Showing posts with label nostalgia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label nostalgia. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 18, 2012
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Retro-Cool: How Marketing and Advertising Send You on a Bad Trip, Daddy-o
Yes, the retro marketing craze continues unabated! We as a culture continue to concede that no one has come up with any good original ideas in the last, oh, 20 years or so, and as a result nostalgia for stuff we barely had time to forget is currently all the rage.
Take, for example, "Pepsi Throwback," which Pepsico is currently offering for a limited time only (unless it makes boatloads of money, I'm sure). It features the "old school" Pepsi logo and is made with REAL honest-to-goodness sugar! Woo-hoo! Man, you know it's a sad state of affairs when we're nostalgic for the good ol' days when we were only being poisoned with diabetes-inflicting cane/beet sugar, as opposed to the super-high-octane super-concentrated high-fructose corn syrup that infuses everything now.
That's right folks! Hop in our time machine and travel with Pepsico as they "throw you back" (isn't that something you do with a bad fish?) into the mists of yesteryear and rot your teeth the old-fashioned way! Yes, it was a simpler time back then, when no one dared to challenge their corporate masters' concern for the public's "well-being."*
More importantly, I think this trend speaks to a pervasive human weakness - one from which I am sadly not immune. That is, our tendency to romanticize the past regardless of how crappy that past may have actually been. It seems that things we associate with a younger, more innocent time (perhaps a healthier and safer time as well) always end up enshrouded in a glaze of rose-colored nostalgia, regardless of the truth of the situation. It matters not that we eventually learn Pepsi is dreadfully bad for us (or that our favorite TV show actually sucked, or our favorite music is sub-par). The important thing is we were awash in those pop culture symbols at a key point in our development, and hence we still have positive feelings for them.
Most well-socialized Americans will always have a strong affection for SOME token of consumer culture. We try to distance ourselves from these feelings as we get older by using intellectual weapons like irony, but their hold on us will always remain pretty powerful. Coca-Cola, for example, has always trounced Pepsi around the holidays because of the strong connotations Coke has forged between holiday imagery and the sugary beverage.
This is what makes corporate America so insidious and disingenuous: they try to downplay the role of branding and consumer culture in our lives (especially when someone calls them to task on their questionable marketing practices), but not only are they fully aware of the seductive power they wield, they're actively COUNTING on that power in lieu of being allowed to physically force us into buying stuff! You think they spend billions of dollars on PR, marketing and advertising every year because they think they CAN'T unduly influence us?
In other words, Pepsi (as well as the filmmakers who plunder bad TV shows, or the music exec's who keep re-selling us the same music in different packages) know exactly what they're doing when they try to push our nostalgia buttons; they're exploiting an evolutionary glitch that bestows virtue upon whatever sneakers we were wearing the night we first got laid (or whatever).
Even worse, we now live in a "savvy post-modern era" so marketers feel compelled to try and convince us that they're all "in" on the joke by using irony and self-awareness in the same way we do. It's almost like they're saying, "Haha! Yeah, we know this stuff is cheesy crap, but don't you love it? Haha! 20 dollars, please." Hell, as long as we keep buying whatever junk they toss our way they don't really care how we relate to it psychologically.
A particularly egregious example of this trend is the "Enzyte" (male enhancement) commercial. Although it is a recent product, the company's commercial exhibits the worst traits of Madison Avenue's many attempts to co-opt both nostalgia and post-modernism. Ostensibly a spoof of old-time advertising, television, and 50's "lifestyles", the makers of this commercial clearly missed an important lesson: Irony originally gained popularity in the mainstream as a means of subverting, questioning and commenting on the crap our culture constantly feeds us. (And let's not even get started on the type of vanity and insecurity that an ad like this is pandering to in the first place.)
Irony and self-awareness are used to greatest effect when someone is satirizing or undermining some aspect of the subject at hand, not when they're trying really hard to promote that thing! In other words, an exaggerated, cutesy spoof of 50's media works better as a critique of the messages media sends us; why the hell would someone want to buy a product from a commercial that effectively reminds us advertising can't be trusted and needs to be subverted?**
Simply stated, the answer is that all this stuff is just too overwhelming for any of us to think about on a regular basis. Corporate America hopes we'll just be so exhausted by them that we'll "go with the flow" just for the sake of our own sanity. The marketers' goal is to tap into the zeitgeist and then expertly exploit it; they're hoping they can hit a few of the "right notes" (be it nostalgia, irony, self-parody or whatever) and that'll be enough to send us scurrying for the malls. Unfortunately, it seems to work more often than not.
Excuse me one second.... what's that???? Target is selling Pac-Man pajamas??? COOL!!!!!!!!***
*************************************************************
*And by the way, "natural sugar"? Yeah, I know sugar is a natural ingredient, but the connotation of the word "natural" is that it carries some kind of wholesome-y goodness. Is Pepsi health food now? Not sure if belting back 40 grams of the sweet stuff in one sitting really fits the bill of "healthy." I wonder if this is Pepsi's token attempt at "going green" for the year 2010? After all, corporate America has never witnessed a movement they didn't see fit to exploit.
** I'm aware the makers of Enzyte would probably argue their ad is merely a playful "parody" or "affectionate homage" designed to get idiots like me talking. Well, parody or not, the commercial is poking fun at a long-gone era, and as such, it reminds us - however unwittingly - that pop culture and the media should always be viewed with a suspicious eye.
***What a lame cop-out ending. Wakka-wakka, game over.
Take, for example, "Pepsi Throwback," which Pepsico is currently offering for a limited time only (unless it makes boatloads of money, I'm sure). It features the "old school" Pepsi logo and is made with REAL honest-to-goodness sugar! Woo-hoo! Man, you know it's a sad state of affairs when we're nostalgic for the good ol' days when we were only being poisoned with diabetes-inflicting cane/beet sugar, as opposed to the super-high-octane super-concentrated high-fructose corn syrup that infuses everything now.
That's right folks! Hop in our time machine and travel with Pepsico as they "throw you back" (isn't that something you do with a bad fish?) into the mists of yesteryear and rot your teeth the old-fashioned way! Yes, it was a simpler time back then, when no one dared to challenge their corporate masters' concern for the public's "well-being."*
More importantly, I think this trend speaks to a pervasive human weakness - one from which I am sadly not immune. That is, our tendency to romanticize the past regardless of how crappy that past may have actually been. It seems that things we associate with a younger, more innocent time (perhaps a healthier and safer time as well) always end up enshrouded in a glaze of rose-colored nostalgia, regardless of the truth of the situation. It matters not that we eventually learn Pepsi is dreadfully bad for us (or that our favorite TV show actually sucked, or our favorite music is sub-par). The important thing is we were awash in those pop culture symbols at a key point in our development, and hence we still have positive feelings for them.
Most well-socialized Americans will always have a strong affection for SOME token of consumer culture. We try to distance ourselves from these feelings as we get older by using intellectual weapons like irony, but their hold on us will always remain pretty powerful. Coca-Cola, for example, has always trounced Pepsi around the holidays because of the strong connotations Coke has forged between holiday imagery and the sugary beverage.
This is what makes corporate America so insidious and disingenuous: they try to downplay the role of branding and consumer culture in our lives (especially when someone calls them to task on their questionable marketing practices), but not only are they fully aware of the seductive power they wield, they're actively COUNTING on that power in lieu of being allowed to physically force us into buying stuff! You think they spend billions of dollars on PR, marketing and advertising every year because they think they CAN'T unduly influence us?
In other words, Pepsi (as well as the filmmakers who plunder bad TV shows, or the music exec's who keep re-selling us the same music in different packages) know exactly what they're doing when they try to push our nostalgia buttons; they're exploiting an evolutionary glitch that bestows virtue upon whatever sneakers we were wearing the night we first got laid (or whatever).
Even worse, we now live in a "savvy post-modern era" so marketers feel compelled to try and convince us that they're all "in" on the joke by using irony and self-awareness in the same way we do. It's almost like they're saying, "Haha! Yeah, we know this stuff is cheesy crap, but don't you love it? Haha! 20 dollars, please." Hell, as long as we keep buying whatever junk they toss our way they don't really care how we relate to it psychologically.
A particularly egregious example of this trend is the "Enzyte" (male enhancement) commercial. Although it is a recent product, the company's commercial exhibits the worst traits of Madison Avenue's many attempts to co-opt both nostalgia and post-modernism. Ostensibly a spoof of old-time advertising, television, and 50's "lifestyles", the makers of this commercial clearly missed an important lesson: Irony originally gained popularity in the mainstream as a means of subverting, questioning and commenting on the crap our culture constantly feeds us. (And let's not even get started on the type of vanity and insecurity that an ad like this is pandering to in the first place.)
Irony and self-awareness are used to greatest effect when someone is satirizing or undermining some aspect of the subject at hand, not when they're trying really hard to promote that thing! In other words, an exaggerated, cutesy spoof of 50's media works better as a critique of the messages media sends us; why the hell would someone want to buy a product from a commercial that effectively reminds us advertising can't be trusted and needs to be subverted?**
Simply stated, the answer is that all this stuff is just too overwhelming for any of us to think about on a regular basis. Corporate America hopes we'll just be so exhausted by them that we'll "go with the flow" just for the sake of our own sanity. The marketers' goal is to tap into the zeitgeist and then expertly exploit it; they're hoping they can hit a few of the "right notes" (be it nostalgia, irony, self-parody or whatever) and that'll be enough to send us scurrying for the malls. Unfortunately, it seems to work more often than not.
Excuse me one second.... what's that???? Target is selling Pac-Man pajamas??? COOL!!!!!!!!***
*************************************************************
*And by the way, "natural sugar"? Yeah, I know sugar is a natural ingredient, but the connotation of the word "natural" is that it carries some kind of wholesome-y goodness. Is Pepsi health food now? Not sure if belting back 40 grams of the sweet stuff in one sitting really fits the bill of "healthy." I wonder if this is Pepsi's token attempt at "going green" for the year 2010? After all, corporate America has never witnessed a movement they didn't see fit to exploit.
** I'm aware the makers of Enzyte would probably argue their ad is merely a playful "parody" or "affectionate homage" designed to get idiots like me talking. Well, parody or not, the commercial is poking fun at a long-gone era, and as such, it reminds us - however unwittingly - that pop culture and the media should always be viewed with a suspicious eye.
***What a lame cop-out ending. Wakka-wakka, game over.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Mom's Blazing Sandwiches of Death
The flyer for the over-priced lunch café I go to in the city has an entry for "old-fashioned tuna sandwich." It's served on "cracked whole wheat wrap" and has slivers of organic carrots in it.
Uh, WHAT???!!? Old-fashioned??? Yeah, because back in the day, mom ALWAYS used "cracked wheat" when she made our fat-globule-enriched tuna on bleached-white slabs-o-death. Forget cracked wheat, I think the people who made this menu were on actual crack.
We didn't have any of this pansy "wrap" stuff back then! Krist, before 1988 or so "rap" was just a type of music made by those nice boys in Aerosmith. No, if you wanted tuna the "old fashioned" way, it was served up HARDCORE SYTLE with tons of artery-busting mayo and sugar-spiking Wonder Bread, baby!
Type 2? HA HA HA! We laughed in the FACE of Type 2! We didn't know what the f*ck it was, but we sure as hell laughed in its face! We were kids, dammit, and we took it like men.
Oh sure, mom gave us carrots from time to time, but she was never so sadistic as to put 'em in our freakin' TUNA, for crying out loud. We'd have probably kicked her ass, or something. And none of that "pieces of celery" stuff either, although I know some poor bastards whose moms DID try to smuggle that crunchy crap into their otherwise blissful mercury-enhanced fish parts.
And in ye olden days, did we have to pay mom 10 dollars and 25 cents per sandwich? Or 11 dollars and 20 cents if you wanted the "sandwich and small bottle of water" combo deal? Hmmmm. Strangely, that magical part of my youth seems to have receded into the mists of yesteryear. Maybe that's because we didn't have (pseudo-healthy) spring water either! Nope, we drank it straight up: right from the tap. (That's why they call it "tap" water by the way; drink enough of it, and they'll be playing "taps" for you.)
I think the lesson here is quite simple: The good old days weren't always good, and tomorrow ain't as bad as it seems, YAAY-YAAAAAAAAAY-YAAAAAAAAY!!!!!! You learn stick ball as a formal education! Doo-deee-dooo-dee-doooo-dee-dooooo…
Woops! Sorry, I was channeling my inner Piano Man for a second there. Well, it doesn't matter because that's not really the lesson to be learned here at all. I suppose, more accurately, the lesson to be learned is this: Yesterday sucked; today sucks; and you can't escape the satanic corporations which will eventually grind us all into a fine-white powder and make calcium-fortified bread with our bones.
But mom did make one hell of a kick-ass sandwich, didn't she? Love ya mom!
Uh, WHAT???!!? Old-fashioned??? Yeah, because back in the day, mom ALWAYS used "cracked wheat" when she made our fat-globule-enriched tuna on bleached-white slabs-o-death. Forget cracked wheat, I think the people who made this menu were on actual crack.
We didn't have any of this pansy "wrap" stuff back then! Krist, before 1988 or so "rap" was just a type of music made by those nice boys in Aerosmith. No, if you wanted tuna the "old fashioned" way, it was served up HARDCORE SYTLE with tons of artery-busting mayo and sugar-spiking Wonder Bread, baby!
Type 2? HA HA HA! We laughed in the FACE of Type 2! We didn't know what the f*ck it was, but we sure as hell laughed in its face! We were kids, dammit, and we took it like men.
Oh sure, mom gave us carrots from time to time, but she was never so sadistic as to put 'em in our freakin' TUNA, for crying out loud. We'd have probably kicked her ass, or something. And none of that "pieces of celery" stuff either, although I know some poor bastards whose moms DID try to smuggle that crunchy crap into their otherwise blissful mercury-enhanced fish parts.
And in ye olden days, did we have to pay mom 10 dollars and 25 cents per sandwich? Or 11 dollars and 20 cents if you wanted the "sandwich and small bottle of water" combo deal? Hmmmm. Strangely, that magical part of my youth seems to have receded into the mists of yesteryear. Maybe that's because we didn't have (pseudo-healthy) spring water either! Nope, we drank it straight up: right from the tap. (That's why they call it "tap" water by the way; drink enough of it, and they'll be playing "taps" for you.)
I think the lesson here is quite simple: The good old days weren't always good, and tomorrow ain't as bad as it seems, YAAY-YAAAAAAAAAY-YAAAAAAAAY!!!!!! You learn stick ball as a formal education! Doo-deee-dooo-dee-doooo-dee-dooooo…
Woops! Sorry, I was channeling my inner Piano Man for a second there. Well, it doesn't matter because that's not really the lesson to be learned here at all. I suppose, more accurately, the lesson to be learned is this: Yesterday sucked; today sucks; and you can't escape the satanic corporations which will eventually grind us all into a fine-white powder and make calcium-fortified bread with our bones.
But mom did make one hell of a kick-ass sandwich, didn't she? Love ya mom!
Wednesday, January 2, 2008
For Immediate Release: VH1 Debuts "I Love the First Couple of Days of 2008"
Perez Hilton, Tila Tequila, Sanjaya Malakar, that guy you once saw on Comedy Central at 4:25 in the morning, and Kathy Griffin are just a handful of the mega-superstars on hand this weekend as VH1 takes a nostalgic look back at 2008: the first two days that were.
Yes, it's all here... the highs! The lows! The low-lifes getting high! VH1 is the place to be this weekend, rather than actually going out and experiencing LIFE, for god's sake.
Who could forget the time Ryan Seacrest (doing his best imitation of a man not itching for Dick Clark to pass on) introduced The Plain White T's, who, shockingly, chose to perform "Hey There Delilah" on Dick Clark's rockin' New Year's Eve? And who could forget the man who shot himself in the head immediately thereafter, mumbling something onlookers believed to be, "Not again, not again?"
Likewise, who could forget that classic-moment when "New York" of "Flavor of Love" held her very own January 2nd special to look back on the "I Love New York" reunion show from January 1st? You'll thrill to New York's fond recollection of the precise moment she found true love for the fourth time this season.
That's right, all your favorite celebrity moments from early-early-early 2008 come flooding back this weekend... so get your ark ready! After all, who doesn't get misty recalling the 905th time we ran a feature about Lindsey losing a dangerous amount of weight, immediately followed by our 906th "ultra-scalding hot-supermodel" swimsuit preview! And who doesn't get choked up remembering the time Britney smacked right into a stop sign... while walking?
Of course, it's hard to forget these things when we run clips of them 98 times a day under the flimsy pretense of "mocking them," but JUST IN CASE you had a mild stroke and lost some valuable celebrity-devoted neurons, here they are again, in all our painfully unaware self-aware glory!
Plus, we'll be featuring some awesome clips of the Republican candidates on the campaign trail in Iowa this week. During the clips, our retro-licious hosts will make some disparaging comments about the candidates' clothes, or their sex lives, or something else completely irrelevant to politics, because it's all the same anyway, right? Never let it be said VH1 isn't doing its part to reduce everything in this ADD-addled society to roughly the same post-modern status, where a potential leader of America might as well be the guy who sang "Chocolate Rain."
Yes, you'll get it all... the snide comments! The derision! The irony! The easy-reaches! The thinly veiled contempt! Or, as we like to call it, "affectionate nostalgia." For two solid hours, you'll hear celebrities get a good roasting from grade-A superstars like the chick who came in third on Survivor! You know, the type of person who will undoubtedly command awe and reverence when we look back on 2008 twenty years from now.
VH1: I LOVE THE FIRST COUPLE OF DAYS OF 2008 premieres this Saturday night, immediately followed by the 100 most crotchiest-crotch-shots of 2007! Check your local listings for more info. (Cemetery listings, that is. You'll definitely want to off yourself after watching this one.)
Yes, it's all here... the highs! The lows! The low-lifes getting high! VH1 is the place to be this weekend, rather than actually going out and experiencing LIFE, for god's sake.
Who could forget the time Ryan Seacrest (doing his best imitation of a man not itching for Dick Clark to pass on) introduced The Plain White T's, who, shockingly, chose to perform "Hey There Delilah" on Dick Clark's rockin' New Year's Eve? And who could forget the man who shot himself in the head immediately thereafter, mumbling something onlookers believed to be, "Not again, not again?"
Likewise, who could forget that classic-moment when "New York" of "Flavor of Love" held her very own January 2nd special to look back on the "I Love New York" reunion show from January 1st? You'll thrill to New York's fond recollection of the precise moment she found true love for the fourth time this season.
That's right, all your favorite celebrity moments from early-early-early 2008 come flooding back this weekend... so get your ark ready! After all, who doesn't get misty recalling the 905th time we ran a feature about Lindsey losing a dangerous amount of weight, immediately followed by our 906th "ultra-scalding hot-supermodel" swimsuit preview! And who doesn't get choked up remembering the time Britney smacked right into a stop sign... while walking?
Of course, it's hard to forget these things when we run clips of them 98 times a day under the flimsy pretense of "mocking them," but JUST IN CASE you had a mild stroke and lost some valuable celebrity-devoted neurons, here they are again, in all our painfully unaware self-aware glory!
Plus, we'll be featuring some awesome clips of the Republican candidates on the campaign trail in Iowa this week. During the clips, our retro-licious hosts will make some disparaging comments about the candidates' clothes, or their sex lives, or something else completely irrelevant to politics, because it's all the same anyway, right? Never let it be said VH1 isn't doing its part to reduce everything in this ADD-addled society to roughly the same post-modern status, where a potential leader of America might as well be the guy who sang "Chocolate Rain."
Yes, you'll get it all... the snide comments! The derision! The irony! The easy-reaches! The thinly veiled contempt! Or, as we like to call it, "affectionate nostalgia." For two solid hours, you'll hear celebrities get a good roasting from grade-A superstars like the chick who came in third on Survivor! You know, the type of person who will undoubtedly command awe and reverence when we look back on 2008 twenty years from now.
VH1: I LOVE THE FIRST COUPLE OF DAYS OF 2008 premieres this Saturday night, immediately followed by the 100 most crotchiest-crotch-shots of 2007! Check your local listings for more info. (Cemetery listings, that is. You'll definitely want to off yourself after watching this one.)
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