The Media made me do it, Episode II
Sep. 14th, 2009 09:01 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
olorielOh, for fuck's...
Dear German Media,
No, it is not that absurd to name a child Sparrow. Aside from the fact that the kid also features a perfectly normal name, it's kind of silly of you to point out triumphantly that Sparrow means Spatz. So? Yes, in German "mein Spatz" is a common enough endearment, but this is not necessarily the case in the English-speaking world (or is it? Quick flist poll: How many of you were nicknamed "my sparrow" by parents or grandmothers?). Even if it is, a sparrow is still a normal term for a small bird.
But you caaaaan't name a boy for a bird, I hear you cry.
Yeah right, idiots. Because there are no Robins or Merlins - or, for those who speak no English and needed the explanation about what Sparrow means in the first place, Falks running around. And none of them are male. Nuh-uh.
So Robin's a perfectly normal male name, and Sparrow isn't?
Buy yourself a babybook and stop being idiots. I mean, why do you even care what other people name their kids? If you're so bothered about naming babies, make your own. For serious. I mean, an online acquaintance of mine named her offspring Emma Josephine Anoriel, but am I giving her any grief?
Srsly.
Not yours,
The mad linguist
- - -
Dear other German media,
So you're airing Firefly. The complete first season (hah!). Congratulations. I hope you are aware that you're about three to four years too late.
I can already hear it. Same way with Doctor Who. "See? Nobody is interested in this kind of thing. Nobody watched the series!"
No, you're just too late. Everybody in this country interested in the series has LONG SINCE bought the DVDs, the soundtrack, and the RPG.
AND the cunning hat.
Everybody interested in Firefly can watch it at any time they please - not at 10 past 10 in the evening on a Saturday, when even nerds have other things to do than watch TV.
Really clever.
Not yours either,
The occasional nerd girl
- - -
When I am too tired to write about, like, real life, all I do is rant. *nods*
Memes are upcoming.
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Date: 2009-09-14 07:37 am (UTC)*= Didn't like the system - but then, I've found a nifty conversion for Savage Worlds that is based on the series, not on the movie, so I'm good.
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Date: 2009-09-14 07:50 am (UTC)And I am very grateful for the German airing of Firefly - I think it's a rather brave decision, given that it's not a complete series and that many people already have the DVD.
Everyone in our Generation/person who speaks English has the DVD, sure - but my parents aren't that good with English programs, and neither are most of their friends. Loads of them see Firefly for the first time, and since they don't stick around in the internets like we do, they didn't even know it existed. Now they do, and I enjoy sitting in the tram listening to random people in their mid-forties who go through the same fangirl/fanboy squee that I experienced some years ago. ^^
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Date: 2009-09-14 08:26 am (UTC)Um, the DVD also contains a German language version...? If you bought it here, that is.
Of course, if any potential new fans actually happen to sit in front of their TV at 10:10 pm on a Saturday and watch Firefly instead of Schlag den Raab (or The Tudors yet again), I'll take it all back...
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Date: 2009-09-14 08:27 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-14 08:34 am (UTC)I'm sorry but it just strikes me as seriously odd that you are complaining because they are showing a series that geeks are interested in, even if it isn't new any more. Don't people normally complain because there's nothing on TV they like :/?
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Date: 2009-09-14 09:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-14 09:44 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-14 11:17 am (UTC)*cracks up*
"Pretty cunning, don't you think?" :D
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Date: 2009-09-14 11:23 am (UTC)Not just because I already bought the DVD set - I doubtlessly would've bought that anyway - but because, if they had jumped onto this particular train when it was actually, you know, new, not only would they have gotten more of an audience - they might also have helped to keep the series alive. Discovering a great series years later (and probably just buying it because well, there's just one season and not much money blown, and it's been dubbed already so no extra cost for that) may be nice for people who never heard about it yet. Discovering it while it's hot and investing in it so there's money/ publicity for a second season? Now THAT would make sense.
Fine, sorry for offending all those who never realised there was, like, a series to accompany the movie Serenity. I suppose that may be forgiveable in normal people. For a TV station, however? Bad form. (In this case it may be excusable as well - Firefly having flopped on TV in the states - but it's also happened with succesful series like the above-mentioned Doctor Who or BSG. I suppose I cannot expect normal people to keep up with TV trends across the wide ocean, but a TV station that runs after every bloody CSI:Hinterpusemuckel might want to do its research.)
And personally I still doubt that "many people who might not even know about it yet" are going to realise that WOOHOO, there's that "new" series on S-RTL with the airing time they chose. Not that I know much about normal people's TV habits, but Saturday night doesn't strike me as a good time for a series.
*shrugs*
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Date: 2009-09-14 11:25 am (UTC)And it's not so much the weird associations that bother me - it's just the smug "THEY CAN'T DOOO THIS!". They obviously can. And between crappy names like Apple or Brooklyn, I think Sparrow is downright refreshing...
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Date: 2009-09-14 11:26 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-14 03:43 pm (UTC)And true, it can't push "Bronx Mowgli Wentz", "Nesta Zuma Rock Rossdale" and "Pilot Inspector Lee" out of my personal top three of really crappy names.
Even though I have some doubt that Nichole Richie can tell a sparrow from a bald eagle. But that's probably beside the point ;)
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Date: 2009-09-14 04:03 pm (UTC)And hey, at least this kid has a normal second name.
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Date: 2009-09-14 07:25 pm (UTC)And I think you are, like I am, very prone to geek blindness. "Everyone in your interest surroundings has heard of Firefly. I can assure you, if you'd face a random croud in a shopping mall and ask what or who Firefly or Dr. Who is, you'd get a lot of puzzled glances. You have to be quite sci-fi and/or internet savvy and willing to watch undubbed TV shows to know it. Although we geeks often don't want to hear it, not the majority of people are interested in that kind of stuff. Rather the opposite. Fandom always looks WAY larger than it actually is in the big real world.
I'm actually not surprised they do it so late but mindboggled that they do it at all. I'm glad they didn't brush it off as strange, nerdy side appearance but actually give it a chance to be interesting for the masses. So I can point it out to my not-internet, not-sci-fi savvy friends and say "hey, have a look, you might like this".
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Date: 2009-09-14 07:35 pm (UTC)This. There's not a "too late" if there has never been any interest from the first place. Nobody except nerds like us give a damn about Firefly.
Also: I got into ST:TNG fandom in 1994, when the series was just ending in the US. Only after years I found out that it actually was aired weekly in the US, not daily, because the reruns were aired daily on Sat 1 back then. A true hardcore fan would have rolled his eyes to hell and back at me, but without internet in a small town this was all I knew and I nevertheless was a devoted fan to the series. Just four years "too late". If they had aired it on time, when it was all new and fresh and the last craze, I would have been to young and it would have gone right over my head.
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Date: 2009-09-14 08:23 pm (UTC)Hell, I'd roll my eyes about Hildegunde or Brynnlynn, too. (The rest I can get behind, just barely.) But unless the poor kid is named Gonorrhea, in which case I'd hope the parents didn't do that on purpose, I wouldn't be all smug and proud because I found out what a name meant, or why it may have been bequeathed on the kid. "Oooh, Midnight. What shall we bet it was born at midnight? Eh eh eh?"
I would, admittedly, poke merciless fun at atheists naming their kid Daniel or something of the sort...
Geek blindness is an interesting term, and probably very appropriate. I dunno, though, am I the only one who made her parents watch the DVD?
I'm assuming some intern brought it to their attention, and they were all "Well, ok, this fall we don't yet have anything for the 10 - 11 pm stretch on Saturdays, and this only has 14 episodes anyway, so we might as well try it".
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Date: 2009-09-14 08:48 pm (UTC)MY bloody name wouldn't be acceptable in germany, because it is ALSO a surname, and is hardly ever used as a christian name these days. And that's just a nice, traditional scottish name...
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Date: 2009-09-14 09:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-14 09:04 pm (UTC)I would, admittedly, poke merciless fun at atheists naming their kid Daniel or something of the sort...
t's all about a healthy dose of common sense and a feeling for context. Why go to the other extreme now and ask for a onomatology degree before naming...? Naming a boy Nicola here in Germany would trigger an endless series of girl-jokes and buerocratic mistakes - in Italy nobody would even raise an eyebrow. Calling your kid Judas because you like Judas Priest is stupid. Doing the same thing with Daniel and saying "huh, Bible? No, I named him after Daniel Küblböck!" is stupid, too but in the long run it doesn't really matter because the name has become so common here.
Geek blindness is an interesting term, and probably very appropriate. I dunno, though, am I the only one who made her parents watch the DVD?
My parents hardly watch any TV at all and don't like Sci-fi. So why would I?
It is very easy to forget how specialised those interests are, as they tend to overlap. If you are into sci-fi and fantasy, chances are high you are also internet-savvy and watch your favourite shows in the original. But fact is - most people just aren't. I have to move a tiny little bit away from my little bubble filled with co-geeks (choir, work, family reunions) to get puzzled faces at mentions of Guitar Hero, Dr. Horrible, XKCD and RPG.
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Date: 2009-09-15 06:14 am (UTC)Sparrow isn't dramatic - bird names have been given before. Point for the linguistic. The other question (which would be of more importance to me, personally) is, whether this and the frim belief, that everyone who thinks otherwise is an idiot will help the kid in question or not.
"Um, the DVD also contains a German language version...?"
Yes, it does. But not every person in my father's generation has someone in his family who bought the German DVD and forces his/her parents to watch it - and nobody I know buys an unknown television series with cowboys and Spaceships on the cover for mere curiosity.
Oh - and the two bowling club members that were talking about the series in the tram meant to make the whole club watch it - because it's "incredibly cool". Whoever made S-RTL air the show *at all*, I bow to him/her.
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Date: 2009-09-15 06:18 am (UTC)Ah, the 80s...
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Date: 2009-09-15 06:47 am (UTC)Ah, see, but if your parents are the type who don't watch TV and don't like Sci-fi, would they stumble across a series on TV that contains Sci-fi elements by chance? I'm not saying you should have given your parents (replace parents by "non-geeky friends" or whatever) the DVD if it's not their kind of thing. What I meant was that, if this finally, finally, finally gives you a chance to point other people towards, say, Firefly, wouldn't you also have had that chance by lending them the DVD.
I am not surprised about puzzled faces at mentions of Dr. Horrible or XKCD, because that's kind of specialiased. I am surprised about RPG, but perhaps they'd understand "Rollenspiel, like, you know, Das schwarze Auge"? I am, admittedly, surprised about the Guitar Hero bit.
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Date: 2009-09-15 06:49 am (UTC)A school friend of my brother was originally named Jura, and when he moved here from Russia, civil servants re-named him Juri because they didn't know Jura as a first name (let alone a boy's first name) and figured Juri would be what they wanted.
He's just kept it. Too much effort to get that i turned into an a.
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Date: 2009-09-15 07:09 am (UTC)I suppose with Sparrow (CAPTAIN!) the parents have just removed the element of surprise. Although the kid has a perfectly normal (if rather boring) second name, so he can just as well introduce himself as James... (James the butler!) Kids are cruel creatures. They always find something to pick on. So in the end, the only thing you can tell your kid is that everybody else is an idiot. ;)
And this has happened in America, where parents are a lot more, um, creative anyway.
Awwwwwwwwww. Ok, you win, I take it all back.
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Date: 2009-09-15 07:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-15 09:21 am (UTC)At some point I was into names and bought myself a book about it, but my interests as a kid were everything but mainstream. And even if little Daniel finds out his name is from the bible, what gives? I also really don't see a discrepancy of an atheist choosing that name. The Bible, for an atheist, is just another book.
(rather than popping it out and naming it Daniel or Michael or Bono just because a song by a singer of that name just came on in the radio)
I just think you are expecting way too much of people. It boils down to hearing a name and liking it. If it has a deeper meaning as a bonus, yay, but I think this is secondar. I like "Anna" as a name. I can go invent something about a ~deep meaning~ behind it but thinking about it, the chance is really high that I like this name because of the ballet TV show I watched as a kid.
What I meant was that, if this finally, finally, finally gives you a chance to point other people towards, say, Firefly, wouldn't you also have had that chance by lending them the DVD.
Most people I know outside the "geek bubble" would then say "but this isn't in German". People who watch TV shows in the original or read books in the original are a really small minority compared to the masses. You have to understand English rather well to watch and understand shows without German subtitles.
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Date: 2009-09-15 09:50 am (UTC)I brought up the "Daniel" example because I once did have a conversation with a guy named (surprise!) Daniel, who said he was kind of embarrassed by his name because of the meaning. (No, I didn't even spark that discussion!).
Fortunately (as you will, no doubt, point out as well), very few people around here actually know Hebrew or Aramaic.
I am quite likely expecting too much of people, no doubt. I always do that. ;) Personally, I may like a name, but I will still check the meaning because I'd want both the sound and the meaning to be vaguely acceptable. I like "Aliena" as a name, but I wouldn't name my kid that. A friend of mine in school (whose name, in turn, was Mira, which I also like, and which, meaning "the wonderful", may be somewhat hyperbolic but at least doesn't mean something awkward) had a younger sister alled Aliena. Want to guess what her classmates nicknamed her? (And of course, that's precisely what the name means.)
Most people I know outside the "geek bubble" would then say "but this isn't in German".
I already pointed this out somewhere further up, so I'll make it quick: The DVD - if you bought it here - also contains a German language version. Both subtitled AND dubbed. So this is kind of a moot point.
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Date: 2009-09-15 09:52 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-15 10:07 am (UTC)Yes. Now. When it was all hot and new, which was, like you pointed out four years ago, all you got get were either torrents, or imports. I got my box back then in the UK. For sure I won't get another version just to have the German sub/dub for the sake of other people. And as
The point is that the babybook will tell you that "Daniel" means "God is my judge", which is a kinda ironic name As I said: People don't care. It sounds nice. That's enough. Most people won't even check what a name means and even IF, it doesn't help - or this page would not even exist:
http://www.notwithoutmyhandbag.com/babynames/index.html
Also, Daniel happens to be my brother's name who's a bright pal but nevertheless never voiced the question "huh, why is God my judge?" And I'm very sure this is true for a lot of Daniels on this world. Kids ain't scholars. Usually they're pleased enough if they're not beaten up for their name. If little Daniel grows up to be interested in names, he may ask the question. If he grows up to be a well-read atheist, he even may change his name. But what are the chances?
In short: This is complaining on such a high level that the complaint appears more ridiculous than the thing complained about. YMMV.
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Date: 2009-09-15 10:26 am (UTC)Doubtlessly. Anyone can do normal. ;)
When it was all hot and new, which was, like you pointed out four years ago, all you got get were either torrents, or imports.
I could point out now that my DVD set dates from the year 2005 (i.e. four years ago) and nonetheless has the dubs. I don't doubt that the really elite German fans got their Firefly fix through torrents or UK imports before that, but I'm not asking anyone to go to such trouble. That's too geek bubbly even for me. And no, of course you don't have to buy another set. I was figuring that many would have been too lazy to get themselves an imported box and thus would have the default German edition anyway - available at a point when the fandom was no longer quite so obscure.
(That, for the record, is why I wasn't surprised that very few people know Dr. Horrible. Haven't exactly seen any advertisements for that in any video store, and even amazon.de only offers the soundtrack - for download. That is geek bubbly.)
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Date: 2009-09-15 10:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-15 10:53 am (UTC)And I'd say things were kind of different before the massive spread of the internet and the easy and quick availability of all kinds of obscure films on video and DVD. Back in the late 80s, it would've been a real specialist effort to a) hear about ST:TNG in Germany, b) get hold of the videos via your American penpal or something of the sort, c) get them transposed from NTSC to PAL, and d) understand the English or get them fan-subbed. That takes real dedication, which, as you rightly point out, isn't there if you aren't really deep into fandom in the first place.
This is the 21st century. Information is easily available, torrents are downloadable, DVDs are importable and *coughcough*copiable. All it takes is a kid/friend/colleague at work/presentation partner/guest at a video night/sparring partner/whatever who says "Hey, I've seen this awesome series, you might like it too, want to have a look?"
I know that doesn't have to happen all the time. It obviously doesn't. But the chances are waaaay higher than they were 20 years ago.
Which is why 1990 (or a 1994 re-run, which is a different matter anyway, because, well, it's "re-") was not "too late" in my book for a 1987 series, whereas 2009 for a 2002 series kind of is. At least it is when you're looking for a blockbuster effect (which, I assume, is what TV stations are still dreaming of).
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Date: 2009-09-15 11:21 am (UTC)Nobody outside the Sci-Fi fandom gives a dead rat's ass about cowboys in space. There's a reason that Firefly massively flopped both on TV and in the cinema. The only people in my surroundings would recommend Firefly to have already seen it. My other friends would be left unfazed, probably even bored. Star Trek and Harry Potter are huge things but I still know tons of people who have never even glanced at them sideways and I can only repeat: Why should they?
It's a very specialized, very focussed interest. I want to have fun on a DVD night, why choose something that has the chance of boring me? I've seen movies "forced" on me that were great, but quite a few of them I thought were crap. If a movie or show I don't know anything about runs on TV, I can zap in, get hooked ( like in my case for example Totoro, which I watched because it was aired on Super RTL on a boring afternoon) or be unfazed and move on (like for me Babylon 5, Stargate, Monk, Psych and dozens of others).