The Problem with Legend of Korra

It's been a while since I've had a good rant, so here we go.

The other night I'm sitting with my lovely wife catching up on our stories when we decide to catch the latest episode of Legend of Korra. I go to Nick.com, find the episode and we sit there hoping that Toff shows back up to beat everyone into line.

Then it froze.

The video froze so I did what any tech savvy millennial would do and tried to move the little time bar to a different location, when I did that the video skipped to the end credits. Any attempt to get back to our place would send us back to the ending, so I did the next thing a computer savant would and hit refresh. This worked but it meant I had to sit through another five or six commercials for kids toys again.

This happened four times.

On the third time, between my incoherent growling and threats to my computer, I noticed something that sent me over the edge: The video would only malfunction during the show, never during the commercials. We had watched Once Upon A Time on ABC.com before this incident and it had run perfectly fine so I decided it wasn't my computer, it was Nick.com. I'm usually not a conspiracy nut but if there was a way to make people watch these stupid commercials over and over this was the way to do it.

Usually I don't mind commercials but let me explain what these were for: Toys. Toys for children around the age of twelve. Now I don't have kids. I know kids, I teach kids, but I'm probably not going to be buying them a lot of toys this year, but I don't know any kids who watch Legend of Korra. I'm not even sure I know any parents who would let their kids watch Legend of Korra. Avatar the Last Airbender sure, that had the same mix of kid humor and adult-ish drama to be like a John Bluth movie from the 80's, but Legend of Korra is full of political intrigue, the complexities of relationships, and personal growth. It's basically a PG-rated Game of Thrones, and I just don't see a lot of kids getting into it.

And therein is my problem: I am a grown man with no children trying to watch a mature, well written television series, but because the show happens to be animated I'm treated like my entire goal in life is to get a Happy Meal.

Listen Nick, the corporate entity that you are, I get that you're trying to swing for the elementary school demographic. Fine. But could you please move Korra off your bloated website that's overrun with these stupid videos, ads, and games, all designed to milk lunch money, and put it on another site with maybe some respectability so that the thing can at least run well enough that I can catch my show without being explained the highlights of owning a Sponge Bob Lego set? Maybe just maybe if you actually cater to an audience that has complete control over their disposable income instead of limited control obtained through crying you may find yourselves with a whole new cash cow and you can finally take Sponge Bob out behind the tool shed and put two in his head. Believe me it works, because I've spent a couple hundred dollars on Game of Thrones and Walking Dead merchandise in my life alone and I didn't have to beg my mother for a dime of it.

Rant completed, go back about your day.
-JOE