Reaching out

Since it seems I've temporarily retired from my previous world I've had a chance to think about some of the issues I've encountered working in community management and online advice and support provision. So, if you'll indulge me, I thought I'd share some musings for a while. If nothing else it should keep the old noodle running and make me feel a little less like I've fallen off the planet.

Today's thinking was around potential next steps for the way advice is provided online and support offered to those who might be in need of help. In part it was inspired by events around a number of high profile twitter 'trolls', in particular the recently bereaved and abusive young man who decided to vent his anger at the recently bereaved Tom Daley.

In all the work I've done online to support communities and services that provide support I've never objected the idea of a troll. I've seen too many individuals spewing and screaming racism, threats, sexual insults and the like to pretend this isn't problematic. What I have found more objectionable is the dismissive attitude directed towards supporting this individuals, especially in the media as these cases continue to make headlines.

Personally, I don't feel there's a great difference between interactions online and those offline. Win both circumstances people are communicating and interacting with each other, sharing, supporting and at times insulting. And like the world outside of the Internet, different spaces have different rules and appropriate behaviour. What's acceptable at a relatives funeral isn't the same as what would be tolerated, or even encouraged, at a football match. What's more difficult online, with such rapidly changing and developing social spaces, is where those lines are drawn and what support may be available for those crossing them, especially without intention or understanding.

Working online I've encountered a number of clients who behaved in really abusive behaviour and I was struck by how differently this was treated online compared to offline. Would a teenager shouting abuse at passersby be ignored on the street? Would regular disturbed speeches and hand written notes posted to a teacher be treated as a crime or as a sin of an individual needing help? I'm left feeling that the online world isn't deliberately more callous, it just feels like it right now. Online we seem to treat challenging or uncomfortable behaviour, so often, as a Victorian would treat a starving child on the road. With some pity but also plenty of disdain.

The biggest shame here is that there are so many routes now available for people to find help, online and offline. There may be waiting lists and questions about over-medication, funding challenges and geographic restrictions, trolls and people who feel looking for support is 'attention seeking' - but all of these continually hurdles are vastly outweighed by the oldest of them all. People often find it impossible to take the first step in looking for help. Once signed up to a positive community or spending time at a local community group, or seeing that GP for the first time, chances for improvement grow and grow quickly.

So, whilst there is still a huge amount for individuals, charities, support groups and everyone who cares to do to develop better and more effective services, isn't there also a huge need for all of us to start doing more to reach out to individuals in pain or need, no matter how unpleasant that may look at times.

Social networks, social websites... Social services? Why should we, presented with the technology to find many people in need of help and support have to wait, hands tied, until those people reach a critical point, or go beyond a critical point, before helping? Why not go out and find people who need support, pass on websites or services we've found helpful to individuals expressing need, in whatever form?

I think this is an opportunity on the same scale faced by Dr. Bernardo or others who changed our attitude to those requiring support and social networks offer an amazing opportunity to conduct this kind of outreach service. You know one of the easiest ways to tell something would work? When the question you face when considering it isn't 'will it work?' but is instead 'how could we handle that much work?'

I'm not saying I know how to deal with those capacity issues, I know how incredibly stretched charities and support services are right now but helping people early has always meant helping people with less resources and better results. You can wait for people to come to your service or all of us working in health provision can try to find ways and time to form the kind of outreach services that have never been possible before, rather than hoping a person's friends or someone else will encourage them to reach out.

Naturally this would need to be done with good humour and compassion but why should we leave outreach to marketing promotors or political pundits, when the real opportunity here is to take support from enclosed, site based services, into a pro-active, ever evolving space.

Just go and search on twitter for the issues you work with, those opportunities to help are endless.

Thoughts on 'The Killer Inside Me'

So I guess it’s worth starting this with by making it clear what kind of film ‘The Killer Inside Me’ is. It’s a film that focuses on the perspective of a deliberate but deranged psychopath. It’s also a movie that includes two scenes of brutality against women. If the idea of seeing a film featuring a killer’s perspective rendered in almost banal clarity seems upsetting then don’t watch this. If you believe that violence against women shouldn’t be shown in detail then don’t watch this movie. It’s a perfectly valid argument to believe that the scenes within this film shouldn’t have been shot the way they are and if you’re likely to agree with this viewpoint (‘Frenzy’, ‘Straw Dogs’ or ‘Irreversible’ are probably as good examples of what to expect as anything else) then it’s probably a film worth skipping. As accomplished as this film is it’s hard to argue it’s worth the level of offence it may cause some.

But with that said this does stand as an accomplished adaptation of a Jim Thompson work. Thompson is the writer regarded as the most challenging and transgressive of the ‘Pulp’ novelists. His works often feature narrators that can’t be believed or who are missing the big picture and ‘The Killer Inside Me’ might be the greatest example of this collusion between author and character against the reader.

The film revolves around the actions of a small time Deputy in West Texas, a man who doesn’t even carry a gun. Seemingly a kind man, always willing to do a favour for another, almost from the moment the film begins it seems clear that his perception of himself and how he’s seen by others are at odds with each other. Although this develops as the film continues even in early scenes there are hints from characters reluctant to discuss certain topics. It may be wishing for too much from the script but I certainly had a sense that people had reasons to be wary of our main character.

This is made all the more clear when revelations about his childhood and implications about his protectors in adulthood begin to peep through our protagonist’s perception of the world. It seems that many people have bet on a character who is without merit. As he himself points out, there really isn’t much crime in his city or county and as a result this isn’t a twisted hero or killer on the look for redemption. This is a banal, abused and abusive man who has grown to resent the world around him.

As the film progresses we see things that are quite simply brutal, perhaps the most brutal that a semi-mainstream film has chosen to show. There has been some argument about how bloody some scenes are but that seems like a critics’ game. There’s no point arguing that ‘Texas Chainsaw Massacre’ wasn’t really that bloody, it was still fucking horrific and the same is true here. It doesn’t matter what is on screen because it’s the audience that counts and their horror is clearly what was desired in these moments. That is the strength of the film though, it moves away from the image of a psychopath as a deranged intruder and presents a man with an ability to charm, though only his victims (and we, the audience, seem deliberately excluded from this as well), but more often to inspire pity and boredom.

From very early in the film it’s clear that our protagonist is suspected of the crimes he commits and this is where the film becomes fascinating. Most of the movie reminded me of the sadly little-seen closing scenes of the Johnny Depp starring Stephen King adaptation ‘Secret Window’. There’s a lot to dislike in that movie but the end shows a town horrified by a character who they know is guilty but they just can’t prove it. Much of ‘The Killer Inside Me’ feels the same way, except here we are seeing this reaction through the delusion and social incompetent eyes of the lunatic we are following.

This combination of delusion, a hidden plot involving the investigation that circles the film but we never see, the banal reactions of the killer and the film’s refusal to tone down the violence it’s character commits makes ‘The Killer Inside Me’ stand out as unique. It’s certainly not perfect and it’s a difficult film to watch (and again not one I’d recommend to many people) but it is striking and unusual.

In a world where ‘Saw’ or ‘Hostel’ are common favourites its commendable to see a film that shows a killer not as a genius trickster, sadistic foreigner or Thomas Hardy inspired superman but instead as what so many serial killers really seem to be, permanently broken men without insight or conscience. Perhaps revealing that does justify showing just how violent crime can be, I don’t know, but I think it’s nice to see a film about a killer where it’s unlikely people will be putting his picture on a wall or buying the Deputy Lou Ford action figure…

Goodbye to all that...

Upper Street air, welcoming goodbyes
Ebus mud and Mela mistakes
Apocalypse dreams, Spanish rock climbing
Prenatal Prison Dramas, neck-high pants
Broken watches and blood on the floor
T-shirt contests, Lolly pop quizzes
Hoxton hangovers and balcony kissing
Parkour bone-breaking, Simon's panic smoking
Myazaki adored, promethean praise
Gold stars on desks and Badly Drawn pies
Strip club rumours, Battle's bank card
Australian snake bite, Karaoke coke heads
JP DJing, Riot police raids
Jamie's drinking but Edward's bar tab
Mookish malaise, Red revolutions
Drunken tears, stolen hotel shoes
Car park serenades, Kitchen Ballet
Broken photocopiers, angry tirades
Prince Harry's Ex and sapphic phobi
Farming boardgames, Mariam's snoring
Red bull revelations, Abi's stone throwing
Himmy's Doodles, Whyman's fuck ups
Stolen hotdogs then late night chases
Lilly pad riddles, Box office cheers
Swimming redemption, dvd boot sales
Sausage mistakes and morning clean ups
Cider with Squirrels
Can I answer that again?
Wine club and YouthNet
All the difference we've made

Back our way

Laughing, dancing, shots and shooting fun
Booting a new game with old friends back home
Thinking on the days in the meadows and rain
Still watching the conversation for the start of the slurs
A new game or movie when the talk turns dark
Dodging the topics expressed from the heart
Thinking of better times when you didn’t know
That those old friends live on the bile of what they’ve become
Half muttered comments quickly silent as you start a new song
A comment on the homeless or Indian food
Try Gears of War 2 when gays getting married comes out
Realising some people don’t mellow or grow wise
Older hearts and thoughts growing more twisted with spite
Arguing for nights but it can’t help
Their safe, glinting lives aren’t happy or true
Not to them, with a black family or Indians living near by
Don’t see it’s the Crown that’s still fucking them hard
No, it’s the Polish or fags or cunts from Iran
Download their favourite movie over Chinese,
Ghandi... and whilst sinking more beers
Watching liberation flicker on the screen
Without a moment for pause or thought
They spit that they wish ‘they all were like that…’
Open because of love and vodka, so honest its rage they reveal
Broken down spirits just hoping for war
Seeing friends troughed on by their hate, it’s no fun going back to the estate.

Bioshock 2

Well, at least for me, the first big disappointment of the gaming year has hit and hit hard. After the wonderful and almost transcendent experience of Mass Effect 2 - a game that opened up so many possibilities for gaming, Bioshock 2 has so little innovation it's actually feels embarrassing to play at times. Not only is the sequel unnecessary it's almost insulting in execution.

For the most part the game treads a fine line between copying the combat of the first game and continually coming up with sequences that remind you of moments that the original did better. With a very poor choice in philosophy for the grand story (are we really expected to believe that treating psychoanalysis as the loss of self is as interested as Objectivism?) the game has none of the emotional impact or thought provoking moments of the first game. I would have loved to have seen the game add in a post-modernist take and use this to play with expectations from the first game, but sadly that's clearly not happening here.

The vulnerability of your character is strange, the logic of the world following the events of the first game is strained and the experience feels tremendously repetitive. The original BioShock had some terrible sequences (such as the tedious trawl through a ramshackle hotel) but don't worry the developers haven't missed the chance to copy it almost room for room.

Although it looks nice I’m at a loss to understand where so much praise is coming from, this is from the moment it begins, an inferior version of the original. Despite what people are saying elsewhere, it really is a knock-off sequel simply aping and not really understanding the impact of the original.

It's worth playing through but so much of the time you will simply be anticipating every moment of the game. There's nothing here that implies developers interested in creating a sequel, taking the opportunity to build on the original.

I would have loved to have seen something special as a sequel to the flawed genius of Bioshock. Instead, to me, it's a game worth playing because you enjoyed the original and can't resist seeing this world again. But as a piece of entertainment in its own right, it doesn't come close.

So I'd like to think it's the result of a missed opportunity rather than a cynical exploitation of a new ip that's been intellectually castrated by people with dollar signs for eyes. Hopefully the producers will realise the team behind the game just don't have the same ability or intelligence to pull off something as good as what came before and will get some of the original staff back to work on the inevitable Bioshock 3.

If not then expect this series to drown pretty quickly.

Update

Finally finished it and it continued to disappoint.

Get the original. Treat it as a great, odd movie and you'll have a blast. This is a dull shadow of that great game.

Bioshock 2 may improve the gameplay a little (dual weapon/powers) but it also introduces some elements that quickly become tedious (gathering...)

There's a single interesting sequence in the game that shows something that doesn't happen in the original (a twisted/different perspective but I don't want to spoil anything) - but that's really the only significant improvement. In the end it's almost disappointing because it shows someone on the team had some ideas that could have made a great sequel. Sadly it's only for a moment.

By the final level the game seemed to have totally lost the plot - spitting out radio messages about people I'd killed minutes before and lacking any real impact.

But the fundamental problem remains the same - the philosophy of the world of Andrew Ryan (Ayn Rand) was so strange, so unexpected, that it significantly altered what a game could be. This game absolutely fails to do that.

Given the best sequence is about a different perspective I still feel there could have been something really interesting done around the writings of Derrida or Foucalt. Sadly that's all been thrown away in favour of a basic, insulting and misguiding mishmash of Marx and Freud.

In fact, I'm hard pressed to even describe it that way. It's more like what McCarthy would think Communism was if you added in a confused hillbilly paranoia of psychology.

A waste, from start to finish.

The only thing good that could come out of it would be if someone took the original and added the gameplay improves from the sequel, and maybe the events of this game as a 1-2 hour extra level half way through.

But I'll say it again - Bioshock 1 is a masterpiece of story telling, get that and love it and try to forget this ever happened.