I'm not here...

July 11, 2008 12:29 PM

I'm not here to make friends. slyt
via [NEGATENDO]
posted by boo_radley (79 comments total)

Original blog post.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 12:35 PM on July 11, 2008 [2 favorites]

Metafilter: I'm not here to make friends.

And that's you. And that means you're fearful of things.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 12:36 PM on July 11, 2008 [1 favorite]

Wherein we have the current zeitgeist of America summed-up in a few little words. Over and over again.
posted by Thorzdad at 12:37 PM on July 11, 2008 [13 favorites]

You forgot the "stupid bitches" tag.
posted by Caduceus at 12:38 PM on July 11, 2008

Oddly, no, I didn't.
posted by boo_radley at 12:39 PM on July 11, 2008 [8 favorites]

When that video first started, I thought I'd only make it through thirty seconds, and then I ended up watching the whole thing. It's really well edited. Various ways of telling people that you're not here to make friends are carefully grouped into categories, and transitions from one category to the next are accomplished with edge cases. It's the Anatomy of Melancholy of not being here to make friends.
posted by Prospero at 12:42 PM on July 11, 2008 [1 favorite]

How depressing.
posted by tkolar at 12:46 PM on July 11, 2008

ah, fuck the whole lot of ya.
posted by kitchenrat at 12:47 PM on July 11, 2008

Double-plus meta-points for the self referencing cliche callout.

Can't wait to forward this to my reality TV watching mother.
posted by butterstick at 12:47 PM on July 11, 2008

When people comb the archives for this post sometime in the future, the tags are going to be tremendous assets.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 12:48 PM on July 11, 2008 [1 favorite]

Ahh... reality TV... the natural habitat of assholes.
posted by BobFrapples at 12:51 PM on July 11, 2008 [2 favorites]

Amazing. It's like how people who appear as contestants on (for example) the Price is Right already know how all the games work. Once you've watched someone play the game on TV, it's easy enough to perform the game correctly (not just play it, but to react and jump and scream) up there in front of the cameras. You don't have to take a class to learn how to do this, or even talk to other people about it: Television is the main medium for instructing people on how to behave when they're on television.
posted by aparrish at 12:52 PM on July 11, 2008 [1 favorite]

I'm here to make friends.

I'm a failure.
posted by Dr-Baa at 12:57 PM on July 11, 2008 [1 favorite]

I'm here to make friends.

I'm a failure.

Dammit, Dr-Baa, I'll be your friend.

Please don't vote me off the island.
posted by JaredSeth at 1:00 PM on July 11, 2008 [1 favorite]

That's just mind-blowing. Sometime in the last two or three years I became a curmudgeon who doesn't watch TV (okay, fine, except for Jeopardy! and baseball... and the occasional movie on the Monster channel). I mean, I know reality TV is dumb, but this is almost unbelievable.
posted by uncleozzy at 1:01 PM on July 11, 2008 [3 favorites]

*Gives the double middle finger salute to everyone in this thread and storms out. Maybe I flash my chest too.*
posted by drezdn at 1:06 PM on July 11, 2008

Not that surprising. Nobody ever told all those quarterbacks to say they couldn't have got it done without their linemen, and that the whole team really gave 110%, but they all do.
posted by yhbc at 1:07 PM on July 11, 2008

This isn't Metafilter of Friends.
posted by drezdn at 1:09 PM on July 11, 2008 [1 favorite]

"I feel bad for her because she really is looking to gain friends as opposed to focusing on winning."

This is an amazing post. Simultaneously reflecting the mind-numbing banality of so many people, the vapidity of reality TV itself, the forced unreal drama of scripted "reality" TV, and the unfriendliness of our modern lives.

Which means that someone is going to blow people's minds by winning a reality show simply using the philosophy "Well, I was actually just here to make friends..."
posted by hincandenza at 1:10 PM on July 11, 2008 [3 favorites]

Perhaps, but they will have made friends with reality show contestants. Is that really a win?
posted by JaredSeth at 1:12 PM on July 11, 2008 [1 favorite]

i'm here to make fiends
posted by sexyrobot at 1:13 PM on July 11, 2008 [2 favorites]

And to think, this all started with some asshole TV producer saying, "I'm not here to make Friends."
posted by naju at 1:15 PM on July 11, 2008 [18 favorites]

Once when watching the Real World (either Austin or New Orleans, I think), I realized reality shows had crossed over into a new weird universe of meta-ness when the housemates discussed which previous cast members they considered themselves comparable too.
posted by drezdn at 1:16 PM on July 11, 2008

I won MeFiNo by making friends.
posted by Meatbomb at 1:17 PM on July 11, 2008

Bush offers his version of the "I'm not here to make friends".
posted by drezdn at 1:18 PM on July 11, 2008

So I have now decided to pitch a reality show to the networks. It's sort of like Project Greenlight, but for sitcoms. And it's called, "I'm Not Here to Make Friends, I'm Here to Make Friends".
posted by pazazygeek at 1:19 PM on July 11, 2008 [1 favorite]

Crash Davis: It's time to work on your interviews.
Ebby Calvin LaLoosh: My interviews? What do I gotta do?
Crash Davis: You're gonna have to learn your clichés. You're gonna have to study them, you're gonna have to know them. They're your friends. Write this down: "We gotta play it one day at a time."
Ebby Calvin LaLoosh: Got to play... it's pretty boring.
Crash Davis: 'Course it's boring, that's the point. Write it down.
posted by Skot at 1:21 PM on July 11, 2008

I'm not here to make FPP's, I'm here to comment in them.
posted by poppo at 1:29 PM on July 11, 2008

I just wanna be loved... is that so wrrrooounggggg?
posted by miss lynnster at 1:29 PM on July 11, 2008 [2 favorites]

Now if only someone would make a montage of female reality TV show contestants proudly saying, "Yeah, I'm a bitch - so what?" or "I always get what I want".
posted by Evangeline at 1:37 PM on July 11, 2008

Disabled Models compete in reality show.

And no, this is not a joke.
posted by gagglezoomer at 1:46 PM on July 11, 2008

I came here to do two things: chew some bubblegum and not make friends. And I'm all out of bubblegum!

Wait a sec—found a piece!

*chews*
posted by Atom Eyes at 1:48 PM on July 11, 2008 [1 favorite]

We are so much better than them.
posted by netbros at 1:53 PM on July 11, 2008

Jaw-drop at 00:20.

Honey, let me know when you want a friend.
posted by Zambrano at 1:58 PM on July 11, 2008

where's my sanity loss tag already?

that cack was the soundtrack to final year of my last relationship.
well edited, sure, but I pity the poor fuck who cobbled it together.
posted by Busithoth at 2:01 PM on July 11, 2008

I would love it if in one of these game shows someone said the tired cliché "I'm not here to make friends", and a person on the other side of the room came charging over, vein popping out of their forehead, screaming "You know what? I am here to fucking make friends! All of you are going to be my friends or I swear to Christ, I will bleed you out in your sleep."

Just to see the reaction of the original speaker.
posted by quin at 2:01 PM on July 11, 2008 [4 favorites]

Original speaker: "I'm not here to sleep."
posted by Dumsnill at 2:18 PM on July 11, 2008

I'm waiting for "I'm not here to make friends, I'm here to attempt to jumpstart an acting career or failing that appear in a spinoff"
posted by drezdn at 2:22 PM on July 11, 2008

I'm not here.
posted by pracowity at 2:44 PM on July 11, 2008

Thanks AV. Rich gets no credit! Favorite blogger ever.
posted by peep at 2:52 PM on July 11, 2008

Thanks for the link to that, Ambrosia.
posted by boo_radley at 3:03 PM on July 11, 2008

This is like playing the spy in TF2 and start screaming in allchat something to your target before backstabbing him. If you're in the Reality to win you might want to use a good strategy, at least.
posted by darkripper at 3:10 PM on July 11, 2008

I'm here to party!

and for intellectual discourse of course.
posted by clearly at 3:16 PM on July 11, 2008

This is just sad.

I'm not clear -- and I'm sure someone will enlighten me -- when we started celebrating assholeishness as a desirable trait. What the fuck is wrong with people.
posted by cedar at 3:21 PM on July 11, 2008 [3 favorites]

I'm here to influence people.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 3:24 PM on July 11, 2008 [2 favorites]

Gee? You mean the people who volunteer to engage in big-money competition TV shows don't do it to make friends with the people they're competing with?!?

I am shocked!
Abso-freaking-lutely shocked!!!

So where is the clip of Ken Jennings saying "I didn't come on Jeopardy to make friends"? Because I know there's one out there (and I'm sure it ends with "...but somehow I did make a few, though not many of them were among the 148 I beat at the game.")
posted by wendell at 3:25 PM on July 11, 2008

This isn't sad. These people are on game shows, and want to win them. Do you folks here not have any kind of frame of reference?
posted by xmutex at 3:25 PM on July 11, 2008 [1 favorite]

Previously on Lost
posted by Joey Michaels at 3:31 PM on July 11, 2008 [5 favorites]

And the only reason "I'm not here to make friends" is ever said on any of those shows, let alone becoming a cliche on them, is because their format includes lots and lots of filler material unrelated to the actual competition and the easiest filler to make look relevant is anything showing 'relationships' among the competitors. And that was exactly what you get when you do that. I'm not going to blame the bitches, sons-of-bitches and spayed/neutered dogs who play the games, I blame the Producers and Programming Execs who make sure these 'unscripted' shows always have people saying the same damn lines.

Also, what xmutex said.
posted by wendell at 3:35 PM on July 11, 2008

i'm here to make fiends

Drug Dealer: I'ma here to make feens, yo.
posted by bwg at 3:43 PM on July 11, 2008

Xmutex, it's just that there are so many of them.

It has become the norm. Somehow this behavior is not only acceptable, but popular. That is what I find discouraging. Someone must be watching them or they wouldn't be on.
posted by cedar at 3:57 PM on July 11, 2008

It has become the norm. Somehow this behavior is not only acceptable, but popular. That is what I find discouraging.

I see it as the natural reaction to the other half of reality show contestants. The emotional basket cases that cry uncontrollably because they haven't seen their dog in 2 days, and consider a bunch of strangers on a game show to be their best friends in the world. When you're playing a game to win a million dollars, its ok to admit that maybe you're only there for the money (*).

(* - if you're playing a game to humiliate yourself and impress Tila Tequila, seek professional help)
posted by Gary at 4:19 PM on July 11, 2008

I'd like to see some clips from Who Wants To Be Friends.
posted by DU at 4:20 PM on July 11, 2008

More seriously, "I'm not here to make friends" is just the personal version of the business cliche "businesses exist to make a profit". The worst version is that you can lie, buy influence, destroy the environment and screw people over if a) it isn't specifically prohibited by law and b) it makes a profit. Ethics (and making friends) don't increase shareholder value.
posted by DU at 4:28 PM on July 11, 2008 [1 favorite]

Someone should do one of these for the digustingly pervasive It is what is is
posted by poppo at 4:45 PM on July 11, 2008

It has become the norm. Somehow this behavior is not only acceptable, but popular.

The behavior of wanting to win game shows? Was that ever not popular? Come on. These people are trying to win money. If this stuff really speaks to you of human cruelness or insincerity, you need something deeply adjusted.
posted by xmutex at 4:46 PM on July 11, 2008

The behavior of wanting to win game shows? Was that ever not popular? Come on. These people are trying to win money. If this stuff really speaks to you of human cruelness or insincerity, you need something deeply adjusted.

I guess you can view it this way. However, I see a difference between reality television and The Price Is Right.

It is now at the point where Brooke Hogan gets a show, because she has big titties and her daddy is famously divorced. TMZ posts jailhouse tapes of a minor talking to his father and suddenly it's prime time CNN news. Joe Wannabe Actor takes his clothes off and jumps into a hot tub with newly Famous Internet Skank.

Nannies are being taped abusing kids for our consumption, people are eating bugs for cash and every idiot adolescent wants to wreck a bike (preferrably in flames) for Real TV. I know guys who look, while being arrested, for the sound guy. You know, so they can be famous for thirty seconds (Warhol had it wrong, fifteen minutes is way too long).

Adjust away, deeply, if you like. Just don't lose the remote, you might miss something.
posted by cedar at 5:04 PM on July 11, 2008 [1 favorite]

I just canceled cable.
posted by tkchrist at 5:35 PM on July 11, 2008

Nannies are being taped abusing kids for our consumption...

Speak for yourself. I haven't turned on "live" TV in years. My IQ jumped 30 points.
posted by DU at 6:12 PM on July 11, 2008

Right on aparrish and drezdn, but I think it has gone way beyond people on reality tv shows aping people from reality tv shows.

I remember having that same creepy meta feeling while watching Real World Hawaii, but it was really Puck (not to mention Pedro) and Real World San Francisco that initiated the dimensional shift. However, when I realized that an alarming number of the people around me - I was in college at the time - were also taking cues from Ruthie, Amaya and Teck... Ugh.

Btw, Chuck Klosterman has a similar bit about this sort of thing in Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs.
posted by eric1halfb at 7:12 PM on July 11, 2008

Ruthie... she was the bomb... the way she pounded those shots and that time she bitch slapped the bouncer.

Oh wait, I quit drinking.

Skank.
posted by cedar at 7:22 PM on July 11, 2008

"I'm Not Here to Make Friends, I'm Here to Make Friends".

Jesus, I've worked in my share of reality t.v., though thankfully nothing this awful. One of the shows actually attempted to make over an entire depressed small town! Of course, horrible things happened anyway, but we had good intentions! It's just that, you know, these people had been living in close quarters all their lives... and now suddenly had television cameras with which to air out their grievances...

There was an awful moment, when I'd been pulled back (the only P.A. pulled back) for a last-minute reveal a week after principle photography wrapped, and I was sitting there having lunch with this horribly incompetent Executive Producer who knew she was never going to work again, at least not in this capacity. We'd never really gotten to know each other over the shoot, and so she asked me about stuff that I'd done, and I told her about some of the shorts I'd produced, and she just went rapturously into talking about her first shorts. The context was clear - this executive producer was sorrowful for the opportunities of this P.A. getting paid shit to run around controlling traffic.

God I'm glad to be out of T.V.

Well anyway, the one "Competition show" I worked on was "The Next Food Network Star," where the contestants were honestly all civil and admiring of each other the whole time. It helped that they were all pretty nice people to begin with, but I think there were three things that really helped to allow them to, you know, make friends, instead of grandstanding about how cold they were like it was a badge of honor:

1. They were being tested not just on their food, but on their ability to be a t.v. host as well. A t.v. host generally won't get anywhere by showing off how much they don't care about anyone else.

2. It was much lower-key than the general network fair, and also clearly wasn't designed to show people getting at each others' throats. Television producers, while they can be incredibly dense at times, know exactly how to get what they want from their "talent." On this show, the producers didn't want that kind of drama. On Flavor of Love and the like, it's the entire purpose.

3. Nobody was allowed to talk to the contestants at all off camera except to lead them to their next location. It was drilled into our heads the first day that we may be polite, but we do not address them unless addressed first, we be courteous and find a way out of the room if they do address us, and above all else, we do not answer a single question they might ask, no matter how banal or off-topic. If they ask where the ladies' room is, we say, "I don't know."

This came up for me only once, when I was running cables in on of the test studios while the cast was waiting for everything to be ready. They were talking about Kill Bill, and the 5,6,7,8's, and trying to remember the name of one of the songs, and I absentmindedly said, out loud, "Walking with Jayne Mansfield." Immediately, the cast turns to me:

"Right, right! That was it! What's it called?"

shit

"I... I don't know."

Granted, this rule could have made the contestants that much more paranoid in another setting, but here I think it just made them realize how absurd it all was, and that it's just a television show (albeit one with a good prize) and put them against the production team instead of themselves.

They were still sincerely nice to us as well, though, ad in the end, the best man won...

No, that's not true, the best TWO men won, as they were a team...

And no, they weren't actually the best, either. There were at least two contestants who didn't make it to the finals who would've been much better...

Screw it: Here's a few more fun 30 Rock clips. At least some t.v. is still good.
posted by Navelgazer at 7:33 PM on July 11, 2008 [6 favorites]

anybody who really uses that expression deserves a the blow on the head.
or perhaps a poke in the eye?
no, a punch in the throat?
kick in the kneecap?
boot in the teeth?
perhaps even a dagger up the strap?
no?
well, right then, a blow on the head it is.
thank you mrs. scum you have won tonight's star prize, the blow on the head.
posted by caddis at 8:03 PM on July 11, 2008

Wait. There's a reality teevee show called The White Rapper Show? [1:05]

Oh. Okay. It's done the ego trip guys. [warms up the Veoh]
posted by humannaire at 8:27 PM on July 11, 2008

This isn't sad.

Says you.

These people are on game shows, and want to win them. Do you folks here not have any kind of frame of reference?

There's a large difference between not being there to make friends and saying on camera -- often directly in front of the other people -- "I'm not here to make friends."

Specifically the difference is civility. And incivility as a basic staple of entertainment is depressing.
posted by tkolar at 9:10 PM on July 11, 2008

And incivility as a basic staple of entertainment is depressing.

Incivility's been a staple of entertainment since before television was even a concept.
posted by xmutex at 10:22 PM on July 11, 2008

send in the lions.
posted by Hat Maui at 10:48 PM on July 11, 2008

I only watch movies and sporting events!

And Spongebob Squarepants.
posted by WalterMitty at 12:29 AM on July 12, 2008

Incivility's been a staple of entertainment since before television was even a concept.

I question that statement. Fictional incivility has been a source of laughs for many many generations, but the real deal? I can think of a few examples, but not enough to have made it a "staple".

But of course whether the incivility is fictional or not entirely depends on how real we consider "reality TV" to be, and there's no way I'm going down *that* rathole... :-)
posted by tkolar at 12:40 AM on July 12, 2008

"Previously on Lost" God I laughed... gotta love Hurley.
posted by uni verse at 10:03 AM on July 12, 2008

I'm not here to throw people under the bus.
posted by anthill at 12:40 PM on July 12, 2008

Who the hell are these people, and am I missing something by not having a TV on this point? (Seriously, is all this a bunch of reality tv stuff?)
posted by Listener at 1:16 PM on July 12, 2008

Yes, Listener... it is. If you have made it through the last ten years without seeing any of this fucking rubbish, then I am sincerely very, very jealous of you.
posted by chuckdarwin at 1:21 PM on July 12, 2008

As obnoxious as that phrase is, I am far more annoyed by "you don't know me!", shouted at top volume when someone accuses another of being racist, sexist, an alcoholic, a hypocrite, a slut, or just an all-around mean person. I like when reality TV people argue, but in a civil, constructive manner. "I'm not here to make friends" generally doesn't preclude that. But "You don't know me!" is like a nuke; as soon as it's uttered discussion stops, people start screaming, stuff gets thrown, and as often as not it turns into a crazy fistfight that ends up a running joke on The Soup. "I'm not here to make friends" is cliche and annoying, but at least it's not an episode ruiner.

"I'm not here to make friends" isn't even as grating as "throw under the bus," the other ubiquitous reality TV phrase. That one makes my eye twitch every time I hear it.

Why yes, I do watch a lot of reality TV.
posted by lilac girl at 2:55 PM on July 12, 2008

Did anyone else catch the bleeping-out of the wrong word at 00:25? That's why I watch reality TV.
posted by Rykey at 4:59 PM on July 12, 2008

On competitive reality shows, it seems that a good strategy IS to "make friends." The Apprentice is a superb venue for networking, and "making friends" is the most beneficial of beneficial externalities a contestant can find on that show.

This reminds me of grad school. I thought (not in so many words, but still) that I was indeed there "not to make friends" but to get my degree. I was too focussed and short-sighted to realise that those people I wasn't making "friends" with would someday be in positions to further and even block my career in many ways.

"Making friends" has FAR more upsides than downsides even in competitive environments. I wish I understood this then, and I really think it's unfortunate that this cliche is becoming to widespread in and out of reality TV. Friends are good things.
posted by ethnomethodologist at 5:02 PM on July 12, 2008 [1 favorite]

"so" not "to."
posted by ethnomethodologist at 5:02 PM on July 12, 2008

This reminds me of artist Joe Sola's "come ons" and "gogogo". They're video compilations of people in movies going "COME ON!!!" and "GO! GO! GO!", respectively.

Unfortunately, it's video art so of course it can't be found online.
posted by redteam at 7:39 PM on July 12, 2008

I'm Not Here To Make Friends 101 (NYRTVS is the only school in the country that specializes in Reality TV and our staff leads the way in preparing you to succeed!)
posted by xo at 8:33 AM on July 13, 2008