Is the limbo an Olympic event? Because If this was a limbo contest, the only country that could continue to compete would be Lilliput. Yeah, I know it's a fictious place, but then so is the Olympics coverage fictious. I'm also guessing the NBC producers and announcers wouldn't know that either based on their performances so far. There's lot of jumping up and down about NBC's coverage of the Olympics, tape delays, getting ticked off at Twitter users, and generally acting like the clueless corporation that it is. Note that we've been down the tape delay path previously and as cyncial as that manuever is, it has become expected behavior. We've also seen the protect the brand at any costs manuevers before as well.
What's not expected though, and what I continue to marvel at, is NBC's insistence on trying to pretend there are two worlds out there: one that is aware and one that isn't. Now, let's be clear. There are two worlds out there. One is aware and one isn't. NBC (and they are not alone) knows that, and plays to the lowest common denominator of the world that isn't aware. It's no different than politics these days. I mean if we follow the media we actually think we have two worthy contenders running for an office that doesn't matter anymore. Actually, it's no different than anything that those who run the media conglomerates purport to cover and bring us info about.
But give me a break on a couple of things here. NBC says we needed context to appreciate the opening ceremonies from its crack team of professionals. You know, the ones who proceeded to make snarky remarks and show their ignorance during the tape delayed broadcast. Watching a little bit of that, you would have thought NBC had pulled over the Saturday Night Live team to provide commentary. The commentary and the context was that not funny. How anyone can take any of those announcers seriously ever again is beyond me. And remember this was tape delayed, so someone with some smarts could have done some judicious editing here.
It's one thing to have a business model to try and maximize profits by taking advantage of the lazy, the ignorant, and the uneducated. That's what passes for business in today's world. It's slightly another thing in today's world to try and pretend that those who are aware won't call you on it, and then get all huffy and defensive when they do. Especially when you are secretly enjoying the raft of publicity created by your own failures, knowing full well that is driving traffic. Of course, if there was a big story at these Olympics that caught someone with their pants down the way NBC has been exposed, you can be sure that the NBC producers and talking heads would be bashing those with their fannies hanging out in much the same way that NBC is getting bashed right now.
It's a shame really. We've reached a point where spoonfeeding the masses has forced us to disguise the spoon. But then again, we all share a bit in that. Unless we just turn the crap off.
For some laughs (and some saddness) you might want to check out the hashtag #nbcfail and the account nbcdelayed on Twitter.
