I am watching Frontline's The Persuaders. It is a program about advertising made/hosted/something or other by Douglas Rushkoff. And, predictably I guess, it is a giant steaming crock of shit.

There are a number of structural problems with anti-ad critiques that it highlights. First off is the fact that it starts in, and returns to, Times Square, and a lot of examples of the evil advertising industry are illustrated with examples from New York City. (I.e., I recognize the locations and often even the ads.) This is like trying to convince us of the all-pervasive threat of crocodile attack by only talking about crocodile tanks. The qualities that draw people to New York are exactly the ones that make it attractive to advertisers. OK, Times Square's ridiculous, but you can go less than a mile and find a much calmer environment, and travel 20 miles and find places nearly advertising-free. The whole world, thankfully, does not look like downtown Manhattan.

There are a few good things here, mainly focusing on the various ways ad agencies come up with "brand strategies" to convince themselves that they're actually effective even when it sure seems like they're not. And yeah, ad agencies are ridiculous. But aside from being itermittently annoying and ineffecient economically (and, yeah, a waste of money that could be used for much better things, but hey, so's music), it's hard to see what the actual danger is. Sure, Times Square makes one feel unwell, but that's more due to the slow tourists from Texas than the blinking ads, which just exacerbate it. The prevelance of ads (which isn't even all that prevelent outside metropolitan areas) is vaguely unsettling, but that's not a solid basis for a solo critique. What, actually, is the danger?[1]

Mark Crispin Miller just said (rough quote) "When a culture becomes friendly to advertising, it ceases to be a culture." He went on to say that moving dramas and comedies, i.e. art, are impossible on TV because it's devoted to selling things. The first part of this is like saying, "Culture is good, so I'm going to redefine it to this whole different thing because I think it's bad now." The second part of this is like saying, "Moving art is impossible if it's been sponsored by an organization responsible for the deaths of many many people, such as, say, the Catholic church." YOU ARE WRONG YOU DUMBSHIT MOTHERFUCKER. If something that did both the inquisition and the crusades can sponsor both the Cistine Chapel and Palestrina, do you think that maybe Pepsi, not responsible for any wars or large-scale persecutions of Jews last I checked, can maybe sponsor something at least worth watching? By Crispin's logic, actually, what Pepsi sponsors should be a few orders of magnitude better than what the church sponsors.

Now I am watching the Advertising Age douche say that because advertising people have become political consultants, politics is now more emotional rather than substantive and thoughtful. Which is like saying, "The semi-literate immigrants in 1932 were voting based on a deep grasp of the issues rather than narrow, emotional self-interest."

I had hoped the stuff on political ads would be better, but man oh man. OK, Frank Luntz is pretty evil (I didn't know he worked for Berlusconi!), but very little of this is new, and what is new is simply an adaptation to the rise of the mass media and its new importance in politics, which has far more serious consequences than encouraging focus groups. (Like, for instance, FDR would never be able to be President in the current environment.) But having this computer database of voters' key issues and preferences is just a technological update of the old system where you'd go to the local party boss who would know each person individually and be able to tell you their preferences. Maybe you might prefer this personal system, but do you really want to eliminate primaries and do all the other things that would be necessary to bring back a strong party system?

I hate the fear-mongering in this discussion. It's counterproductive and just plain stupid. "Ooh, there's this company called Axiom and they know everything about you and they are using this to manipulate your mind. Oh, although remember what we said before about advertising being kind of silly and coming up with all these pseudo-scientific ways of pretending like they know what they're doing? Forget that. This company can control your thoughts."

But really, what's the actual harm? I've gone through a few already, but they close with a few real corkers, all fear-based. Let's lay 'em out and slit 'em open.

#1. Demographic slicing, "narrowcasting," i.e. marketing differently to left-handed cat-loving moms and left-handed dog-loving moms, is bad because it will make us lose our shared culture. There are two possible responses to this. One, Miss Clap's, is, "We don't have a shared culture." I disagree, but nevertheless, to paraphrase Miller, it's a pretty weak culture if narrowcasting ads causes it to break down. And I don't think it has, or will. Plus, aren't we also complaining about mass culture, undifferentiated, shared? What am I missing here?

#2. Advertising is bad because it makes us lose a sense of the common good and only care about our own self-interest. Uh, OK, this is the founding ethos of America. Big cause and effect problem here. I don't exactly think that friggin' advertising is likely to cause this sudden outbreak of self-interest, nor do I think said self-interest is necessarily bad.

#3. Advertising will finally "cut through the clutter" by hiding their persuasiveness in such a way that you convince yourself, that you "pull the wool over your own eyes" to quote a noted, um, prophet. Sweet lord jesus. So we're all living in a Philip K. Dick world! Your precious "reality" is no more than a construct! Um, yes, it is. Chill out. It's not a horrendously big deal if I have a subconscious urge to eat french fries. (Mmm, french fries.) Also, doesn't it sound kind of stupid when I say it explicitly rather than ask ominous questions over a creepy soundtrack? Saying that advertisers could be controlling our minds without us knowing it is a claim with no method of proof. If we don't know, then the very fact that we don't think they're persuading us reinforces that argument, except, you know, that's circular logic.

So yes. Another shitty entry in the confusing battle to convince us that advertising is, like, the new Communism. And college students will get really worked up about it and proudly declare that they don't watch television, man, and will feel justified and all-knowing and so forth. Sigh.

On the bright side, right now PBS is playing a program on the concertina. Awesome!

[1] There's even one particular grusome instance wherein they have this shot of a young lady talking about how everything she does is Song (i.e., like the airplane brand), and this would be unsettling if her friend wasn't laughing at every single thing she says. Guys, irony, you know?

posted by Mike B. at 9:43 PM 0 comments

The previously-mentioned long Flapole article has now been killed, so it needs a new home, if anyone has any suggestions or, um, offers. It's about "Democracy Plaza" and is more a fantasia than a piece of reporting, and is still fairly relevant, all things told. It is also reasonably nonpartisan. Drop me a line if you've got any thoughts.

posted by Mike B. at 7:24 PM 0 comments

Look, guys, if you don't get SpongeBob, that's...well, that's kind of funny. But, uh, what's not to get? He lives in a pineapple under the sea. It was written by a marine biologist. It's, apparently, fun to watch when you're high, and definitely fun to watch even when you're not. It being widely merch'ed isn't evidence that it's, uh, bad. Ditto with the album, which I kind of like. I even like the Wilco song! It's got a children's punk choir!

On the other hand, you have a point about the Avril cover of the theme. I would much rather hear Melt-Banana cover it.

Also, there's a new Bowers piece in WATW today that uses the phrase "people will make sad babies" to great effect. Where has he been writing lately?

posted by Mike B. at 2:53 PM 0 comments

Dueling realities: this v. this. "suicide is the ultimate act of narcissism" v. "shouldn't someone hang themselves?" Hmm.

posted by Mike B. at 1:06 PM 0 comments

I wrote me a letter to Heather about this stuff.

Heather, Heather, Heather. Girl, I love reading your stuff, but man, you just don't get it with the teen dramas, and the article you just wrote about 'em kind of encapsulates all that.

First of all, you list a series of shows in the second paragraph, and then give a description of those shows in the third paragraph. ("Instead of slogging through the confusing mire of soupy emotions, repression and the little betrayals of high school, these teens trade rapid-clip witty banter, drop the names of the coolest alternative bands, and float through school like it's just a pretty backdrop for their highly evolved psychosocial dramas. Instead of stuttering nervously, then running home to fill their diaries with earnest entries about their deepest, darkest secrets and wildest dreams, these kids rail off their issues with lighthearted aplomb, then pull on strapless, bias-cut silk cocktail dresses and race off in their convertibles, off to another night of the kind of sophisticated socializing that used to exist -- still fictionally, of course -- only among Harvard faculty and clever Manhattan elites.") But you seem to be confusing "The O.C." (and, to a lesser extent, "One Tree Hill") with, um, everything else. I can only vouch for Gilmore Girls, Smallville, Everwood, and Jack & Bobby, but those all take place in small towns, and the final sentence there about putting on cocktail dresses and jetting off to glamorous parties just doesn't apply. And angst? Man oh man. Just recently, we've had Bobby's super-teenagy doomed first love angst, Lane's mom and Zack angst, The Jewish Kid On Everwood's (I know he has an actual name, but TJKOE is how I'll always think of him) being-a-shitty-pianist angst, etc., etc. (Haven't been watching much Smallville of late.) And Rory on Gilmore Girls is a big bundle of angst, from her grandparents to her boyfriends to college to her class status; she just contains it well, although she didn't even do that so well when she was, um, actually in high school. (All the kids on Gilmore Girls are currently college sophomore-aged, incidentally, so.) Jack & Bobby takes place in a college town (although, the mom? Hip? Really? She seems kind of out-of-control and sad to me) but the teenagers spend their time at bonfires, barbeques, etc., and there was even a major plot point in the last episode revolving around one charcter's diary! And Smallville? I mean, OK, he does tend to save the world a lot, but he's Superman.

You then complain about the prevelence of cultural references. Well, aside from the fact that this does seem to be how most kids I know talk, in the Jack & Bobby scene you cite, there is a deeper emotional context--just as with Carver, there are a hell of a lot of things they're not talking about, Jack's general rage at his mom among them. It's not Carver (thank the lord--can you imagine how boring a Raymond Carver TV show would be), but, hey, neither's Paradise Island, you know.

The Gilmore Girls scene you cite did make me wince--that show's position on music in particular is highly problematic, the brilliant casting of Sebastian Bach notwithstanding--but this is, after all, the show that Joy Press said helped her deal with her mother's death. I feel like in part your repulsion is driven by the fact that you're watching it in the context of all these other, far crappier, teen dramas, which is highlighting the annoying similarities and not letting the wonderfulness shine through. Of course, you could just generally not like it. But given the reception it's been getting lately, and the number of people whose tastes I trust who also like it, I feel reasonably confident in pushing you to give it more of a hearing. It's one of the smartest, most moving, and well-written shows on TV. There's a lot going on there, from the class issues with the whole Gilmore family to Lane's trying and failing to deal with the fundamentalist religion of her mother to the really kind of brilliant political episode a few weeks ago with Jackson and Sukie. Also, it's really funny.

Of course, then there's The O.C., which, yeah, not so realistic. But c'mon--it's frothy, and we all know it's frothy, and there you go.

Anyway, all that bitching aside, you're one of my favorite writers in the whole wide world, and keep up the good work.

ADDENDUM: (which I may or may not send) Jesse and I were talking the other day about the fact that on Livejournals, there's a form at the bottom of each entry to note your mood and the current music you're listening to. This is how we talk now. And the banality of the fake-cheese discussion above was kind of the point: the return to normalcy, etc.

posted by Mike B. at 11:11 AM 0 comments

ROCK 'N' ROLL BON MOTS #023

One of the great things about Carla Bozulich's Red-Headed Stranger is that it points to a way forward for noise. It is has the pretty dream-pop songs of MBV mixed with the extended songforms and textures of Mogwai and Slint. I don't think anyone's done this before, but regardless, Carla's done it really well, and it's where I'd like to see noise go. The current crop of noise bands, the spazzcore bands, are just boring now. There's nothing Ex-Models do that Behead the Prophet didn't do better 10 years ago.

In the midst of the odd textures, the drones and the buzzes, Carla's stubborn tonality, mixed with atonality, and Nels' insistance on melody, mixed with rhythm and texture and noise, stand out in a quite wonderful way.

posted by Mike B. at 11:04 AM 0 comments

Monday, November 08, 2004

Wrong, motherfucker. It did not affect the election one fucking bit.[1]

I never thought the video/song (Eminem's "Mosh" for those too lazy to clickthrough) would have any particular pull on the election. I suppose this claim would have more weight if I'd said it explicitly in my entry on the song, but I guess it seemed so obvious to me that I didn't have to. I mean, besides the fact that the video is an almost textbook example of the kind of leftism that annoys me to tears, who listens to Eminem for their political opinions? Who listens to Sean Penn? Who listens to Michael Moore, in the final analysis? The article (which maybe I'm unfairly signaling out, given its shortness and general inconsequentiality, but fuck it, it's what triggered this) uses the phrase "protest music’s most mainstream moment since the sixties." But look, it's not the goddamn sixties anymore. The truth is no longer sufficient, and moreover, to pretend like it is is to ignore the fact that there are only a few scattered historical moments when it was, and arguably even the sixties weren't one of them. Today we are loathe to admit not knowing something, because to not know is to be weak, and to be weak is to be uncool. Don't assume I'm arguing this is bad because it's shallow: cool is a far more potent force than most people are willing to recognize, a key element in modern politics. A shitty song with a shitty video whose message is "fuck Bush" just isn't going to cut it anymore, I'm sorry. If it's supposed to make us vomit with rage, well then, I'm sorry--you can pretend like "it's remarkable I wrote anything" but there is too much writing out there already, too much truth, too much information. Adding more onto the pile don't do nothing except in certain unique situations.

I think people need to admit that their conceptions of "political music," especially of it as purely "protest music," needs to drastically change. More later, or hell, just (re)read what I wrote before.

[1] Probably. Who can tell, really?

posted by Mike B. at 9:18 PM 0 comments

I bought a bunch of stuff this weekend while waiting for plans to gel, almost all dance stuff. Yay Kim's. I haven't gotten through very much of it yet, but so far the highlight is unquestionably Dykehouse's "Chain Smoking," which could honestly be a Matthew Sweet song if produced differently (and in contrast to the other songs on this disc, which, um, couldn't). Just lovely. I see gabba/pod posted it at one point, so maybe some of y'all already have it, but if not, find that fucker. It's transparent and catchy and adolescent and reverby and danceatastic and dream-pop + Teenage Fanclubby. The whole album (Midrange) is good, actually, but partially this is due to my fondness for slightly cheesy Juno pad sounds. Whee-ooh...

posted by Mike B. at 10:52 AM 0 comments