28.12.07
ADVERTS: selling idiocy
There are degrees of idiocy. Everything is on a scale and even I can accept that pointless cultural afterbirths like Westlife or Jade Goody aren’t really in the same league as people like (yawn) George W. Bush who elevate the practice of idiocy to truly apocalyptic levels.
So with that in mind I’d cheerfully hold my hands up and admit that today’s idiots are certainly at the shallow end of the pool - idiot-wise. They’re irritating certainly, but not life threatening.
Nevertheless, I hate them.
I’m not even sure who they are. The smarmy marketing executives who have decided that every advert on our screens must be populated by skinny indie kids and sound tracked by obscure jangly, high pitched electro folk. These adverts have begun to spread across ad-land like a aesthetically-pleasing, ethnically-balanced cancer.
Let’s start with the indie kids as they’re the most obvious part of the problem. Firstly, no one has groups of friends like these dead-eyed, perma-grinning morons but if you’re convinced you’ve got what it takes, here are a list of rules you must follow if you and your pals fancy flogging a few phones or an internet service provider:
1. You should all be models.
2. Make sure you are all androgynous looking and wearing skinny tees. Anything baggy will severely decrease your chances of making people want to be like you.
3. A warm autumnal colour scheme should be enforced rigorously. Immediately ostracise anyone who wears black or fluorescent colours.
4. Someone must wear a scarf at all times. Even in summer.
5. Someone must have an afro. If it’s the scarf guy then you get double points.
6. You must, must, must all be from different ethnic backgrounds. If, for example, you suddenly find yourself with two Hispanics in the same group, pick the skinniest and stop answering calls from Chunky.
7. Don’t ever speak, just grin at each other like the smug cat that got the double smug cream. If you need motivation for all the grinning, just think how skinny and attractive you are.
8. Take up a retro hobby/activity such as kite flying, colouring with crayons or go karting. Learn to climb trees and make things from rubbish - sculptures, jewellery, voodoo dolls …
8. All grow stupid, stubbly pretend indie beards. Make sure it makes your mouth look like a vagina.
Congratulations, you are now all giant dick heads.
As for the music, this is slightly more problematic as a lot of it is actually pretty good. Joanna Newsom for instance, is a legend. The world can never have enough punk harpists. So it’s not the music as such but the way it’s been identified, isolated and cynically commoditised. The first time awesome left-field music was used it was probably a genius idea but now it’s become insipid. It’s just part of the formula, another great idea that’s been packaged and duplicated ad nauseum in the mistaken belief that lightning can be bottled, that originality doesn’t tarnish and fade like everything else. Artists are brought into the abattoir of the modern music industry even earlier and everyone loses. Repetition, negative association, death. Repeat.
Repeat.
Repeat.
Stop it!
So with that in mind I’d cheerfully hold my hands up and admit that today’s idiots are certainly at the shallow end of the pool - idiot-wise. They’re irritating certainly, but not life threatening.
Nevertheless, I hate them.
I’m not even sure who they are. The smarmy marketing executives who have decided that every advert on our screens must be populated by skinny indie kids and sound tracked by obscure jangly, high pitched electro folk. These adverts have begun to spread across ad-land like a aesthetically-pleasing, ethnically-balanced cancer.
Let’s start with the indie kids as they’re the most obvious part of the problem. Firstly, no one has groups of friends like these dead-eyed, perma-grinning morons but if you’re convinced you’ve got what it takes, here are a list of rules you must follow if you and your pals fancy flogging a few phones or an internet service provider:
1. You should all be models.
2. Make sure you are all androgynous looking and wearing skinny tees. Anything baggy will severely decrease your chances of making people want to be like you.
3. A warm autumnal colour scheme should be enforced rigorously. Immediately ostracise anyone who wears black or fluorescent colours.
4. Someone must wear a scarf at all times. Even in summer.
5. Someone must have an afro. If it’s the scarf guy then you get double points.
6. You must, must, must all be from different ethnic backgrounds. If, for example, you suddenly find yourself with two Hispanics in the same group, pick the skinniest and stop answering calls from Chunky.
7. Don’t ever speak, just grin at each other like the smug cat that got the double smug cream. If you need motivation for all the grinning, just think how skinny and attractive you are.
8. Take up a retro hobby/activity such as kite flying, colouring with crayons or go karting. Learn to climb trees and make things from rubbish - sculptures, jewellery, voodoo dolls …
8. All grow stupid, stubbly pretend indie beards. Make sure it makes your mouth look like a vagina.
Congratulations, you are now all giant dick heads.
As for the music, this is slightly more problematic as a lot of it is actually pretty good. Joanna Newsom for instance, is a legend. The world can never have enough punk harpists. So it’s not the music as such but the way it’s been identified, isolated and cynically commoditised. The first time awesome left-field music was used it was probably a genius idea but now it’s become insipid. It’s just part of the formula, another great idea that’s been packaged and duplicated ad nauseum in the mistaken belief that lightning can be bottled, that originality doesn’t tarnish and fade like everything else. Artists are brought into the abattoir of the modern music industry even earlier and everyone loses. Repetition, negative association, death. Repeat.
Repeat.
Repeat.
Stop it!
5.12.07
AMY WINEHOUSE: the pointless anti-social laggard of idiocy
i've held off writing about this woman for so long, frankly because i thought it like shooting fish in a barrel. how is it sport if there is no chance of failure?
i should start at the beginning before i launch into attack on this festering human waste. i shall start with a compliment.
i used to think she was quite good.
there was a point when i thought "wow, this girl has a great voice, so much control, so much depth, and with little visible effort on her behalf. she truly is a natural." part of me still thinks some of those things are true. for example, she still shows no effort.
her appeal has dwindled as her tattoos have appeared. only as a time scale, mind. i have nothing against tattoos - i'm tempted myself - but there are well thought out, meaningful tats relevant to your heritage and experiences as a person... and there are those that look like you've been repeatedly raped in a truck stop by retard with a magic marker.
the papers (when i use the words papers i currently include those free scraps of toilet roll you get handed outside tube stations nowadays. rather like describing 'zoo' as a human interest magazine) are currently running a feature-length day-to-day diary of whinehouse and her embarrassing attempt at stabilising her life, so in the dullard sections of my day i.e. when i'm traveling on the public transport purgatory system of london; i can catch up on the haphazard frolics of the tattooed wretch. a couple of nights ago she went out in a bra, last night she bought a box of ice lollys. as far as i can work out, there are only very few possibilities for these antics:
1: she is a genuinely fucked up pile of wreckage, and needs professional mental... i mean psychiatric assistance, and we should all feel sorry for her. boring.
2: she is a media grabbing camera-whore and it is all just an act to get her horse-shaped face on telly, where they would otherwise be looking at a more attractive media grabbing camera-whore. like kate moss.
3: she is an absolute twat.
in the past few weeks she has turned up on stage at her own gigs (not even charity do's) completely head-over-shitter wasted, and proceeded to roll her frog-like tongue over a few songs before stumbling off stage, and probably face down into a big pile of charlie. any remaining respect i had for her as a musician would end right there, where she cared so little about the music she refused even to finish her own songs. frankly though, if i had been at one of those gigs i might welcome her backing singers finishing the show as i have recently come to realise something:
while searching for those pictures it became evident that many other people have noticed the similarity. man, i hate it when i'm right.
i should start at the beginning before i launch into attack on this festering human waste. i shall start with a compliment.
i used to think she was quite good.
there was a point when i thought "wow, this girl has a great voice, so much control, so much depth, and with little visible effort on her behalf. she truly is a natural." part of me still thinks some of those things are true. for example, she still shows no effort.
her appeal has dwindled as her tattoos have appeared. only as a time scale, mind. i have nothing against tattoos - i'm tempted myself - but there are well thought out, meaningful tats relevant to your heritage and experiences as a person... and there are those that look like you've been repeatedly raped in a truck stop by retard with a magic marker.
the papers (when i use the words papers i currently include those free scraps of toilet roll you get handed outside tube stations nowadays. rather like describing 'zoo' as a human interest magazine) are currently running a feature-length day-to-day diary of whinehouse and her embarrassing attempt at stabilising her life, so in the dullard sections of my day i.e. when i'm traveling on the public transport purgatory system of london; i can catch up on the haphazard frolics of the tattooed wretch. a couple of nights ago she went out in a bra, last night she bought a box of ice lollys. as far as i can work out, there are only very few possibilities for these antics:
1: she is a genuinely fucked up pile of wreckage, and needs professional mental... i mean psychiatric assistance, and we should all feel sorry for her. boring.
2: she is a media grabbing camera-whore and it is all just an act to get her horse-shaped face on telly, where they would otherwise be looking at a more attractive media grabbing camera-whore. like kate moss.
3: she is an absolute twat.
in the past few weeks she has turned up on stage at her own gigs (not even charity do's) completely head-over-shitter wasted, and proceeded to roll her frog-like tongue over a few songs before stumbling off stage, and probably face down into a big pile of charlie. any remaining respect i had for her as a musician would end right there, where she cared so little about the music she refused even to finish her own songs. frankly though, if i had been at one of those gigs i might welcome her backing singers finishing the show as i have recently come to realise something:
while searching for those pictures it became evident that many other people have noticed the similarity. man, i hate it when i'm right.
28.11.07
FOXY KNOXY: the alleged sex games of idiocy
is it just me or is alleged killer amanda knox quite sexy?
23.11.07
QUEEN ELIZABETH II: a taboo subject of idiocy
everyone's praising the queen for "following in diana's footsteps and shaking hands with ugandan HIV+ patients."kept her gloves on though didn't she?
in uganda.
which is in africa.
quite a warm place.
(26 degrees celsius yesterday.)
looks comfy in that photo, doesn't she?
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