Talk:Sell Out (Reel Big Fish song)
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This is a bit long to still be classed as a stub is it not? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.14.82.72 (talk) 17:18, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
I just have to ask: by whom has this song been "interpreted as chronicling the payola scandals of early FM radio," and why does this mysterious person think that Reel Big Fish would care about such a historical event enough to write a song about it? I have never seen anyone espouse such an opinion about Sell Out, neither from Aaron Barrett, the man who wrote the song, nor from any other members of Reel Big Fish, the band that performed the song. What's more, I see no attribution source for this mysterious opinion, a reliable published source or otherwise. This frankly bizarre "interpretation" of the song has been sitting here for over a decade, and it is simply baffling to me how anyone could consider it to be a valid attribution worthy of Wikipedia.
I don't mean to be rude to anyone with my snark, but I just find the idea that Aaron Barrett was thinking of scandals in "the early days of FM radio" when he wrote this song in the mid 1990s to be beyond strange, and I find it even stranger that someone considered such an unsourced "interpretation" comment to be valid for inclusion in the Wikipedia entry for the song. this is especially true in light of the fact that Reel Big Fish has released several songs, and even an entire album, expressing their cynical attitude toward the modern (in the mid 1990s) record industry and its corrupt methods, always referring to (then) modern practices and never once bringing up the "early days of FM radio." I think it is petty clear what the "interpretation" of the song was intended to be; a commentary on (then) contemporary corrupt record industry practices, and the industry's manipulative influence on popular music, and not a reference to a decades-old historical incident.
(I suppose the song could loosely be considered a commentary on "Payola Scandals" in a general sense, inasmuch as it would be saying that the record industry simply hasn't changed and is just as corrupt as it was back in "the early days of FM radio," but again, that would still just be a commentary on the industry's then-contemporary practices.)
So, as a Wikipedia Editor who considers Reel Big Fish one of his favorite bands, I am therefore going to finally lay this ancient albatross to rest and simply delete the entire "Payola Scandal Interpretation" line. If someone out there feels strongly enough about it to dispute my actions then feel free to contact me through my user page, though somehow I doubt that anyone cares.
I've seen too many "factoids" spring up out of the aether and appear in a Wikipedia article, and then go on to circulate around the Internet long enough to become considered an "established fact," when the "fact's" original mention in the Wikipedia article in the first place was actually nothing but a misinterpretation, a misstatement, or an outright fabrication.
For a perfect example of what I'm talking about, there is an assertion in the Wikipedia article for The Venture Bros. that it is "a show about failure." This "fact" about the show originated as nothing more than a joking off-hand comment by the show's creators at a comic book convention. But then someone included the joke in The Venture Bros. Wikipedia article, presented as a sincere statement, and from there it snowballed as this "fact" was repeated on other websites and in news articles ad nauseam until it became universally considered an "established fact" about the show, to the consternation of the show's creators, to the point that they later expressed their bafflement and frustration that everyone kept saying the "show is about failure" (even pointing out the "citation" in the Wikipedia article as the source of their frustration) when they never intended the show to be "about failure." All because someone took an off-hand joke and put it in the Wikipedia article as gospel truth, and causing a single off-hand joke to get blown all out of proportion. I simply want to try to eliminate such things happening as much as possible.
Farewell, Randolph Carter, and beware - FOR I AM NYARLATHOTEP, THE CRAWLING CHAOS!! 05:57, 18 July 2022 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by RyokoMocha (talk • contribs)
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