Mark Titus (1) (1987–)

The Internet has ruined lots of things. Learning. Music. The Yellow Pages’ delivery drivers’ jobs. And now it’s coming after books.

It’s no secret that the Internet is the new springboard to a major media career. Internet people have already produced terrible television shows, movies and, yes, even books. But we already knew Hollywood and the network executives were completely out of ideas, and book publishers LOVE throwing money at temporarily famous people who probably don’t even know how to read. But that was for them — the Dan Brown aficionados, the people who actually read the novel Push, adapted into the pathos-laden movie Precious, by Sapphire — the people who only read books because their friends are, or because the TV’s out and that’s what’s handy.

But there are much larger niches that publishers could target, and as a result we were not worried. If we wanted to read the latest creepy Ian McKellen novel, or learn more about what Tiger Woods’ caddy and/or swing coach had to say about his love life, that was available to us. These were people who had actually done things and learned things, or at least bothered to look them up on Wikipedia. Unfortunately, these have fallen by the wayside for whatever the latest Internet craze or fad is. Thus, this.

Mark Titus, in case you haven’t heard of him (you haven’t), was a bench player for The Ohio State University men’s basketball team.

That’s the entire point of the book.

“Wait a minute,” I can hear you say. “Why on earth would I care about a reserve basketball player on a team that hasn’t even won a national championship since 1960. Their only national championship, in fact?”

Good question. I guess we’re supposed to care about this man’s story because he had a blog? While still playing for the team, he updated it with the latest news on his attempts to get a “trillion” — that is, log one minute of game time while recording absolutely zero in every other statistical category. Thus giving him a 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 in the box score. All hail the underachiever.

In truth, the celebration of mediocrity throughout the entire book isn’t even what bothers me about it. What bothers me is that it’s just poorly written.

Some people say the rise of Bill Simmons has coincided with the rise of an entire generation of sportswriters who don’t actually want to go out and cover sports, they just want to sit back and write their columns. (Ha! What kind of losers just sit around and spout off their opinions all the time?) While I don’t disagree with that, I think the problem in this case traces more directly to the Internet, specifically that stupid little voice in executives’ heads that says, “Hey, if people were willing to consume it for free on the Internet, surely they’d be willing to pay for it!”

This is a first draft of a book that probably shouldn’t have been printed even if it had gone through multiple rounds of editing. It’s filled with contrived, often bewildering pop culture references (“better chance of finding an astrophysicist in an AND1 Mixtape Tour audience”) that also smack rather astoundingly of a casual racism (“white guys like the room a little chilly, but the black guys prefer a sauna”). It’s not even that it’s particularly malicious, it’s just so lazy. He actually has a pretty decently interesting story, but it’s written as if he gave it the same attention he would a work email sent during the fourth quarter of the Super Bowl. (See? Crap like that.) Throw in a little Tucker Max crudeness, and you’ve got a runaway best-seller, or so his publishers likely hoped.

But I have to mention the Simmons connection because Titus writes the way most do when first presented with a blank sheet of paper (or, nowadays, a white screen and a blinking cursor): Emulating his favorite writer. Though he does eventually come right out in the book and say so, I had that particular connection pegged about five paragraphs in (the OJ Simpson reference gave him away). Now don’t get me wrong, emulation is a great way to pick up the fundamentals of writing — but after a certain point you have to branch off and do your own thing. I don’t know if Titus just didn’t get the chance or didn’t care, but the voice that comes through these pages is more weak ventriloquism than anything.

Authors, publishers, editors, showrunners, producers and everyone else involved in the creative industries need to realize that just because something works in one medium doesn’t mean it’ll work in another — especially if the creator possesses zero knowledge of the new medium. While there’s much to be lauded about the democratizing effects of the Internet, there’ s a downside as well, as anything can permeate through to the wider culture in place of that which may have been more developed, more ready for the spotlight.

And for the creators? A bit of advice: You’re not Bill Simmons. You’re not Peter Gammons. You’re not Tim Burton, Steve Jobs, John Lassiter, Philip Roth or any other famous media icon who came before you. You’re you. And the sooner you can find (and DEVELOP, for god’s sake develop) your own voice, the better off you’ll be.… (meer)

I'm pretty sure I'm not the target audience for this book. I had never heard of Mark Titus, I'm not a male aged 18-30, and I'm not an Ohio State alum. However, I am a college basketball fan, and despite a lot (a lot!) of bathroom humor, I really enjoyed Mark's story of his college basketball career at Ohio State.

An easy read, filled with just the right mix of snarky humor and basketball play calling. Interesting inside look at a big time college basketball program. If you are one of the target audiences mentioned above, you'll enjoy it. Might even be a good choice for a mature teen who is a reluctant reader.… (meer)