August 7, 2007 by jenks

trappings of paradise

there’s a funny story about these birds once.

nature decided to run an experiment in its whimsical way, and cast a bunch of birds adrift on an island called new guinea, essentially without any predators to worry about and a perpetual abundance of food, and then sat around for several million years to see what might happen.

what did happen is the evolution of an obscenely flamboyant species of birds called the birds of paradise.

from national geographic:

No other birds on Earth go about the business of breeding quite like these. To dazzle choosy females, males strut in costumes worthy of the stage: cropped capes, shiny breast shields, head ribbons, bonnets, beards, neck wattles, and wiry feathers that curl like handlebar mustaches. Their vivid reds, yellows, and blues blaze against the relentless green of the rain forest. What makes for the sexiest mix of costume and choreography is a mystery, but it seems the more extreme the better.

unlike their less exotic distant cousins with actual problems to worry about, the 38 species of birds of paradise had no need to waste their time protecting resources or camouflagely avoiding predators. the lack of struggle for sheer survival having made natural selection a non-issue, the new standard of ‘fitness” became style.

cut to 1st-world post-industrial human society. unlike birds, of course, we have more issues to deal with than just courting rituals–tho they are inevitably involved. our obsession with style is not soley about, as the kottonmouth kings say, “something to poke on,” but also very much about somewhere to fit in. the desire to belong to a community may be hardwired in, but then so, it seems, is our need to express that belonging in our identity–our lifestyle.

Adaptations that help an individual survive can sometimes play themselves out through the group. Consider religious rituals.

Rituals are a way of signaling a sincere commitment to the religion’s core beliefs, thereby earning loyalty from others in the group. “By donning several layers of clothing and standing out in the midday sun,” Sosis wrote, “ultraorthodox Jewish men are signaling to others: ‘Hey! Look, I’m a haredi’ — or extremely pious — ‘Jew. If you are also a member of this group, you can trust me because why else would I be dressed like this?’ ”

These “signaling” rituals can grant the individual a sense of belonging and grant the group some freedom from constant and costly monitoring to ensure that their members are loyal and committed. The rituals are harsh enough to weed out the infidels, and both the group and the individual believers benefit.

that quote above comes from a really fascinating new york times article about the evolution of religion (as in, sociobiology stylie) which proposes a set of key psychological factors that could combine to create an intrinsic, biological human predisposition to believe in a higher power. but while spiritual belief may be inherent, if nature is all there was to it we’d be content to experience these beliefs in a personal way. for the truly religious, however, a personal relationship with god isn’t really enough. nurture puts the pressure on to show up at church every sunday so that all the other religious folks can witness this expression of our identity in our attendance.

there is some kind of security we crave that is just as much a drive as anything spiritual, a security that comes from feeling we are being seen for “who we are.” cuz identity without expression is consciousness. it’s the stuff you know about the world and yourself that it’s ok if no one else knows you know. you know. and that’s enough. identity is the shit you feel the need to for the world to see, the stuff you hang a billboard for around your neck.

…and speaking of brands. oh, what? you thought we weren’t? “branding” as we know it today, came from consumer goods factories realizing that they needed a way for their generically-packaged mass-produced products to compete for a market base familiar only with local goods. what initially was just a matter of packaging and insignias then evolved past image, past hype, past essence, past the product itself, to a point where a “brand” is now its consumer identity.

when my purse was stolen my credit card company knew before i did. still under the impression that it had just been misplaced at a friend’s party, and would be discovered after the post-party cleanup, i got a call from mbna about some unusual charges: at jack in the box. i joke that had the thieves gone to whole foods no one would have been the wiser, since the last time i purchased fast food i think i was in high school. it’s beyond just that it’s “unhealthy” and all the other things, it’s that, as my credit card company so effectively pointed out, it’s “not me.”

that’s an essential part of what brands are now: signifiers of what is or is not us. and to a greater extent than ever we are now constantly looking for ways to get “ourselves” across..

it’s like the story about those funny birds, you know…. self-obsession becomes the tradeoff for paradise.

July 8, 2007 by jenks

a momentary lapse in being original

perhaps it’s just typical to find SOMETHING to dislike about the business 2.0 article about how “burningman grows up” but i can’t help it!

i bet there’s probably even distinct camps of dislike about it, in fact.

camp #1 are the people who dislike that their special countercultural identity-defining ritual is being profiled somewhere so mainstream, and involves words like “brand” and “leverage.” you know it can’t be good for the “rebel” self-image to be confronted with the consideration of who might be reading about the mecca of the “radically self-expressed” alternative lifestyle when it’s written about glowingly on a url like money.cnn.com…

camp #2 might maybe be able to make an allowance for the market-speak as being superimposed by the writer vs. the being the normal vocabulary of the event’s organizers themselves, but this group is pissed that the strict ideology of anti-commercialism at all costs is being at all fucked with by the high priests themselves. how the hell are we supposed to follow the path to salvation from the “default world” if the compass arrow won’t stay pointed firmly in one direction? i mean, yeah, it’s just green businesses now, but this isn’t about green, goddamnit! it’s about black and white!

(yup: camp #1, and camp #2 link to the same place, curiously enough, and no: i didn’t make the reference “default world” up.)

ok, i take it back, not everyone’s irate. camp #3 actually probably doesn’t give a shit. camp #3 is just full of members of the creative class who’ve been using burningman as a giant dynamic gallery in which to get to exhibit their art and a great source of highly fun creative inspiration for years, and they’ll probably raise an eyebrow, sigh whatever, not even finish reading it to the end, and then get back to doing whatever it was they were doing before they got forwarded the article.

but i dislike it for different reasons. you know… i always get flack from my friends for paying attention to language too closely. like, one of the most annoying parts of any argument is when someone goes, “ok, you’re just picking on my word choice.” JUST picking on word choice! like as if words choose themselves, and mouths hiccup them up without any input on the process.

uh..yeah! i pick on fucking words alright, cuz you picked them. which makes us even. and the most irritating part about the whole article is marian goodell’s (one of the event’s main organizers) word choice when she says:

“This community is a dream for anyone looking at demographics. We have kids who work in coffee shops and we have billionaires. To ignore the value of our brand, the buying power it has, is silly. But it’s a ritual for these people, which is why it’s going to be hard for them seeing businesses out there.”

eeeuuchh!

i’ve written sponsorship proposals for LIB, and can very much sympathize with the trickiness of navigating the space between brand enticement (for the record, we’ve been targeting green companies to participate in our festival since ’06) and the management of non-commercial community expectations, but referring to the community that has sustained and nurtured your event, and that defines the buying power of your brand as “these people” or even as “them” is just…disingenuous, tacky, and… just…ugh, bad form!

Burning Man’s customers keep coming back to Black Rock precisely because it’s so far outside the scope of the corporate culture – and its incessant marketing – that most of them live with the other 51 weeks of the year.

i guess that’s the thing that gets camp #4 all up in arms–camp #4 is where i’m camped, at the intersection of “7:30” and “annoyed”– when there are corporate brands that treat their community with less distance, and more dignity (i by no means read that whole long discussion thread about the article, but the fact that it came as a total shock to the community is unmistakable) than this kind of language and closed-off attitude belie, then just what exactly is so special about the authenticity of an authentically disdainful counterculture “brand”? the article makes a big deal about how burningman has come back from the brink of bankruptcy like four times or something because the only way the event sustains itself is through selling admission tickets, and essentially nothing else to its communi–uh, i’m sorry, i mean, to “these people”–but in the end, you gotta wonder, is that (much like the anecdote that larry harvey, the event’s originator, didn’t have a bank account until like last year or whatever) actually part of a desire to make room for more intimate interactions than commercial transactions….

or just a bad business strategy?

July 2, 2007 by jenks

being human helps

One of the most annoying things about people in advertising is it’s like they stop being human when they come to work. As soon as they walk through the office door they forget about examining what drives their own purchasing decisions when planning the process for others and start talking about “consumers” and “demographics” like test subjects in some experimental medication test — as though they aren’t consumers themselves!

It’s the communications industry, and yet so many of the “communicators” forget whatever it is they may have learned in that immersive language course they’ve been taking all their lives, and opt instead for an online translator. Which is what drives the point home in this great article from San Francisco Magazine about Goodby, Silverstein & Partners — an agency that obviously takes the process of being human along with them on their travels into advertising land — when their media strategist, Hashem Bajwa, says, “This is about brands releasing some control to the consumer, and that’s really cool. Brands that won’t start a relationship with us aren’t going to be as successful.” It’s not about those “consumers;” it’s about “us.”

Plus, the article is filled with both articulate insights:

The change involves no less than a fundamental shift in the relationship between advertiser and audience. No longer at the mercy of what a network beams into their TVs, people have morphed from passive watchers into active agents with the power to seek out and view whatever they want, whenever they want. As a result, the very notion of what makes an ad appealing has changed. Now that people are choosing to hang out with an ad the same way they choose to watch a show or play a video game, pushing a product—or at least pushing it explicitly—has become less important than creating an experience that’s fun, addictive, helpful, and even communal (since people pass word of these ads to their friends). In many respects, advertisers—and hence the agencies they hire—are becoming more like content providers whose main goal is to entertain.

And fascinating predictions:

Goodby and Silverstein predict that brands will become the new networks, making advertising agencies more like Hollywood producers.

How many directors of traditional agencies have you heard lately proclaiming that the internet’s making them feel younger? “Are you kidding?” Silverstien says, “I love this stuff. It’s even better than television.”

…. As smart as Goodby and Silverstein are, they come off more as artists than tech geeks. Silverstein still loves to draw. Goodby paints and writes poetry in his spare time. Hanging out with them, you wonder how they keep up with hyperspeed technological changes. “We hire freaks,” says Goodby, laughing.

Bonus track: one of my favorite freaks in general, Zach Canfield, is also a Goodby Silverstien freak–as their creative recruiter, and part of the team responsible for, among other things, the most amazing spoof of R. Kelly’s “Trapped In The Closet” saga EVER:

(You MUST watch!)

Trapped in the Clauset pt. 1:

Trapped in the Clauset pt. 2:

Trapped in the Clauset pt. 3:

Being human helps, but being a freak don’t hurt none either.

June 26, 2007 by jenks

(i promise i’ll get back to watering those “marketing” tags soon)

i mean, i have to…. otherwise, how are they ever supposed to grow?

but i just had such a horrifyingly depressing day at the doctor’s office, i can’t help this post.

first, there was the june 07 vanity fair that was chillin in the waiting room, all innocuous-like with bruce willis on the cover doing something totally ridiculous, that accosted me with THIS article:

The British jihadist. How did a nation move from cricket and fish-and-chips to burkas and shoe-bombers in a single generation?

…like imagine what would happen if the trend of radical fundamentalism slapped tolerance across the face with a glove, and then two trends went about having a proper british-style duel–and the article ends before you find you who’s going to win. (but why do you get the feeling it’s not who you’d prefer?)

followed by the woman in the too-tight paper lab-coat drawing my blood going off, apropos of nothing, about how being gay is a choice. but she didn’t mean it in the good kind of “identity expression” sort of choice. no. she meant it in the bad kind of “no, it ain’t genetic” kind of choice. it’s just a “craving,” she said. “like for candy.” (she didn’t mean THAT in a good way either).

why do i get the feeling she would have sided with obesity being a genetic predisposition tho?

anyone else feel like it’s…oh… COMPLETELY inappropriate for someone who works in the blood testing industry to be doing this kind of preachin?