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John Gruber jumps the shark

whydoeseverythingsuck.com

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Re: John Gruber jumps the shark

#21

Post by Maktab »

niceguy101 wrote: post #20
gjm11 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The irony is that Gruber's fame originates from the outrage related to his app rejection. Huh? Gruber's fame, such as it is, originates from the fact that for years he has been writing a blog filled with mostly-Apple-related stuff that lots of people (mostly Apple users) like reading. Daring Fireball has been a big noise in Apple-land since before there even was an App Store.

I stand corrected. Thanks for the info. I came to know about the site after that app rejection. Thought the site came into light after that issue. My bad.

Gruber never had an app rejected and he doesn't have any apps in the AppStore. Are you sure you're thinking of the same site?

Re: John Gruber jumps the shark

#22

Post by gjm11 »

Maktab wrote: post #21
niceguy101 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I stand corrected. Thanks for the info. I came to know about the site after that app rejection. Thought the site came into light after that issue. My bad.

Gruber never had an app rejected and he doesn't have any apps in the AppStore. Are you sure you're thinking of the same site?

He's posted quite a lot about some App Store rejections. I expect some people first heard about him in that context.

Re: John Gruber jumps the shark

#23

Post by [deleted] »

noonespecial wrote: post #19
raganwald wrote: post #2

Nit: "Jumped the shark" or "Jumping the Shark" does not mean "Has started to suck." It's a specific subset of suckage where the subject is clearly aware that they have no new ideas and resorts to ever-more desperate tricks to try to appear fresh and new.

I know (especially by the quick upvotes) that you are preaching to the choir here, but I have noticed a lot of non-thechnical, non-geek, never-even-heard-of-happy-days types beginning to use this phrase (incorrectly) just in the past few months. I've given up explaining who the Fonz is and just accepted this new reality. Once a meme goes mainstream, the primary idiom dilutes with use until its just a curios catch phr…

[deleted]

Re: John Gruber jumps the shark

#24

Post by ZeroGravitas »

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 my iPhone 3G was turn off some battery draining options I didn't need. Some people, not me, actually turned off 3G altogether. No, it wasn't fun. iPhone and smartphone battery life is an issue for everyone.

http://daringfireball.net/linked/2010/06/03/google-pictures

Actually Bing shows a random professional image, not one of your choice from your photo album. Is that not an important enough difference to stand in the way of publishing this hilarious jab at Google.

http://daringfireball.net/linked/2010/05/21/webm-patents

Uncritically passing on patent threats just because it suits Apple's strategic posturing? Adding commentary to make it seem like a done deal rather than posturing? Ignoring the fact that they'd said they would do this before Google even announced VP8 and indeed have said similar about Vorbis for a decade?.

Also, much like Steve Jobs's one liners, you do get the feeling that cutting and pasting a link is such hard work on the iPad that you're luck to get more than a couple of words of commentary.

Re: John Gruber jumps the shark

#25

Post by raganwald »

noonespecial wrote: post #19
raganwald wrote: post #2

Nit: "Jumped the shark" or "Jumping the Shark" does not mean "Has started to suck." It's a specific subset of suckage where the subject is clearly aware that they have no new ideas and resorts to ever-more desperate tricks to try to appear fresh and new.

I know (especially by the quick upvotes) that you are preaching to the choir here, but I have noticed a lot of non-thechnical, non-geek, never-even-heard-of-happy-days types beginning to use this phrase (incorrectly) just in the past few months. I've given up explaining who the Fonz is and just accepted this new reality. Once a meme goes mainstream, the primary idiom dilutes with use until its just a curios catch phr…

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 jumped the shark when he turned his public personal into a troll. As a counter-example, Joel Spolsky didn't jump the shark: He woke up one day and decided that his blog had run its course.

I hope we are able to save some of its distinct meaning until some other phrase comes along with a similar usage.

Re: John Gruber jumps the shark

#26

Post by adolph »

I think another interesting quote is:

"I used to trust John Gruber. Now I will just read him."

I'm not certain what there is to trust about Gruber--follow the links and read things through if it is interesting. I'm mostly a fan of "claim chowder," so maybe the author is focused on other things.

Re: John Gruber jumps the shark

#27

Post by smackfu »

mtts wrote: post #12
ubernostrum wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess I take it a bit differently -- the stuff he's usually responding to is from "respected industry commentators" like Rob Enderle or Paul Thurrott and, well, the record kinda speaks for itself. Mainstream coverage tends to pretty consistently publish a lot of things which are flat-out not true (e.g., the oft-repeated claim that iPods can only play music purchased from the iTunes store). And, for better or worse,…

I'm under the impression that the amount of writing about other tech writers on Daring Fireball has increased during the last few months at the expense of writing about, well, tech. Which makes the site less pleasant to read for me. And in a sense it's "jumping the shark" - having run out of ideas, the John Gruber show is starting to fill episodes with unlikely, contrived subplots that have nothing to do with the ori…

There's a lot of zeal in making fun of other people. He's become a bit of a bully.

Re: John Gruber jumps the shark

#28

Post by ZeroGravitas »

raganwald wrote: post #2

Nit: "Jumped the shark" or "Jumping the Shark" does not mean "Has started to suck." It's a specific subset of suckage where the subject is clearly aware that they have no new ideas and resorts to ever-more desperate tricks to try to appear fresh and new.

Is self-awareness of your lack of originality really vital?

The guy who claims to have come up with the phrase doesn't seem to think so:

http://web.archive.org/web/20000817233601/www.jumptheshark.c...

Q. What is jumping the shark?

A. It's a moment. A defining moment when you know that your favorite television program has reached its peak. That instant that you know from now on...it's all downhill. Some call it the climax. We call it "Jumping the Shark." From that moment on, the program will simply never be the same.

Re: John Gruber jumps the shark

#29

Post by smackfu »

adolph wrote: post #26

I think another interesting quote is: "I used to trust John Gruber. Now I will just read him." I'm not certain what there is to trust about Gruber--follow the links and read things through if it is interesting. I'm mostly a fan of "claim chowder," so maybe the author is focused on other things.

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

Re: John Gruber jumps the shark

#30

Post by bradleyland »

gabrielroth wrote: post #9

Like all prominent bloggers, Gruber could use some insightful criticism. Too bad this post doesn't offer any. A thousand words that add up to "I can't really put my finger on it or name any specifics, but Daring Fireball seems more uncritically approving of Apple lately" is fine for pub conversation, but it's not much use as reasoned argument. How could Gruber respond to this? The only specific point of Gruber's that…

I agree 100%. I think the reality is probably closer to this.

In the past, Hank probably agreed with John more than he disagreed, so it was easy for him to resolve any internal conflict; there was little of it. This was during a time when Apple primarily made desktop/laptop computers with a standard desktop operating system -- as opposed to operating systems like iPhone OS -- that was sufficiently Unix-like to please most geeks with a bend toward the Unix mindset.

The conflict comes in the fact that the Unix mindset allied with the hacker mindset. Some would argue they're one and the same. Apple's new direction (iPhone OS) cuts the hacker off from the Unix-y underpinnings of the device. To take it a step further, you can't easily run native software you developed yourself on a variety of devices. So there's a cognitive dissonance developing within many Mac users. Their Mac-self wants to continue to enjoy the use of tools from the one company who seems to share the same values as them (well-built products, Unix-y ideas), but their geek-self is struggling with the loss of access to the parts that satisfy the hacker inside.

I can identify with Hank, because despite finding no logical flaw with Gruber's arguments, I disagree with him. There is an indisputable subjective component to selecting tools. Gruber's inner-hacker is also offended by Apple's stance of the walled garden, but he recognizes that this offense is separate and unrelated to whether or not the product is a "good product", and he realizes that most of the world aren't hackers. This leads him to generally positive-leaning comments. At least in the context of potential market success. To put it simply, most people don't care that they can't get to a shell prompt on their iPad. They're perfectly happy browsing their iTunes library, watching YouTube, and reading web pages.

I wish I had a good wrap-up/ending, but I just kind of hammered that out on the fly. Maybe I'll use it as the basis for a blog post.

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