Through this weeks reading the story changed from one of branding to one of the evils of corporate America. I was less impressed with the section of the book than I was the beginning part. Klein began several chapters with discussion about some form of illegal, and marginally creative work to fight "the man". I'm less impressed with this type of activity than I am with the creativity and flair that the marketing people have. The truth is, we as lazy instant-gratification-wanting Americans allow this marketing cluster to happen. When we break it all down the story really has less to do with the greedy corporation than it does with poor decision making and a general lack of identity of our own culture. It's really a story of the evils of consumerism, not corporate money making.

In her chapter concerning temporary labor, I can't say I have much pity. My company uses temporary labor quite regularly. This is our way of identifying individuals that would fit in well with our business. We use it as an audition. Ninety percent of our work force were originally brought on board through a temp agency. We've found some incredible individuals with this manner of recruiting. But, in order to get that level of competence we've probably gone through five temps for everyone one we hire. Most situations had nothing to do with ability. Most people were let go because of a lack of work ethic, zero motivation, or they just wouldn't show up for work. That's not mentioning the few that didn't come back because of jail sentences.
The reality of the situation is this, people don't want to work anymore. Our nation has become a culture of entitlement. Most people expect things to be handed to them. There is an unwillingness to work for what we get. They're unwilling to show up for a job that someone else found them, they're unwilling to do the minimum expected for the investment a company is willing to put in them. When a person takes a job there is a kind of agreement. They're providing a service to the company. When they don't provide that service adequately, unless they're fired, they still reap the full benefits of the employment. I feel it's not fair to always expect a company to give, give, give. Overseas labor is attractive mostly because Americans no longer want to do the dirty work. Someone has to do the cleaning and the serving. Enterprising people recognize this and use this need to their advantage. Most of the more wealthy people I know operate cleaning and lawn care businesses.
I get the feeling that Klein tries to make the reader feel like we're victims. And we are, but not really to the global corporations. While there is injustice overseas regarding labor, this has more to do with the cultural and governmental corruption of the local politics. Here in this country we've fallen victim to the leftist idea of entitlement minded behavior. This has created a lazy, uninterested work force.

I'm not very impressed with adbusting and culture jamming. While most of it is witty, there really isn't any creativity in the form. Taking someone else's idea and just messing around with it isn't creative. My impression is that these are all very witty people with too much time on their hands. The ultimate silliness was the gentleman who worked for advertising during the day and in his off time defaced the ads on which he probably worked. Actually, unless the defacement of these ads is very striking, most probably go unnoticed through the course of a day. A lost message in the sea of lost messages.
Klein does mention on page 295 how this action has led to a new brand of its own. You can see that type of marketing here, at the Adbusters.org culture shop:

http://www.adbusters.org/cultureshop/front

Through most of this second part of the book I've actually begun to feel insulted. The problem with this type of activity, and liberalism as a whole, is that it gets too preachy. Most people are in fact turned off by the higher-than-thow approach many activists take when communicating and issue. I really don't take kindly to someone telling me what I should or shouldn't do. Open and honest discussion is important for educating people, but childish antics, rebellious acts and soabox standing are really just a form of entertainment, not revolution.

For this weeks blog I've just kind of taken notes throughout the week, starting with our viewing of "The Persuaders" It's going to be several links that kind of solidify some of the concepts this week.

First was the use of music in commercials. Two extreme examples of using this well were when Sting basically released an album to sell to commercials. Also the artist Moby often stated he sold almost everything with his album play, just to get his music out there. Two very different uses, but two similar results, astronomical record sales. Moby actually considered it a very "punk rock" thing to do, use the "man" to get your message out there.

Interesting Blog here:
http://www.leftoffthedial.com/12_01FeatureArticle.htm

and here:
http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/10836

boring, but interesting moby interview about balancing art and commercialism:







Interesting website to find out "who sings that song?"
http://adtunes.com/

Ironically, my girlfriend's brother is in a band that has sold some songs for commercials, as seen here. They didn't make Moby or Sting money, but it is financing their new record so there is a benefit to "selling out" it allows you to do more "art". Especially when you make instrumental music that probably won't sell a million copies.:








Much is written about coolhunters. Here is an article from USAToday about how the "fanboy" has become the ultimate coolhunter's prey.

http://www.usatoday.com/life/movies/news/2007-07-24-fanboys_N.htm

Klein talks about counterculture becoming image. Here's an interesting blog about the fashion of Che, the communist revolutionary and killer that is now an icon, mostly thanks to the band Rage Against the Machine.

http://www.babalublog.com/archives/001184.html

This website amuses me:
http://www.thechestore.com/

A different spin on this:
http://archive.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2005/3/27/93005.shtml

The branding of Political Correctness is explained in movie form:
(I apologize for any profanity)





This movie, once you pull away the blatant attempt to be a new age Animal House, actually does a good job of satirizing not only Political Correctness, but also the branding of said PC activity.

An interesting ad campaign for a Scandisk Mp3 player portrayed all iPod users as lemmings.
http://plusdujour.com/leBlog/wp-content/uploads/2006/06/idont1.jpg

Here's an interesting article concerning the failure of the idea.
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1986008,00.asp

I was intrigued by Klein's discussion on page 69, of the idea, "Am I cool?" I don't think cool people really worry about this. I don't think Jimi Hendrix, James Dean, or John Lennon walked around asking themselves this question. Really cool people can make anything cool. Heck, look at Devo. They made the flowerpot an interesting accessory.

http://www.trakmarx.com/2007_03/devo/devo-energy_domes-1980-720.jpg

Truly cool people just be...that's what makes them cool. It's not a campaign or product. True cool just happens. It then becomes an institution, but it just happens. And some of the coolest people ever were totally uncool. Look at Buddy Holly, and Jim Carrey. Geeks to the Nth, degree, but damn cool people.

This week it's a bit difficult to be as visual as I was last week, but there were some interesting things in these chapters. The most interesting concept was the idea of Culture Codes, unwritten laws of culture that are basically unnoticed, but very evident in our lives. Berger mentions on page 208 that these codes are covert and that someone who recognizes the codes can modify and arrange them to suit their purposes.

You'll see this everywhere in advertising. The whole art of advertising is using peoples' understood signs to make them desire a certain product or service. If you look at the iPod and iTunes commercials you see how the whole package is idealized and symbolized. The iPod itself has become a symbol of convenient entertainment and advancing technology (look at the iPod Touch). Steve Jobs and his crew have done a great job of manipulating our sense of desire by creating iconic commercials and an easily recognized product to take the digital music market by the neck.

An even more extreme culture code manipulation, but definitely more obvious would be Adolf Hitler's almost magical ability to control the German people. He and his men did a masterful job of playing up and reestablishing pride to the German population. He then began modifying and eventually replacing their symbols for newer, more dramatic images. These images have transformed not only the German people, but have had far reaching effects on today's western society. Who doesn't do a double take when there is visible swastika? Communist Russia, or any communist state really, uses peoples' communal sensibilities in much the same manner, to control and manipulate the hard working, dedicated proletariat population.

I was also intrigued by the notion of Food as a Sign. I never really thought of this, and at first was quite taken back by the man's statement on the inferiority of American food to Mexican and French. I will argue the Mexican cuisine point, considering that everything Mexican is some type of meat with beans, cheese and maybe rice, placed in or on a tortilla of either flour or corn. This tortilla can be hard or soft, but it all seems to boil down to that. I have Navy friends who are Mexican and Texan. They took me to an "authentic" Mexican resaurant, and the food didn't deviate much from that formula. I do love Mexican food though.

American food, not just fast food, but real American food is diverse and flavorful. Each region has a specialty, or common ingredient. Using fast food, particularly McDonald's, to represent American food as a whole isn't quite a scholarly approach to the subject.

It's true fast food is a large part of our lives. His explanation of the mechanization of our food was interesting. Particularly if you consider many renditions of our future world, like Star Trek and the Jetsons, remove food from the equation. On Star Trek they replicate everything. Other sci-fi shows even have us taking pills for sustenance. This however, reflects more of our fast-paced lifestyle, not our taste in food. And at least McDonald's seems to have a bit more variety than your typical Mexican restaurant.

Now this is original...

Elite versus Common art, or the truth of so called originality (At least in Music)

Let me start by saying I don't know HTML or any of that internet stuff. If I post a link you'll have to work old-school and cut and paste it into your browser. That is, at least for now. This is my first venture into blogging. It won't look pretty, but it'll be informative (I hope) and a bit humorous (not likely).

So in reading the book, and the posts of the Discussion forum I decided to use my blog to elaborate on the derivative nature of art, particularly music. Some of this might not be your taste in music, but it's a subject I love and can easily write about.

The main difference between Elite, or high art and the common arts is said to be originality. Common art comes from the more creative High art. Chris then mentioned the grunge phenomenon. Much like punk rebelled against the slick nature of popular music and style during the disco era, grunge was the youth reaction to the over-produced world of:

boy bands:
http://img2.timeinc.net/ew/dynamic/imgs/050622/113728__newkids_l.jpg

sugary hip hop:
http://image.listen.com/img/356x237/1/8/1/7/737181_356x237.jpg

and electro-romantic pop of the 80's:
http://www.geocities.com/party_time_80s/spandau-ballet.jpg

Nirvana and Pearl Jam, while both invigorating and important to popular culture, were quite derivative of other acts. I always found Pearl Jam to sound like loud Neil Youngsters and Kurt Cobain admittedly stole the sound of the Pixies.

This dude does a great job elaborating:
Jacko's Jeremiad: Do You Like Nirvana? If So, You'll Love the Pixies

To compare, if you have time here are some videos:

Pixies:


Nirvana:


Okay, so the Pixies one is from the same time period as Nirvana, but the older stuff just didn't do well on youtube. Trust me, they did it for quite a while before Kurt came along.

So really everything comes from something else as demonstrated here:

Slavery-inspired gospel music begat Robert Johnson who begat BB King who begat Elvis and Jerry Lee Lewis, Al Green, Smoky Robinson... who begat the Beatles, Stones and Zeppelin, who begat well, everything else, but particularly Metal, Punk, Grunge...(maybe not Debbie Gibson, Tiffany and Hannah Montana, definitely not NSYNC or NKOTB or the Backstreet Boys)

How does all relate to the use of signs? Well, a cheap way to connect them would be the symbolism in the Nirvana video...I think the real sign would look like this:
http://www.kpengineering.co.uk/recycle.jpg


What's old is new again, and really Grandpa was right, the old stuff is better.