Expos/Familiarity

[Esso]

Outside of a personal, how does it affect your voting when a punch concept needs an expo or you have to look it up? Like if someone has well written punch off a rugby concept but you don’t know shit about rugby so it doesn’t hit for you personally. Do you judge it objectively based off the writing quality or does the fact the concept wasn’t familiar come into how you rate it?

[Esso]

Outside of a personal, how does it affect your voting when a punch concept needs an expo or you have to look it up? Like if someone has well written punch off a rugby concept but you don’t know shit about rugby so it doesn’t hit for you personally. Do you judge it objectively based off the writing quality or does the fact the concept wasn’t familiar come into how you rate it?

[Affinity]

Row and I have had a similar conversation in the past.

Personally, I don't mind doing a small amount of research to understand a concept and I don't consider it a detractor if I have to.

Given that, I prefer having a stupid long expo to having nothing. Especially when it comes to personal concepts that some people might not know, since I'm not a mind reader. If it's a verse loaded with personals and it's not something I can easily understand, I may ask before voting, or I won't vote at all.

Great question/thread btw

[Affinity]

Row and I have had a similar conversation in the past.

Personally, I don't mind doing a small amount of research to understand a concept and I don't consider it a detractor if I have to.

Given that, I prefer having a stupid long expo to having nothing. Especially when it comes to personal concepts that some people might not know, since I'm not a mind reader. If it's a verse loaded with personals and it's not something I can easily understand, I may ask before voting, or I won't vote at all.

Great question/thread btw

[Apollyon]

I rather see a fresh new concept that I haven't heard of over the same concept that has been used in different ways for the last 15 years.. having to Google something and learn something new doesn't effect the impact of the punch at all. After understanding the punch and knowing what it all means, it actually makes the punch even stronger in my eyes..

[Apollyon]

I rather see a fresh new concept that I haven't heard of over the same concept that has been used in different ways for the last 15 years.. having to Google something and learn something new doesn't effect the impact of the punch at all. After understanding the punch and knowing what it all means, it actually makes the punch even stronger in my eyes..

[METAL GEAR]

Expos are fine if it’s something that is accessible, just maybe not to the direct audience (i.e., if it was a personal for someone or something that happened within the lens of the site).

When we’re getting expos about sports teams, movie scenes, or explaining word play, then imo, it becomes an issue of the bar not being written well enough to be accessible. I might be guilty of that on a few occassions

[METAL GEAR]

Expos are fine if it’s something that is accessible, just maybe not to the direct audience (i.e., if it was a personal for someone or something that happened within the lens of the site).

When we’re getting expos about sports teams, movie scenes, or explaining word play, then imo, it becomes an issue of the bar not being written well enough to be accessible. I might be guilty of that on a few occassions

[RhetoriK]

Originally Posted by Esso

Outside of a personal, how does it affect your voting when a punch concept needs an expo or you have to look it up? Like if someone has well written punch off a rugby concept but you don’t know shit about rugby so it doesn’t hit for you personally. Do you judge it objectively based off the writing quality or does the fact the concept wasn’t familiar come into how you rate it?

i look up the references without a complaint. i would do the same listening/watching to a Live battle, so it applies to any battle for me. imo, it's lazy/trash voting if you don't at least attempt to understand it. should you jump through hoops? no, but it's minimal effort to open another tab and get the gist of a concept before shitting on it or writing it off.

quality writing provides the reader context and should at minimum help the reader understand. for instance: wordplay should be written so that a reader at least gets the surface reference, the the deeper entendre is either an asset or not depending on the usage. that kind of shit is high risk/reward inherently. a well-placed expo can help this out.

also, it's a skill to expo the correct things. a good verse shouldn't need many expos if at all.

technical: of course aspects of a punch should be judged accordingly.(setup/execution/wording/etc) however, someone could write a well constructed punch about shit u dont know about.. how effective was it really? can u judge the effectiveness if u don't know the concept? not objectively.

if u are not familiar with the subject matter, u are solely judging on construction and rhyme patter of a bar. imo that's not a well rounded good vote, and you're better off not voting

i think there's variants to this as well. skill level differences, experience, etc. but that's subjective. battlers should be judged as being equal skill in each battle, objectively.

creativity: it's one thing to be creative, it's another to make shit up (personals, angles, etc). i scrutinize personals with or without recipts heavily. another high risk/high reward scenario, but becoming more prevalent in recent times.

anyhow, that's my 2 cents.

[RhetoriK]

Originally Posted by Esso

Outside of a personal, how does it affect your voting when a punch concept needs an expo or you have to look it up? Like if someone has well written punch off a rugby concept but you don’t know shit about rugby so it doesn’t hit for you personally. Do you judge it objectively based off the writing quality or does the fact the concept wasn’t familiar come into how you rate it?

i look up the references without a complaint. i would do the same listening/watching to a Live battle, so it applies to any battle for me. imo, it's lazy/trash voting if you don't at least attempt to understand it. should you jump through hoops? no, but it's minimal effort to open another tab and get the gist of a concept before shitting on it or writing it off.

quality writing provides the reader context and should at minimum help the reader understand. for instance: wordplay should be written so that a reader at least gets the surface reference, the the deeper entendre is either an asset or not depending on the usage. that kind of shit is high risk/reward inherently. a well-placed expo can help this out.

also, it's a skill to expo the correct things. a good verse shouldn't need many expos if at all.

technical: of course aspects of a punch should be judged accordingly.(setup/execution/wording/etc) however, someone could write a well constructed punch about shit u dont know about.. how effective was it really? can u judge the effectiveness if u don't know the concept? not objectively.

if u are not familiar with the subject matter, u are solely judging on construction and rhyme patter of a bar. imo that's not a well rounded good vote, and you're better off not voting

i think there's variants to this as well. skill level differences, experience, etc. but that's subjective. battlers should be judged as being equal skill in each battle, objectively.

creativity: it's one thing to be creative, it's another to make shit up (personals, angles, etc). i scrutinize personals with or without recipts heavily. another high risk/high reward scenario, but becoming more prevalent in recent times.

anyhow, that's my 2 cents.

[Kiwi Peewee]

As far as personals go I'm willing to read an expo if its someone's site history (or exposing them for something) that I might not specifically be aware of but is a good personal angle.

In terms of other references, I think the whole point of writing a verse is that someone reading/listening to it can follow along while reading it without having to go look stuff up and come back to it. My frame of reference for pop culture/sport/etc is quite different to most Americans/Brits so this puts me at a big disadvantage, but I think you should always try write bars that are accessible for the majority of your intended audience to understand. There are literally thousands of everyday items/activities/interactions that are relatively universal in the modern world. If something's intuitive in the punch, like "I'll box your tissue like kleenex" obviously I can work out kleenex is a tissue brand even if I don't know it, and I generally give benefit of the doubt for stuff that is relatively well-known even I'm not personally familiar with it. Most of the time stuff like this is easy to work out anyway ("I'll smash your weak defence like the dolphins" - oh ok the dolphins are an American Football team so obviously they have a weak defence) but I'm willing to google it if there's no expo and it feels like something I could be expected to know.

However, if it's some super complicated niche shit honestly I think that is less skill and creativity. Imo the talent to writing a punchline is making the audience think you're doing one thing, then making them feel like "oh my god how did I not see that coming" after you do the punchline. If your punch is a reference to one specific scene from a niche movie I've never heard of, firstly that will have no impact on me even after googling it, but secondly I think its a lack of skill. I could write any random punch setup - e.g. "I'll put this duck in the box to add to my collection" - then trawl through every movie I've ever watched to find a reference that matches it - Howard Duck in the background of one scene at The Collector's place in GOTG Vol. 2 - but that's not really clever writing, it's just having watched lots of movies. I think it takes much more skill to stick to much better known source material - e.g. almost everyone is familiar with the plot of Avengers Endgame - and then see what fresh angles you can work out of that.

Even with an expo, if a punch has truthfully had no impact on me as a voter because I don't know or care about the subject matter and can't imagine myself doing so, I'm not gonna count it much. I won't count it against you as long as it seems cleanly executed and makes sense, but I'm not gonna pretend it's great when the whole point of a verse is to entertain me and it was only ever gonna confuse me.

(Specifically in concept battles I think the bar for how niche you can go gets a lot lower - the whole point is to go in deep on a concept so that's the time for ultra-specific punches n long expos. I love doing concept battles on niche topics I know lots about cos I get to use bars I would never get away with in a regular battle lol)

That is my grumbling for the day haha

[Kiwi Peewee]

As far as personals go I'm willing to read an expo if its someone's site history (or exposing them for something) that I might not specifically be aware of but is a good personal angle.

In terms of other references, I think the whole point of writing a verse is that someone reading/listening to it can follow along while reading it without having to go look stuff up and come back to it. My frame of reference for pop culture/sport/etc is quite different to most Americans/Brits so this puts me at a big disadvantage, but I think you should always try write bars that are accessible for the majority of your intended audience to understand. There are literally thousands of everyday items/activities/interactions that are relatively universal in the modern world. If something's intuitive in the punch, like "I'll box your tissue like kleenex" obviously I can work out kleenex is a tissue brand even if I don't know it, and I generally give benefit of the doubt for stuff that is relatively well-known even I'm not personally familiar with it. Most of the time stuff like this is easy to work out anyway ("I'll smash your weak defence like the dolphins" - oh ok the dolphins are an American Football team so obviously they have a weak defence) but I'm willing to google it if there's no expo and it feels like something I could be expected to know.

However, if it's some super complicated niche shit honestly I think that is less skill and creativity. Imo the talent to writing a punchline is making the audience think you're doing one thing, then making them feel like "oh my god how did I not see that coming" after you do the punchline. If your punch is a reference to one specific scene from a niche movie I've never heard of, firstly that will have no impact on me even after googling it, but secondly I think its a lack of skill. I could write any random punch setup - e.g. "I'll put this duck in the box to add to my collection" - then trawl through every movie I've ever watched to find a reference that matches it - Howard Duck in the background of one scene at The Collector's place in GOTG Vol. 2 - but that's not really clever writing, it's just having watched lots of movies. I think it takes much more skill to stick to much better known source material - e.g. almost everyone is familiar with the plot of Avengers Endgame - and then see what fresh angles you can work out of that.

Even with an expo, if a punch has truthfully had no impact on me as a voter because I don't know or care about the subject matter and can't imagine myself doing so, I'm not gonna count it much. I won't count it against you as long as it seems cleanly executed and makes sense, but I'm not gonna pretend it's great when the whole point of a verse is to entertain me and it was only ever gonna confuse me.

(Specifically in concept battles I think the bar for how niche you can go gets a lot lower - the whole point is to go in deep on a concept so that's the time for ultra-specific punches n long expos. I love doing concept battles on niche topics I know lots about cos I get to use bars I would never get away with in a regular battle lol)

That is my grumbling for the day haha

[Affinity]

Originally Posted by Kiwi Peewee

As far as personals go I'm willing to read an expo if its someone's site history (or exposing them for something) that I might not specifically be aware of but is a good personal angle.

In terms of other references, I think the whole point of writing a verse is that someone reading/listening to it can follow along while reading it without having to go look stuff up and come back to it. My frame of reference for pop culture/sport/etc is quite different to most Americans/Brits so this puts me at a big disadvantage, but I think you should always try write bars that are accessible for the majority of your intended audience to understand. There are literally thousands of everyday items/activities/interactions that are relatively universal in the modern world. If something's intuitive in the punch, like "I'll box your tissue like kleenex" obviously I can work out kleenex is a tissue brand even if I don't know it, and I generally give benefit of the doubt for stuff that is relatively well-known even I'm not personally familiar with it. Most of the time stuff like this is easy to work out anyway ("I'll smash your weak defence like the dolphins" - oh ok the dolphins are an American Football team so obviously they have a weak defence) but I'm willing to google it if there's no expo and it feels like something I could be expected to know.

However, if it's some super complicated niche shit honestly I think that is less skill and creativity. Imo the talent to writing a punchline is making the audience think you're doing one thing, then making them feel like "oh my god how did I not see that coming" after you do the punchline. If your punch is a reference to one specific scene from a niche movie I've never heard of, firstly that will have no impact on me even after googling it, but secondly I think its a lack of skill. I could write any random punch setup - e.g. "I'll put this duck in the box to add to my collection" - then trawl through every movie I've ever watched to find a reference that matches it - Howard Duck in the background of one scene at The Collector's place in GOTG Vol. 2 - but that's not really clever writing, it's just having watched lots of movies. I think it takes much more skill to stick to much better known source material - e.g. almost everyone is familiar with the plot of Avengers Endgame - and then see what fresh angles you can work out of that.

Even with an expo, if a punch has truthfully had no impact on me as a voter because I don't know or care about the subject matter and can't imagine myself doing so, I'm not gonna count it much. I won't count it against you as long as it seems cleanly executed and makes sense, but I'm not gonna pretend it's great when the whole point of a verse is to entertain me and it was only ever gonna confuse me.

(Specifically in concept battles I think the bar for how niche you can go gets a lot lower - the whole point is to go in deep on a concept so that's the time for ultra-specific punches n long expos. I love doing concept battles on niche topics I know lots about cos I get to use bars I would never get away with in a regular battle lol)

That is my grumbling for the day haha

You make some really interesting points here, that even as a battler I don't always consider the way I should.

Even comparing the way I vote/analyze vs how others do is a fun thing to take a look at from time to time.

Thanks for this! and for all of the other comments. Really interesting conversation

[Affinity]

Originally Posted by Kiwi Peewee

As far as personals go I'm willing to read an expo if its someone's site history (or exposing them for something) that I might not specifically be aware of but is a good personal angle.

In terms of other references, I think the whole point of writing a verse is that someone reading/listening to it can follow along while reading it without having to go look stuff up and come back to it. My frame of reference for pop culture/sport/etc is quite different to most Americans/Brits so this puts me at a big disadvantage, but I think you should always try write bars that are accessible for the majority of your intended audience to understand. There are literally thousands of everyday items/activities/interactions that are relatively universal in the modern world. If something's intuitive in the punch, like "I'll box your tissue like kleenex" obviously I can work out kleenex is a tissue brand even if I don't know it, and I generally give benefit of the doubt for stuff that is relatively well-known even I'm not personally familiar with it. Most of the time stuff like this is easy to work out anyway ("I'll smash your weak defence like the dolphins" - oh ok the dolphins are an American Football team so obviously they have a weak defence) but I'm willing to google it if there's no expo and it feels like something I could be expected to know.

However, if it's some super complicated niche shit honestly I think that is less skill and creativity. Imo the talent to writing a punchline is making the audience think you're doing one thing, then making them feel like "oh my god how did I not see that coming" after you do the punchline. If your punch is a reference to one specific scene from a niche movie I've never heard of, firstly that will have no impact on me even after googling it, but secondly I think its a lack of skill. I could write any random punch setup - e.g. "I'll put this duck in the box to add to my collection" - then trawl through every movie I've ever watched to find a reference that matches it - Howard Duck in the background of one scene at The Collector's place in GOTG Vol. 2 - but that's not really clever writing, it's just having watched lots of movies. I think it takes much more skill to stick to much better known source material - e.g. almost everyone is familiar with the plot of Avengers Endgame - and then see what fresh angles you can work out of that.

Even with an expo, if a punch has truthfully had no impact on me as a voter because I don't know or care about the subject matter and can't imagine myself doing so, I'm not gonna count it much. I won't count it against you as long as it seems cleanly executed and makes sense, but I'm not gonna pretend it's great when the whole point of a verse is to entertain me and it was only ever gonna confuse me.

(Specifically in concept battles I think the bar for how niche you can go gets a lot lower - the whole point is to go in deep on a concept so that's the time for ultra-specific punches n long expos. I love doing concept battles on niche topics I know lots about cos I get to use bars I would never get away with in a regular battle lol)

That is my grumbling for the day haha

You make some really interesting points here, that even as a battler I don't always consider the way I should.

Even comparing the way I vote/analyze vs how others do is a fun thing to take a look at from time to time.

Thanks for this! and for all of the other comments. Really interesting conversation