In a recent French parody show, National Geographic was renamed _National Catastrophic_. It probably doesn't help them that most of the content we see oversea is a remake of "American white man vs Shark!!!!!"
The downfall of National Geographic
71–80 of 121 posts
Re: The downfall of National Geographic
#72Isn't this the same as "I'll listen to the song, why buy the album"? NatGeo was basically a middle-brow collection of interesting stuff. Not every article was interesting to you, maybe you like animals, maybe you liked maps, maybe you liked pictures of some tribe. You'd read the article that excited you and perhaps squeeze a bit of juice out of the rest of it. Nowadays I have HN. There's a whole bunch of stuff, I can…
>What's the point in buying a content aggregator when I can see a variety of stuff from Aeon/Quanta/bunch of blogs for nothing at all?
It used to be that the content was much much better than any of the things you mentioned. When the content quality became the same as the things you mentioned, this is what happens.
Re: The downfall of National Geographic
#73I lost interest in NG since they dumbed content down and concentrated on political correctness and being on the "right" side of the political spectrum instead of providing interesting, deeply researched and meticulously planned articles and caring more for the scientific truth instead of the political truth.
It's so sad. NatGeo started stumbling in the late 1990's/early 2000's. I had the same experience as the author... stacks of magazines in the basement... getting lost exploring the world. In elementary school we had extra stacks we could use to cut out pictures for projects.
How much of this is due to not having the internet during the time NatGeo's heyday? During that time, the only way accessible to see that kind of content was with their magazine. That was also a time before 24/7 channels of content. Today, there are so many documentaries, TV shows, TV channels, YouTube channels, streaming platforms, websites all offering some form of content similar to NatGeo (if some of it wasn't directly lifted from NatGeo I'd be amazed). Now, we have scanners and printers, so cutting magazine pages is no longer necessary. Times have changed, and the nostalgia lingers hard
Re: The downfall of National Geographic
#74Isn't this the same as "I'll listen to the song, why buy the album"? NatGeo was basically a middle-brow collection of interesting stuff. Not every article was interesting to you, maybe you like animals, maybe you liked maps, maybe you liked pictures of some tribe. You'd read the article that excited you and perhaps squeeze a bit of juice out of the rest of it. Nowadays I have HN. There's a whole bunch of stuff, I can…
Content creator, not aggregator. National Geographic generated the stories itself and provided some of the best photography obtainable in the history of the medium.
Re: The downfall of National Geographic
#75Isn't this the same as "I'll listen to the song, why buy the album"? NatGeo was basically a middle-brow collection of interesting stuff. Not every article was interesting to you, maybe you like animals, maybe you liked maps, maybe you liked pictures of some tribe. You'd read the article that excited you and perhaps squeeze a bit of juice out of the rest of it. Nowadays I have HN. There's a whole bunch of stuff, I can…
The ‘content aggregator’ supported fantastic original reporting, increasing the share of knowledge in the world.
Generally speaking, the free content you love then uses the original reporting from these kinds of outlets and delivers poorly written nth degree xeroxes of that novel info.
At the end of the day, someone has to actually go out onto the polar ice or the remote research station and generate the story. So that’s the point imo.
Re: The downfall of National Geographic
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
They dumbed down long before that, that was just when you noticed. It was that success in the 80s that largely killed them, because they realized that their brand pushed product. The business turned to commercial branding or retail stores and selling random stuff, culminating in becoming one of the random logos on a bland Korean fashion brand. My guess is that many who were turned off because they "went woke" loved i…
> There's still plenty of room for high-quality writing about the world and its inhabitants; Where can this be found?
High Country News, Adventure Journal, Hakai magazine all carry the torch in some form or another.
Re: The downfall of National Geographic
#77Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's so sad. NatGeo started stumbling in the late 1990's/early 2000's. I had the same experience as the author... stacks of magazines in the basement... getting lost exploring the world. In elementary school we had extra stacks we could use to cut out pictures for projects.
How much of this is due to not having the internet during the time NatGeo's heyday? During that time, the only way accessible to see that kind of content was with their magazine. That was also a time before 24/7 channels of content. Today, there are so many documentaries, TV shows, TV channels, YouTube channels, streaming platforms, websites all offering some form of content similar to NatGeo (if some of it wasn't di…
They used to send full fledged expeditions, with authors, science experts and world renowned photographers on board. To most extreme and dramatic places: deserts, jungle, active warzones, mountaintops, the Arctic and so on. Which produced really in-depth reports with great penmanship often accompanied by masterpieces of photography. And while the world is much better traveled now it's rarely done by well funded teams collected for the purpose.
Re: The downfall of National Geographic
#78There are interspersed comment saying the downfall started when they went woke. There is also similar interspersed pushback saying this isn’t true.
Here is an example, from 2016, which, regardless of your views, which does seem blatantly political.
They put a 9 year old trans child on the cover.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2016/12/19/trans-...
Re: The downfall of National Geographic
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
BOTW and TOTK are two of the highest rated games of all time. If you want to persuade people of your case, you would do well not to use a hot take as your example.
>BOTW and TOTK are two of the highest rated games of all time. This was mentioned as a backscratching thing.
I guarantee that I, and most other people who fawn over the two newest Zeldas aren't doing so because of manufactured hype.
Re: The downfall of National Geographic
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
>BOTW and TOTK are two of the highest rated games of all time. This was mentioned as a backscratching thing.
I guarantee that I, and most other people who fawn over the two newest Zeldas aren't doing so because of manufactured hype.
That is a strong claim. Especially when Nintendo marketed to us as a child.
We might just be accepting it because we have nostalgia for the characters.
I remember people saying TP was the greatest game of all time. That aged poorly too.