Curiosity Killed the Bat...

I mean... the tale of there's no accounting for taste, and the destitute artist who only gains fame after death have been told many times by now.

I think pogchamps is fine... attracting new players by highlighting beginner level celebrities is a fun idea, and maybe only something that could be done these days with the ubiquity of production equipment (cameras, microphones, etc).

I would agree that's it's fine, if distasteful, ala Dancing With The Stars.

Celebrity is rarely, if ever, a positive thing.  Something Americans really need to figure out .

I don't think there's any fixing that. We only live ~80 years. Every generation the idiocy starts anew.

So artists can tolerate literal starvation and suicidal thoughts, but some downvotes after gaining fame, well, that's a step too far.

OK ok, I understand, the current clickbait culture curates curtailed creativity. Anyone with artistic talent these days goes into advertising... there's some artist's quote lamenting that.

I couldn't care less whether that pointless thing exists here. My issue is that it replaced actual instruction material and is listed under the Learm menu.

You are making valid points - things like pogchamps are a self fulfilling prophecy. In the words of The Jam many years ago, 'the public wants what the public gets'. Personally, I never look at the 'reads' numbers and so on for my blogs - my stuff is minority interest. Like our host @batgirl. I am happy if I feel that I have written something as well as I could at the time. Sadly, as many here are saying, quality no longer seems to be a requirement in publicising material on the site. Just my thoughts.

It's tangentially related though, because we're talking about quality content and how there's no accounting for the public's taste. Quality articles are being pushed out by junk food.

Society and the economy creates the issue, though...as a culture, celebrity is, by definition, celebrated.  But it's only that way because it's been pushed that way for so long.  Celebrity sells products.  That's why it is fed to everyone.  If you love Gwyneth Paltrow, you are going to buy her goop.  If you love Lebron James, you will pay $50 for a $10 tank top (that was made in a sweatshop with 45 cents of material).

It's just like cop shows...if the writers stop thinking that "leaning heavily" on prisoners in custody because of a "hunch" during interviews is cool, and decide it's abhorrent behavior, then the shows change, and they stop showing the bad cops always being right about their hunches, which changes all the police academy hopefuls, and over time helps stop the type of stuff that happened to George Floyd. 

People watch Dexter, and some of them think "yeah, that serial killer's moral code really holds up...".  They want to prove you will identify with a serial killer if you buy into his own delusional justifications, and they do prove it.  Because on Dexter, you don't see him killing the wrong people, unless it's a specific instance introduced to show his "personal growth", you know, as a more responsible serial killer .  His moral code holds up because it is a false narrative specifically designed to make it hold up.  

But currently, we see such shows as "gritty" and "hard hitting" and "real".  They are no more real or less real than Adam-12.  What they are is dramatic and sensationalistic and shocking, which also sells, just like celebrity.

People need to learn not to press the rat lever for their pellets .

It does change.  Look at how bashing same sex relationships is treated now vs. how it was treated in the days of The Village People.

They've already used the Round-up.  There seems to be no more instructional articles.

I just looked at the article page. An fluffy article named "The Top 5 Best Female Players of All Time"  that was published 2 weeks ago was deleted and reposted 3 days ago.    At least they're into recycling.

I'm not even talking about "quality" which is subjective. I'm talking about instructional.   
I fail to see any relationship, direct, indirect or tangential between Pog Champs and "Learning" unless "learning" doesn't mean what I always thought it meant.
I guess it's all part of the Big Joke that gives 600 elo streamers master titles.
Only the real  joke's on the chess lovers.

It could be instructional, for those on the same level, but how many people with any interest in chess are still at the "Pokimane" level?  Just raw beginners, but...that's an audience they see an opportunity to harvest right now while Netflix made the game trendy. 

I think it would be more instructional for the "average" chess.com member if they stuck with players like Negreanu...he's a professional poker player who's quite good at probabilities/statistics, and he obviously has the capability and drive to be a potentially good chess player.  There's no point in having a Britney Spears type get trained by Hikaru Nakamura except for cheap laughs.

I paid no attention to PogChamps and knew diddly about it til recently when I ran into a Naroditsky video where he's training some...I dunno...Instagram influencer?  The Naroditsky part is interesting.  The "QTcinderella" part...not so much.  Anyway, I saw Negreanu was going to play and he's my favorite poker professional, so I took a look at his standings.  He likes the Danish Gambit, which was my favorite opening as well, when I was a just-beginning-to-actually-know-something player.

I guess I was saying pogchamps as marketing vs something like the Sinquefield cup as quality.

But sure, pogchamps articles shouldn't be categorized as instructional... I would think both chess purists and marketing professionals would agree that this isn't ideal... but maybe chess.com employs neither

Well, look at blitz stats, the average player is rated ~800 so...

And I imagine a lot of n00bs don't even check the forums... and those that do may be intimidated by "advanced" discussion such as using algebraic notation so they never post. In other words your perspective may be biased.

We can probably all agree there are tons of beginner level players on chess.com.

I think it only feels like the 800s aren't here because they don't actively take part in the discussion. Because, let's be honest, there is no point in following a game you're bad at. How many top csgo players can I name? Uh... shroud, the guy that always pushed smoke, I forgot his name... and that's pretty much it. Oh yeah, his name was stewie2k.

Meanwhile, Vote Chess isn't under "Play" or even "Learn" or even "Connect", but hidden away under "More"

But, more directly on-topic: I guess it would count as learning if we want want to consider "learning about chess community related gossip and streamer hijinks" rather than "learning about chess"!

Yes, actually this really bugged me...because there are few better ways of getting good chess instruction for free than joining a votechess team and playing votechess games.  You can barely find it anymore, and the public votechess games are not even happening (or if they are they are totally hidden somewhere).

But then again votechess has suffered here in recent years, because of other obstacles we can't talk about in the main forums.  It would require a very dedicated group of clubs and admins to have a working votechess league.

My favorite is "Greatest GOAT of all time!"

People really don't think things through when they say them...

And when they can prove themselves incapable of thinking things through, chess com will make them Authors.

Hey!  Self deprecation is the bunny's gig! 

Also fluff is good stuff.