Our friend H. Willing Davidson edits fiction at the New Yorker. So for his GF Alison Cool’s birthday, what does he get her? Oh, placed within the text of Roger Angell’s holiday poem. Next to Kiki Smith, and two lines above Snoop Dogg. Brooklyn, we go hard…
Love this new vid, made by Evan Roth, one of the originals from Graffiti Research Lab. And, uh, anyone else think Jay cribbed that voice-buckle from Wayne?
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link from Michael Karnjanaprakorn
Both Ad Age and Huffington Post published the below essay I wrote for the forthcoming book Project 100: Marketing in the Social Media Era.
The idea that online is ‘colorblind’ is now thankfully being replaced be a more intelligent discourse on the topic. No doubt, you can see more about it here at Desedo, cause it’s the world we live in.
Truth In Advertising? New Media + Multicultural
[T]he proliferation of media voices and sources enabled by the internet has allowed a more nuanced and less gangster voice of young black america to emerge, untempered by market concerns and sensationalism. Because of social media’s democratized communication tools, we are now seeing a more accurate depiction of black america. Mainly because that media is actually being created by, ahem, black people.
-Raafi Rivero, Black Nerds
The authorship space of social media has fostered a cross media rise of black skaters, black rockers, black gamers and a wildly successful new strain of nerdy hip-hop. (Kanye West, Gnarls Barkley, N.E.R.D., Cool Kids, etc…) These diverse depictions and distributions of black life run counter to what we often see in mass media.
And that’s one case study. Many other groups within America have used social media to this effect : GLBT, American-Muslims, Asian-Americans, etc… Increasingly more content is made + moved by these groups, counterbalancing the content about these groups as seen in mass media. Dialogue is supplanting monologue.
As a society, we are all richer for it.
So. What is the upside for marketers within this diversifying social media space? It is a chance to engage oft ignored multicultural markets. Money is still on the table. And in our current economic state, brands are seeking “new” consumer groups.
My thinking is this:
1) Except for humor, traditional advertising is a risk-adverse platform. When brands aim to reach multicultural markets, most opt to play it safe with the tropes that Blacks value ‘soul’, Latinos love ‘family’, Asians are ‘sedulous’, etc… >>
2) Using narrow clichés are not just an affront to millions of consumers ; they are missed market opportunities. While brands may intuitively understand that a black guy can love both Jay-Z and The Beatles, this multiplicity is rare within traditional advertising. Brands try to engage multicultural consumers using too few points of narrative and emotional entry. >>
3) Social media is where this engagement strategy can begin to change for the better. Why? Because social media is built upon the truth of multiplicity. As Raafi notes above, one person can now use this space to identify himself as: a gamer + a skater + black + a man + a music lover + a photographer + more. As brands understand this truth, they will rethink the narrow content used to engage multicultural consumers. And given the online ability to reach niches at low cost, brands can actually put to use their knowledge of multiplicity – beginning new conversations with those consumers who’ve too long been writ as simply a clatch of soul claps and sombreros.
i can’t tell you you’re oppressed
without asking your opinion on it.
-Fatemeh Fakhraie
I’ve written before on the subject of sex and authorship and believe in the virtues of Neo Burlesque and Suicide Girls as a potential source of empowerment. Yet what still struck me in this clip from Sundance’s Pleasure For Sale is the frank calm with which Kittie approaches prostitution as an independent contractor. Or at least, that which we see on screen? Dunno.
That said, we must keep questioning those things that make us nod or shake our heads, be it assent or dissent.
I’m outspoken, my language is broken into a slang / But it’s just a dialect that I select when I hang. -Special Ed
I’ve been thinking about the use of slang and LOLspeak in advertising and have deduced a simple rule. The logic is as follows:
Standard language is a strategy for communication. Slang is a tactical response to linguistic strategy – a way to speak within the space, yet occasionally cloak or subvert your content, creating a space of insider/outsider. Sometimes slang will cross the fence from linguistic tactic to strategy. An example would be the words bling or phat. Once slang, now OED English.
So with that in mind, if an advert aims to use slang within a communications strategy – to sound like the target demo and be edgy – the slang must do one of two things. Either contain code that employs a real insider/outsider barrier or (better yet) truly be subversive. Otherwise it does not achieve the desired effect of being decoded.
Two examples of deft slang use are the Gossip Girls poster that says “OMFG” (ie Oh My F*cking God) and the Akademiks “Read Books, Get Brain” poster (ie Read Books, Get A Bl*wjob). The target demo knows what these posters are saying and that if the copy were written sans slang, the adverts would not pass the censors. Equally important, they know that many passerby are clueless to their code, yet your brand is in the know.
…Below is another Obama Supporters, Riding Subways story from my cousin Sarah Doe.
Last night, as I stepped onto my old familiar L-train, I felt like it was New Year’s Eve. It was after midnight and the train was packed with exuberant 20-somethings. But best of all, as I got on the train, the whole packed car erupted with whoops and cheers and claps. This trend continued at every single stop along the train, from Union Square to Grand Street in Brooklyn, as new passengers got on the train and old passengers left, we all joined in shared celebration. For the first time in our voting lives, a collective hope had been answered with true promise of a better tomorrow. Like us millenials, the cheers were primal and a tad coarse, howls in the night that we could not contain.
In the early hours of yesterday evening, my cousin Michael was full of joy and energy. He compared this pre-returns joy to that of new lovers: maybe it’ll turn into a 4-year relationship or maybe it’s fleeting, but either way he was happy to be happy. And later my friend questioned the degree of change that would occur after Obama won the election.
So it was with great curiosity when I woke and walked to the train for the ‘morning after’ of this new and beautiful relationship. Would people still be shouting in the subways? Would there be ponies and rainbows everywhere? Well, no. There were not those things. Nor was there the unbridled jubilation that had filled the night just hours before. But there was, in the packed rush hour train, a new gentleness. As people pressed into the cars, they negotiated the empty spaces, rather than pushing for a spot. The girl who softly bumped me even more tenderly apologized, and all around the train (speckled with Obama buttons and a few stars and stripes) there was a hesitant trust, not necessarily in Obama or in the political system, but in each other, in ourselves, and in the potential for our futures.
Yes We Did.
This is what Obama has done and will continue to do. This is the deepest part of the change he brings, that grows like grass through pavement because it is rooted in every one of us. This is the power of democracy, and this is why, I can say with a straight face, that I am now proud to be an American.
