site banner
PaperclipPerfector  6mo ago (text post)   2445 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for June 27, 2025

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

1
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Yeah, it isn't lost on me that this is exactly what happens to virtually ANY product that obtains market dominance, and stops having to care about the original, 'hardcore' fans and thus can try to lower the quality of the product to increase profit margins.

There seem to be a confluence of factors going in:

  • The mainstream audience can't really tell a 'good' fight apart from one that is, shall we say, merely 'entertaining.' Hence they watch Jake Paul boxing matches.
  • Similarly, they'll back a relatively mediocre (for the elite level) fighter over a technically brilliant, masterful one if the mediocre one has charisma and good PR. Hence (some) people root for Jake Paul.
  • If you truly stack a division with talent, then you'd expect parity in skill so there'd rarely ever be a 'breakout' star that people can rally behind. Every champion would lose in short order.
  • So there's incentive to optimize for giving one charismatic guy with decent skill just enough of an edge that he can run his division for a while and attain some glory, then lose to the next upstart who will occupy his spot.
  • But don't give the guy so much of an edge that he is handily crushing fights so it looks rigged.
  • And definitely don't let him get so successful and popular that he can start trying to dictate terms to the league itself.
  • Keep the pay high enough to incentivize new talent to jump in, but low enough that they're 'stuck' once they're in.
  • Also do try to reward guys who do entertaining stuff in the fights. This is what the BMF belt is about, no?

So you're constantly adjusting the equilibrium of each division to make them look competitive but get someone who can stand out on top, and give your guys reasons to be entertaining and go over the top but still maintain the integrity of the skill involved.

If I'm accurate, you can see how they'd be taking pages from the Professional Wrestling playbook, except they can't outright script storylines and hand-pick a fighter's career, and instead you have to try and wrangle things with a series of incentives and nudges and creative publicity and hopes and prayers.

Long story short, UFC is modern day Gladiatorial combat, without the lions and without the executions. Entertain the proles and plebians enough to get their money. Put on a show. But to maintain the reputation as a legitimate fighting league (and to be clear, I'm not saying they're illegitimate) the sport has to be governed by stringent rules and have reliable rankings and keep things to a certain standard, so they can't go all in on spectacle and entertainment.

So Dana has them partnered with WWE, and buys into stuff like Powerslap or more recently UFC BJJ so the casual viewer can get entertained without having to know the ins and outs of a fairly complex sport.

And maybe the goal now is to just have the UFC as the 'flagship' product but use it mainly to attract in the wider viewership who can then be siphoned to a more controlled, profitable product that they can just mindlessly watch without the investment of a hardcore fan.

Holy cow, I just now realized how Powerslap is directly optimized to be fed to viewers in short-form videos so they can be part of your average normies' slop-scrolling experience.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats