Tag: pop culture

  • Marlo Stanfield, Brand Manager

    Be ye a CEO of the Corner or the corner office, you’ve gotta know what those on the street are saying about your brand.

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    related posts:
    Social Structure of The Wire

  • Kermit the Frog + Terry Richardson

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    TR just shot stage legend Kermit for Supreme – a triumverate for the ages. Richardson’s name is popping up with increasing frequency on the advert circuit. One day is the value/act of being by shot him going to supercede the final product?

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    I also wonder if in the next few years we’ll see a brand call for Richardson (Get Me One of Those!) and then have 2nd thoughts once the work is delivered. Like Motorola did with
    Michel Gondry, making the mistake of swooning for the starshine, but overlooking the actual work that made the artist an artist .

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  • Juno, Sex Workers & MapQuest

    When accepting her Oscar for Best Original Screenplay, Juno scribe Diablo Cody proudly displayed her bicep tat of a bikini-clad + rope bound lass, a visual reminder to viewers at home that Cody was once a stripper. And the dark humor that actress Ellen Page spits in Juno is strongly rooted in the self-aware and acerbic style of writing oft found in sex worker literature.

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    Women in the sex industry have historically been labeled as Victim with A Heart of Gold, Radical Feminist or Dumb Slut. Rarely are they seen as having any agency or complexity. Spread Magazine launched in 2005 to flip the script:

    We believe that all sex workers have a right to self-determination; to choose how we make a living and what we do with our bodies. We aim to build community and destigmatize sex work by providing a forum for the diverse voices of individuals working in the sex industry.

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    For those dear readers who may be clucking and saying Not My World, let’s look at the webstat counter Alexa.com to see the story of Our Nation’s online activity.

    Megarotic has more visits than Amazon, AOL and Blogger
    YouPorn beats Digg and The New York Times
    Adult Friend Finder…gets more love than MapQuest?

    With porn’s market position as an ‘outsider industry’, we may be inclined to think that some of these xxxsites are clickbotting. While we may question Ms. Alexa, her stats are bandied about like Mr. Nielson’s ratings. Fact is, porn is no longer just “finding Dad’s Playboys” (i looked, alas he had none) or a dusty VHS. It’s everywhere and we’re all, shall we say, touched, by it.

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    Now Sex & The City EP Darren Star has an upcoming HBO series based on Tracy Quan’s Diary of a Manhattan Call Girl. Also coming, Washingtonienne and Secret Diary of a Call Girl.

    Given that Carrie Bradshaw spawned trends like drinking Cosmos, lusting after Manohlo Blahniks and hearting Marc Jacobs, I’m curious to see what details our pop culture might take from an expensive prostitute. Going beyond any new trends, maybe this show and Diablo Cody’s high profile will begin to remix the public discussion of American sex workers and this naughty little $12 billion industry.

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    UPDATES

    4/24/08
    What does it mean when Nintendo’s Wii has a stripper video game?

    5/16/08
    Teens + Sex and the City

    6/10/08
    NYT and 365 days of sex

    Porn = Normal trend report

    7/24
    Porn vs. Prostitution

    8/17
    Porn visits Sesame Street?

  • Moonwalk: The 25th Anniversary

    mj-sailor-boy.jpgIt’s the 25th anniversary of Michael Jackson’s album Thriller and his premiere of The Moonwalk. (ir)Regardless of the man, his tunes have stood the test of time. And beyond the music, it’s MJ on the MTV that made him the King of Pop. Last year prisoners in Manila doing Thrilla went viral. In 2008 will we see an en masse Moonwalk?

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    (more…)

  • Vampires rock Soweto

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    Vampire Weekend dropped it hot this week and got met with both Kisses and Bronx Cheers. Maybe it’s my preppy roots and culture, but these kids are alright with me. As one sage said: “[This is just] the inevitable graduation of privileged indie kids into their rightful social milleu. Drop the post- art-school ‘ghetto’ chic of most recent Brooklyn arrivistes and you get…this band.” VW keeps it realer than most of us 18-34 liberals in NYC, so let’s put down our snarker rifles and pull on our dancing shoes. To help us all, here’s a little mixtape I cooked up: The Garlic Press & Pestle. (Oh yeah, I’m twee like VW) It’s got that Clipse Cape Cod remix, some Soweto sounds from ’99, Biggie beats over bhangra and Roy Orbison. (you can’t hear it, but the dancehall airhorn is blasting over here)
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    UPDATE: Here is a new metric to study band buzz, can you spot the next Vampire?

  • Soulja Boy's Superman Subversion

    “Crank That” content occupies 5 of the top 100 YouTube videos. Advertising and Academia have written great articles and case studies about the Soulja Boy phenomenon. Even Disney let copyrights slide to join the party. Yup, it’s a new media coup.

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    So…the line “Superman dat (h)o!” means? It aint just some nonsensical wordplay.

    Last fall there was a flurry in the blogosphere about the lyrical ‘translation’, but it didn’t go viral, so the song and the artist have not been outcast by corporate America.

    The song/dance has remixed past the point of authorial intent, so the fact that people age 6-66 are Cranking in the classroom and at halftime is not really a prob, just really funny. It’s another example of hip-hop subverting dominant linguistic paradigms while working within it. Like in 2003 how Dave Chappelle and Lil’ Jon had millions of Americans blindly saying Skeet Skeet. Or in the late 90’s when LL Cool J slipped a FUBU ad into the text of a Gap TV spot – LL says on camera “For Us, By Us, on the low”. It flew under the radar of both the client and the agency, whom I’m guessing just heard it as some cool urban lingo, not an encoded advert for their competition.

  • Tidings

    As our politicos yammer about a widening income gap, two America’s and such, I’d like to take this time of respite to remind our friends that good pop is a grand unifier if only for fleeting minutes. We should find further comfort in the ability of a gold chain to proffer authority upon its wearer, even if for the sake of comedy.
     
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    Run-DMC, Justin, rope chain or herringbone, and that’s the way you do it.