Social-Creature

You know those movies about characters trail-blazing the business of some terrible vice? They’re always set in a not-too-distant past, have trailers full of period-specific songs, and include the words “inspired by a true story” on the poster. There’s the initial meteoric rise to power and wealth, followed by a period of unbridled excess — [...]

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A year ago I wrote a piece called “Your Lifestyle Is An Alternate Reality Game.” An ARG, for short, is an interactive narrative that uses the real world as a platform, often involving multiple media and game elements, to tell a story that may be affected by participants’ ideas or actions. Lifestyle, I suggested, with [...]

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In 1938, on the eve of the Second World War, a relatively new medium called the comic book unleashed a new kind of character into the consciousness of American youth. Created by writer Jerry Siegel and illustrator Joe Shuster, this character possessed superhuman powers and a dedication to using those powers for the benefit of [...]

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Aerial shot of the Coachella Arts & Music Festival (photo: Jazmin Million) . “God is alone — but the devil, he is far from being alone; he sees a great deal of company; he is legion.” – Henry David Thoreau, “Solitude,” Walden, 1854 Standing on the field at Coachella 2008, the endless noise and heat [...]

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(photo: Mick O ) . “They say the music business is in trouble. No! The business of selling CDs is in trouble; this is a religion.” – Michael Rapino, CEO, Live Nation I was in the weekly Southern California marketing meeting at House of Blues the morning it was announced that Tower Records was going [...]

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Note: This is actually way better if you’re first seeing it during a Dollhouse commercial break on Hulu, without the spoilers of the youtube video title and static screen (below) giving away what you’re about to see. In the course of just 30 seconds the ad takes you on a ride of intrigue and suspense [...]

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Have you noticed the slate of WWII resistance movies lately? There’s last year’s Valkyrie, starring Tom Cruise, which depicts the actual attempted plot devised by a cadre of senior German officers to assassinate Hitler. Earlier this year saw the release of Defiance, also based on a true story, with Daniel Craig and Liev Schriber portraying [...]

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Suddenly everyone wants Social Media. While traditional media budgets have kept shrinking in the wake of the recession, according to recent Forrester Research, “53% of marketers are determined to increase their social media budget, and 42% will keep it the same, a total of 95% of marketers are bullish on social media marketing.” Just two [...]

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Britney Spears has a new album out today, and guess what it’s called: That’s right! Britney Spears’ new album is called Circus, and this is incredibly interesting to me. Once upon a time, I used to be the production manager for a circus called Lucent Dossier– This troupe is actually part of a whole larger [...]

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I know the Trojan “Evolve” Campaign has been going on for a while now, but just recently something occurred to me that I hadn’t quite realized about it before. The campaign started out last June, with the premiere of a commercial featuring women being hit on by a bar full of anthropomorphized pigs. It’s only [...]

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