10K Posts Tv Club: Nathan Barley ft. Clive Martin
Added 2023-03-10 10:29:09 +0000 UTCThis week, We're joined by Clive Martin, a journalist whos' work can be found in Vice, among many other publications, to take a retrospective look at Nathan Barley, a 2005 satirical sitcom written by Chris Morris and Charlie Booker about the state of british media in the early 2000s, where the internet was just beginning to invade the profession and pickings were rich for independent creators willing to do anything for attention.
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Ten Thousand Posts is a show about how everything is posting. It's hosted by Hussein (@HKesvani), Phoebe (@PRHRoy) and produced by Devon (@Devon_onEarth).
Comments
Nathan Barley was definitely a quiet favorite of mine at the time. Another one of those rare moments where something actually decent gets made on british telly but no-one watches it. The only impression I have of the earlier VICE years is via Nathan Barley. After then later reading about Gavin McInnes being a co-founder of VICE, my impression of the earlier years of VICE magazine is even worse. These days, I only ever stumble upon VICE every now and then online. Usually it's when they've published something decent, so I've only ever had a good impression of VICE's current output. Regarding Charlie Brooker being more "part of the establishment" now. Like you say, he is clearly aware of how critical media can be recuperated by the establishment, as demonstrated by the ending of 15 Million Merits. I remember him saying that the ending of this episode was inspired by the 1976 film Network. When he stopped doing his TV column in 2010, he openly wrote about his change of heart, regarding his writing. Basically, now that he was more famous... "Suddenly you’re standing in a room full of people you’ve slagged off in print, and they’re not 2D screen-wraiths any more, but living, breathing, fallible humanoids, many of whom are clutching wine glasses which – should the mood turn sour – would make for fearsome improvised weapons." Full post here https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2010/oct/16/charlie-brooker-leaving-screen-burn
Ben
2023-03-14 19:55:59 +0000 UTCOne of the distressing outcomes of being a ex-colony is our national broadcaster's habit of ignoring interesting content like Nathan Barley when it was broadcast on the basis that it was "UK-only interest" when it was a comment on media culture common to everyone. You practically had to be a comedy nerd to find Alan Partridge or any of Chris Norris' stuff.
SpookyPenguin
2023-03-11 09:52:38 +0000 UTCPhoebe absolutely nails the Dan, Barley nexus. I used to own the DVD box set of Nathan Barley and he described himself on that as a "Self facilitating media node". They predicted the social influencer trend quite a long way ahead of it's time. The boxset looks like a YouTube thumbnail for Logan Paul. I think they were also trying to draw a parallel between Sugar Ape and your standard journalistic enterprise to point out how the dynamics are the same with the pointless exclusivity but the context is what drives the difference in content (wine versus Southern Hip Hop Techno warehouse parties). The Being a Dickhead's cool on Youtube is quite a haunting reminder of this time. This was such an important show for my generation. No wonder everything is so fucked.
William Bell
2023-03-10 15:32:02 +0000 UTCCuriously enough, speaking of the erstwhile presence of the far right in Hoxton/Shoreditch, Spiked is based there to this day.
Richard Willmsen
2023-03-10 10:53:59 +0000 UTC
