#26 - A vicious attack on the arts

We live in a time when it’s often necessary to take an extra look at the art around us. What’s real and what’s AI? While a new breed of chancers are on the scene looking to sell AI slop to unsuspecting shoppers, some artists are disappointingly getting involved, tarnishing their previous work and casting doubt over what they produce in the future. And it’s with this backdrop that I recently played some games of Netflix Pictionary with my family.  A family who, quite shockingly, doesn't seem to appreciate the effort I put into my fully originally hand-drawn art.

Things started out nicely enough. While there’s always a level of bants over the quality of the drawings, it’s generally light-hearted fun. We had chosen to play using the Tricky word-set, which really does raise the difficulty a notch or two, but we like the challenge. My five-year-old was in bed, so there was no need to keep things simple. The Pictionary Pros were at work.

This isn’t a brag, but I tend to do well at Pictionary. A combination of rapid-fire guessing of other players’ drawings and a quick but effective style to my own creations means I rack up the points. Am I the best artist? No. Am I good enough to win? Absolutely. I won’t point fingers or name names, but I sensed an undercurrent of resentment growing in the room. I’d been too successful for too long, and the other players (in my family of four - one of which is me, another was in bed) wanted to bring me down a peg or two.

My turn was up, and the most high-reward word was a real tough one. I went for it. I’m no coward when it comes to cartoons, I’m confident about my caricatures, bullish about my brushwork. This word would require some really skilful sketching.

75 seconds is all you get, at least in the version we play. There’s no time to waste, nor is there time to start over. Every line has to count. In a wild flurry of colour and contours my masterpiece came to life, then I waited for my family to guess. And I waited. And waited. Guesses were weak, limper than a paper straw that had slowly dampened over a session of blow painting. Then, instead of guesses came insults.

Note: I don’t record what’s said in my house, so I’ve written these insults to capture the vibe and tension in the room, rather than the exact quotes. I think you’ll agree it’s all pretty shocking.

“What the fuck?!” exclaimed my 12-year-old.

“Seriously, what the fuck are you doing?” added my wife who I've been with for about 18 years and have children with.

“I could have farted out a better drawing,” petulantly added my son.

“[Vomit noises]” hurled my wife.

“You are the worst, Daddy,” came a yell from my daughter who I had thought was sleeping upstairs but seemingly wanted to get in on this pile-on.

I tried to cut through the attack, stating calmly that I felt the drawing was pretty good, but also quite a hard one to do given the time and the small drawing area on my phone screen. It was like water off a varnish sealant-covered canvas painting.

“You’re an imbecile," yelled my son.

“Get out of the house, now,” added my wife.

I was gobsmacked. A happy game of drawing had descended into rudeness I’d never experienced before in my life, which is saying a lot as a games media veteran. I carried on playing, smiling along as if everything was OK, but secretly I was plotting a rebuttal no one could argue with.

I assembled a crack team of people who would help me prove once and for all that my drawing was at least “decent enough” but hopefully also show that the word could have been drawn far, far worse.

That crack team ended up being three former colleagues who were mostly less than thrilled and needed a lot of convincing - bar one, who was super into it and helpful (not Jim). I promised them anonymity.

I asked them to set up a drawing app on their phone, then messaged them the word I had drawn, gave them 75 seconds, and then got the resulting picture back. You can see those three and mine below, all anonymised.

Next I turned to a long-time and trusted friend who goes by the codename ON. ON’s task was simple: Tell me what word these four drawings were trying to convey, and rank them in order of quality.

ON was reluctant at first due to “having actual important work to be getting on with” but I won him over. ON managed to guess the word on his second attempt (well done!), but then struggled to understand how ranking things works. I explained the concept of numbers and ordering, and after one massive fail ON got to grips with it. The results are as follows (with his terminology for each place):

Best:

2nd best:

Almost worst:

Absolute worst, unforgivable. Words in an image? Pathetic:

The word, if you are invested in this at all, was “meteorologist”. This is my drawing:

What can we all learn from this?

• I came second with my drawing.
• Second, but my drawing was the only one carried out under proper game conditions that add an extra level of stress and pressure.
• While the bottom two drawings were labelled by ON as “Almost worst,” and “Absolute worst” he simply marked my drawing as second best. That suggests a quality that only the top two drawings had.

When pushed for comment on the quality of my drawing, ON said: “You got second place, and you were lucky to get it. Now don't push it.”

When asked for comment, my wife had plenty to say:

“You've completely misrepresented your skill at Pictionary. You are the worst because you can't seem to get in other people's heads,” came her first WhatsApp message, dagger-like.

“This one is in fact, the best,” she added, highlighting one of the more terrible drawings.

“I would have guessed it from that.”

“The one that won was a guy with a fucking telescope!!” came her next angry riposte, casting doubt over the quality of ON’s judgement and this whole endeavour. “Cosmologist or astrophysicist perhaps?”

Maybe we’ll leave this there in the interest of family relations. The important thing is that I was officially, impartially, better than two other people. I still expect a full apology from my family.

Things I can review:

• Lee Cronin’s The Mummy (Sky/Now TV): I’m not sure what I expected from this considering I didn’t think much of Lee Cronin’s Evil Dead Rise which everyone else seemed to love (and that I had to Google Lee Cronin while wondering why his name was in the movie title), but my expectations were still not met. My main issue with The Mummy is that most of the film revolves around the fact that actual doctors made this girl who was semi-catatonic and looked like an actual corpse, leave the hospital to recover at home. I don’t blame the doctors for everything that happened next, but come on now. 2 unpleasant toenail clips out of 5 possession spews.
• Remedy Kombucha Ginger Lemon (shops): This one is sort of on me. I had a quite delicious ginger Kombucha from Itsu the other day. A delightful drink. I couldn’t remember exactly what brand it was, and thought maybe it was this ginger lemon drink from Remedy. It is not. This drink isn’t unpleasant, but it’s a taste clash so strong I struggle to get a real take on the flavour. It’s just not the flavour I wanted. Turns out the actual drink I wanted was Equinox Fiery Ginger Kombucha. Remedy gets 2 lemon squeezes out of 5 root ginger slices.
• Hot Dogs (buy stuff to make them): I just fancied hot dogs. Bought some rolls, some This Isn’t sausages, an onion, ketchup, and mustard. Bang, that’s your hot dogs. Cooked some corn on the cob to go with it. Did my family enjoy it for dinner? Yes. Could I have eaten twice as much? Also yes. 5 Rude Dogs out of 5 Baltos.