ausnahmsweise

E-sports companies are always lobbying to be included in the Olympic Games. And for years I have been joking that e-sports should be treated as sports because they lead to the exact same disinterest in me. I like playing games, virtual or real, but watching someone else do it never quite works for me. That also means that I didn’t really follow the development of e-sports casting over the years. Until recently when I watched a professional broadcast of a huge tournament – which game doesn’t matter, because I was shocked to learn that none of them understand how to do appealing programming.

20 years ago, like every other kid at that time, I was into Counter-Strike. With that came an interest in the ESL, one of the first proper e-sport tournament providers. I remember seeing recordings as you would imagine: Screengrabs from the game itself and maybe sometimes footage of the players. What else would have been possible at that time and with games that haven’t been made to provide entertainment to spectators?

But hey, the times have changed, companies like Blizzard and Riot run their own tournaments and their own broadcasts. The games are tailored to be streamed and enjoyed by people who just want to watch. One (or at least I) would think, that some thought would have been made on how to generate an experience that kind of feels like proper sports broadcasts.

And they sort of did. They have nice professional graphics and commentators that try to explain what’s happening on screen. But they were set up to fail by the developers. Because what I saw were … screengrabs from the game itself and some footage of the players playing. It was a high-fidelity version of what we had two decades ago.

To understand my problem with that scenario, imagine that kind of broadcast in other sports. They would never have mass adoption! Let’s use football as an example. You could sit every person on Earth in front of a TV, and they would be able to understand what was happening with minimal explanation. And that’s not just because two teams of eleven chasing a ball is easy to follow but mainly a clever choice of perspective.

If football were broadcast like an e-sport, every player would run around with a Go-Pro strapped to their forehead, and nobody would be able to enjoy the game. A professional footballer rarely looks at their feet or the ball. They also don’t need to search for their teammates because they trained hours and hours so that everybody knows where to stand on the pitch at all times.

But I, a casual viewer who was dragged to the pub by his friends, doesn’t know that. And I don’t need to. Because I have a bird’s-eye view of the stadium. I can see every relevant piece of information on screen. That view also allows me, a complete amateur, to have some spare brain power left to listen to the commentators or my friends explain smaller details like offside to me. All of this is only possible because every single decision in the pipeline makes it as easy to understand as possible.

Let’s get back to e-sports. Modern games have become way more complicated than Counter-Strike ever was. More weapons, more abilities, different types of heroes. And of course, it’s possible to learn all the intricate details, to figure out all the nooks and crannies on the map where people could hide, and what strategy is most effective in which scenario. But all that takes time and effort. It may even be necessary to play the game yourself to fully get it.

But what if you’re just casually interested in the game? What if you want to spend time with your friends, don’t really care, and just want to follow along? That kind of consumer, the type that is essential for sports to become one of the most important activities of modern society, is seemingly not wanted by game studios.

In an age where the experience is tightly controlled by the developer – from hosting the server to hosting the tournament and broadcasts themselves – it would be as easy as never before to build a dedicated camera for streams. A bird’s-eye view with only the necessary information being shown to the viewer and the realization that this information is different than the one the player needs.

Only with this groundwork being done will it be possible for the commentators to provide a satisfying experience to all viewers. Because only when the basics of the game are self-evident to everybody would they be able to explain the strategies being used, why something was a mistake, and the reason behind the pros doing what they do.

Before this has been done, there shouldn’t even be a conversation about e-sports being included in the Olympic Games. They don’t yet deserve to be there.

The first time I experienced how great movies can be, even at home, was 2019 when I got my OLED Television (A 55″ LG B9 that i still use.) It wasn’t about the 4k resolution. But the perfect contrast of pixel accurate dimming and true HDR performance truly changed the way I saw movies.

Today i saw one of the best displays ever in full action because I watched the Blu-Ray version of Oppenheimer on a 11″ iPad Pro with the new dual layer OLED technology. And sure, the accuracy, brightness and contrast levels of the iPad are insane. But it also highlighted a flaw with even the best TVs on the market. The aspect ratio.

The iPad, since its inception, has had a 4:3 display – something very close to the IMAX spec of 1.43:1. And H O L Y S H I T did it make a difference to experience the whole screen being used. Even with 16:9 OLED TVs, where letterboxing at least doesn’t lead to grey letterboxes, just less distracting black ones, it always feels weird to lose so much screen size that you actually paid for.

Sure, making televisions 4:3 again, like back in CRT times would mean letterboxing would happen way more often, because most content is widescreen. But I would also argue, that high-end TVs should aim for the highest end experience. And the highest end movies are produced for IMAX. And after what I saw on my tiny iPad today all I could think about was a true IMAX movie on my TV.

That made me realise something: Every time I’m thinking about upgrading my TV I think about upping its size from 55″ to at least 65″, if not bigger. But honestly, I don’t need it to go wider. 16:9 content that fills out the whole display feels more than big enough. But being taller would truly make a big difference to me.

Receivers already rolled out »IMAX Enhanced« features to be compatible with IMAX sound. Disney+ is even advertising as IMAX enhanced (streaming bitrates vs. Blu-Ray quality is another discussion, because streaming looks really bad – except Sony Bravia Core.) So why is no TV manufacturer jumping on the IMAX bus?

Sure, the sub 1.000 euros Samsung Frame buyer doesn’t and tbh shouldn’t care. It doesn’t make logical sense to worry about this specific edge case and I also get that I’m talking about a niche that only caters to people who are willing and able to spend unnecessary amounts of money on watching roughly 3 movies a year in the best possible quality.

But these people exist. Who do you think is buying 3, 4, 5.000 euro televisions? Who are the people spending thousands on their sound systems – or even just their receivers? The audiophile community caters to the most extreme niches imaginable, with insane systems and even tons of snake oil. Why isn’t this a thing for televisions? Why isn’t Sony or even Bang and Olufsen or Loewe building a ridiculous TV specifically for IMAX content? Instead they are putting concrete on the back of their devices.

Just give me a square TV you cowards. I promise I will dream about buying it (but only dream because I would never justify the 4.000 or more that thing would cost. But at least let me dream.)

James Hoffmann likes coffee. In fact he likes coffee so much that it‘s barely possible to escape his online presence, even if you don’t really care for hot beverages. Because even if you are fine with what your basic filter machine has to offer, there is no way that you don’t have a friend who got really into coffee. The lockdowns were weird that way. Ask your bread friends.

Don’t get me wrong, James Hoffmann seems like a perfectly nice man. He just has the unfortunate problem of how the internet works these days. See, nobody really cares if James Hoffmann is nice or not. Or what other interests he has. James Hoffmann’s audience only wants one thing: Coffee content.

That’s fine in the beginning. Espresso, pour over, french press … the ways to prepare coffee seem infinite. Different kinds of beans, different kinds of machines, there actually a lot to talk about. But at some point you will have covered every single reasonable way to prepare coffee. Unfortunately you still need to make money and the people don’t want you do branch out into making your own soft drink, they demand coffee.

So you begin to get unreasonable. Find ways to prepare your brew in ways no sane human being would ever be willing to do. Like cooking youtubers going on and on about homemade chicken stock. Sure it’s something you could theoretically do and if cooking is your main hobby you will buy a huge pot that can’t be stored in your apartment and will spend your sunday smelling up your place by boiling some chicken. But a normal person is going to buy their stock from the supermarket and that’s fine.

But James Hoffman and every other niche youtuber has a problem. Not everyone in the audience will understand that the thing the professional coffee maker is doing to earn money is something that shouldn’t be expected to do at home. I mean he is the guy making reasonable coffee tutorials! This isn’t the hydraulic press channel that’s obviously meant as a joke.

James Hoffmann also isn’t Tom Scott who just has to find another weird thing – a basically unlimited resource of topics in this weird world we live in. Instead James Hoffman has a very narrow niche to work in and is forced by the pressures of platform dynamics to finde more and more things to talk about. In his case it’s an espresso for £265. An insane amount of money, but nothing that would be dangerous to anyone.

But not everyone is as sensible as James Hoffmann and chooses coffee. Some people think they can talk about personal finance or politics. Now that’s their topic. Forever. The content machine demands to be fed. And when they run out of reasonable tips to give, will they quit or pivot to the £265 espresso? Unfortunately for us, we know the answer.

Game exclusives are the stupidest thing in the world. I own a Playstation 5 – a console that Sony lost money on when I bought it. I own an Xbox Series X – a badly named console that Microsoft lost money on when I bought it. I own a gaming PC that nobody but me lost money on when I bought it. All of them have more or less identical hardware inside them. Some a bit more powerful, some a bit less, but the difference is negligible.

That was fine 10 years ago when the consoles actually tried to do different things. Yes, the Kinect was a failure but at least something unique to the platform. But now I just have multiples of the same computer sitting at home because I want to play some games that are exclusive to one of them. This is dumb on so many levels. I can spend less money on games that are actually profitable for the makers because I had to buy consoles that neither manufacturer made money on. It’s detrimental to the climate and just not a smart way to allocate resources.

I also want to get into VR gaming. So I probably should buy a Meta Quest 3 because it’s relatively cheap, works with my PC but also as a standalone Headset. The PC part is important, because of course I’d like to play Half-Life Alyx at some point. But I also want to play Gran Turismo in VR. I love racing games and this would be so much fun. But of course that requires a PS VR 2. Guess what: Half-Life Alyx doesn’t exist for Playstation though.

So I won’t buy a VR headset because despite how this post sounds I’m actually not made of money. That also means that I won’t buy the games I want to play. You know – the actual reason to buy hardware. This situation is utterly idiotic, because it prohibits me to give money to the people that actually deliver the value that I get out of gaming. Instead they try to get me to put another fucking CPU into my house.

This is not how sustainability works. Please stop making me buy the same computers over and over again.

*Favourites are even better, but that battle was lost a long time ago

The like has a bad reputation. I don’t talk about the modern kind that just works as a shitty repost or to nudge the algorithm. I’m talking about the little button that makes a number go up and that’s it. But exactly that, the unimportance of it all, is what made the like the most wholesome thing on social media.

The debate first started when Mastodon became a thing, but has also spread to tumblr. Mainly because the work like twitter used to. There is no algorithm, that ranks »content« (the ugliest word ever invented) by some arbitrary standard a guy calling himself an effective altruist made up on his way to work. Instead there is a chronological feed and you can like or repost the tweet.

This is how the world should work. It creates an internet that is curated by humans. And not any humans but people who are your friends or that are so cool you would want them to be your friends. But this isn’t a post about algorithms. It’s about the worth of the like button.

The truth is: A like is more than a number goes up. It’s the tip of a hat, a sign of appreciation and yes, a boost of serotonin. It’s also an escape from capitalist exploitation. Because no, the TikTok business influencers aren’t right. You don’t need to build your brand. You are allowed to have fun on the internet. And social media is most fun when it’s happening in your social circle. A like from a friend is worth way more than a repost from some person you never heard of.

Sure, it doesn’t help you to build a large following. But it forms a bond with your friends. You know, the people you actually care about? The ones that drew you to the platform in the first place?

That might not seem enough for you, because the companies taught us over the last couple of years, that the best use of the tools they provide is to run your own little MLM scheme to get more popular online. »Content« needs to be spread, to reach more people.

But we need to realise that this is the goal of the big platforms. They want their product to be sticky, to suck us in deeper and deeper. Creating a nice place to be is only secondary objective. And as a user getting more and more posts from people I don’t follow shoved down my throat is bad. And it actually devalues the individual work.

Because if my friends only repost the truly interesting, insightful or funny stuff they come across, then I will take my time to actually look at it. That’s where the like comes in. It shows appreciation of my work without flooding the timelines of people who don’t follow me – maybe for a reason. Or in other words: It gives the reader the tools to meaningfully curate their feed while still having the possibility to say thank you.

So please, let the like button be just that. Because it’s more than enough to make me happy.

Es brauchte weder die Golden Globes noch die Emmys um zu beweisen, dass The Bear die beste Serie der letzten Jahre ist. Den Beleg haben schon die Gastrollen in der zweiten Staffel geliefert – denn mit Jamie Lee Curtis und Olivia Coleman haben sich gleich zwei Oscar-Gewinnerinnen vor die Kameras gestellt.

Gerede der Auftritt von Curtis als Donna Berzatto ist dabei, was den meisten im Gedächtnis bleiben wird. Ihre Folge »Fishes« ist laut, intensiv und beklemmend realistisch. Für sich alleine genommen sollte wirklich alles daran in die Lehrbücher für angehende Fernsehmacher:innen wandern. Doch in seiner Intensität überschattet »Fishes« den wahren Star – nicht nur der Staffel, sondern der ganzen Serie bisher. Denn nur eine Folge später beweist »Forks«, weshalb The Bear überhaupt existieren sollte.

Aus der externen Logik ist der Sinn klar: Kochen ist seit Jahren ein angesagtes Thema, seien es die ganzen Gordon Ramsey Kochsendungen, Netflix’ Chef’s Table oder Kitchen Impossible (die beste Sendung im gesamten deutschen Fernsehen.) Außerdem ist spätestens durch die Berichte von Anthony Burdain klar, welcher Ton in der Küche herrscht, das Drama schreibt sich also von selbst.

Doch was ist die intrinsische Motivation von Carmy The Original Beef of Chicagoland zu The Bear zu machen. Klar, er kommt aus dem Fine Dining und der Sandwichshop läuft nicht gut. Aber schon die Reaktionen seines Teams zeigen die Skepsis gegenüber gehobener Küche. »Forks« zeigt, dass es dabei um mehr als nur verkopftes Essen mit zu kleinen Portionen geht – und dass gute Küche mehr als nur kochen ist.

»Forks« dreht sich um Richie, den wohl größten Gegner von Fine Dining im gesamten Team, der als Stage im besten Restaurant der Welt lernen soll, was das Konzept überhaupt bedeutet. Denn auch wenn es die reichen Schnösel sind, die solche Läden am laufen halten, das sind nicht die Menschen, um die es geht.

Es geht um das Lehrerpaar, das Jahre auf diese Erfahrung gewartet hat. Es geht um die Tourigruppe, die Deep Dish, echte Deep Dish, keine Molekularvariante bekommt, weil die zu Chicago dazugehört. So wichtig die Folge für die Entwicklung von Richie ist, so wird auch das Publikum mitgenommen und gezeigt, dass Kochen eben auch eine Kulturpraxis sein kann – und dass es um die Gesamterfahrung geht, wo guter Service und poliertes Besteck den gleichen Stellenwert wie perfekte Kochkunst haben.

Durch »Forks« legitimiert The Bear die eigene Existenz über das reine Entertainment hinaus. Es zeigt, welchen Wert die Entwicklung zum Sternerestaurant haben kann, die über das Ego des Chefkochs hinausgehtl

Natürlich ist das Konzept in The Bear idealisiert. Olivia Colemans Terry ist ruhig und selbstbestimmt, putzt die Pilze noch selber zu. Das Lehrerpaar bekommt das Essen inklusive extra Kaviar aufs Haus. Das entspricht keiner 3-Sterne-Realität, aber auch das ist okay.

Stattdessen zeigt The Bear, wie Kultur sein sollte – und auch könnte, statt einfach nur den Status Quo abzubilden. Das Beispiel mit der Deep Dish (sorry, ich kann es nicht Pizza nennen) schwirrt mir dafür bis heute durch den Kopf. Das Gericht wird nicht von oben herab behandelt, sondern als essenzieller Teil der Chicago-Erfahrung gesehen.

Das ist, wie Kultur funktionieren sollte, was leider zu oft nicht passiert. Aus der Opernloge wird der Pop belächelt, während in den Clubs der Stadt so getan wird, als hätten Verdi und Co. heute keine Existenzberechtigung mehr. Dabei braucht es das alles, um ein Kulturspektrum abzubilden. Und wenn sich die Lager treffen, können besondere Dinge entstehen – zum Beispiel wenn der WDR sein Funkhausorchester abstellt, um politische Popmusik neu zu inszenieren. Aber das ist ein anderes Thema.