Wrong Way Corrigan's hits and misses of 2023

@wwaycorrigan

In this independent blogging/vlogging game, the numbers do make a difference. OK, it's highly unlikely I'll ever make a living from it but one does get a small endorphin hit when one publishes what turns out to be a, um hit, views-wise.

The 2012-published Lord of the Dance proved popular in 2023. 

My modest hits would, of course, be considered terrible misses by the bigger players; it's all relative.

Missing the hits!

So what did Wrong Way Corrigan get right in terms of popular posts across the various platforms in 2023? And where was I a good bit off target?

Starting where my online content creation began, with Google Blogger, the most-viewed (I was going to write most-read but a view of the story doesn't necessarily mean that it was read!) was Living with unsettled and unsettling questions — 664 views as I write, in case you're wondering!

Incidentally, the most-viewed story on Google Blogger over the last 12 months wasn't a piece that was published this year. It was 2012's Lord of the dance. A timeless tale! 

'The Google blog is coming close to becoming a teenager. They grow up so fast, don't they?'

The least-viewed, excluding the most recent to be published, is Letter to the editor: Ireland's waste water, with a paltry 39 views.

Over at my El Tiempo blog, with a decent 1,458 views, Little thirst to teach English in these thinking times leads the way for the year ending.

At the other end of the scale is The care necessities: Dealing with old age with a rather pathetic 26.

On YouTube, A Boyacá fruit route: Tierra Negra-Nuevo Colón-Turmequé was the top performer of vlogs published in 2023  (YouTube makes the views public knowledge, so you can click on the hyperlink to find out the number!).

Making the bell toll for us while we still can | What's rung is rung! didn't quite reach the heights of A Boyacá fruit route!

For YouTube Shorts, A Bogotá jam ... is tops. Up in the clouds with Zetaquirá's Virgin Mary! has been more down in the dumps in terms of views!

Finally, on the podcast front, Not so gaga for physical footy: Time to nip it in the rib? didn't excite the masses. 

Finding that savoury spot between feasting and fasting performed a little bit better. Just a little, that is!

So there we have it. Perhaps 2024 will see Wrong Way Corrigan become more occupied with other, better-paying projects. The blog is our baby, all the same. In fact, the Google blog is coming close to becoming a teenager. They grow up so fast, don't they?
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Trivia time! Video version of IQuiz LVIII now available!

@wwaycorrigan

Our latest IQuiz "The Bogotá Pub Quiz", edition LVIII, took place on Thursday 06 October 2022.

You can play a YouTube video version of it at your own leisure via https://youtu.be/pUaS1IQbrK0.

Let us know how you get on!

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All hail the TV gods

Wanted: Enthusiastic people to take anything from six to 24 hours out of their day (with the promise of more days to come), be ordered around like dogs when needed, virtually walked over when not. Food may or may not be included, it depends on how the employers feel. Same goes for payment.

It should be a case of 'show me the money' when you get miked up.

'Any takers?' 

'Eh, no thank you!' 

'But it's for television.' 

'Me!' 'Me!' 'Me!' 'Me!' 'Me!'

Ah yes, what some of us little people will put ourselves through just to get on television. The lure of the camera makes certain folk lose all perspective.

Some are what we call 'media whores', those who stop at nothing to get a bit of exposure. It's a tad off the mark to actually call them 'whores', as a lot of the time they're happy to prostitute themselves out to the media lords for free.

The thinking behind this is that the "nobody" will become a "somebody", thereby reaching a position where they can demand payment (for example, Bart Simpson, accidental as it was, as the 'I didn't do it kid' and more recently all those seeking fame and "recognition" via YouTube).

Others aren't quite as, um, in your face or driven as the above, but they still get weak at the knees when the chance to be on TV comes along.

Thus, with a number of people acting in such a subservient manner towards the TV gods, it's little wonder that the industry's powers that be take advantage of the situation. Why pay people for something that they'll willingly do for free, or practically for free anyway?

In countries such as Colombia, this mentality appears worse than in more, let's say affluent places. There are a number of factors at play in this.

First, for outside productions, which predominantly come from the USA, the costs of filming here are generally cheaper. Wage demands for personnel hired on location, those used both on- and off-screen, are much lower than the country of origin. No big surprise there, the cost of living in Colombia is lower (for most) after all.

Then we've locals with next to nothing in terms of income and future prospects, so any sort of "easy money" they can make is taken, understandably, without question. There's also the steady stream of backpackers passing through the country who jump at the chance to do some 'glamorous' extras work, regardless of pay.

On top of all this you've a host of greedy agents, all trying to pocket as much as they can from the people they send to film.

Now, the argument can be made that the payments offered are fine in a Colombian context. Again, it depends on how you look at it, where you come from and what exactly you're being asked to do. For one, in terms of basic extra work, foreigners tend to be paid better than locals, receiving up to five times more.

When it comes to landing speaking parts, some agencies pay little better than what they give extras. The problem here is that landing even just a small role can rule you out of working on that production again, unlike being a standard extra. What's more, you generally have to go to castings and learn lines for these more prominent parts.

For example, I was paid 180,000 Colombian pesos (less than 60 euros) for my little speaking part in Narcos II, practically the same as extras pay. It now appears I can't be in Narcos again, so from a monetary point of view, I was robbed (for the record, other agencies offer at least 500,000 Colombian pesos for speaking parts).

Considering the amount of money the likes of Fox, Netflix and Univsion -- to name but a few of the companies that film in Colombia -- have in their coffers, there's no reason why they can't be more financially generous to those at the bottom rung.

That they're not may be more to do with the agencies on the ground than the production companies themselves. The former are doing their bit in maintaining and deepening the gap between rich and poor. They're certainly not doing us any favours, despite what they might like us to think.

Some of us poorer folk are not only happy to let all this happen, but we also help them along the way as well. Hey, it's all-powerful TV after all; thou shalt not question its wisdom.
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A brief history of reading

One measure of the positive development of a country is its literacy rate. The more people who are competent in reading, writing and arithmetic, the greater chance of a better quality of life — that's the general belief.

In the not-too-distant past, such abilities were the preserve of a select, influential elite. The invention of the printing press gradually began to change this as the written word became available to a greater number of people. 

This more rapid diffusion of texts coupled with an increase in the audience for such works saw this medium rise to a position of prominence, arguably greater than that of the spoken word and images.

You still have to be able to read a bit to play Mario. (Image from web.)

Over the last century and a half or so, a host of interlinked technological developments together with greater access to education have seen a dramatic upturn in global literacy levels, further enhancing the importance of the written word.

A brighter Dark Age

Yet, what we have seen of late is not a 'triumph of text' but rather a return to what could be viewed as more ancient times where the image is king for the masses, in a very different format albeit.

For some, this is portrayed as a dumbing down of society. Examples given to support this viewpoint are YouTube videos of very little, if any, educational or social value that go viral, 'silly' TV soap operas and even computer games. In this sphere, it's very much a case of following the money trail.

Nonetheless, however dismissive we may be of the above, it can't be said that they represent a return to some sort of Dark Ages. They are part of an age where people have access to a vast array of information at the touch of a button — empowering or otherwise as this may be.

Indeed, thanks to the internet, self-education capabilities have increased exponentially, be that with videos and commentary via YouTube or simply having access to an enormous amount of written sources in seconds. 

Of course, there's no guarantee that such learning will be completely balanced and impartial, especially considering that we tend to find material that compliments our own biases. Then again, the same can be said for more traditional educational outlets.

What's more, given the changed landscape as regards where and how people source information, even if people are reading fewer books (a US study this year suggests a slight fall in the last number of years), this doesn't mean they're becoming 'less enlightened/intelligent'. 

For one, in the majority of the world literacy rates have never been higher.

So, while not all of us are reading voluminous tomes, our understanding of issues is — or at least should be — better than in previous times. 

In this regard, at least the foundations for a questioning, more forward-thinking human race are there, however individuals and distinct societies might actually turn out given whatever other conditions are at play at the time.

That last point still carries much weight. We'd like to think that with high literacy rates alongside the ability to self-educate and question long-held yet flawed beliefs, the acceptance to wage war along religious and ethnic lines would be on the wane significantly. Alas, despite the world being as interconnected as it ever has been, this isn't quite the case.

Perhaps that simply comes down to an innate human trait: we'll always find a reason to go to war, no matter how educated, enlightened or well-read we may be. And there'll always be people ready to fight those wars.

So while the power of the book is perhaps waning, the return with a vengeance of images/pictures as master of the masses is not necessarily a backward step. 

They are being presented to a more knowledgeable population in what are obviously much-changed times. What haven't changed that much are our debilitating animal instincts.
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