Cyber Emo vs Vintage Virtual Reality
A friend recently summed up the Facebook-era of online activity succinctly, stating “it feels as exciting or thought provocative as watching an episode of Ellen.” Adding the phrase, “it feels like your Mom’s internet.”
In many ways we agree. The whole online experience today feels like a time-wasting trip to the suburban mall. Maybe it’s all the senseless chatter, commercial signage and snapshot voguing that echos the food court environment. Or maybe it’s all the young girls.
That’s the one, great step forward in the social media era. It brought women, younger and older, into the once exclusively male and geek dominated domain of “cyberspace.” For a flash back to how this used to be, five seconds spent on ChatRoulette (link) will show you an anonymous webcam portrait of dudes in dorms, masturbating schlongs 
and more dudes in dorms. In other words, good luck finding women outside of the fluff communities of Facebook, Twitter, online retail and homogenized blogging.
Whereas all this social media stuff is purported to be keeping everyone connected, in reality it’s all just pretending your famous. Facebook / Twitter / et al are only about emulating celebrity culture, with followers tracking your every minute move like stalker fans. It is just ego stroking, borrowing from the culture of tabloid soundbites and newsmagazine fandom. As if everyone in corporate marketing is a rockstar wannabe. There is no real communication going on here. Just people who are sold on the US Magazine / Access Hollywood view of America, and now simulate it being by both groupie and B-list famewhore.
Whereas this publicity environment of constant press-releases used to be the domain of the media, today the situation is brands trying to figure about how to excite all these miniature self-promoters to buzz about their latest product.
It wasn’t always this piss poor. The release of AVATAR has got us thinking of what a pussy time 2010 is. Which is even more depressing, when you where you consider where James Cameron took pop-culture Read the rest of this entry »
Years past having any relevance, Vice is clearly now just a hollow label for sale to ANY brand looking to drop some money on a misguided “co-branding” opportunity – five years too late. Much like a hooker in heels, Vice’s branding-arm Virtue sells “access” to youthful tastemakers in a manner equally indiscriminate of who’s money they take. Though this is tasteless brand dilution, the “cool” 
On Dec. 9th 2009, AOL is getting divorced from Time Warner. Which bookends one of the biggest head-turners of the dot-com bubble (ver. 1), when AOL bought the world’s largest media entity (Warner Bros, HBO, CNN) for $162 billion. After Wednesday, AOL is going solo and will be moving into a shared apartment with CompuServe and Prodigy.
The CEO and co-founder of The Barbarian Group (
