Things you hate IV

Do you not look at news websites?

 

Selectively, mainly financial based stuff for my work. I’ve got a Bloomberg subscription and that generally covers everything I’ll be interested in and need to know. I’ll occasionally look on the BBC or Guardian but I won’t spend time browsing the articles. I’d genuinely never heard of this Ladbaby before in my life.

 

Nor had I before a promoting article on BBC breakfast. Mind you I couldn't name anything in "the charts" atm so the fact that they were or weren't #1 means nothing to me. I did think "what an utterly **** name for a pop act" though.

 

It was all over the BBC and the Guardian websites at the weekend due to equalling the Beatles’ record of Xmas Number 1s.

 

Ok, well if I’ve gone on either site since before Xmas it would’ve straight to the football section, or to click on the main article about covid and that’s it.

 

So where do you get news from? Genuinely interested… Presumably if you work in finance you need some notion of what’s going on in the world?

 

I said, Bloomberg and then a few financial sites, one of the sites I follow just links to the article so if I’m interested I’ll click on that directly. I’m not interested in reading stuff about things like Ladbaby, even if I happened to be on a site that had a story about it, I probably wouldn’t even consciously notice it because I’m not interested in it.

I said on here before as well that aside from Talk Sport now and then, I don’t listen to commercial radio at all, just my Spotify account. So I wouldn’t have the slightest clue who was number one at any given point that way either.

 

Well I don’t normally but because this is an unprecedented chart achievement it’s been difficult to avoid it. Not that I have heard the song (or want to).

 

Doesn’t that seem to happen every year though? Some hype about Xmas number one. I genuinely have no interest in who is number one, let alone at Xmas, so would deliberately tune out from it. Plus if I read the word ‘Ladbaby’ anywhere, I’d instantly know I’d have no interest in what it’s about.

 

Well yes, that’s also what surprised me about your post. He’s had the Xmas number one four years in a row, and as you say, that is always heavily reported, so it seemed strange that you were totally unaware whether you were interested or not. Your original post was about social media but it’s much more widely reported than that.

I think the name is supposed to be a “jokey” nod to the supposed non-commerciality.

 

Ok, now I get where you’re coming from, I thought it was just this year, I had no idea it was actually four, so I can fully see why you think that’s far fetched. All I can say is I genuinely had no idea who they/he are until I read it on here. I read GDs post and then looked them up to read the backstory, and I’d genuinely not a clue who they were or recall ever reading about them or seeing them before in my life.

If they’ve been Xmas number one for four years, then at some point I must’ve heard about them, but it’s just something I have no interest in hearing about or retaining information about.

 

I'd also never heard of him/them, including prior years, and watch BBC news at 1pm every working day. Only time I've heard or seen reference to him is that one BBC breakfast feature a week or so ago and on this thread. It's really not that difficult to have not been aware of him/them.

 

I had never heard of Ladbaby until someone put it on this thread. I look at news on the internet and regularly listen to the radio and never registered their existence. Probably because I have no interest in who is Christmas No 1.

 

I have to say this genuinely surprises me. The Xmas No 1 is so hyped up by the media (totally different to any other No 1) that I think it is very difficult not to be aware of it even if you are not interested, and especially when it’s been the same act four years in a row and is ostensibly for charidee.

It’s quite refreshing, I guess!

 

Yes. I think "the charts" in general are less of "a thing" than they used to be and whilst the xmas #1 is still news, it doesn't seem to make the news as much as it used to. I was also genuinely surprised when I heard in the feature that he/they had been #1 for the 3 prior years and were now seeking a 4th year in a row with Ed Sheeran and our own Elt contributing and yet I'd never heard of him/them. Presume they were successful but again I've not heard anything on the subject since that one feature a week ago.

 

When you spill a little water, even a small proportion of a glass and then it gets everywhere derailing what you were doing for 10 minutes.

No one to blame except myself and the local planetary atmospheric temperature and pressure.

 

I was never particularly interested in the Xmas number one, and then X Factor came along (a programme I absolutely detest for so many reasons) and they dominated it for years on end, then there was a backlash and joke singles ended up being pushed as an alternative to push whoever the X Factor stooge was that year off the top spot. Essentially it became a farce and all that was wrong with music, rendering it something that had zero relevance to my life and I couldn’t have less interest in hearing about if I tried.

 

Yes, which was why it was plastered all over the news last weekend. As I say, it was “front page” of the Guardian and BBC News websites.

 

The best alternative which got to no.1 a few years ago, beating the X-Factor winner, was Rage Against The Machine's 'Killing in the name of', with the refrain '**** you I won't do what you tell me'. The armpit-trousered svengali Simon Cowell was ever so upset, the poor mite. I don't know who his (no doubt soppy vacuous ballad-singing) winner was, but like all the rest, Cowell made a fortune before dumping them for his next gullible starry-eyed proteges.

As a thank you for getting them to no.1, RATM threw a free concert in Finsbury Park the following year. I imagine it was carnage with more crowd-surfers than those being surfed on!

 

As someone who was at the "Crappy Rub Sniff" gig, RATM were amazing that night. It had a profound effect on Tom (Morello) who readily talks about it (and has written about it) being one of the band's most memorable gigs.

The campaign had some very diverse supporters.

 

+1 for never having heard of Ladbaby, couldn't pick him/them out from a lineup. Certainly haven't heard any of their efforts.

 

And you haven’t seen any of the numerous media reports over the past ten days?

That’s what I find surprising, not the unawareness of the artist/“songs”.

 

TBF to the OPs - I'd never heard of him/them until this thread. My new sources are BBC (net +R4) and a very occasional Guardian/Observer.

 

Both of which featured the story prominently last week (well, can’t speak for R4, although given that a 50 year old record was about to be equalled, I’d be surprised if it didn’t pop up somewhere) but certainly the BBC website did).

What this seems to show is that people consume news stories on websites and perhaps other media in a very selective manner and perhaps don’t even notice stories, even if prominent, if they are not interested.

 

I'm a huge admirer of Ladbaby and love everything they've done. It's no surprise to me that they're bigger than the hugely overrated Beatles

 

Ladbaby has done well enough from singing about sausage rolls to send his children to a fairly pricy local private school and drive round in a sponsored car with a big picture of himself on the side.

 

You people are just jealous of anyone who makes a success of their life like Ladbaby and Andre Gray.

 

I *think* the big thing is I (we) don't do TV. A couple of times I've looked into getting an aerial for big events (world cup, euros) but I've always had the misfortune of beforehand of having had access to a night or day of watching what passes for mass entertainment.

 

Nope. Genuinely none

 

Ditto. Bar the one BBC breakfast feature I mentioned.

 

Me neither.

 

Samesies.

 

I've heard of ladbaby. Even seen some of their cringy fake videos, but never knew they had a song, let alone 5 consecutive xmas #1's about sausage rolls. I find it a sad reflection of the UK overall that this is the world we live in.