It's pretty clear there is some hate here and the judgement of charisma and charm of a person by someone who hates them is useless to any rational person. There are tons of talking heads I dislike, but they all have charisma - that's why they have jobs.

Godwin in five! (counting siftbot)

@gwiz665 Charisma can be subjective, so she definitely has her fans. The Maddow thing is off-putting a little bit (close your eyes and listen; she sounds almost exactly like her), but I don't think it's on purpose. She was born with that voice. I think she's more Munn than Maddow, and you can never have too much Olivia Munn, imho.

Maddow has the charisma of a dock-side barkeep, and the charm of of the edge of a table.

She tries a little too hard to be Rachel Maddow and/or Jon Stewart and doesn't have the charisma to carry it.

If you took her entire talk, word-for-word, and had Neil DeGrasse Tyson do it- it would be twice as good. She definitely lacked the enthusiasm and charisma you usually find at TED.

The guy has charisma, I'll give him that.

Downvote.

Typical Dane Cook hatred for no reason. There are plenty of unfunny comedians and, yet, why pick on Dane Cook? Because it's the thing to do. It's "in," "hip," and "cool" to join in. I wish I could say that I'm just defending him unbiased, but the fact of the matter is I think he's pretty funny. I'm not a typical college girl that thinks he's so handsome and I want him to fuck my brains out so I go to his shows and scream at the top of my lungs. I'm actually a lover of stand-up comedy. Seen many live performances as well as ones on TV. Sure, maybe Dane's stardom seemed unequal to his talents, but I don't see somebody's popularity through hard work, networking, and charisma as a reason to chastise them.

PS: Bill Burr's Monday Morning podcast, will definitely be for you if you liked this

Knew he was a fake. You know, in the late 80's we had a massive conspiracy in the music world as Milli Vanilli were discovered as having faked their performances, and that they didn't even record their own songs. It caused such an uproar in the music industry at the time that it was on the news for months, the duo was stripped of their awards, shamed by the masses and one of the performers committed suicide.

Little did we know that a decade or two later it would be not only with this sort of fraud be common place, it would be the defacto standard in Pop music (and others.. I highly suspect Country because most of those male singers sound identical, they don't write their own songs and many visibly do not play their guitar even though you hear it being played when they are on stage). Big acts like Bieber are made famous because of their charisma and their sex appeal... and yes, that was the intent for his teenybopper audience. Their flat or unpolished singing voices mean nothing when a computer program just fixes their voice digitally and then they go on stage and just pretend to sing. The handful of times they actually sing themselves the performances are horrid.

Justin Bieber can sing a little blurb on a talk show or over the internet and sound half decent.. millions worth of singing lessons will do that. But when it comes right down to it he's the same no talent hack as the vast majority of the 'pop' world. What is even more funny is that the vast majority of websites, news channels, etc that report this don't even MENTION the fact that he somehow keeps 'singing' even while throwing up. The sad fact is most people have either accepted or become blinded to the fact that Mili Vanili were only precursors to a new industry standard.

In the end I feel bad the most for our children. They are growing up with this fake garbage and don't even know it. It's all so focus tested and programmed in that each new hit is the same and they don't care. It's why with my daughter I try and teach her to be eclectic with her musical tastes. I really don't care if I don't like what she listens to, just so long as she know how fake pop music is these days. Thankfully she's got her dads musical genes.

>> ^Trancecoach:

Too bad for him (and you) that "flying the plane" involves diplomacy and charisma.>> ^quantumushroom:
I don't care if the pilot of the 747 I'm on isn't the World's Most Interesting Man/Media Creation, I only care that he's sober and can fly the damned thing.
ROMNEY LANDSLIDE 2012.



And, incidentally, caring about the interests of more than just the richest 1% of the county.

Too bad for him (and you) that "flying the plane" involves diplomacy and charisma.>> ^quantumushroom:

I don't care if the pilot of the 747 I'm on isn't the World's Most Interesting Man/Media Creation, I only care that he's sober and can fly the damned thing.
ROMNEY LANDSLIDE 2012.

with that kind of charisma, no wonder she's a porn star.
*books

@enoch

Howdy. First off, thanks; coming back to this discussion is kind of interesting after a few years.

My thoughts:

1. I wasn't a huge Obama supporter - but I did expect more from him in terms of change on health care (the US system is still a crazy-quilt of expensive nonsense) and reduced military expenditure (I expected a faster withdraw timetable from both Iraq and Afghanistan). I thought he could sell his vision, but it hasn't worked; he's lost people and as a result doesn't have the political will to make real change. It's too bad, because I think he did intend some good things.

2. I think the Occupy movement is a good illustration of the point I wanted to make. They had a good thing going and some scattered good ideas - but they didn't integrate themselves into the political movement. They distrusted it, shunned it. Candidates couldn't espouse Occupy ideals to get elected because Occupy people were poorly organized, had vague goals, and were not reliable voters. Nobody worried about not getting re-elected because they didn't line up with Occupy.

3. By contrast, the Tea Partiers had a much more substantial impact on policy because they did connect to the Republican party, connected with candidates, and they got out the vote (sometimes at least). If they could have found anyone who wasn't a complete and utter moron to lead them (I guess it's hard to find sane leaders when your policies are nuts), they could have got a lot of stuff changed (mostly for the worse, of course, but change nonetheless).

I think if Occupy could have organized better (maybe have some leaders, or at least rallied behind some statement of principle and ideas for change), it could have been a huge force for good. I think they were hampered by exactly this sense of hopelessness. They didn't actually believe they could make a difference in political decisions, so they didn't really try - and because of this, in the end I don't think they've had much lasting effect. A lot of their ideas resonated with a powerful number of people, but all that effort and will got channeled nowhere - just anger and hopelessness and failure.

I still think positive change is very possible in the US (and the world in general), and I think it's still most likely to happen (in the US) through the normal democratic process. It'll take some real leadership, though. Someone like Ron Paul - but with much less crazy and more charisma - could turn the Occupy-type crowd into a very potent political force that could do some real good. (On Ron Paul: he did certainly face some unfair extra hurdles as an anti-establishment candidate - but I think his main problem was that too many people legitimately disagreed with him).

Will it happen? I don't know. As I've said, I think a big problem is that the current generation - the students and young people who've driven change throughout history - distrusts the entire political process. More than that, they distrust "leadership" in general. Returning to Occupy, they seemed to be actively against leaders emerging or having cohesive policies to rally around.

That's cool and fun and Internet-like, but it doesn't get the job done.

This was surprisingly enjoyable. The girl has charisma and obviously enjoys what she does. Upvote from me.

Yeah, take that Will Smith and Oprah. God forbid you guys can become superstars and multi-millionaires. You have to "stay genuine", and never change, even if it means staying dirt poor or mediocre. Conforming to some vague notion of "blackness" is more important than personal achievement.

And fuck Obama too, and Ursula Burns, and any other black person with talent, drive and determination, who happens to have charisma and appeals to other races. And god forbid someone undergoes personal transformation and change to succeed, especially in a society where the chips are stacked against them on day 1. No, it's better to know one's place.

Yeah, Barack, Ursula, Will and Oprah, even though you guys are actually transforming what it means to be african american and black by kicking down barriers, so that black kids can feel they can do anything and be anyone, FUCK YOU.

Will, you should still be rapping about Philly with the other ol' skool rappers on tour on the c-circuit. Oprah, you should still be doing "who's the father!!" shows and competing with Jerry Springer and Maury. Ursula, wasn't middle management enough? And Barack my man, you did much more good as a community organizer.

C, your premise and line of thinking is ridiculous. Can you explain to me what role is acceptable for a black man? You castigate Will Smith for being weak then complain about Samuel Jackson and Denzel Washington? These guys aren't flava flav for gods sake.

Please forgive me for not seeing your sarcasm, if that's what this is. >> ^chingalera:

When it comes right down to it, who really gives a fuck why Will Smith back-slapped a reporter, or why the reporter decided to kiss him. All that really matters is that Will Smith, one of the whitest black men in America, will never get any revenue from me, as I plan to download the film from many of my friends around the world who won;t shed a tear when Hollywood dies.
He can join the other list of sell-out negroes in Hollywood who have taken the $Bait$ and become masters of a weak stereotypical representation of the African-American male.
There's the ultimate hero negro: Denzel Washington, Jim Brown, (AKA, The Victim of Society Negro
The Superhero Negro: Wesley Snipes, Samuel L. Jackson, Laurence Fishburne
The Historical Hero negro Cuba Gooding Jr., Denzel Washington, Will Smith
The Sidekick negro-Sam Jackson, Morgan Freeman, Don Cheadle
Cop/Psychologist/Social Worker Negro-Sydney Poitier, Whoopi Goldberg
and then there's the , "Only African-American female to ever win an Academy Award for best actress getting ass-raped negress, Halle Berry
Fuck Will Smith, he's another total sell-out.

People in the press liked McCain, and had this preconceived notion of him being some sort of independent "maverick". Since Republicans don't really tolerate independent thought, he had to work really hard to convince them that he was done being independent and would be a hardline conservative, and in the process turned himself into a laughingstock.

Mitt Romney seems to have been hated by basically everyone, seems to have zero personal charisma, is completely out of touch with how normal people live their lives, and it's virtually impossible to find an issue on which Romney hasn't been on both sides of during his political career. It's not really a surprise that he's a joke right out of the gate.

If Romney wins, it'll be a signal to the rest of the world that America is either no longer a democracy, or is now so completely overrun with people who have no grasp on reality that it probably shouldn't exist anymore.

And I honestly think there's a 40% chance Romney will win, because there's an awful lot of people with no grasp on reality here...

>> ^raverman:

Is it just me or is Mitt Romney a laughing stock before he even starts campaigning in earnest?
I don't remember people making fun of McCain like this (or much at all until the Palin twist)