewaudi0 8 months ago
Dear ENO: The spelling is "preying" not "praying.
oneillsdc5 8 months ago
@oneillsdc5
Maybe he meant it as a double entendre?
HSOUIXZ 8 months ago
I cant help but feel this is hypocritical and pretentious. How well would this video do if it was not for social media?
manychefsbroth 8 months ago
@manychefsbroth You missing the point maybe? Self lives in a world were the internet is a prominent means of disseminating information, this being disseminated through the internet is something that is unavoidable. I don't think its particularly problematic to critique the internet on the internet, if you want to change something you don't withdraw from it. No one says you can't publish book that exposes anti-capitalist because it the publishing industry is capitalist.
almanacofsleep 5 months ago
Am I missing something? I'm confused how Will got from using an online, impersonal experience of book retail to a friend advising you on time you spend reading books or money spent buying them. The fact I purchase any item online does not stop friends of mine 'in the real world' being conscious of my activity and thus sharing their thoughts. It just so happens I shop online because I can browse at my leisure without being persuaded and pressurised by poorly trained and pushy sales people.
manychefsbroth 8 months ago
@manychefsbroth
It's the relationship with "pushy" salespeople that I think Will wants you to experience. It's the clever act of bartering that helps us to read people. It helps us to reward ourselves, often at the expense of those "poorly trained pushy salespeople" you speak of.
It helps you to develop people skills that you really can't learn by shopping and clicking on an Amazon web page.
HSOUIXZ 8 months ago
Great video I enjoyed this very much and I as much concerned and I feel that I have fallen prey too in ways. Ha!
ThyReturner 8 months ago
I love these guys with very little idea of life, peddling his with pompous self satisfied ideas, labeling and devaluing as much as he can intellectually surround. Will ! youre a first class fuck wit !!! I mean that in the nicest possible way :), but really who really are you to make all these summary poorly founded judgements. I guess if you speak slow and look ernest, enough some folk will will grimace and shake their head seriously in agreement. But really ?????
craigtindale1 8 months ago
@craigtindale1 My thoughts exactly. Well said.
manychefsbroth 8 months ago
Very interesting, but I'll agree with previous posters. Preying, not praying.
chaotess 8 months ago
preying not praying surely?
jonb200 8 months ago
Oh Will, you lost me at praying.
bowbrick 8 months ago
@bowbrick
Don't you think it's quite likely that someone else was responsible for the editing, rather then Will Self ?
TheSorrow1O1 8 months ago
I have never prayed on any kind of gulf. I'm not religious.
theidiotsarewinning 8 months ago