2.28.01
Rushkoff-colored Glasses
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Rush to Judgment?
There is no hope for the future. All of America's teens have succumbed to the profit-propelled mass-market machine. That's right. Rebellion is no longer an integral part of teenage development, unless it's prompted by MTV and the local shopping mall. Hey, if you insist on shooting the messenger of this foreboding missive, save those verbal bullets for "Media analyst" and author of Coercion: Why We Listen to What 'They' Say, Douglas Rushkoff. I know I will.

Lamenting over the "cool hunters" and "culture spies" who lick their corporate chops at the prospect of trapping the $150 billion/year American teenage demographic, Rushkoff was interviewed on the 2/25 edition of National Public Radio's syndicated talk show, Fresh Air. As research for a documentary called The Merchants of Cool, Rushkoff studied marketing tactics employed to attract this lucrative teen demo. On Fresh Air, he discusses "under the radar marketing," which includes stealthy corporate strategies like hiring college freshman to distribute promo materials at parties and employing teens as apparel company spokes-models to act as walking, talking "billboards."

In his study, Rushkoff also accompanied a "market research guru" from MTV to observe a "basically nothing more than average" teen in his home environment. During this "ethnographic research visit," the cookie-cutter kid was asked questions about his relationship with his girlfriend as the camera crew filmed his wall decorations and clothing closet contents.

While on this demographic dig, Rushkoff inquired of the MTV rep, "Don't you think maybe the average kid you're talking to now…don't you think maybe these decorations in his bedroom are coming from watching The Real World [an MTV reality drama]? And then, you're putting that stuff in on the next set of The Real World." According to Rushkoff, the MTV marketing maven conceded, "I guess there is kind of a feedback loop."

Apparently, this "feedback loop" theory became the crux of the Frontline documentary. Rushkoff states omnisciently, "In a sense, nobody is creating culture anymore. Kids are watching television, but television is watching the kids and really all you end up with is this house of mirrors where there's no genuine culture being created anymore."

I just don't get it. How can Rushkoff base his opinion of an entire generation of American kids only on the ones who willingly participate in market studies and openly embrace pop-culture and commercial entities? MTV and other marketers aren't concerned with the niche markets of creative underground kids for obvious reasons, but that doesn't mean these kids have fallen off the face of the planet. If someone insists on limiting his perspective to a peephole, his view is bound to be restricted to precisely what falls into that narrow tunnel of vision. There will always be lemmings and leaders and category-defying fringe-folk; such is life. I refuse to believe that Rushkoff has marked a turning point in the nature of humankind. On the other hand, he has managed to come up with some seriously jaundiced, yet provocative propaganda with which to fuel more books, interview appearances and speaking engagements.

If you're interested in reading more about this Borg-like collective they're callin' the "millennial" generation, check out this 10/26 Lowbrow Lowdown story.

False Advertorial Alarm
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Search Engine Soup-up or Sell-out?
"Consider the source." Growing up, these words of wisdom were often employed by my 'rents to teach me to evaluate the validity of an opinion or comment based on its messenger. Nowadays, when the cashier at the corner bodega calls me "cheap-ass" and "annoying penny girl," or I'm 86'd from drinking establishments for being an "obnoxious lush," I can say with pride that it's my mean-spirited critics who have the problem, certainly not li'l ol' innocent me.

As in our relations with others, it is best to consider the source of things like editorial content, especially when it comes to the wealth of questionable information lurking online. The thing is, should ad-infringement on content always be considered "advertorial"?

Take paid result listings on search engines. As featured in a 2/19 Advertising Age piece, all the big search sites are doin' it. GoTo.com originated it. Yahoo! has launched a Sponsored Sites program in its Shopping and B2B categories. Advertisers can sponsor search results on LookSmart, and Google offers text ads on relevant search results pages. Even About.com has a sponsored-links site called Sprinks (sponsorship stinks combo?) that remains separate from its "editorial listing."

"The wall between advertising and editorial is crumbling in one of the places Internet purists hold most sacred: search engines," announces the Ad Age story. Well, hey, most "Internet purists" also sacredly hold their virgin schlongs, but that doesn't mean we should.

Personally, I find this reaction to be an alarmist one. We're talkin' about enhanced listings on search engines here. This is hardly as slimy as the advertiser-driven coverage of the Staples Center in the LA Times Sunday Magazine. Think of it this way: when you're searching through the online or print yellow pages, is the information compromised by Web listings that appear at the top of the page, or print listings that feature eye-catching images and bold type? Don't we have the ability to bypass those prominent listings in favor of the other no-frills listings? I mean, if the paid listings are so integrity-inhibiting, I'd suggest starting a pay-per-search engine, because whether we like it or not, businesses require revenue to sustain success and continue growth. Better yet, we could always do what my Grandma does when she's searching for something: pray to Saint Anthony.

Sodanistas Attack from the Left
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Cola-culture on Display
People love to reminisce. It's comforting, it's familiar, it's communal. Hey, just last weekend I stayed up until the wee hours delighting in re-runs of gen-x childhood faves, The Electric Company, Sesame Street and 3-2-1 Contact.

No matter what it may indicate about society, recalling the days of yore through TV programming of the past is typical, so, why not TV commercials? Well, chances are you heard about Coca-Cola's donation of its complete set of over 20,000 TV ads to the US Library of Congress. Anti-corporate rebels, Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman attended the ceremony in honor of the "historical contribution" and lived to tell the harrowing tale, as featured in the March/April issue of Adbusters (Democracy as Contact Sport).

"Coke could have just donated the ads to the Library and left it at that," write the co-authors of Corporate Predators: The Hunt for MegaProfits and the Attack on Democracy. "But this wasn't about Coke's largesse. It was about public relations…." (Hmmm… I'll have to remember that statement the next time I see Susan Sarandon and Michael Moore hosting some anti-world-trade pinko-palooza.)

Further investigation reveals that this sort of thing is commonplace for the Library. In fact, according to The Library's site, the Coke ads reflect "five decades of local cultures around the world and will provide an extraordinary resource to researchers and historians of popular culture."

Meanwhile, back at the Coke ad celebration, the counter-cola rebels fueled up with "fabulous" food such as "lamb chops, trout, and Peking duck," for their confrontation with Coca-Cola's president, Doug Daft. "After Daft spoke...we looked down at him and asked, in a loud voice: "Why are you using a public library to promote a junk food product?" Evidently, this roused the "Library of Congress police" to tackle the anti-Coke conspirators, drag them downstairs, and remove them from the premises. I can't help but picture the scene with Mokhiber and Weissman afterwards, high-fives and all….

Overall, they resent the fact that Daft's speech mentioned "Nothing about profits. Nothing about overweight kids. Nothing about racism." (This alludes to allegations that the company is profit-driven, has "routinely discriminated against black employees" and that drinking Coke leads to childhood obesity.)

Hey, does Coke strong-arm its chunky child consumers into drinking five 20-ouncers a day? It's amazing to me that superior and enlightened people like Mokhiber and Weissman would take such a narrow view as to denounce a soda company for complicated evils like childhood obesity and racism. As for the accusation that Coke is profit-driven -- duh. Ya know, maybe these guys are right. Maybe Coke is the root of all evil. Hey, if that ain't a reason to switch to Pepsi, I don't know what is.

The Hogwarts Are Getting Restless
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B Is for Boycott
Although most of them are too young to remember the savage cries of Dee Snyder, The youth of today ain't gonna take it anymore, either. This time 'round, though, it's not uniform-code breaking Twisted Sister pins that are the point of contention, it's Harry Potter fan sites.

At this point, lots of us have heard about AOL-Time Warner's bullying of the wee-wizards. Basically, the warty WB frog has condemned sites devoted to the bespectacled book hero and warned that legal action could ensue due to potential consumer confusion and infringement upon intellectual property rights.

No worries…even Potter fans know bullfrog droppings when they sniff 'em. And now, as featured in a 2/22 USA Today article, Potter lovers, young and not-so-young, are "organizing a worldwide boycott of merchandise featuring the fictional boy wizard." Sixteen-year-old Heather Lawver of Virginia got fed up when she learned of a fan who "was afraid these lawyers would come banging down her door and take away all her family's money." Lawver has joined forces with London's Alastair Alexander, 33, to form the Defense Against the Dark Arts (DADA) project in order to promote a peaceful truce with Warner.

As featured in the USA Today story, Warner Bros.' Diane Nelson claims, "Our intention was never to harass fans…. We would encourage anyone who believes they received it erroneously to contact us."

In an effort to convince the company of Potter-fan prowess, DADA has launched an offensive against all things Harry, excluding the books, of course. As noted in the group's manifesto, the "full-on boycott" "includes all Harry Potter toys, calendars, ornaments, paraphernalia, and the Harry Potter movie set for release late 2001…. [M]illions of Harry Potter toys left in the stores, and thousands of theatre seats empty…. Nothing will deter us from defending our homes on the internet."

Right on! I truly dig this boycott, fan-rights stuff, man. It's great to see kids band together like this. I've got one question, though: Isn't it ironic that such defiant kids have fallen for the biggest mass-marketing-driven phenomenon aimed at children since Pokemon and fruit roll ups? In reality, how many of these anti-Warner protesters will actually abstain from seeing the hyped-up Potter flick? And how many of them have Powerpuff Girls merchandise on their birthday lists (another property of AOL-Time Warner)? Actually, I think they should just get the whole thing over with and cast a few evil spells on Time Warner's Gerald Levin and AOL's Steve Case. I'd love to see those guys try to give a press conference with a couple of broomsticks stuck up their arses.

Ancient Kentuckian Secret
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Deep Fried Deep Throat
In the same way that fictional snitches Augustus Gloop and Violet Beauregarde could have spoiled things for Willy Wonka, recipe-revealers and journalistic jackals could really blow things for firms like KFC and Coca-Cola. That's what they'd have us credulous consumers think, anyway.

Consider the recent experiences of Cherry Settle. When the Shelbyville, Kentucky restaurateur uncovered "a hand-written recipe for fried chicken in a leatherbound 1964 datebook…in her basement," she decided she'd put it up for auction, according to a 2/20 Wall Street Journal Op-ed piece by Mark Pendergrast. After all, the recipe called for eleven herbs and spices, as does the famed original KFC blend, and looked to be in the Colonel's handwriting (she knew him personally).

A court summons and seasoning-list seizure came about finger-lickety-split. Then, in a startling display of back-peddling prowess, "A few days later…KFC dropped the lawsuit, explaining that the Settles's recipe was way off and didn't even contain five of the original ingredients.

When the editorial's author included the possible secret formula for Coca-Cola in his book, "For God, Country & Coca-Cola," he encountered a similar, yet far more Fonz-like response. "[T]hey practically yawned in response," he recalls in the Journal piece, "issuing a bland press release saying that this was just one in a long series of Coke formula wannabes and that, like the others, it was inaccurate."

"The formula itself…isn't the point anyhow," concludes Pendergrast. "Coca-Cola and Kentucky Fried Chicken by any other name would just be sugar-water and gizzards." Hmmm… do you think that the fact that Coca-Cola once contained coca-leaf extract may have had something to do with its success, too?

Perhaps Pendergrast is right. When it comes to big names like Coke, I'd argue that the actual product is secondary to the response invoked by the brand itself. Sure, some devotees claim to be able to decipher between Coke and Pepsi, but when given the options of Blue Boy, RC, Pepsi, Coke and President's Choice, could they really pick out their favorite brand? On the other hand, when it comes to KFC, those familiar après-drumstick stomach cramps are unmistakable. Oh man…I think the Colonel just rolled over in his bucket. Ahh...who gives a cluck, anyway.