No Stupid Bullshit

Support AAA auto insurance.

http://i.imgur.com/pF8O9.png 

"Fuck Capital One" - Bigslim1425

While watching The Daily Show online this morning, I took a peek at the comments section, and saw this:

Bigslim1425 commented | 9 hours ago

Fuck Capital one!

Presumably, this is in response to The Daily Show's online ad strategy, a common one that shows viewers the same one or two ads every commercial break. It's hard to decide if this is truly better than getting from commercials chosen from a group about a dozen every commercial break, as one would if one were to watch the show on television. 

To me, the crux of the decision is this: would you rather be fed one piece of horse shit five times, or twenty different pieces of horse shit? Could variety make up for the sheer volume? Again, hard to say.

Either way, I couldn't have said it better myself, Bigslim.

Fuck Scion

Justin Foley, a very smart guy who plays in the very loud, very good band, The Austerity Program, has politely disassembled some poor reasoning on the part of grindcore outfit, Magrudergrind, who have attempted to rationalize their decision to allow Scion to pay for, release and make free to the public, their new album, Crusher.

http://www.metalsucks.net/2010/11/19/the-austerity-programs-justin-foley-weighs-in-on-magrudergrindscion-controversy/#com-head

My favorite parenthetical moment: "(Also, fuck that guy from Of Montreal who writes jingles for Outback Steakhouse. Just wanted to say that.)"

If you follow the link to Brooklyn Vegan, you can see the album cover has the Scion logo stamped front and center, along with the gross moniker they've given to the department in charge of making kids believe corporations are cool, Scion Audio Visual. 

It is not OK to have a corporate sponsor. Say it with me, musicians: IT IS NOT OK TO HAVE A CORPORATE SPONSOR.

Fuck Musicians

Selling music to giant corporations is a popular thing for otherwise-respectable bands to do these days. So, I've added a sidebar list of musicians who can burn in artistic hell. Bill Hicks got my back:



(The mic-in-mouth thing is a pantomime of sucking Satan's cock. It'll make sense once you click on it.)

Help me add more.

Five years later, truck ads still suck

I wrote this several years ago, when I had a column for SUNY Buffalo's undergraduate newspaper, The Spectrum. There are some embarrassing moments for a writer here--particularly, "prolific sand dunes,"--but I'm going to post it as it appeared in 2005, typos and all.

Skip to the paragraph that begins, "Bright red pickup trucks" for what is, in retrospect, probably the closest thing to real insight here. This was titled, "My Truck's Bigger than Yours."

All I wanted to do was watch the White Sox.

Between innings, the makers of the Chevrolet Silverado pickup truck issued me a direct challenge, the likes of which I haven't heard since my playground days. 

"Men love trucks," said the narrator, who sounded like a man that gargles his wife's and foster children's broken teeth. This all-encompassing statement was followed clips of men, in trucks, doing unquestionably rugged things like leaning on their muddied vehicles with arms crossed and jumping prolific sand dunes. 

The voiceover continued. 

"It lets you go where others might think twice...Long live the truck."

Pickup truck marketing goes beyond competition comparison and actually attempts to intimidate viewers, particularly men, into believing that owning one will validates gender identity.

This advertising scheme is nothing new. The Marlboro Man was the original.

After the realization that cigarettes are dangerous, the general public took a whole new stance on marketing, demanding that it be responsible. We demand that commercials do not negatively influence society. 

Alcohol and tobacco ads are cautious these days, but the automotive industry runs hog wild. Companies endorsing dangerous substances shouldn't be the only ones held accountable for their marketing's potential impact.

The way that young minds will be affected is always among the first things called into question when it comes to the media, so I'll ask one. Do we young boys to grow up believing that if they don't get a Silverado for their 16th birthday, that their parents are dooming them to be seen by their peers as less capable, less task-oriented?

It's also important to consider the possible effects of this advertising that never even occurred to Chevy.

Bright red pickup trucks are the second most expensive category of vehicles to insure, behind only bright red sports cars. They are because they are the most frequently pulled over and most likely to be involved in an accident. 

With that information you end up with an archetype of a buyer, a certain kind of person who would purchase a bright red truck despite the extra cost. It isn't Chevy's fault idiots are attracted to shiny objects, but they are promoting it.

And they'll endorse antiquated social structures.

"Long live the truck" substitutes "truck" for "king." This patriarchal nod perpetuates an alpha-male societal standard far more harmful than a pack of cloves.

Chevy isn't the only one appealing to sides of masculinity that most of us would just as soon kiss goodbye and bury.

Mitsubishi has a new commercial in which a bright red truck revs its engine at another truck and makes it bust a coolant hose, as though it were losing control of its bladder. 

"Introducing the new, intimidating Mitsubishi Raider," said a similar smoky voice. And then I fire bombed my local Mitsubishi dealer. 

Dodge has an ad, again with a red truck, in which a crew of lumberjacks pull into a middle-of-nowhere diner, presumably from having worked up a taste for Canadian bacon while comparing photos of their naked wives. 

"That's a big truck," says a man inside the diner, with a mouthful of home fries, all the while with a look on his face like Ron Jeremy just sauntered up to the urinal beside him.

Some will say it's all for the sake of comedy. But is it funny that the Mitsubishi Raider scaled the side of a Mohave plateau before staring down the brandless black truck?

There is an unspoken agenda in truck marketing that most would assume we just have to accept as consumers, as if we don't dictate advertisers' actions. Their goal is to appeal to the lowest common denominator: men who believe their possessions prove their manhood.

Politicians once made insightful observations

This is what political discourse sounded like 40 years ago. Have a look / listen to Nixon's VP Spiro Agnew in his speech, "Television News Coverage." 

http://americanrhetoric.com/speeches/spiroagnewtvnewscoverage.htm

Here's the gist. 

"A small group of men, numbering perhaps no more than a dozen anchormen, commentators, and executive producers, settle upon the 20 minutes or so of film and commentary that’s to reach the public. This selection is made from the 90 to 180 minutes that may be available. Their powers of choice are broad.

They decide what 40 to 50 million Americans will learn of the day’s events in the nation and in the world. We cannot measure this power and influence by the traditional democratic standards, for these men can create national issues overnight. They can make or break by their coverage and commentary a moratorium on the war. They can elevate men from obscurity to national prominence within a week. They can reward some politicians with national exposure and ignore others."

People are giving Arthur C. Clarke a lot of credit these days for predicting telecommunication. In the same way, Agnew saw the dissolution of political discourse when it was still in its embryonic phase. 

His conclusion is a stunning one, and one that we've failed act on ever since he made it in 1969. 

"Now, my friends, we’d never trust such power, as I’ve described, over public opinion in the hands of an elected government. It’s time we questioned it in the hands of a small unelected elite. The great networks have dominated America’s airwaves for decades. The people are entitled a full accounting their stewardship."

Ladies and Gentlemen: Eddie Pepitone

Those of you who know me know I like comedy, even though I'm not funny. It's not really a paradox, but it's close.

Eddie Pepitone sort of works outside the mold of the typical alternative comic, who is usually hip and articulate, even though they pretend to be neither of those things. Pepitone comes off as a blue-collar, Brooklyn guy with little education, but the motherfucker speaks the truth. His punch lines aren't chiseled in stone. He's got the guts of a Bill Hicks and... well, no, I think that's pretty much all he's working with: guts.

Here he is talking about auditioning for a laundry detergent commercial. Enjoy.