The IT Crowd and Linux
Quote from an interview with Graham Linehan, creator of The IT Crowd (emphasis mine):
I always try and come up with ideas that have what I call 'penetration'; they involve computers in some way, but in such a way that everybody will know what I'm talking about. So I'd write something about Facebook, which people are very aware of now, but not My Space, which was more of a culty thing. I'd write about the German cannibal because it made the news, but I hardly ever do gags about geeky things like Linux because to hasn't penetrated into the mainstream.
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I guess it depends on your perspective. MySpace would be much better known than FaceBook in the U.S., at least up until recently. So perhaps in his audience, Linux really hasn't had enough penetration of the type to make it worth a joke.
ReplyDelete"So I'd write something about Facebook, which people are very aware of now, but not My Space, which was more of a culty thing."
ReplyDeleteReally? Maybe if you're over 30 and think TXT'ing is the new thing that's about to penetrate the mainstream.
Doesn't Work At McDonalds said...
ReplyDelete> So perhaps in his audience, Linux really
> hasn't had enough penetration of the
> type to make it worth a joke
Yes, this is what he says, but his audience get the jokes about goatse (season 1), so here is someone who know what goatse is but does not know what Linux is?
Anonymous said...
> Maybe if you're over 30 and think
> TXT'ing is the new thing
Welcome to the rest of the world... he is British.
Around me (in Romania) very few people know what MySpace is or for that matter what Facebook is.
You're missing his point. He's saying that he wants to reach everybody, not just hipsters or computer nerds. Also, texting wouln't be new to him because he's Irish (not British), and the average person in Europe had mobiles about ten years before they got big in the US.
ReplyDelete