TheMisterManGuy

Well I do the bulk of my YouTube viewing through my PS3, so I don't notice any effect of user controled ads. It's a decent Idea in theory, but it just ends up as a useless gimmick.

It's nice to see that some people understand the importance of advertising and make an effort to support what they like. I'm not going to castricise those who use adblock or Ublock origin since I can understand where they're comming from sometimes, but a lot of times, they just seem like cynical people who don't really understand that advertising isn't inherently bad and that it's the reason services like YouTube can be avalible for free. I understand if you don't like ads, but at least understand why they exist. Also, If you don't like Google data mining your info, you can always turn off interest based ads in your account settings. That's what I did since I didn't really notice any difference in ads.

Commercials have long been a double edge sword in the TV industry since it's inception. On the one hand, video advertising is the most efficient way to get people to buy your product. But for every commercial that does interest an individual, there's about a dozen or so for products not everyone will care about. This is why many people are cynical towards advertising on TV, because commercial breaks nowadays bombard you with too many products you have no interest in. However, YouTube works differently. Not only is there simply one commercial per video, but the ads that play are based on the age and interests associated with your Google account. Plus, more often then not, YouTube allows you to skip most ads, so if there's a product you don't care about or an overly long commercial playing, YouTube allows you to skip it. Personaly, I don't mind how ads are handled on YouTube, it's certainly better than sitting through endless commercials for irrelevant crap on cable. However, that isn't to say they can't be annoying at times. The interest based system is spotty, meaning there are quite a few ads for things I don't care about, and it's rediculous how you have to watch a :30 ad before you get to see a video that isn't even a minnute and a half long. Which is why know some people just don't like advertising period, which is probably why YouTube created YouTube Red for those who want to fund YouTube directly. So can you deal with a 15-30 sec. ad for medium or long length content (videos 4 min. and over)? Do you whitelist those you want to support, then block the rest? Or do you adblock all the things regardless?

I'm actually rewatching the first season right now, and it seem like a fun show so far.

The Teenage Drama has always been a strange beast. It's often ignored by those outside the target audience for said shows and for good reason, several teen dramas are kind of terrible. But like any TV genre, it also has it's fare share of gems and classics. From Buffy, to Awkward. (though this one's more of a comedy), to Veronica Mars, and even My So Called Life. What is you're favorite teen drama?

We've had independent movies, comics, music and video games for years. But up until now, there hasn't really seemed to have been an outlet for indie TV shows. But with the rise of services like YouTube, there's now an outlet for creators to make serialised or episodic stories without network executives breathing down your neck. Since YouTube's programming is almost entirely user-created, it makes an attractive breeding ground for lower-budget, less mainstream shows. With this in mind, could YouTube shows be considered indie TV, especially since YouTube already has apps for TV devices?

There's PG-13 Movies like Ant Man and Pixels getting advertised on kids networks, and they're considered family friendly. Parents do take their kids to these movies. But the T rating be considered family friendly too? I've played several Teen rated games like Valkyria Chronicles that were actually very tame, and well, teens are family too. Now obviously this doesn't apply to every T rated game, I certainly wouldn't give an 8 year old InFamous or the Batman Arkham games, but can certain T rated games be considered family friendly like certain PG-13 movies?

Looking at the current boom of touch screen smartphone games. I can't help but feel the DS was ahead of it's time, moreso than other Nintendo platforms. It was the first gaming device to get touch screen gaming right. It was one of the first systems with a built-in microphone, one of the first 3D capable handheld systems, one of the first gaming platforms to take advantage of the then new Wi-Fi internet format, and the DSi was the first to popularize the dual camera setup. Many of these things are now standard on every mobile device on the market. Plus, the DS paved the way for the casual gaming audience, introduced things like Brain Age wich are now a dime a dozen on iOS and Android. And made refinements to genres like puzzle games and strategy games thanks to it's touch screen interface. So what do you think?

For those who may not know, I love Video games, hell, I was practicaly raised on gaming. Of the big 3 consoles, Nintendo has always been my personal favorite, thanks to their excellent 1st party catalogue. I stuck with them for years, and I'm one of their biggest defenders on the internet.... But lately, things haven't been so peachy. This generation of gaming hasn't been very kind to Nintendo, and honestly, alot of it is their fault, thanks to the Wii U. As I mentioned, I'm one of Nintendo's biggest supporters online, and will gladly rush to their side whenever I see something I feel they get unfairly called out for (though I will express criticism when they make a poor business decision), but even I'm going to admit this. The Wii U is easily my least favorite console to come out from them. Now it's by no means a bad system. Nintendo has almost never put out a bad system (Virtual Boy aside) and I doubt they'd start now. But the U is plauged with many problems that prevent it from being a success. First, let's go back to when it was first revealed. I had a bad feeling about this thing from the moment it was unveiled, I was still looking foward to it's potential, but the fact that it was called the Wii U, and the tablet controller being the central focus made people think it was just an add-on for the Wii, which it wasn't. And the "3rd party support" shown, was basically just games that were already on their way for the PS360. Even worse, Nintendo seemed to have a very lacksidasical aditude towards it, almost as if they don't really care about it. As the following year was coming around, I was hoping Nintendo would give me confidence that this thing would be a system to talk about, but unfortunately that failed to deliver that at E3 2012. They didn't show anything that told people to buy this system, and it ended up as one of their worst showings at E3. Regardless of a poor reveal, lack of info, and terrible E3 '12 presentation, I was still looking foward to it's launch, since after all, this IS Nintendo, so you knew to expect quality 1st party content. Shortly after the system launched, many 3rd party publishers were been slowly abandoning the system, and expressed many fundamental problems regarding it's lackluster sales and slow CPU. And the fact that Rayman Legends, one of it's big 3rd party releases in 2013, was delayed so that Ubisoft could port it to Sony and Microsoft systems, almost 3 days before it's expected release ment things weren't looking too good for the Wii U. With a lack of games in the pipeline, Nintendo had to release a very special episode of it's popular Nintendo Direct series, to announce a slew of upcoming titles from them in an attempt to ensure gamers confidence. That was cool. The problem was that half of that lineup wouldn't be released until almost 2-4 years into the system's life. With no 3rd party support, lack of power and difficultly to develop for comparison to the PS4 and XBO, and Nintendo's struggles to adapt to HD Development (which they should of prepared for last generation), The Wii U became plauged with software droughts, at least retail wise. Seriously, Wii U owners have to wait months in order to get one game for it. Thank god for the eShop. If there's one thing keeping the Wii U at least somewhat relevant amoung gamers, its the fantastic indie support it has. It seems almost every month, the system gets 2-3 indie games, and thanks to it's Unity support, that can only grow. But sadly, It's not enough to keep the system afloat. If this years E3 Digital Event is anything to go by, plus the fact that Nintendo has already announced a new system currently codenamed "NX" not even 4 years into the system's life cycle. It seems Nintendo is just giving up on the Wii U after this year. The more I started thinking about the Wii U, it called to mind another failed console that, like the Wii U had potential, but was squashed by sloppy management of the parent company, the Sega Saturn. I won't go in to too much detail here, but the Saturn failed for many of the same reasons as the Wii U. Poor launch window, lack of 3rd party support, painful to develop for, plagued with software droughts, terrible marketing, and the company just giving up on the product before it could even turn 5, and was only kept alive thanks to a strong foreign library. If you want to see why the it failed in-depth, check out Project COE's video "Why the Sega Saturn failed" on YouTube. I simply hope Nintendo looks at what went wrong with the Wii U, and apply what they've learned with the NX.

For those who don't know, Platinum Games is a very well respected video game developer known for creating games with deep, rewarding combat, high level of energy, lots of polish, and a unique style. More importantly, they have the ability to have 2-3 games in development at once, with most of them releasing the same year, or just a year appart. Do we need something like that for western animation? A production company that makes, energetic, fun, polished, and heavily stylized Cartoons, pumping them out in almost rapid-fire succession?

3 new fighters, 4 new stages, and 8 new Mii costumes. All of this new Smash Bros. DLC is out..... Today! Yes, Nintendo has confirmed that starting today, you can download all of this new DLC for Smash Bros. Wii U and 3DS. So get those Hadukens ready.

The Disney Channel has become synonymous with live action kids shows and manufactured pop music. What are your personal opinions on Disney Channel's live-action programming? Back in the Zoog era, Disney aired stuff like So Weird, In a Heartbeat, The Famous Jet Jackson, Even Stevens, and Lizzie McGuire. Most of these were void of laugh tracks, and several of them were fairly serious dramas. Hell, I'm supprised how funny Even Stevens is today. So I have no problem with the older Zoog Disney shows. Disney sitcoms today? I usually ignore them. It's not their horrible, it's that they're absolutely contempt with doing nothing new. Here's the formula for a Disney sitcom 1. A teenage girl, or a group of teens who live in a "wacky family" or have some weird secret 2. Lame, unfunny humor poorly disguised by an obnoxious laugh track 3. A cute, good looking actress with a one-dimensional teenie bopper personality designed to sell pop music 4. Wacky parents and obnoxious younger siblings 5. Cheap production values and ultra bright lighting 6. Squeaky clean innocence because it's Disney goddamn it (Even though Disney is more than capable of being edgy) 7. Ridiculous, unrealistic plots That's pretty much the basis for any modern Disney kidcom. I like Disney but there's a reason I don't watch their flagship channel. I don't mind them doing sitcoms, if it sells, it sells, but does EVERY show on the network have to be a lame sitcom? Would it kill Disney to do something like Community or Parks & Recreation? Or an ACTUAL Teen Drama like Buffy or Awkward. (BTW, Yes, I know Disney Channel can't get too edgy, but would it kill them to have a block of programming STRICTLY for their older 12-14 year old viewers?). So that's my opinion, what's yours?

In my room, I have an old fashioned Sharp color TV with a digital converter. Along with the Big 3 networks, there's a variety of Digital subchannels and networks. It's not cable, but it has some good stuff. This brings me to a big question, can over-the-air networks become big again? Cable TV seems to be on decline, and not everyone wants to pay monthly for Netflix, Hulu, Sling, etc. With over-the-air TV, all you have to worry paying for is an antenna. Plus, there's seems to be a large variety of digital networks already, with new ones launched every year. Not to mention, the cable shopping networks Like HSN and QVC are available over-the-air through Ion Television stations. The only problem I can see is networks being able to maintain their contracts for their local stations. So what do you think?

At first I was suprised that quite a few people started high school at 13. But I heard a few states have a much later cutoff date than the usual September 1st date. Usually, people are 14-15 in 9th grade

I don't understand why people think Disney is going to ruin anime if they buy Funimation. Look Disney let Miramax release Sin City. They Marvel make an M-rated Deadpool game. They let ABC air How to Get Away With Murder. I doubt they're going to kiddify Funimation. At most, we'll probably see Dragon Ball and One Piece on Disney XD, WITH uncut releases available so that you don't have to complain about edits.

It was a joke. I know Disney isn't evil, and that their subsidiaries do benefit from their backing. But they seem to be very purchase happy with a lot of companies. Perhaps "hitlist" isn't the best phrase.

Disney has a long history of buying out major companies and brands haphazordly. From DiC, to The Muppets, to Fox Family, to ABC, to Miramax, and more recently, Marvel and Lucasfilm. Hell, they even own Maker Studios. With all these brands under their belt, who's Disney going to acquire next? I'm going to make a wild prediction and say Funimation is next on the House of Mouse's shopping list.

Just out of curiosity, what grade were/are you in when/if you were/are 13? I heard alot of kids are usually in 7th or 8th, a few even being high school freshmen. I actually turned 13 in 6th grade. If I hadn't been held back a year, I would've turned 13 in 7th.

Funny thing about MTV, they seem way better when they do anything BUT Reality TV. Their scripted stuff like Teen Wolf, Awkward., and Finding Carter are actually pretty decent.

For those who don't know, Nickelodeon has 2 sister networks, Nick Jr. aimed at preschoolers, and TeenNick, aimed at teenagers. But what's interesting about these networks is the lengthy history behind them. Once upon a time, they began as one partnership between two companies, promising to educate and make learning cool for kids. Way back in 1995, Nickelodeon began blueprints for a teacher friendly network that hoped to make education fun and interesting amoung a young audience. Something like Discovery Channel or The Learning Channel, but geared more towards Nick's demographics. The problem? Nick would have to acquire 90% of it's programing to avoid canabilism with the Nick Jr. block. Acquiring that much programing for a 24-hour channel would cost a lot of time and money. Arround the same time, shortly after Cro was canceled, Children's Television Workshop (CTW), the production company behind Sesame Street, tried launching their own kids' network with a simillar purpose called.... and I'm not kidding here, "Kid City". Wow, real creative guys. Unfortunatley, it never got off the ground, and was scrapped shortly afterwards. CTW knew they didn't have the man power, rescourses, or brand recognition to operate a TV network on their own, so they decided to turn to someone with experience. And what better company to turn to, than the 1st kids network itself. In 1998, CTW teamed up with Nickelodeon to create a brand new channel that filled both companies goals. Between the two they pulled their resources, and the final product, was Noggin. Touted as a "Squirm as you learn kids thinking channel" Noggin was created to be an educational network that made learning cool for children. It also featured a creator driven website in which viewers could create and submit various content to the website that may show up on air. It would feature programing from both Nick and CTW including, Sesame Street, Cro, 3-2-1 Connect, The Electric Company, Ghost Writer, Doug, Nick News, and various Nick Jr. reruns. The network would also produce it's own original content, but that wouldn't happen until at least a year after launch. To run the network, Thomas Ascheim was appointed as general manager. Noggin offically launched on Febuary 2nd, 1999 @ 6:00am starting with the very first episode of Sesame Street. The channel ran 24-hours, and was commercial-free, though originaly, CTW wanted it to be ad-supported. At launch, Noggin was avalible in 1.5-2 million homes, not viewers, homes that simply recieved the channel as part of their cable package. Initally, the network simply aired reruns of already created content by both it's parent companies, and off-network acquisitions like Bill-Nye the Science Guy. In 2000, a year after it's launch, CTW changed it's name to Sesame Workshop, to reflect it's most well known property. That same year, Noggin premired it's first batch of original series, including (But not limited to) A Walk In Your Shoes, a reality show where kids with two different backgrounds and interests, switch places with each other. Sponk, a bizzare mix of sharades and Who's Line is it Anyway?. And The Phred on Your Head show, a talk show hosted by the channel's mascott, Phred featuring the aforementioned creator driven content from Noggin's website. The channel looked to have a bright future ahead of it. However, this wouldn't last long. In 2001, Noggin announce plans to more agressively court the older quarter of it's target audience, the 12-14 year olds. Tomassi Lindman, VP of the channel's programing and production department said "We're looking for programing exclusively for our older 12-14 year old kids. It's where our library is the weakest, and it's where we feel there is the largest potential growth." That came into play soon enough, because in 2002, 3 years after launch, the channel announced a new format. It will now be split into 2 different dayparts, Noggin itself would be repurposed into a preschool network, and would feature exclusively preschool programing, meanwhile, afternoon and evenings would be home to a new network, The N. Whereas Noggin would target preschoolers, The N would be marketed to adolecents, the demographic with large amounts of free time and larger amounts of disposable income. The reason for this change was because Noggin's prime-time ratings which consisted of nostalgic reruns for adults, were much lower than expected. Both blocks would run 12 hours a day, and alternate between evening and night. They would operate seperately, with different websites and ratings reports, but would still be under one roof. This is similar to how Cartoon Network and Adult Swim operate, in which they are each distinct networks with their own operations, but still operate under one management unbrella. The split officially occured on, Ironically enough, April 1st, 2002, and no, it was not a joke. The channel still remained commercial free, and was still co-owned by Sesame Workshop. That is until a few months later, when Sesame Workshop sold it's 50% interest in the channel to Nickelodeon, taking it's programing library with them. This move gave Nickelodeon full control of both Noggin and The N. By 2003, the change was clear. The new Noggin, featuring hosts Moose A. Moose, and Zee the bird, aired programing from Nickelodeon, foreign aquisitions, and original programing. Meanwhile The N..... aired programing from Nickelodeon, foreign aquisitions, and original programing. Oh yeah, and butchered reruns of Daria. But perhaps The N's most famous series, was Degrassi. This Canadian Teen Soap Opera would become the network's highest rated series for many years and it still continues to this day. It also helped paved way for other simillar shows on the network like the ground-breaking and critically acclaimed, South of Nowhere. Although, Sesame Workshop no longer owned Noggin at this point, they still produced content for the network such as the Sesame Street spin-off, Play With Me Sesame. In 2004, Nickelodeon announced that The N, would become an ad-supported network. While Noggin would remain commercial-free, Nick hoped to attract advertisers for the ever lucrative 12-24 year old market to the nightime network for teens. The N also ran a programing block featuring the then latest programing from Nick's TEENick block, the same was true vice-versa, as the TEENick block also ran an hour of programing from The N. That same year, The N premired it's first original animated series, and one of the most overlooked cartoons of the 2000s, O'Grady. This bizzare teen cartoon from the crew behind Home Movies stared 4 teenagers putting up with "The Weirdness" that inhabits the enpynomus setting of O' Grady. It's a witty and hillarious show to check out if you love Home Movies. In 2007, Nickelodeon announced plans to split Noggin and The N into seperate 24 hour channels. Noggin would remain in it's position, except they would expand to a 24 hour schedule for the first time since 2002. Meanwhile, The N would inherit the channel slot of Nick GaS, who, at this point, was just running reruns of the same 5 shows on an automated loop, and would also expand to 24 hours. To fill in the extra time, The N began airing reruns of That 70's Show and Saved by the Bell. This took effect on December 31, 2007. However, Dish Network refused to give up Nick GaS, and continued to air Noggin and The N as timeshare networks, until April 23, 2009, when Nick GaS was replaced with a west coast feed of Cartoon Network/Adult Swim. They began carrying Noggin and The N as seperate channels later that year. In 2009, as part of Nick's universal rebrand efforts which involved all 5 of their networks adopting the same new logo, Nick announced that Noggin and The N would be rebranded as Nick Jr. and TeenNick. The programing blocks of the same names were phased out on Nickelodeon itself shortly after the announcement. The change took effect on September 28. It seemed that Noggin was now officially dead, but it wasn't. At their 2015 upfront earlier this year, Nick announced that Noggin would be relaunched as a subscription based education service for preschoolers, avalibe on various mobile devices and still featuring the same logo and hosts. Noggin was an interesting experiment. A kind of "makes kids smarter" channel not only backed by a big player in children's edutainment, but also the #1 kids network at the time certainly had potential, but in the end, it was meerly an oddity, and yet another in a long list of cable channels that abandoned their original purpose in order to persue a more marketable demographic (MTV, TLC, History, Syfy, G4, etc.). If they took a different approach to primetime and overnight programing, maybe it could've panned out a bit better. With that, join me next time when we take a look at the original TV 4 Gamers, G4.

But this kinda goes along with my original point, cartoons, including the most popular anime have a large periphery audience amoung Teens, but there aren't many shows directly targeted at them. But you do have a point, Japan comes the closest.

Actually, most of the popular anime like Dragon Ball and One Piece are aimed at kids in Japan. The japanese have less strict content standards than the US.

That's what I mean. Kids shows like Regular Show and Steven Universe, and adult cartoons like South Park and Rick & Morty are Teen friendly, and have huge teen fanbases. But there aren't many successful cartoons specificaly aimed at teens. BTW, check out O' Grady, it's hilarious!

In TV animation, cartoons either target kids 6-11, or adults 18-34. Both side have been successful, but why do teens never catch on? I made a topic a while ago asking if any teenagers people know like cartoons. But while they're a big periphery audience, there hasn't many successful animated series directly aimed at them. Some, were close to target 12-14 year olds at least, and there was Daria on MTV. But most attempts at teen-aimed stuff tend to be niche one shots that barely last 2 seasons. You want an example? O' Grady. An old show from The N (now TeenNick), a teen-targeted off-shoot of Nickelodeon. The best way to describe it is Daria meets Regular Show, it's from a lot of the same crew who worked on Home Movies. With the previous successes of Bevis and Butt-head and Daria, I'm surprised Teen-aimed cartoons never caught on the same way adult cartoons did.