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John Gruber jumps the shark

whydoeseverythingsuck.com

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Re: John Gruber jumps the shark

#61

Post by jerf »

dhimes wrote: post #48
raganwald wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, I don't mind so much that the origin is lost, it becomes a pleasant bit of trivia I will inflict upon my hapless colleagues one day, just as I now explain exactly what the phrase "core dump" really means. But in this case I do like keeping true to the specific meaning even if the origin is lost in antiquity. I feel it's a useful distinction to make. As an example, I would say that some years ago John Dvorak jum…

A few years ago I heard Henry Winkler (who played "the Fonz," for those who don't know) give an interview on some radio show (probably NPR). They asked him about the phrase, and he said what was interesting to him about it was that after the "jump the shark" episode the show began attaining its highest ratings ever.

To me, that's a critical aspect of the term. They are out of ideas, they know it, and they shoot straight for pandering.

People pander for a reason. It works.

There's also a signaling mechanism involved in the use of the term, which is probably part of why everyone leaps so fast to declare that everything has jumped the shark. "I, sophisticated me, have noticed that X is out of ideas and is now just pandering and spinning. You, the plebians, may still tune in for a while, but I in my sophistication have already noticed the downfall beginning." In my opinion, to really know for sure when a shark was jumped takes time. It's like trying to declare five days after an album comes out that people will consider it a classic in 30 years; you really can't do that, or at least you can't actually be sure. The only way to apply the test of time is with time.

Re: John Gruber jumps the shark

#62

Post by Lewisham »

danh wrote: post #56
ZeroGravitas wrote: post #24

Funnily enough, my own thoughts about Gruber becoming annoying recently (after reading him for years) is because Gruber has started commenting on things he doesn't understand the facts of e.g. codec patents. He'll just come up with some pro-Apple spin and go with that, actual reality is often replaced with spiteful snark. e.g. http://daringfireball.net/linked/2010/06/03/android-battery-... The first thing I did with…

Also (from right now) it seems that Gruber doesn't know what browser sniffing is (or at least pretends to), but still has an opinion: http://daringfireball.net/linked/2010/06/04/html5-safari-ope...

Yeah, this piece really riled me.

I agree with the original post, he has been pushing harder and harder on Apple doing the right things with its control complex, whereas previously he wouldn't have done. If you swapped "Apple" from some of the pieces on the App Store and HTML5 stuff with "Microsoft" or "Adobe", you could be sure he'd be a frothy mess.

I loved the Gruber of old. Where's he gone? Why is it just "If you don't love Apple, you can git out?" Fortunately, at least Wil Shipley has been holding his feet to the fire on Twitter, but I don't know why Gruber's gone this route at all.

Re: John Gruber jumps the shark

#63

Post by boucher »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #24

Funnily enough, my own thoughts about Gruber becoming annoying recently (after reading him for years) is because Gruber has started commenting on things he doesn't understand the facts of e.g. codec patents. He'll just come up with some pro-Apple spin and go with that, actual reality is often replaced with spiteful snark. e.g. http://daringfireball.net/linked/2010/06/03/android-battery-... The first thing I did with…

Unfortunately, it started a few years ago when Gruber took a break from writing anything interesting and decided to focus all of his energy for months on the thoroughly uninteresting wi-fi macbook hack story (on which he was ultimately pretty wrong).

There have been some real gems in the last year, like when Gruber took it upon himself to declare the A4 the most advanced mobile computing chip ever created (despite knowing essentially nothing about what the A4 actually was).

Re: John Gruber jumps the shark

#64

Post by dhimes »

jerf wrote: post #61
dhimes wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A few years ago I heard Henry Winkler (who played "the Fonz," for those who don't know) give an interview on some radio show (probably NPR). They asked him about the phrase, and he said what was interesting to him about it was that after the "jump the shark" episode the show began attaining its highest ratings ever.

To me, that's a critical aspect of the term. They are out of ideas, they know it, and they shoot straight for pandering. People pander for a reason. It works . There's also a signaling mechanism involved in the use of the term, which is probably part of why everyone leaps so fast to declare that everything has jumped the shark. "I, sophisticated me, have noticed that X is out of ideas and is now just pandering and sp…

I agree with you about signaling, but I thought there might be another effect here. The people that started the term sounded like they watched the show when they were young. It could have simply been that they revisited the show when they were a bit older, and realized "it sucks." Not because the show was very different, but because they were.

I didn't watch the show (although I was/am the right age to have done so), so I don't have an opinion as to whether the show got better, worse, or stayed the same after that episode.

Re: John Gruber jumps the shark

#65

Post by jacobolus »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #24

Funnily enough, my own thoughts about Gruber becoming annoying recently (after reading him for years) is because Gruber has started commenting on things he doesn't understand the facts of e.g. codec patents. He'll just come up with some pro-Apple spin and go with that, actual reality is often replaced with spiteful snark. e.g. http://daringfireball.net/linked/2010/06/03/android-battery-... The first thing I did with…

> Actually Bing shows a random professional image, not one of your choice from your photo album.

I think you kind of missed the point. To whit: putting an image behind the search engine homepage is a stupid gimmick which adds nothing to the value to my search results.

Re: John Gruber jumps the shark

#66

Post by jacobolus »

danh wrote: post #56
ZeroGravitas wrote: post #24

Funnily enough, my own thoughts about Gruber becoming annoying recently (after reading him for years) is because Gruber has started commenting on things he doesn't understand the facts of e.g. codec patents. He'll just come up with some pro-Apple spin and go with that, actual reality is often replaced with spiteful snark. e.g. http://daringfireball.net/linked/2010/06/03/android-battery-... The first thing I did with…

Also (from right now) it seems that Gruber doesn't know what browser sniffing is (or at least pretends to), but still has an opinion: http://daringfireball.net/linked/2010/06/04/html5-safari-ope...

What’s hard to understand about Apple’s pages?

> The demos below show how Apple’s Safari web browser supports the capabilities of web standards such as HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript.

Gruber’s point is this: if Opera wants some better “HTML5” demos (presumably that work across browsers, and don’t just “use HTML5 as a buzzword”) they can easily make some themselves. Why should Apple be responsible for making sure their Safari promotion showcase works perfectly in every other browser?

As for why they block other browsers: probably some or most of the demos break in some way or another. If a naive user with (say) Firefox visited a page and the layout looked like shit and nothing worked, the user would quite reasonably think that Apple’s site was broken.

Re: John Gruber jumps the shark

#67

Post by smackfu »

cpr wrote: post #60
smackfu wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, I hate the "claim chowder". The worst kind of journalism.

Why? Shouldn't journalists (including Gruber) be held to some kind of truthy standard about their claims?

He spends a lot time calling out predictions by financial analysts. I'm not sure what the point of that is. It's just like, "Ha! iPad was not a failure, in your face for predicting it would do poorly!"

Re: John Gruber jumps the shark

#68

Post by marbletiles »

Gruber hasn't changed in the slightest. The only thing that has changed is sentiment here towards Apple. Because you disagree with him, you're more likely to judge him harshly.

I don't agree with him entirely often either, but god am I glad there's someone making the case for the App Store, mostly coherently.

Tech is driven by sentiment much more than people would like to admit. Android was a not-quite-there until IO 2010, now it's the new hot. What changed? Very little, technically. A lot, rhetorically.

Same here.

Re: John Gruber jumps the shark

#69

Post by MrRage »

cpr wrote: post #60
smackfu wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, I hate the "claim chowder". The worst kind of journalism.

Why? Shouldn't journalists (including Gruber) be held to some kind of truthy standard about their claims?

I wouldn't consider Gruber a journalist, but of course journalist should be held to a standard. The problem is when a majority of what journalist do is comment or report on what other journalist say.

I think there's a parallel in today's popular "news" shows. It seems like Olbermann spends most of his time mad at what Beck said and Beck is mad at what Olbermann said, ad nausium.

Re: John Gruber jumps the shark

#70

Post by mturmon »

WiseWeasel wrote: post #54
frou_dh wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This needs to be broadcast to the entire internet population. It's incredible how widespread (and instantly reached for) the term and its conventionally spelled sibling have become.

The difference is that there are (seldom) times when it's socially acceptable to use the word "fanboy", but it's never OK to say "fanboi".

The fanboy phenomenon is real: people, usually guys, often younger, who idolize one brand of hardware, usually because it's what they own. It's just like:

http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2009/08/28/automobiles/0830...

So, we might as well have a word for it.

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