Dan-cat wrote:I'm not talking about 'time on the internet' when I use the expression 'dissolution of culture.'
There's a great theory from Noel Gallagher in Supersonic, the documentary about Oasis's meteoric two-year rise in the early 90s when he talks about how never, ever again will as band be as big Oasis were. Never again will a band occupy the psyche of the nation like that. Not because they were particularly special, but because of social media and the amount of channels there are now - how disparate interests have become because no matter what you are into, there is a group / channel / site for that. It was a differnet time. The amatuer boom in the 80s was the anomaly rather than the norm. We had three TV channels and sometimes snooker was on both of them. Of course more kids wanted to play snooker and that's what gave us the class of '92.
I suspect we're talking at cross purposes here. Yes, I do agree with you that its unlikely that any players will come along, or that the game itself, will again reach rock'n'roll status, and that moments in time are difficult to replicate. However, on the topic of talent coming through, this is nothing to do with it, as niches are very good at producing specialists.
The modern game is even more favourable to niches as it allows for a lot more people to earn a professional living at the sport. Meanwhile, many of those old greats that filled the ranks of the rock'n'roll years just popped out of a relative nowhere one day and started winning events. Mostly just from playing at clubs. Daily huslin'.
And there are young talents playing snooker, and young talents on the circuit. But for some reason they're simply not good enough. And its been like this for about 5 years now. You only need one or two players a year to show some kind of original promise and for only half of them to become genuine contenders for it to feel like a continuous stream of new talent, and yet it seems to now persistently not happen.
Has anyone considered the possibility that being too nice to new talent could be hampering the emergence of new talent? In that, you don't actually have to work that hard to earn £40k a year & if you get a £100k year at one point, then you can feel like job done, even if you haven't won anything or even got to a final.
While back in ye dark ages of barely any competitions, and only one or two ranking events, then you'd have to be damn good to even appear, let alone actually win money. ie: you'd really have to love the game to stick at it, and you'd really have to know in your heart that you were good enough to hammer Davis 10-1 on a good day to even bother committing yourself to competition. Whereas now we have built up a culture of happy, wealthy 'losers' who, like ye olde boxing hacks, are simply paid to make the star look good.
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