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2016: The Smiler Reopening

Will you ride in 2016?

  • Yes

    Votes: 147 94.8%

  • No

    Votes: 8 5.2%
  • Total voters
    155
matthewgcole said:
I can't believe how carried away we are all getting here! A couple of dozen enthusiasts clicking on a link is driving the story to be copy and pasted every week?!?! Seriously?

It's far more simple than that. The Daily Mail is a publication that sells is wares by evocing emotions of bigotry and hatred amongst people that read it. Always has been, always will be.

The Daily mirror is a sensationalist red top that would do anything to take a swipe at The Sun and any business dealings it has with companies like Merlin.

Although I completely understand why none of us would want to validate their ridiculous stories by adding to their click counts, to suggest we are having any significant impact on what they write is ridiculous. The fact is, the journalists who are writing these articles obviously have very little knowledge of The Smiler, or how a roller coaster or theme park operates in general. They just want to put stories out there that provoke emotion, stories that look sexy. That then captures people's imagination and sells papers/increases website traffic.

This is no different to claiming Freddie Starr ate a hamster, Syrian refugees are coming to steal our jobs and homes or slagging off Ed Millibands dead father. The story is loosing it's sex appeal and will be all but dead bar the odd rogue snippet article by the time the park reopens in 2017, by which time these people would have found someone else to pick on. This will happen regardless of any of us on here or any other forum.

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All online articles have their success measured by how many hits they get. Every hit contributes to that. Even just one or two make a difference despite it not seeming like a big deal.

And I don't fully buy this anti-Sun agenda. The Sun themselves have posted many articles on the crash, most of which haven't been complimentary towards Towers at all.
 
I'm not advocating that we post links all.over here and click on them to our hearts content. I'm simply playing down the ridiculous notion that media reports about the Smiler crash are being reported any differently to many other subjects. This is not new behaviour by any of the offending media outlets. None of us are to blame. Although some of them may take some joy from our upset, these articles are not written just to upset us or other users of social media.

On the specific subject of the Sun, if you look at it in the context of how that publication has abused others over the last few decades, The Smiler got off likely.

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matthewgcole said:
I can't believe how carried away we are all getting here! A couple of dozen enthusiasts clicking on a link is driving the story to be copy and pasted every week?!?! Seriously?

It's far more simple than that. The Daily Mail is a publication that sells is wares by evocing emotions of bigotry and hatred amongst people that read it. Always has been, always will be.

The Daily mirror is a sensationalist red top that would do anything to take a swipe at The Sun and any business dealings it has with companies like Merlin.

Although I completely understand why none of us would want to validate their ridiculous stories by adding to their click counts, to suggest we are having any significant impact on what they write is ridiculous. The fact is, the journalists who are writing these articles obviously have very little knowledge of The Smiler, or how a roller coaster or theme park operates in general. They just want to put stories out there that provoke emotion, stories that look sexy. That then captures people's imagination and sells papers/increases website traffic.

This is no different to claiming Freddie Starr ate a hamster, Syrian refugees are coming to steal our jobs and homes or slagging off Ed Millibands dead father. The story is loosing it's sex appeal and will be all but dead bar the odd rogue snippet article by the time the park reopens in 2017, by which time these people would have found someone else to pick on. This will happen regardless of any of us on here or any other forum.

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Click to expand...

Well aside from your repeated assertions that I am ridiculous you may want to take a look at how viral social media works. There are more than a few dozen people commenting on these posts, there are hundreds of "OMG DA SMILER IS DANGEROUS" comments all responded by hundreds of people of various hues of enthusiast (from geek to fan). Each of those commentors then inadvertently transmits the article to all their social media contacts and so on and so on.

The Mirror doesn't give a stuff what the Sun is doing, they may have business interests but attacking Alton Towers isn't going to hurt the Sun and the Mirror know it, also the Mirror always do a late season voucher deal with Merlin so they benefit from the company as much as The Sun.

It's the same reason celebrity stories get the big push on the same platforms, they have an existing audience that will engage with the story and propagate it around social media. Your not wrong that the same is also true for emotive stories or anything to do with animals, but trust me when you want a social media post to do well you want the comments section to go wild and geeks have helped lube the way for the smiler story.
 
And we've gone way off topic again! If there is a desire to discuss how the media/tabloids work then please feel free to create a thread in Corner Coffee to do so or use this thread. Otherwise let's get back to The Smiler.

Thanks.

:)
 
For what it's worth, I don't think you are ridiculous my friend. I just think we're grossly over exaggerating enthusiasts input in the repeated rehashing of this story on
clicking/buying papers. I would argue this story does this rather well on its own by being shared around by the "OMG DA SMILER IS LIKE WELL NOT SAFE SHUD CLOZ 4 GUD" brigade.

They will also be deciding whether it would benefit or damage the editorial interests of the publication, in this case it clearly benefits them. Newspapers are very self serving organisations.

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RoyJess said:
Please be my guest, I didn't just forget to edit out her email in my above post ;)

Good luck! I think there will be more chance that a TV news station mistaking a mock up air plane crash on a film set for the real thing live on TV, than reducing these reporting on every Smiler story.

http://metro.co.uk/2012/12/01/plane...anchors-mistake-tv-set-for-real-life-3078584/ :eek:

I personally think the best way is to just ignore the message. I've have dealings with the press years ago when I used to do a lot of TV work. The Sun reported my first divorce back in 1994 (print date Wednesday February 2nd 1994) made page 3 news. They can twist the words that you say and also put words into your mouth. Just don't go there and something that Vicky Balch should take note!!!! :rolleyes:
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Ahh so it was you that blocked out the page 3 girl!....shame on you
 
In random Smiler related news today I witnessed a lost phone charger hanging from a net above the queue line. Deffo a first for me, who on earth takes takes a phone charger onto a ride to begin with . Was an amusing end to a great day, I reported the issue incase someone tried to pull it down and brought the whole net either it lol
 
Mikey:SubTerra said:
In random Smiler related news today I witnessed a lost phone charger hanging from a net above the queue line. Deffo a first for me, who on earth takes takes a phone charger onto a ride to begin with . Was an amusing end to a great day, I reported the issue incase someone tried to pull it down and brought the whole net either it lol
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Oh it's great spotting things that have been dropped from rides. Seen so many gems in my time.
 
It will be a massive fine however Merlin have already said that it will not have any business impact (or something along those lines).

:)
 
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