Many of the users of the Critics Page blog and accompanying FaceBook page refrained from posting comments or questions on the blog or on the FaceBook page and, instead, chose to private message us. We respect their desire to keep their comments and questions anonymous, but we have decided to consolidate them into a FAQ-sort-of response. Perhaps by doing this, our inbox will be less inundated with repetitive questions and comments.
In bold are paraphrased questions or comments followed by our response.
Who is behind the Critics Page, really?
As we already stated, there are five of us - two women and three men. We're all friends and this whole endeavor has been a fun Saturday night game for us. It also has been a hassle trying to keep up with the programming while we went about our daily lives. It's been time consuming, but a wonderful learning experience.
You're really just one lonely middle-aged guy jealous of Matt's success.
Wrong on both accounts. When we decided to start the Critics Page, months prior we all discussed how kids get rich off making entertaining blogs and You Tube videos. We tossed around plenty of ideas of how we might be able to cash in, but none of us, except for one, knew the way around the Internet or had decent writing skills. When the one woman in our group, who listened to Matt and Crank fairly regularly, said, "Let's take Matt up on his challenge and get him fired", we decided the drunk talk was over and we would learn how the Internet really works. Even though the writing task fell almost entirely on one of us, the one writing to you now, we decided that a "one voice", preferably a professional voice, would be most effective. While the final reviews you read almost always sound as if one person is behind the Critics Page, all the reviews are based on all five of our thoughts. We don't always agree with each other and you'd be surprised how much is cut out of the reviews you read simply because we don't agree.
Why are you trying to censure free speech?
We're not. We are, however, exercising our free speech. Why are you trying to censure ours?
If you really didn't like Matt and Crank's show, just turn the station.
Yes, we could simply flip stations, but that would make us complacent sheep. WZBH is the only mainstream rock station serving Delmarva. A diverse audience loves rock music and tunes in. Any listener, regardless of their religion, sex, age, race, ethnic background, sexual orientation, or disability could reasonably expect to tune in and not be a daily target of ridicule simply because they aren't young, White, heterosexual, Christian male. That is the point we wanted to make.
Are you going to dog Matt at his new station?
No. We don't even listen to WGMD. It's a conservative Christian talk station and none of us ever listened to talk radio. Besides, unless we stream it over the Internet, we can't get it in on the radio. We believe Matt has found a venue for his bigotry that is acceptable. Only like-minded bigots will tune into a talk station to hear him. Normal people will be listening to good rock music airing from WZBH or good music airing from any other station.
Now that Matt has left WZBH, are you going to delete the Critics Page and its FaceBook page?
Absolutely not. We want this page, Matt and Crank's words, and our reviews to come back and haunt them twenty years from now should they decide to run for public office or something. We'll see how their sexist, racist, Islamaphobic, and homophobic words will come back to haunt them when some kid-still-wet-behind-the-ears brings it up on his morning show. Yes, we're Christian and truly believe you reap what you sow.
Crank is still there so were you really successful ?
We really didn't understand this question. Let's face it. The Matt and Crank show should've been titled The Matt Show with Sidekick Crank. We have reviewed shows chastising Crank for taking the back seat to Matt. We sensed Crank was the more intelligent one on the show and lamented over the fact that the bully kid overshadowed him. We're happy that WZBH kept Crank and we hope he shows us his true talent with the new morning show airing Monday morning.
You're just a bunch of liberal, Obama loving [put your own expletive here].
On the contrary, overall, we would "average" as independents. Two of us are diehard Republicans and still believe Reagan is one of the greatest presidents this country has ever had. The other two of us think all politicans are crooks and scammers and are registered as independents. One is registered as a Democrat. The three of us who are registered with one of the major parties do not vote along party lines.
You din't accomplish anything. Why did you waste your time?
We don't know if we accomplished anything you, the reader, can see. The changes happening at WZBH probably happened because they were going to happen with or without our presence. When we first learned of Matt's firing (Yes, we still believe he was fired), we tuned into WGMD to see where he was going. The guest speaker talked about "meglomaiacs", referring to talk show personalities who take a perverse joy in making the little guy listening feel bad about himself simply because he doesn't measure up to the standards set by the talk show personailty. The reason the talk show personalities do what they do is because they, themselves, have meaningless lives, but making the little guy feel bad gives them a sense of power over someone they know is powerless do do anything about it. We hope we demonstrated, through the power of the Internet, that the little guy does have power and doesn't need to feel bad about himself simply because some talk show personailty says he should. (As a side note, the station that aired this segment about meglomaiacs was not WGMD, but a station out of Virginia that happened to have the same station numbers, 92.7, as WGMD.)
What's next for the Critics Page?
Nothing. We have talked about making a website parody of the Tea Party or starting our Drunk Rednecks of the Round Table adventure, but we don't know what, if anything, we'll do next. Whatever we decide to do will not be connected to the Critics Page. Barring strong fan feedback, we won't even announce our new Internet adventure here. The Critics Page and the associated FaceBook page is now offically dead with maybe an occasional last gasp for air. We couldn't exactly close the page without at least reviewing the new morning show on WZBH airing Monday morning, now could we?
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