Neil Young and Consumption

Saw it on the tube/Bought it on the phone/Now you’re home alone/It’s a piece of crap.”

Dr. Strangelove quoted this lyric from the song “Piece of Crap” by Neil Young to help explain the concept of “buyer’s remorse.” It comes from Young’s 1994 album, Sleeps With Angels. Buyer’s remorse is the feeling of seeing something that looks so good that you feel you have to have it, but when it’s no longer in the shiny display, and it’s just sitting in your house with you, you realize that you could have done without it.

Neil Young

This is an easy feeling to relate to. Most people have felt it. A very common example is a child in a toy store who, in awe of all the toys, develops a strong desire to have all of them. Some parents give in, and their basements begin to fill with piece of crap toys that the kids hardly play with.

Most parents probably do try to teach their kids that they don’t need every toy. But a lot of parents fall victim to the same thing when they are buying toys for themselves. Each time it happens there is the inevitable promise not to do something that stupid again, but it keeps happening. Why don’t people learn from that feeling?

Buying things gives people a feeling of instant gratification, but it wears off quickly, and you’re usually left with a piece of crap.

The worship of consumption

Another point to be made is about Neil Young in general. A song like this is a statement against overconsumption of useless crap. This is clearly a man who believes in the honest work of the common man. Look at these lyrics from the song “Ordinary people:”

Ordinary people/They’re gonna bring the good things back/Hard working people/Put the business back on track/All kinds of people/I got faith in the regular kind.”

But Neil Young is a complicated man. Full of contradictions. While advocating against overconsumption, he is a part owner of Lionel trains. He’s made millions from the music industry, and he endorsed Ronald Reagan in 1980. How can these seemingly opposing points of view be reconciled? Well, like another great man named Walt Whitman once said:

Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)”

Maybe the same can be said for Neil Young.

Cigarette Smoking in Movies: A Normative Experience

A few classes ago, Dr. Strangelove talked about the tobacco industry. He mentioned the efforts of Edward Bernays, the father of modern propaganda. He gave the example of Bernays’ strategy of giving marching women in New York cigarettes as a symbol of freedom. Really, he was trying to remove the stigma of women smoking in public, a practice that was associated with hookers. This way they could sell more cigarettes.

Dr. Strangelove also addressed the industry’s successful campaign to get Hollywood stars smoking in movies to legitimize the habit. Much like the successful campaign to popularize diamonds, this campaign was well known. The fact that the tobacco industry’s effort was open and transparent didn’t detract from its effectiveness one bit.

Brad Pitt smoking

In a 2002 article in the Preventative Medicine journal, Madeline A. Dalton from the Dartmouth Medical School et al discuss the normative effect of movie tobacco use:

Movies and other forms of media shape views of what is ‘cool,’ attractive, and grown-up—all things adolescents try to be.”

This article explains what most of us already know. People, especially young people, are very susceptible to images they are presented with in film. From violent tendencies to sexual practice, adolescents take their cues from Hollywood about how to live their lives.

It is a narrow-minded point of view that children will run out and start car-jacking in record numbers after playing games from the Grand Theft Auto series. However, it is a very believable thought that kids who see Brad Pitt continuously smoking will find it easier to take up the habit themselves.

It is passing strange to consider that there is no resistance or even protest over the obvious product placement of cigarettes in movies despite its powerful normative effect. This silence is even more shocking when one considers that cigarette advertising is illegal in magazines, newspapers, and on billboards.

Seeing stars smoking in movies makes it normal to smoke but no one seems to mind.

Sexploitation

Here is a subvertisement of some erotic ads:

It is more of a documentary than a culture jam, but the idea of subverting the dominant meaning is certainly there. If one only saw the pictures in this video it could be seen as promoting sexploitation. However, because of the story told in the subtitles, images of young sexy girls become tragic, rather than erotic. The music also contributes to this, lyrics like “Don’t think about all those things you fear, just be glad to be here” are quite clearly about promoting women’s self-esteem, not their exploitation.

The video shows the power of YouTube in two ways. First, in that someone was able to compile video, and then tell her own story with subtitles. Secondly, because many of the videos in this video come from YouTube. The creator was able to find them with YouTube, rearrange them, and then layer a message on top to interrupt what most people would expect from the images being shown. Rather than promoting sexy girls, the video is a call to action. It denounces the sexploitation of girls in advertising.

Human Nature is Plastic

This statement, brought up by Dr. Strangelove in class on a few occasions, was made by a famous American anthropologist named Ruth Benedict. Benedict’s statement suggests that our nature is shaped not by some notion of humanity that every human being has felt since our beginning, but by cultural forces present during our lifetimes.

Ruth Benedict

According to Benedict, whether it’s Marxism, Nazism, or consumerism, these forces mould us into who we are. They write out the societal scripts and we act them out. We are not active participants, but passive. We are born into bondage, with customs, tradition, language, and any other cultural force as our masters.

There is an interesting link to be made here with existentialism. (The writers of this blog will be the first and second to admit that they are not experts in existentialism, nor are they proponents of the philosophy.) In simple terms, existentialism is the belief that existence precedes essence. In simpler, though lengthier terms:

Man exists, turns up, appears on the scene, and, only afterwards, defines himself…At first he is nothing. Only afterward will he be something, and he himself will have made what he will be. Thus, there is no human nature, since there is no God to conceive it. Not only is man what he conceives himself to be, but he is also only what he wills himself to be after this thrust toward existence.”

Those are the words of Jean-Paul Sartre, the famous 20^th century existentialist philosopher. The link of similarity between Benedict and Sartre is their opinion of human nature. Existentialism takes the side that there is no human nature. Benedict’s statement does not explicitly deny the existence of human nature. However, the fact that her conception of human nature is at the mercy of cultural forces implies that the only thing natural about human nature is its malleability, not some set of values and instincts that all humans possess. In a way, she too denies the human nature that others believe in.

Jean-Paul Sartre

The difference between existentialism and Benedict’s idea is that instead of humans being in control of their own destiny – existentialism – this responsibility is surrendered to cultural forces. It would be interesting to bring Benedict’s analysis of human nature into existentialism. The fusion would be something like the following: in between existence and essence lies a third stage – the shaping of our essence by cultural forces, rather than by our own actions and decisions.

For an existentialist, existence precedes essence, and we dictate our own essence. But if one believes that human nature is plastic, then our essence is determined for us, rather than by us.

A Collection of Subvertisements

Here is a video with about 50 subvertisements. Some are done on computers, others are done in public spaces. A particularly impressive one is the barcode crosswalk at 2:26. It’s a great collection with an appropriately ominous soundtrack.

The video will be useful in providing examples of what subvertising is. Another thing that is special about this video is its simplicity. It is a collection of still photographs with a backing soundtrack. YouTube doesn’t require elite video-editing prowess. It requires only a creative mind, an idea, and the vision to make something.

This video shows YouTube’s ability to give any person the power to broadcast a simple and effective message.

Bill Watterson and the Enlightenment Project

A few classes ago, Dr. Strangelove pointed out a flaw in the “Enlightenment project:” it has emphasized gaining knowledge, without much else. Dr. Strangelove said that simply knowing is not enough to change things. He gave the example of his study of advertising, which he said he had been studying closely for over a decade. He said that he understood that the entire system was designed solely to manufacture desire. Yet, this knowledge did not make him immune to the effects of advertising. He admitted to being affected by the relentless grab of advertising just as much as anyone else.

This sounds similar to a psychiatrist who becomes depressed. Despite having a good understanding of what is happening and knowing some of the causes, some psychiatrists still become depressed. Knowing isn’t enough. When you know about something like advertising or depression, you aren’t let off the hook. You still have to address the issue.

In both situations, knowing and not knowing, one will still face the problem at hand. Is it better to know that you will have to deal with something and then also have to deal with it – that’s two things weighing on you – or is it better to merely face something as it comes without an understanding of it?

The easy conclusion to come to here is that ignorance is bliss, that knowing is not a good thing. Not knowing gives you immunity in a way, because you aren’t aware that you are being affected. Everything is still normal to you. Here is a Calvin and Hobbes strip that presents this point of view:

Is ignorance bliss?

Bill Watterson, the creator of Calvin and Hobbes, wasn’t really endorsing this philosophy. The Watterson style of thinking is made clear in a commencement address he made to the Kenyon College graduating class of 1990. The cartoonist had graduated from Kenyon in 1980 with a degree in political science. In the speech he described his first real job after graduation:

I designed car ads and grocery ads in the windowless basement of a convenience store, and I hated every single minute of the 4-1/2 million minutes I worked there. My fellow prisoners at work were basically concerned about how to punch the time clock at the perfect second where they would earn another 20 cents without doing any work for it.”

Watterson continued by saying that

after a few months at this job, I was so starved for some life of the mind that, during my lunch break, I used to read those poli sci books that I’d somehow never quite finished when I was here. Some of those books were actually kind of interesting. It was a rude shock to see just how empty and robotic life can be when you don’t care about what you’re doing, and the only reason you’re there is to pay the bills.”

Watterson’s reflection suggests that there is something in most humans that wants to know. This instinct is probably not enough, as Dr. Strangelove said. However, it is a step in a positive direction, a step toward something better.

Beckham Beheaded

This video is an episode of the daily 2-3 minute video blog news show Rocketboom.  This episode discusses subvertising.

It’s interesting for two reasons. One is that it gives great examples of subvertising around the world. They are not subvertisements made with the help of YouTube, but they’ve still ended up on YouTube. This demonstrates YouTube’s potency to take anything recorded and make it available to a mass audience.

The second reason is that Rocketboom is a reasonably professionally made video blog. The fact that they are covering a subject like subvertising gives the concept more exposure. Most TV networks would be hesitant to show a story like this one because they are often the butt end of culture jamming. The press won’t say bad things about themselves:

This whole notion of freedom of the press becomes a contradiction when the people who own the media are the same people who need to be reported on.”

- A former NBC producer quoted in Unreliable Sources: A Guide to Detecting Bias in News Media by Martin A. Lee and Norman Solomon; quoted in Culture Jamming: Hacking, Slashing and Sniping in the Empire of Signs by Mark Dery.

Wow, what a footnote that would be. Check out the David Beckham beheading from 1:10 – 1:20.

Onslaught

In one of the first classes of CMN 2173 this summer, Dr. Strangelove told us that Dove and Axe are owned by the same company, Unilever. What is funny about this is that Dove has been promoting “real beauty” and self-esteem in women by not using anorexic supermodels in all of their advertisements. However, Axe ads do the complete opposite. They are sexist, they objectify women, and they make extensive use of young and impossibly thin models.

One of these Dove commercials features a young girl being hit with all kinds of messages about what she should be like when she grows up (sexy, skinny, plastic). At the end of the ad parents are advised to talk to their daughters “before the beauty industry does.”

There are three videos in this post. The first is the original Dove commercial, called “Onslaught.” The second video is an amateur culture jam, that shows the irony of Unilever telling parents to keep their kids away from the beauty industry, even though they promote sexism through their Axe ads. The final ad is a professional culture jam done by Greenpeace, pointing out Dove’s hypocrisy from an ecological, rather than ideological point of view. The two subvertisements use the same song and same style of filming, making them highly effective.

The original:

The amateur culture jam:

The Greenpeace culture jam, called “Onslaught(er)”:

The second video is another example of the power YouTube gives to culture jammers. The third is an example of larger organizations taking advantage of YouTube’s massive audience. Both will be helpful for our project in showing the importance of YouTube in subvertising.

YouTube Comments

In our class on July 20, Dr. Strangelove said that the user-created nature of YouTube and the Internet as a whole provide culture jammers and subvertisers with unequalled potential.

The reach of messages across the medium of the Internet is potentially global. Gone are the days when only multinational corporations could reach the whole world with a message. Computers and the Internet also allow us to almost flawlessly reproduce the authoritative speech techniques of corporations and high-priced public relations firms. All of this is certainly true. There is no question that the Internet has broken boundaries in communication and has brought people from around the world together in a positive way.

However, there is a negative side to these developments. Dr. Strangelove showed us a comment on the Discovery Channel ad about Shark Week. The comment attacks the misleading tagline for the video, which promises the violent attack of a girl in a bikini by a shark to catch the eye. YouTube user hjelme83 left this comment:

Im going to mark tyhis video as spam and missleading. Cause thats exactly what it is. But then again Youtube will just lick ass and do nothing about it..”

This comment is one of anger toward the hopelessness of trying to do something constructive with the knowledge that nothing will be the result. It’s a little offensive. Yet this pales in comparison to some comments on the Internet that are unbelievably ignorant and antagonistic. They do not represent any of the positive things the Internet has to offer. What is especially troubling is that they seem to represent a majority of what is out there.

From the webcomic xkcd at http://xkcd.com/

Here is an example from the comments to a YouTube video of Michael Richards’ racist tirade of November 17, 2006 at the Laugh Factory in Los Angeles, a video with 485,603 views:

joe10606 (2 years ago) this guy is the man……he(kramer)acted totally appropiratly

chewabacha (2 years ago) I totally understand where he’s coming from and why he got so frustrated. All these rude and loud “niggas” give themselves a bad name. You people, niggas, (90%) are loud, disrespectful and ignorant. Kramer just voiced what everyone wants to say. Uncalled for my arse, that nig asked for it.

Hoyboyt (2 years ago) can you honestly say that 90% of people of a certian skin color act a certain way? that is what is ignorant- profiling people because of the color of thier skin. racism is stupid, and anyone who honestly feels like someone is less of a person than them because of something that is out of thier control (like skin color) shows they are way less of a person themselves.

brett4360 (2 years ago) what a fukin cracker bread hankey ass mother fucking snapper cracker ass bitch! shit next time i see the fuker i am going to rip his eyes out with a fork and feed them to his dead moma! fukin CRACKER!!!! lol

rht198 (2 years ago) Yeah, of course you will. Just like the rest of the niggers, you talk about what you’ll do with no intention AT ALL of caryying out your threats. All talk, you stupid cunt. “Next time I see the fucker”, next week maybe?? When have you arranged to see him??

While it may not seem far-fetched to see racially charged comment wars posted with a video about a racially charged issue, the trend continues in other popular videos. Here is an example of the comments from a video of Alicia Keys’ song “No One,” a video with 81,530,661 views:

thecompass01 (1 week ago) She Looks Pregnant

SirAndrewII (1 week ago) Says the little gay 15 year old boy.

thecompass01 (1 week ago) Fuck You

And more recently:

bubukaka5 (2 days ago) This ugly brown slut is fat and greasy ! i hope her negral pimp beats her to death and then pipi on the dirty cunt hahahahahahahahahahaha women are so stupid and totally worthless (if they don’t shut up, give it up and swallow) and take it in their filthy ass . WOMEN ARE DISGUSTING AND SOOOO ANNOYING . SLUTS

narutonote22 (2 days ago) shutup bubukaka!!every1 put bad comments on his profile. hes racist and sexist

cwocwo123456 (2 days ago) your a racist bastard who has no respect forr women at all and you need to stop because carma is a B****

bubukaka5 (2 days ago) WHY IS IT THAT MOST WOMEN (HOES) NOWADAY SMELL ABSOLUTELY HORRIBLE DOWN THERE, PLEASE SOMEBODY TELL ME ! and they ALL want us to lick and suck them down there OMG THE HORROR, i really wish i was born a gay because they are horrible in everyway way you can fucking imagine. Especially American women, everybody agrees that they is something SERIOUSLY WRONG with those asshole bitches .

cwocwo123456 (2 days ago) if you wish you were born gay then you are gay cuz u want to be so shut up because noone asked for your comment and that is just plain rude ur an asswhole

dance4eva9295 (2 days ago) i cant belive bubukaka5 said tht alicia is a slut n tht women r disgusting. us women r not worthless like he said n btw alicia has amazing talent.

bubukaka5 (2 days ago) BROWN WOMEN NEED TO BE BEAT UP VERY OFTEN TO KEEP THEIR LOUD MOUTH SHUT AND TO KEEP THEM HORNY ! no offense

cookietrey (2 days ago) FUCK YOU bubukaka5!!! YOU FUCKEN FAG! ALICIA KEYS IS BEAUTIFUL. ALL WOMEN ARE BEAUTIFUL. I LOVE PUSSY!! YOU RACIST BITCH!!

homebound247 (2 days ago) I AGREE WITH COOKIETREY

bubukaka5 (2 days ago) WOMEN SMELL HORRIBLE DOWN THERE NOWADAYS ! and they ALL expect us guys to lick and suck them down there, ABSOLUTELY DISGUSTING . All brown women should be beat often by there negro pimps btw to keep there loud mouth shut . Have a nice day you sluts .

sly5722 (2 days ago) people language plz

sly5722 (2 days ago) bukukaka yo stupid ass is a dumbass with yo trif ass. you just mad cause you can’t get none from nobody probably

bubukaka5 (2 days ago) I HAVE BEEN TALKING WITH MANY DIFFERENT GUYS AND WE ALL AGREE, THE WOMEN NOWADAYS ARE JUST NOT WORTH IT ! they want wayyyyyy too much for what they give (not much and it includes constant mood swings. smelly pussies they want licked etc etc) American women i hear are the absolute worst of all, junk culture=junk bitches . Guys never ever marry one its worst than going to war or jail or being skinned alive .

wewachywachy (2 days ago) so ur saying ur gay…?

Holachika100 (2 days ago) So ur gay?

These examples show some of the worst that is available. Many of the top viewed videos on YouTube have comments about race, sexual orientation, intelligence, and ability to spell correctly. They are often used as arguments to defend opinions on the video. Here’s an example from the video for Pink Floyd’s song “Wish You Were Here,” a video with 19,860,238 views:

waxthatshit122334 (2 days ago) tyea they suck thats why they are the most popular rock band in the world, nothing huge or anything, but yeah they suck… grow up bud, learn some sence

manicmacintosh (2 days ago) Sence? Do you mean sense? Learn English you big Japs eye!

waxthatshit122334 (2 days ago) you know what i ment, your lame anyways

DomeShot101 (2 days ago) fuck off stupid nigger

It’s undeniable that the Internet has many positive and constructive features. However, these examples show that it’s important not to get too hopeful about the endless possibilities of the Internet. A healthy amount of skepticism is probably necessary to weed out the people who abuse what the Internet has to offer.

YouTube Comments

Communist Chic

A few classes ago, Dr. Strangelove wore a hammer and sickle t-shirt and an army coat. He made sure to tell us that he wasn’t a communist, but was wearing it for fun, in a mocking communists sort of way.

But there are people who wear hammer and sickle gear as a fashion statement. The “communist chic” has caught on. One common symbol of this is the Che shirt. But there are many more products available. Hammersicklestuff.com offers tees, hoodies, undies, and pins. You can even wear designer dresses emblazoned with communist paraphernalia. If you look harder, you can find expensive purses, pink Lemonade, and Red Army vodka.

Evem M&M's use the communist chic

Why do people wear clothes that identify them with a group that is infamous for killing millions of people? Why is there is no major public outrage about this? In a 2006 article, Boston Globe columnist Jeffery Jacoby compared wearing hammer and sickle gear to wearing Nazi gear. He gave the example of Prince Harry, who has been apologizing relentlessly since January 2005 for wearing a Nazi military uniform to a birthday party.

Jacoby contrasted this with Tim Vincent, an entertainment correspondent with NBC’s Access Hollywood, who has worn hammer and sickle t-shirts on air. There was no public outcry like there had been with Prince Harry. Similarly, Jacoby asks why there is a popular bar in New York called the KGB Bar when there isn’t a Gestapo bar.

“Communist chic” is a growing fashion trend, but “Nazi chic” doesn’t appear to be anywhere on the horizon. Jacoby suggests some reasons for this. One is that Nazism didn’t hide its hatred or its belief in a master race. The communists, despite the atrocities, talked of peace, equality, and ending exploitation. And the ideology is still mythologized as a “noble system that has never been properly implemented.” Jacoby also points out that hard-line anti-communists find it hard to separate themselves from the McCarthyism of the 1950s.

Finally, Jacoby makes the point that communist violence hasn’t been documented the way Nazi crimes have been in video and pictures. Western culture is often saturated in anti-Nazi films, books, and music. There is not nearly the same amount of exposure to the atrocities that took place in Stalin’s Soviet Union, Mao’s China, or Pol Pot’s Cambodia.

Jacoby closes his article with a damning judgement of hammer and sickle attire:

Communist chic? The blood of 100 million victims cries out from the ground. To wear the symbols of their killers is no fashion statement, but the ultimate in bad taste.

One final ironic point in all of this, is that most of this pro-communist clothing is brought to its buyers by capitalism.