If This Is A Blog Then What's Christmas?

Here’s an interesting post from Seth Godin.

In it he talks about something it’s been difficult to ignore in recent years: the primary factor driving the vast majority of decisions is the acquisition of money.

Is that good or bad? Neither. There’s no such thing as good or bad. But I think this quote really brings it home:

Economics often trumps good intent, particularly at scale and over time. Decision-making power accrues to those that spend and make money, one reason that industrialization and time suck the art out of so many things.

Being clear about what we’re doing and why is the first step in doing it better. If you’re not happy about the honest answer to this question, make substantial changes until you are.

That’s a great question to ask and a damn hard one to answer. There might be many reasons why you’re doing what you’re doing, and some of them might clash with each other, but if you haven’t examined that part of your life with a microscope, you might want to, even if the things you find aren’t to your liking.

To paraphrase Seth, if you don’t know what game you’re playing how can you possibly play it better? The game might be ‘making money as quickly as possible’, but it might just as easily be ‘get creatively fulfilled’, ’emigrate’ or ‘prove my dad wrong’. I think there’s a good chance many of those games are hidden, which is why it often feels like we’re winning when we’re actually losing, and vice versa.

29 ways to stay creative (thanks, V).

Worst unexplainable images on the net (thanks, J).

Six Million Dollar Man vs Sasquatch (thanks, V):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6N65Ro8i6Ic&feature=player_embedded#!

The Whites Only Laundromat (thanks, T):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=FR3ChDXCv0I

Every Arnie scream ever (thanks, G):

90 important pieces of graffiti.

80s video dating (thanks, K):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bomkgXeDkE

Actual Facebook graph searches (thanks J).

Nirvana home video (thanks, G):

All the reasons David Banner turned into The Hulk (I love number 60).

John Hegarty and Jimmy Savile (thanks, M):

http://vimeo.com/7144600

Michael Winner calls Richard Littlejohn an arsehole on live TV (thanks, G):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPq7jVGPs3g&feature=player_embedded

1973 just called. It wants its ad back.

Check The always-wonderful Ad Contrarian for reasons why this is not only crass, bovine and dismal, but also a stupid waste of money.

And it’s not even that sexy. She’s been poorly shot and is hardly in it.

And this is far, far better for a squillionth of the budget:

So yesterday’s point was about whether a larger good deed can justify a bad one.

Today we look at artificial enhancement.

Which of these is fair?

1. An ageing actor has plastic surgery and wins parts that might have gone to other actors.

2. A cyclists injects himself with steroids when pretty much everyone else is doing it. The work is still hard, but if he didn’t take the steroids he would be miles behind.

3. A bodybuilder wants to enter shows but he doesn’t want to take drugs. Unfortunately, no one watches non-steroid bodybuilding shows.

4. The son of a footballer is found to have certain genetic advantages that end up helping him to captain his country.

5. A girl goes through public school where she is given top quality training and equipment to become one of the world’s best archers.

6. A boy has nice, encouraging parents who sacrifice everything to help him become the greatest chef in the country.

7. The parents of a five-year-old girl tell her she is nothing. She is then beaten and humiliated for the rest of her childhood. She turns this experience into the drive that makes her an Oscar-winning actor.

8. A man is an average athlete. He is in a car crash which leaves him with no legs. He becomes a gold medal Paralympian.

9. A small child is looking through an old wardrobe. He happens to find a copy of Harry Potter. This inspires a massive love of reading and storytelling that makes him a best-selling author.

‘All advantages are unfair’ – Dave Trott.

Lance Armstrong is a massive arsehole.

Or a misguided human being.

Or something in between.

He’s definitely done some things that most people would consider to be pretty awful. Aside from cheating, lying about it, not really being very contrite in the Oprah interview etc, he also called his former masseuse a drunken whore for blowing the whistle on him.

Definitely falls into the arsehole category.

But in the interests of stirring shit, I posed the following question on Twitter: What if you tried to set about raising half a billion for cancer and the best way to do it was to cheat at cycling? Would you still do it? (According to its website, Lance’s Livestrong charity has raised $470 million. Of course, like much else of Lance’s life, this may be bullshit, but even if we take it with a massive pinch of salt and say that ‘only’ $100m was raised and handed over, that’s still worth the question.)

The responses were interesting, in that about ten people retweeted the question, some ‘favourited’ it, and others replied in both positive and negative ways. Some thought that the ends would definitely justify the means, while others (particularly one bloke who seems to be into cycling) seemed to think that it was unforgivable, to some degree because of the harm it would do (did) to the sport of cycling. Others seemed to think it was wrong because people were being duped into giving money to a cancer charity on the basis of the inspiration Lance offered as a very successful cancer-sufferer.

Alas, there’s no right or wrong answer to this question, and I really don’t think Lance’s cycling career was an elaborate way of increasing donations to a cancer charity, but if he hadn’t done what he did there would be an enormous reduction in the amount of money donated to fight cancer (despite it being hypothetical I think we can generally agree that no Lance=no Livestrong). So whether one is better than the other is up to you, but I think it harks back quite nicely to this quote from A Few Good Men:

I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom that I provide, and then questions the manner in which I provide it.

Lance is Jack and right now most of the rest of the world is Tom.

Sometimes ‘shitty’ things happen to make ‘good’ things happen. The only real question is: are you comfortable with that?

Meanwhile, let’s all smile ruefully at this strangely equivocal Nike ad:

Here’s his NY Times obituary.

I saw his work many years ago, but I was first aware of who was responsible for it when I read his section of The Copy Book again and again. It was a massive education in just a few pages.

Thanks, Bob.

Invisible driver prank (thanks, J):

What?

Tupac in the police station:

A dot for every person in the US.

Another Amazon takeover (thanks, E).

Real movie posters, Oscar edition.

Crap Brapps (thanks, J).

Girls falling over and stuff:

How Woody Allen writes (thanks, T).

Oscar nominated directors in round table discussion (thanks, R):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAK3aUq25fo

Fresh Prince into Google translate and some other stuff that makes it funny (thanks, J):

Celebrity faces upside down (thanks, G).

Number of US gun deaths since Sandy Hook (thanks, B).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfrGaTV217g

It’s very funny, particularly if you’re not from Manchester.

An interesting follow up to the XXX ad from a few years ago.

Not sure it has a point. Not sure it needs one.

It doesn’t seem to want to embed, so here’s the link.

In the spirit of the 2012 social media democracy The Guardian endorsed in their Three Little Pigs ad, I asked my Twitter chums what they thought of it. Here’s every single response (UPDATE: I will add more as they come in):

‘The UK can’t do Kenny Powers-esque ads for a newspaper that’s about to sack a bunch of staff.’

‘parody wank, smells like Qualcomm’s making TV.’

‘Shame there were no editors available that week.’

‘Hugh Grant is looking old…’

‘Its main crime, above all else, is just being too long.’

‘If you are going to send yourselves up, really send yourself up. See Kenny Powers, MFCEO of K-Swiss for how to do it right.’

‘3 min version waaaaaay too long. By then it feels like somebody explaining a joke.’

‘I may be judging too quickly, but it’s poor by both Guardian & BBH standards.’

‘Quite funny, but felt like I was watching it for a whole weekend.’

‘It grew on me, but basically it was a bit smug and annoying.’

‘Everyone has their fav bit. Hence my argument that it should have been separate ads. One concept, one ad.’

‘Indeed. Personally, I hated it, mainly because we all know how hard-up the Guardian is.’

‘I think it’s a great ad. Very inventive. Superb acting from the guys in the lift at the end.’

‘Last minute is funny, but the “spoof ad” of the first 2 mins has been done to death.’

‘I thought it was quite funny. Particularly as it was coming from The Guardian which is usually so humourless.’

‘Have you seen that horrendous Guardian / Observer weekend 3 minute mega-wank? The shame of it.’

‘Agreed length is an issue for me, and it lost my interest around 2:06.’

‘Makes me want to buy the Sunday Times.’

‘Bit overblown. The prog rock of advertising.’

‘If i was a guardian reader I’d love it. I’m not and I don’t.’

‘I am + I still think it’s shit. In fact it feels like it was made by people who don’t really like Guardian readers .. Plus stretching any gag over 3 minutes is tricky. Trickier when the gag is so poor. And why is Hugh Grant in it?’

‘Feels like 3 or 4 ads concatenated to me. Couple at table is good. Unlikely to convert non-believers.’

‘Strategy and t.o.v more suited to one of the red tops. It’s a bit #cringe‘

‘Like a norovirus victim squatting over my face for 180 seconds. #stealingbackmyweekend Is Grant morphing into Richard.’ Madeley?

So there you have it. More comments, please.

For what it’s worth, I think the lift gag works. Otherwise it seems a bit slack, long and familiar.

This was done years back, laying the fake trailer to rest (or so I thought):