Gadfly Posted September 12, 2009 Report Share Posted September 12, 2009 The media exposes are basically just salacious entertainment. This fake Bravo jetski thing is the latest twist. You can characterize it however you like, but expect more. And not just the media exposes, but internet reports. It's not going to go away - indeed, expect it to increase exponentially, because that is what it has done. There will be nonsense and pure fiction, but the internet moves us close to a free market place of ideas, and in doing so, does a wonderful job of separating fact from fiction and highlighting stores and events that previously received little or not attention. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
simie Posted September 12, 2009 Report Share Posted September 12, 2009 Gadfly, as you say these things have been going on for ages, but in the past the Thai authorities have been a lot more successfull at sweeping things under the carpet. Now in the internet age this is far harder if not impossible for them to do. But still in every case their reaction always appears to be to try and find a way of stopping the information getting out not stopping the actual problem itself. Graft and corruption are so ingrained that I doubt this will change. I'm sure reports of scamming of tourists do the tourist industry no good at all and the odd murder/rape of a young female backpacker that happens from time to time gets wide publicity. The Pattaya type "suicides" I think are far less of a problem to them as these are not widely reported in the ordinary press as I think they are just not that interested? The rape murder of a young gap year backpacker is a far better splash for them than the dodgey death of a middle aged sex tourist? Simie. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chuckwoww Posted September 12, 2009 Report Share Posted September 12, 2009 You can characterize it however you like, but expect more. And not just the media exposes, but internet reports. It's not going to go away - indeed, expect it to increase exponentially, because that is what it has done. There will be nonsense and pure fiction, but the internet moves us close to a free market place of ideas, and in doing so, does a wonderful job of separating fact from fiction and highlighting stores and events that previously received little or not attention. I'm not complaining about the flow of information. Just the quality. I get 90% of my news from the internet. In fact I prefer it to the MSM. I do have a problem with the kind of journalism that distorts reality for the purpose of sensationalism. But that's what TV mostly is these days. As for cleaning up Thailand things have never been the same for me since they stopped the frog show at Hollywood. Spot the contradiction. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wallenda Posted September 12, 2009 Report Share Posted September 12, 2009 This fake Bravo jetski thing is the latest twist. I somehow missed the part where there was an investigation that concluded the scene at the jetski place was faked. Anyway, the fact that the Marines acted as meekly as they did can almost surely be attributed to the presence of the camera, and their knowing that if they crossed any line they might end up on national tv doing it, and would have hell to pay for it. JJ on the other hand knew it was a foreign tv crew, so wasn't as concerned about what effect his on-screen actions would have. The fact that he walked out with a gun while he was being filmed shows how much thinking he was doing. To me it looked like he realized he was up for his 15 min of fame -- and probably figured out the Marines weren't likely to fight on camera, which meant he had a free pass to play the Big Man. Or so he thought. The problem with conspiracy theories (like, that it's fake) is that you would need ALL these people to be in on it, and also need all of them to never blab. Somehow I'm thinking this lieutenant would have a tough time explaining to his superiors that the whole thing was a put-on. Or risking that one of his men would contradict him to them and tell that it was faked. If you think about it, it's not really plausible that they faked it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chuckwoww Posted September 12, 2009 Report Share Posted September 12, 2009 I based my fake comment on this link posted by US Virgin above... http://phuketwan.com/tourism/big-trouble-inside-jet-ski-scandal-11555/ The producer seems to be having it both ways. He says the event was not staged but JJ was a willing participant. To me that says JJ was playing to the cameras and the marines were going along with it. That fits my definition of fake but each to his own. Of course whenever a camera is pointed at people they tend to adapt their behaviour. One has to wonder what they were discussing before the cameraman showed up. Whether or not the marine genuinely damaged the jetski or not will probably never be established. Interestingly the producer seems a little apologetic about JJ getting arrested (for showing the gun) which is strange. You'd think he'd be pleased to see another evil Thai scammer get what's coming to him. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chuckwoww Posted September 12, 2009 Report Share Posted September 12, 2009 JJ was too trusting. I think he wanted to show what happens when people return damaged Jetskis but the whole thing was edited to look like an extortion attempt. The gun part was a bit of overracting by JJ but it wasn't cut. Unless of course JJ phoned the producer and said 'Get down here quick and watch me screw some farang'. The Marine serjeant was excellent I thought. He single-handedly restored the honour of the British Navy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
buffalo_bill Posted September 12, 2009 Report Share Posted September 12, 2009 Relax oh bretheren , BuBi the wise old man from the mountains will now speak to you : I invested 9:59 minutes of my precious time into this piece of crap and the findings are as follows . You got to watch it with the loudspeaker off and look what happens around the cockfighting : you might notice that all mafiosi around are close to falling asleep though their boss is in advanced stage of deadly rage . The same goes for the marines on stage , no combat awareness , disappointing . The victim himself shows an expression like little BuBi after having stolen the neighbours cherries when his mum was shouting at him . Again disappointing . I did learn from 10 years board education that you should never fuck with Thai redlight representatives because their fuse would blow in a wee fraction of a second , the more we admire lovely Khun JJ who stays remarkably cool with a falang shouting at his face at 3 inch distance . Speaks very well English anyway , possibly a graduate from the Stickman course of excellence . That they arrested Khun JJ does not indicate the story was true , they got to do something to show awareness . Pleased do note by the way that the Royal marines carry exactly 35.000 in cash on a sunny afternoon for a wetski ride , well designed forward planning I would say . Conclusion : if you watch the story and follow BuBi’s advice to shut the speakers down the impression you get is that of a temporary quarrel between a basically educated Thai-looking jetski official and an aggressively speaking elderly falang and a lot of endlessly bored people hanging around trying to avoid falling asleep . The plot with the gun seems to have nothing to do with the story . Tactical advice for the British forces on R&R in Siam : If in serious trouble with jetski mafiosi on Phuket , number of swordsman obviously on par according to aforementioned youtube documentary : deploy one hopefully trained marine on every partially overweight Thai fuckup in sight and open hostilities . No prommpremm BuBi thinks , so why pay money too big . Over to you Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest lazyphil Posted September 12, 2009 Report Share Posted September 12, 2009 lmao!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThaiHome Posted September 13, 2009 Report Share Posted September 13, 2009 One of the Thai TV channels ran an SMS poll on this. 54% responding said it was fake. Main reason given was no Thai man would talk that much. Would start fighting after 1 minute TH Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wallenda Posted September 13, 2009 Report Share Posted September 13, 2009 I based my fake comment on this link posted by US Virgin above... http://phuketwan.com/tourism/big-trouble-inside-jet-ski-scandal-11555/ Looks like you missed this part from this piece you linked to that's written by the director: "If anyone is still of the opinion that the scene with JJ is faked then I will today provide links to the raw, uncut footage from the events of that day and our full interviews with JJ - before and after." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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