Sniff Strikes Back....

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They're searching for the pulse, but keep missing it by a couple years.
 
That's actually funny. Why can't they write more stuff like that?
 
That is so funny! Sad part is, it describes many so called "fans" of the show. I bet several people on this forum read it as a real review of the season and went "Finally! Someone else who gets it!"
 
The man behind Sniff Petrol is Top Gear's script editor

In that case, then he's got it all wrong, it's all hopeless and it was the worst update since the one about 6 updates ago when it was still worse than the one 6 updates before that. It was better when that fat guy was typing it out.

I wish we could have old sniff petrol back, when they still got it!
 
That was cool, but I hated it. :p
 
That was as funny as the crap he scripts for top gear.

The last paragraph is the only part which caught my attention. I'm not sure if he is parodying the occasional posts here from UK residents (invalidating those in other countries for not paying a BBC licence fee) or taking a direct dig at those in other countries who watch the show. Since it is a sarcastic piece, I'll assume the latter and I would take issue with his simplistic concept of how top gear is funded. Whilst I'm not in West Idaho, I am in a country where I do not pay a BBC licence fee (as such), but that does not mean I do not pay to watch Top Gear. When the show was on SBS (Australia), my tax payer dollars were used to purchase the show from BBC Worldwide. I have cable TV. Part of my subscription to that is used to show Top Gear on the BBC Knowledge Channel. Now that the show is on Channel 9, every time I purchase a product that is advertised on that channel, the price I pay is inflated by those advertising costs. The show may be owned by BBC licence payers, it is those of us outside the UK (paying both directly and indirectly) who have made it the commercial success it is for BBC Worldwide. He shouldn't be so contemptuous, he should be licking our boots in gratitude.
 
Sniff petrol is about as funny as the i eaglehammer.

More to the point it isn't anywhere near as funny as quite a lot of the stuff that some members post here.
 
It was a shock that Sniff actually put up fresh content for the first time in months. It wasn't a shock that none of it was remotely funny. That site's been sucking on dry tit for so long it's pathetic. Matt's right; Porter could e-mail about four or five people from here to do Sniff for fun in their spare time, we'd say yes, and they'd have new content weekly that would actually be funny.

As for the piece itself, yeah, it's obvious that Top Gear would love to have fans that are totally uncritical who'd dedicate their lives to giving them e-blowjobs, and that's pretty much what they have on the official site (which is what made the India Not-So-Special such a shock to their system; Watch the teeth! Watch the teeth!). Every TV show would love to have that kind of audience. Porter is simply following the Andy/Jeremy Party Line here: the critics are irrational, and, besides, they don't pay the license fee, so they don't matter.

Except...

As Ger said, we outside UKania do pay for the show indirectly. Ger outlined how he pays for it in AUS. I pay for BBC America as part of my cable bill here in Not-Quite-Chicagoland, and I also get my Net access through my cable company. It's a sunk cost, and I'm just choosing which method I desire to get Top Gear. It's all coming down the coax anyway, and every month, I send an e-check to cover that cost, a small portion of which is earmarked to paying for Top Gear. Just because the payment isn't laid out as clearly as it is with the UK License Fee doesn't mean it's theft.

As for the "satire" itself...dear Mister Porter, let me pass on some stuff from a basic military leadership course. There are basically three types of soldiers. The ones that are sullen and apathetic, going through the motions, are the ones you've lost. There's nothing you can do to get them back. The gung-ho ones are the ones you have to worry about; they're going to get themselves killed. It's the ones who are bitchy and critical that you want. They're showing that they care. Apply the proper sort of motivation, and they're going to not only stick with you, but they're going to survive alongside you to complete the mission.

It's pretty clear that Andy and Jeremy understand this, and their remarks about fans in Minnesota and such are attempts to motivate this part of the fandom. Porter's piece, however, doesn't do that. It comes off as mean-spirited and insulting. It isn't even stereotypical. Any episode thread here puts the lie to that stereotype. If you eliminate the half of the entries from the gung-ho brainless crowd, the remaining half are well-thought-out and critical where they need to be, along with appropriate praise. I don't think there's anyone here (other than theiceisalie and his TGUSA remarks) who are consistently negative for the sake of being consistently negative. The main problem with the piece was that it wasn't funny, it was that it was completely off-target. That seems to be a habit with everything on Sniff for a long time now.

I wonder how Porter treated Kimi Raikkonen on the set, considering that, during the last burst of fresh content on Sniff, there was that picture caption piece of a vodka truck pulled up at Lotus Renault as "preparation" for Kimi's return...
 
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The Spie wrote...

"The main problem with the piece was that it wasn't funny, it was that it was completely off-target."

I think that there will be quite a few people on this forum that disagree with you there.
"
If you eliminate the half of the entries from the gung-ho brainless crowd...
"

That's nice - lets write off 50% of the forum's membership shall we? How dare you assume that their comments however crass don't count - and since when have all the commentators on TG.Com been sycophantic? And even if they are they are still TG fans and their opinions count as much as yours. It surely means that there is a large group of people who don't want to analyse TG down to its nuts and bolts but just want to enjoy it for the brilliant entertainment that it is. I get so b****y depressed coming on here at times. I have to sit down and remind myself that there may be about 500 people who vote on here but that there is on average, thank God, another 4,900,500 fans in the UK alone.

"Porter's piece, however, doesn't do that. It comes off as mean-spirited and insulting"

Well now you know, I suspect, how the TG team feel about your 'discussions' at times.

Personally I think that the worst thing Andy and Jeremy ever did was to give the discussions on here legitimacy - there are a group of you who seem to think now that if you shout loudly and for long enough then TG will bow to your demands. It's become really tiresome at times. I got the distinct impression from the later episode introductions that they have begun to feel that too. They are NOT going to drop the SIARPC and they are NOT going to sack Richard. Please give it a rest! The tone of the episode discussions on here has definitely taken a turn for the worse from earlier ones because many of them come over as 'mean spirited and insulting'.- even your reasoned debates!

I love TG and I will be gutted when it finally comes to an end, and I don't like everything they have done by any means, but I used to enjoy coming on here to read your discussions and comment, but I don't now and I know I'm not the only one who thinks that.
 
I'm sorry Whitevanwoman, but I think you may be one of those fanboygirls who just can't bear to hear criticism, no matter how legitimate it may be. I hate to think the makers of TopGear, including the guy who wrote this sniff piece, honestly think that those of us who dare criticize TopGear somehow "hate" it. I've been an active part in many of those discussions and I don't recall anyone ever saying they "hate" the show, or "hated" season whatever, or "hated" Hammond's caricature of himself. Maybe someone, somewhere, said they "hated" something, but it must be an unbelievably rare event as I cannot recall a single incident. I find it a bit sad that people think the only way you can be a "true fan" of the show is by turning your brain off and kissing nothing but ass about it, without any sort of critical thought or opinion or reflection. Is it so horrible to have standards anymore? Is that how far we've sunk?
 
I think whitevan is right. The "review" on Sniff Petrol would honestly not be out of place on the episode discussion threads from season 14 onwards. Basically with few exceptions, this site is mad up of two crowds the My God that last episode/series sucked so bad kill this show now!" crowd and the "Lol Top Gear is better than ever go watch Fifth Gear you haters!" crowd. That being said the first group greatly out numbers the second, especially these past three series or so, where so much as laughing at an episode gets one flamed.
 
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