The Repository of Scorn

Archive for the ‘General’ Category

WTF? It’s for Free.

1 Comment

By now, you’ve heard all about Marc Maron’s podcast interviews (wtfpod.com) with such bold-face comedy names as Apatow (worked for Spielberg – for years?), Gallagher (who talks about sub-atomic particles, non-ironically) and the no-holds barred Louis C.K. tête-à-tête.

Invariably, every installment is exactly the same – “Hey XXXXX, remember when we used to see each other around 20 years ago?” But it’s still interesting. As essentially, it’s late-night television without the awkward product pitching mixed in. And it’s perfect for listening to while working. Which gives WTF the edge over Showtime’s The Green Room (link), where a similar “what’s his name?” Paul Provenza reminds other comics how he to used to be around.

Problem is… You try to listen to any of the above names, or any WTF Podcast that isn’t recent and you find out it’s only available to “premium members.” Which goes against the core principle of everything to do with online media – ie: It’s All Free. Passing around an online hat is a bizarre, out-of-step notion. Read the rest of this entry »

Share

Google’s Zip Code Problem

1 Comment

Since early Jan. if you typed NYC’s East Village zip code of 10009 into Google Maps, it said you were halfway up the Hudson – in no man’s land.

There’s a brief moment in The Social Network, where fake-Michael Cera confronts Facebook’s start-up CFO on the phone. His valid complaint is that a glitch like servers going down, even for a few minutes, can have wide sweeping ramifications for a portal that’s meant to keep everyone dependent on it.

Basically, the servers were down for part of a day… Google Maps hasn’t had a clue where the East Village is for two months!

Which means that if you want to look up movie times for Angelika, Film Forum or IFC using Google Movies, you  get info on what’s screening at Magic Johnson Theaters.

Which really blossoms out of control when you consider the number of apps and sites that use Google Maps at the core of their architecture. Wanna find a restaurant in one of the most Read the rest of this entry »

Share

More Cynicism – PLEASE!

1 Comment

We’re issuing a call to arms… and enlisting those amongst the LonerBoner ranks to  vehemently call “Bullshit!” on deluded idiots that think Twitter and Facebook ctrl-v link slathering  somehow entitles them to “folk hero” status.

Case in point is the ludicrous claims by former Late Nate presence Conan O’Brien, that his control of social media has branded him some sort of come-back kid. Anyone watching his “live” YouTube stream on 11/1 saw amazing tweets such as “#conanshowzero watching www.youtube.com/teamcoco” repeated ad nauseam.

Now, a cornerstone of this site is our on-going critique of the hyperbole surrounding social media (ie: HATEBOMB: Twitter). However,  most of this is transparently generated claims by Read the rest of this entry »

Share

Governor Race Freakshow

3 Comments

Anyone still subscribing to Ralph Nader’s notion that politics in America is a two-party system of exclusion, should check the following freakshow debates that aired on network television this week. So far, the Top Three highlights of the 2010 Governor mid-term elections are-

1. Bob Forthan – Oregon, Republican (aka “The Dome Home Guy”)

Read the rest of this entry »

Share

Sorta Familiar?

3 Comments

Share

This Is Why TV Spots Look So Bad

1 Comment

Following up on our earlier thread about digital dumbing down and how we’re moving backwards out of some pointless fixation with using new technology, comes this “behind the scenes” of how working with the new video flavor of the month (RED, Canon 5D, Arri Alexa) is suggested by producers.

Seriously, did we just enter a new Dark Ages? Last we checked, the criteria is 1) Lack of Progress and 2) Loss of Knowledge. That’s pretty much evidenced by every crappy looking TV spot shot on this new wave of consumer video garbage.

Share

Is Adidas Original?

1 Comment

So Adidas does a shot-for-shot remake of the cantina scene from Star Wars (YouTube). Then they hit you with a tag line about celebrating “originality.” Is that the photoshop, cut and paste definition of “originality.”

I think Borges tried to claim that rewriting Don Quioxote word-for-word would be considered a new work, because it would introduce a self-aware, modern context. I doubt the agency types had anything other than laziness in mind though.

Credit for picking up an easy paycheck: Sid Lee, USA… Basically they just called up The Mill and asked them to cut and paste celebrities into something that’s already popular. Is that an “original idea?”

Share

Disposable Digital

2 Comments

With anything digital, the talk is always of the “next great technological innovation,” rather than how good something currently is. Case in point, the amazing facial recognition apps, we had all just about forgotten about. Almost forgotten about, that was until Google Goggles announced they had the potential to identify any stranger on the street, if you provide them a cameraphone image. Which of course, is GPS tagged.

On one hand, it’s sort of interesting that the Orwellian tagging of Facebook and Flickr has given rise to an Orwellian society. Surveillance databases and the fact that no-one cares, result from the disposable nature of information today. There’s so much of it hitting you at once, that people are only expected to glance at walls, updates and amateur hate blogs with a cursory interest. One that has no depth, beyond grabbing sound-bites to repost elsewhere. What Wikipedia has allowed, is for people to gain a Cliff Note idea of concepts, without actually having any knowledge of them. No different than people laughing at ICP’s Miracles video, only to be confronted later with the fact they themselves don’t know how magnets work.  They just thought they did, by glancing over keywords like “North Pole,” “South Pole” and “metal”  – yet coming to no understanding. You can read more about our amateur post-modern philosophy, blaming the marketing perspective of Baby-Boomer culture for the benevolent view of today’s shit-pile, here.

Whereas people have always claimed to like something like The Royal Tennebaums, because it makes them feel smart to pretend to enjoy something they heard was based on Salinger, this new false Read the rest of this entry »

Share

Absolut Targets Hipsters

1 Comment

After the awful campaign (Absolut Crap) where they dressed up cutesy, indie icon Zooey Deschanel as a platinum blonde Barbarella, TBWA has taken a new approach.

First off they quietly commissioned the Spike Jonze Sundance short, featuring hipster robots hanging out in LA and listening to Pitchfork bands.  Which became a site where you can appreciate the naturalistic visuals of previously mentioned Lance Accord.

SHORT FILM: I’M HERE

Unless you stick around ’till the credits, you’d have no idea Absolut was funding this target on the forehead of hipsters. For the brand to ingratiate themselves with the PBR set makes sense, as these psuedo-blue collar fools eventually turn 40 and need to drink something else.

On that note TBWA has created an event space for 30 days in NYC, showcasing the genesis of the hipster era. Namely, the very 1999 notion that graphic design passes for art. To bolster this flashback, TBWA has enlisted the hipster version of Collette, a bookstore from the new cusp of gentrification out in LA (Miracle Mile area) called “Family.” Which already has a 10-min documentary on it, shot by Read the rest of this entry »

Share

More Plagerism and Twitter Bullshit

4 Comments

Do you like those cutesy, stop-motion Amazon Kindle commercials? Wish that photographers Angela Kohler and Ithyle Griffiths made more of them? Well… Good news… Sorta.

The World Wildlife Fund (the other WWF) has hired LA’s Viral Factory to do what advertising does best. Rip-off other people’s ideas. Granted we just complained about this trend with HATEBOMB: Reboots, Remakes and Rip Offs. And we need to keep doing so. Like some substitute high school teacher, it’s our job to remind everyone that “you can’t take credit for appropriating other people’s work.” Or something like that.

Seriously. Do Creative Directors just sit around and see what’s popular on YouTube? If so, is there an iPhone app that can replace them? That would really speed along our plans to open an automated, cat-run digital shop. After all, in the YouTube game… cat videos have the upper-hand.

Non-cat videos and more after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »

Share