YM Feb - Jellyellie - a waste of space

[dunedin]

[ QUOTE ]
Why are there few young people in yachting? Yachting requires a reasonable amount of disposable income. Most young people are too busy earning that money. Twenty years later, they may well have the time and money. And twenty years later ... surprise, surprise, they've become middle aged.

[/ QUOTE ]

There are lots of teenagers involved in sailing - informally and many through the RYAs excellent Junior & Youth sailing programmes. But many/most prefer sailing themselves in their Oppies/Toppers, or blasting around in 420's / 29ers.
Clearly, if they bother to buy a yottie mag, they are more likely to read Yachts & Yachting

Its nice to hear a bit about the teenagers who are a bit different and like bigger boats.
If the fact she doesn't give her real name bothers you, Mr Google will soon give the info I am sure.

Surprised there hasn't been a chain about the fact that digital sailor refers to gybing downwind whereas the analogue refers to this as tacking downwind.

 

[billmacfarlane]

Dear Jelly
I agree with you that there is little representation for a younger set in certain areas of the yachting press but I would suggest you target your writing somewhere where a younger set might read it i.e Yachts and Yachting which caters for the tens of thousands of young sailors who dinghy sail.
The article itself ? I think you are a good writer but I found the article patronising in the extreme from both sides of the fence. You "cool dude,slightly off beat, Californian Clueless language" style patronises the teenagers you claim to represent. I work in a school with a couple of thousand of them so can claim a little knowledge of the current teenage world. I also wonder how a person who left school at 14 and must have missed the sort of teenage playground interaction and friendships that happen at a school can claim to know how the teenage mind works. The image you try to portray of yourself as the so-cool-teenager is itself "sterotypical" for effect, probably of the "brand" image you are trying to portray. It really doesn't work in a magazine like YM and I'm really surprised that they might think it does. Actually I'm a little bit shocked by it.
From the other side of the great divide, DD's writing I thought patronised most of the readers of YM. The idea of a middle aged man with little or no technical knowledge and who can only use a paper and a pen,might, or might not be true of DD, but in no way represents the average YM reader. Look through the type of people on this forum and you'll see lots of IT professionals for starters, lots more who have laptops on board and practically all use email. And we will all have mobile phones !! So this great gap, as in the article of the techie-teenager and luddite-middle-aged-man doesn't actually exist to anywhere near the extent portrayed.
Lastly Jelly, I think your undoubted talents would be better employed in some other parts of the media that would give you more of an outlet and not on the pages of a magazine whose general audience IS probably middle-aged and male.
P.S to YM- Did you really think this article somehow represents the readers of your magazine ? If so I'd start worrying about your circulation figures.

 

[Phoenix of Hamble]

JellyEllie,

I haven't even read the article, but i'm full of admiration for the way you have responded to this thread, and what you are doing with your life.

I guarantee you that the UK is stuffed full of middle aged folks who wish they hadn't jumped into the 'normal' approach of higher education followed by career.... and secretly regret not 'doing their own thing' for, at the very least, a few years..

Good on you.

 

[knewboater]

With respect I did not say it was a waste of space.

 

[rallyveteran]

I liked it too - and am also over 50!

 

[keelbolt]

I thought Jelly's article in YM played on middle aged guilt about young people. Having read her post here, I am now sure it does. What a load of rot. Hasn't she been following Michael Perham's voyage? Hasn't she been out on the solent recently?

My guess is that most young people would be totally embarassed by her and her attitude. If some marketing guys are taken in by it, then more fools them.

 

[Marmalade]

Jelly

My guess is you contacted YM because you wanted publicity.

one article in a national mag
ybw thread (currently 755 views) with people talking about you

I'd say "well done"

 

[Amulet]

I lack no admiration for sheer bottle. I read the yachting press to learn stuff and (though I have much to learn) I didn't get past browsing the article and discarding it as worthless to me. I did read it when I saw this flak, and still learned nothing. (Which doesn't imply that it's worthless to everyone.)

No uniqueness prizes for being worthless. I get most of the value of my yachting magazines from about 5% which is real practical content. I cringe at the banality of almost all of the regular "humorous" fillers.

These forums may be populated by old geezers like me, but I run a boat, encounter the usual list of practical problems, and have solved dozens of them on the basis of advice found here.

I don't read the forum for the banter, but it is more entertaining than the feeble humour of the printed yachting press.

Stuffiness does emerge from time and is usually quashed with fair tact, some eloquence, and not a little wit.

I have several decades of age on Jellywhatsit, but she mentions no new technology with which I'm not familiar and nothing which is remotely challenging to anyone. I was skippering boats when I was her age, and, back then, was even as fond of insulting old geezers as she is.

As a father of several jelly whatsits I'm pretty used to all this guff - I have an embarassing number of daughters. Maybe those who don't have it as a regular diet need to read it in their yachting magazines.

Coincidentally, one of my jelly whatsits did flirt with exactly the same nickname for several years around puberty - which fact was probably instrumental in maintaining my interest long enough to squander some of my remaining moments of precious geezerhood to type this rather pointless message.

But what the hell, having done so I might as well post it...

 

[Twister_Ken]

Didn't exactly strike me as great journalism (sorry Dick and Jellybean) but if I want great journalism I don't expect to find it in a sailymag.

Altogether a pretty innocuous space filler, and a good alternative to more [--word removed--] flotilla cruising articles.

 

[Twister_Ken]

I tried clubbing once, but I ran out of baby seals.

 

[Master_and_Commander]

Let the youth of today stick to clubbing eh??

Why - so you can moan when they fall out of the places totally mullered at 3am??

Why shouldn't the young sail? It's gotta be better than them getting hammered, smoking god knows what, laying around all day sponging off society......

 

[amadeus]

I'd like to add that assuming those of us who subscribe to YM and post on this forum are male middle-aged or stuffy is as patronising as assuming that teenagers prefer clubbing to a night anchored under the stars. I am none of those things, even if I am a Vice Commodore and Yachtmaster, and my teenagers all loath nightclubs. I just haven't marketed myself and my brand very well because I would rather be out sailing! I have been sailing nearly forty years but it was only five years ago I could afford to buy my first cruiser. Too busy raising a family and earning a living. How unnewsworthy!

 

[Twister_Ken]

Not stuffy, but scruffy certainly!

 

[Kukri]

[ QUOTE ]
Let the youth of today stick to clubbing eh??

Why - so you can moan when they fall out of the places totally mullered at 3am??

Why shouldn't the young sail? It's gotta be better than them getting hammered, smoking god knows what, laying around all day sponging off society......

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm not interested in "what's good for the Yoof of Today" (apart from my own two) - I'm interested in "what's good for ME!" /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif

Fewer people sailing is good for me; the Yoof of Today can carry on falling out of "clubs" at Ungodly Hours so long as they leave me (and my two) alone.

My two specimens needless to say go sailing, but they don't take mobile phones with them and they don't witter on about it in yottimags! /forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif

Yes, it's a double standard. So what!
/forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif

Yours ever,
V. Meldrew

Vice-Commodore,
Royal Brunei and Northern Celebes YC

(what! No smiley for a blue ensign, defaced! Harrumph!)

 

[gerry99]

I find the posts on this thread far more interesting than the original article in YM. I have an ambivalent attitude to it, in some areas it was genuinely of interest to me and in others I found it stereotypical and patronising. Having been working in the IT industry for most of my career I have met and worked with many entreprenuers, and I have noticed a number of common characteristics, including:-
> articulate,
> 100% self belief,
> not shy retiring characters,
> can appear arrogant (and sometimes are),
> determined to make their mark,
the list goes on but is truncated for brevity.

So i cannot criticise jellyellie, because she is what she is, a budding entrepreneur, but I dont think the article presented Jellyellie or DD in a favourable light, because they reinforced stereotypes.

I would have been more entertained had YM taken a yacht on a long passage with a crew made up 50% of "the youth of today" that Jellyellie claims to represent and the remainder of the crew being the archetypal middle aged (dare I say luddite?? /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif ) sailor. Now that's a combination that I reckon would be far more interesting to watch and hear about than even big brother or I'm a hasbeen get me out of here!

 

[Kukri]

[ QUOTE ]
I would have been more entertained had YM taken a yacht on a long passage with a crew made up 50% of "the youth of today" that Jellyellie claims to represent and the remainder of the crew being the archetypal middle aged (dare I say luddite?? /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif ) sailor. Now that's a combination that I reckon would be far more interesting to watch and hear about than even big brother or I'm a hasbeen get me out of here!

[/ QUOTE ]

Ahh....22 years ago I was moored in Ostende in my ancient yot, quietly minding my own business (getting some diesel and my head down, IIRC) when in came the then Shaftesbury Homes training ketch ARETHUSA, full of the Yoof of That Day having their little characters built plus an afterguard of the middle aged middle class, every man jack of whom, as they passed, (not all at the same time, as the little horrors could not be left alone) accepted my offer of a tot and collapsed on the saloon settees, exclaiming "Phew! I can escape from them for five minutes! Wonderful!"

/forums/images/graemlins/smirk.gif

 

[Twister_Ken]

"Vice-Commodore,
Royal Brunei and Northern Celebes YC"

Lots of them around here!

 

[Twister_Ken]

"I would have been more entertained had YM taken a yacht on a long passage with a crew made up 50% of "the youth of today" that Jellyellie claims to represent and the remainder of the crew being the archetypal middle aged (dare I say luddite?? ) sailor. Now that's a combination that I reckon would be far more interesting to watch and hear about than even big brother or I'm a hasbeen get me out of here! "

Sort of what YM did with Gypsy Moth a coupla years ago. 'Cept, stead of trip up and down the river, they burgered off round the world.

 

[mikegnew]

Sailing idly through the forum, I was startled to bring up suddenly against this post. Jellyellie had seemed a nice kid from my reading of her article. I enjoyed the article as a good humorous read - and in a few enjoyable paras this ‘trivial’ article rubbed home an important message for all about safety on board.

But here was a gale-force blast designed to blow her, her character, and her boat – out of the water.

It’s all too much. Jellyellie reminds him, he explodes, ‘..why I am saving up to leave this society’. Eh? What?

Jellyellie has demolished the charges in a very rational manner. However, blimey, what had he learned ‘following her links’ to set all this going? I swapped my Breton for my Sherlock deerstalker, and followed the same trail.

I found: the poster hasn’t even bothered to read the opening page of the article, and the box on the next page, profiling Jellyellie; let alone her links. In view of the abrasive language used against our author I am driven to sum it up as I’ve read it.

Before the age of 18:
.. the book she wrote has been translated into other languages. She’s writing a novel at the request of a publisher. The first client of a teenage research group she created, ‘was a huge multi-national media agency, and delivered an insight project that helped them secure a massive telecoms client.’ She’s earned enough with this and Europe-wide speaking engagements to buy her own 34ft boat. She’s been invited on to the Youth Chamber of Commerce and Youth Advisory Boards.

If she’s a ‘self-styled’ entrepreneur, then Dick Durham’s a ‘self- styled’ mariner. But…somehow..I don’t think that would be right.

Her YachtScribble idea (now ended with her boat purchase) is ‘begging’? Well, I’ve counted 40 persons or organisations answered. They’re ‘mugs’? Jellyellie is clearly a serious, cruising sailor. She’s spent months at sea for the Cirdan charity, mostly helping disadvantaged kids. She was a day skipper by 17 and now well into her Yachtmasters. The ‘mug’s’ short message, one of several on the side of a hull, will be a curiousity, viewed in ports galore and afar. And will also be seen across the web by a master of the medium. All for a fiver! They’re no mugs and that’s an entrepreneurial idea alright.

But.. hang-on! She doesn’t, “even promise to actually scribble on the boat!” Hope this guy’s not on watch should I sail his boat! I read (in big letters! didn’t have to use my trusty magnifying glass) on the opening page of the Scribble site that she and her partner are working out : “ how best to put them on their yacht”.

And could Jellyellie be, actually, a genuine young entrepreneur role model? I’ve found a number of comments on that. Here are a couple:

"Hi jellyellie it's David (the one who wanted to be a teacher) from the Young Chamber talk at Cowes! Thank you so much for a great talk and you have really inspired me for the future. I hope you have great success in your later life!"
David, 15, young person at Enterprise Week.

"Hey jellyellie it's Irteza from the Young Enterprise talk. I've got my goal up on my bedroom wall like you said to do!"

There’s more. They’re all there to be read, by those who want to see.

Britain is a messed up place today. I can understand people who want to leave. But Jellyellie reminds you why? That’s outrageous –and drove me to write this. For me she would be a good reason to stick around with hope that we’ve still got the right stuff; and that repair is possible under a different government.

 

[Otter]

Perhaps you're misinterpreting the criticism, I think Jelliellie can be nice person and the article dull and patronising all at the same time.