webmistresses

[bunn]

While failing to work I am half listening to Dara O'Briain doing some comedy routine on tv. He has just done some limp jokes about the job title webmaster:
a) not being a 'real job' because the title didn't exist 10 years ago
b) being done by men who cannot relate to women
c) confusing it with basic computer repair.

WTF?

a) Not even true! 10 years ago is 1998! 1988, maybe.
b) Is it me, or are webmasters surprisingly often actually webmistresses..? It's almost like being a journalist, it's not even a particularly techy skill a lot of the time.
c) Just 'eh'. Can anyone actually believe this?

Dara O'Briain is only 36! He's younger than me! How come he's doing a routine that sounds like it came from 1995? Bleh!

Comments

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

He's only 36?! No way is he only 36! *runs to check online* OMG, he is. Now I feel old.

I think the job title "webmaster" is particularly cool, suggesting lots of POWER! and not a little sinisterness. I think librarians should rebrand themselves as "bookmasters."

[bunn.livejournal.com]

I know. Isn't it terrifying? ~I'm not sure I believe it. I think it might be a Showbiz Lie...

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

I like the idea of "bookmasters" :-)

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

In "Science of Discworld III: Darwin's Watch", the librarian is introduced as "Brother Bookmeister".

[parrot-knight.livejournal.com]

Another comedy routine appealing to public ignorance, alas.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

It's getting to the stage now where really, webmaster is not an obscure job that people don't understand. Not unless they are really quite old. This is what struck me as odd about it. I mean, server administration, yes, that's mysterious, but webmaster? Surely most people know a webmaster?

[parrot-knight.livejournal.com]

I suppose that they must! There is still an air of mysticism about computers, I think; perhaps it could do with being dispelled.

[lanciatore.livejournal.com]

accuracy does not equal funny. ;-)

[(Anonymous)]

Well of course not, but this wasn't funny inaccurate. It wasn't comically exaggerated for effect or deliberately wrong, it was just a bunch of jokes that didn't work. The audience did laugh but to my mind, they laughed at these jokes politely, in the way one would laugh at the joke of a beloved but hopelessly unfunny relative, when in a good mood.

In comedyland there are lots of stereotypes, accountants are boring, scientists are mad, black people are cool, but you can't make a joke just out of stating the stereotype, which is what he was doing.