If This Is A Blog Then What's Christmas?

Audio recording of 1966 Kubrick New Yorker interview (thanks, P).

Some American soldiers are not very nice (thanks, J):

Very funny bad children’s books (thanks, P).

New York drawn very quickly:

Film nutrition facts (thanks, J).

Man Tweets acid trip (thanks, P).

Pole dancing classes for kids (thanks, T).

The Wire as a classic video game (thanks, O).

Karate Kid first auditions (thanks, A):

8-bit OK Computer (thanks, T):

The truth about Nestle’s bottled water business (thanks, P).

I’ve noticed a few changes in my use of social media/email over the last few years.

1. As my use of Twitter has increased to become my default choice of social media my use of Facebook has receded: it used to be the place where I really would communicate with my friends, quickly forgetting about the 100 or so random acquaintances I’d collected over the years who either no longer used the site or didn’t update their statuses enough for me to remember they were there. Then, as the number of ‘friends’ grew, I became more reticent about what I chose to put out there on my status/comments. This soon became a snowball that strangely rolled up and down a hill simultaneously: on the one hand I began to collect more ‘friends’ because I had depersonalised it to the point where I felt I could include more people in the smaller version of me, while on the other, I updated even less because I felt there was less I could share that would be appropriate for all my new ‘friends’. I still check Facebook regularly, but I’m much less keen to post anything more than skin deep. (By the way, I do realise that this is why the circles on Google Plus are such a good idea, however, there aren’t enough people on there, so it’s a great concept that’s going to waste. Let’s all kill Facebook and use Google Plus instead. Ready? Go!)

2. I don’t feel the same inhibition about Twitter. Ironically, there are so many more people who follow me on Twitter than Facebook that I have no real concept of them all and consequently I’m not so careful about what I Tweet. I suppose it’s a far higher proportion of strangers, so it doesn’t feel like it’s hitting anyone with significance. My mum and brother and wife are on FB but not Twitter. My dad uses both enough that I know he’ll read everything I write on each site, although that doesn’t stop me using the word ‘cunt’ on a regular basis. So Twitter feels like a big anonymous cloud while Facebook is lots of people that I actually know, including my boss, work colleagues, aunty from Scotland and many random people I’ve picked up along the way but would never be rude enough to de-friend. Come to think of it, I don’t think I’ve de-friended anyone. Have you?

3. My writing changes depending on which medium I use. That probably goes without saying, but the big thing I’ve noticed is my great and unexpected kindness towards exclamation marks. I used to loathe them, using them only ironically, and even then reluctantly. But now, as I notice the limitations of the typewritten word in the personal message, I find myself using them more and more to give an idea of my tone of voice. That should be clear from what I’ve written, but in an age of all-pervasive irony it isn’t as unequivocal as I’d like, and I can’t quite bring myself to use the emoticon as much as others do (which is why I write ‘smiley face made of punctuation’ despite the strain it puts on the Twitter character count). But as computer-written messages proliferate, I do recognise the need for nuance in my communications, and one of the ways to achieve it is through grammar. Yes, the exclamation mark looks like a sledgehammer, but used in the right way it can become less offensive.

4. My blogging has calmed a little in both style and content. Despite yesterday’s post I find myself ranting much less than when I started. This may be for several reasons: I have covered most of the topics of advertising at least once, which means I now find myself writing about other stuff that I’m interested in so that I can get a bit of feedback that opens the subject up for me. That means less ranting because I’m coming from a more inquisitive standpoint; I’m also getting older, and I have kids, which means that I’m a bit more mellow than I used to be; and the advertising scene has changed. It feels that to some extent it has regressed and become less intense, so it’s harder to give a shit when no one else does.

I’ve tried Google Plus/Instagram/Pinterest, but haven’t found that I’ve really taken to them. Maybe the first one is too unpopular and the other two are too picture-based. I love looking at other people’s but don’t feel inclined to contribute myself.

Has your use of Social Media changed? Where does it feel like it’s heading? And do you give a toss?

Here’s a new ad on behalf the Republican party in the lead up to the US presidential election in November:

Fuck. Me.

How the shitting fuck, in this day and age, can sentient beings create such a ridiculous, hateful, misguided, intolerant, nonsensical fuckwitted shitpile of a ‘message’?

I’ve been in the States for the last ten days and have followed the US election pretty closely (the national conventions for the Republicans and Democrats happened this week and last). What seems incredible to me is that one party is clearly and obviously lying to smear the other party and yet the party of liars still has millions and millions of supporters.

The Daily Show has been covering both conventions and it’s been very interesting to see the stark contrast between the material they get to work with from the Republicans vs what they get from the Democrats. On the Republican side there is a wealth of lies, obfuscation of the truth (Mitt Romney won’t release his tax returns for examination by the American people, mainly because he has avoided a massive amount of income tax through many shady methods. Fortunately Larry Flynt of Hustler fame has offered $1m to anyone who can produce them), and Clint Eastwood talking to a chair:

Whereas the coverage this week’s Democratic convention has been, well, boring and unfunny. This is because there’s been little to take the piss out of. Michelle Obama made a speech that everyone loved, Bill Clinton spoke well (but went on a bit; The Daily Show managed a few minutes pisstaking out of that) and no one lied at all.

So, a party of obviously shifty bastards who want to screw the poor to make the rich much, much richer, who lambast public handouts that they themselves asked for, who block anything good Obama tries to do on the grounds that it’s Democratic policy, wants to be elected against some people who, among other things, want to ‘force’ gay marriage on us. How do you force gay marriage on someone? Make them attend the ceremony? Make them watch the wedding night?

Is it really 20 fucking 12? Is this how far we’ve come? Are there this many idiotic pricks on planet earth?

Awesome new Kanye video:

What Damien Hirst ‘stole’ (thanks, A).

Johnny Cash’s to-do list (thanks, P).

Remember why you love Breaking Bad with this exquisite remix.

Prince, Tom Petty etc. making sweet love to While My Guitar Gently Weeps (one of the most amazing guitar solos you will ever see, from about 3:25):

Beautiful promo (thanks, J):

http://vimeo.com/48137171

Unusual but hilarious stand-up comic (NSFW; thanks, J):

Batman chooses his voice (thanks, B):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOg3ZE3hNQc&sns=fb

Stream the new XX album and see how it’s spreading (thanks, P).

Tatler on swearing (thanks, D).

Great Chris Cunningham doc. He speaks! (Thanks, P.)

Alec Baldwin interviewed by Jerry Seinfeld (thanks, P).

People, we NEED to make this happen:

The man behind Rickrolling (thanks, P).

Yesterday I saw a few Tweets for a new book called Social Media is Bullshit (free chapter here).

And look what’s happening to Facebook’s share price.

If you want a consistent, well-written and perceptive analysis of why social media is a bit of a wet fart, just read Bob Hoffman’s Ad Contrarian blog.

But if I may, I’d just like to add the following observation:

I found a list of the top 20 social media experts in the UK.

Number one is a man called Chris Hambly. He has 6463 Twitter followers.

Number two on the list, Jamie Riddell, has 7100 followers.

Number three, Joanne Jacobs, has 4101 followers.

Ged Carroll, number 4, has 2385 followers.

Number five doesn’t seem to be on Twitter.

Number 6, Katy Howell, is ‘obsessive about social media and the challenges of making businesses more social and accountable’. She has 2648 followers. Her major clients are ‘Sony Europe, BT, Diageo, PSP, NSPCC etc.’

Number 7, Andrew Gerrard, has 2525 followers. He is ‘a social and digital media strategy consultant, helping organizations to understand and engage in the conversations that their users and customers are having’.

Number 8, Alan Steven, has 7740 followers.

Number 9 isn’t on Twitter.

Number 10, David Cushman, has 4334 followers. He is ‘regularly invited to speak around the world on the impact of social technologies’.

Now, I’m not saying that your number of twitter followers is or should be an absolute indication of your social media skillz, but… hang on… fuck it… I am. I am saying that if you are a social media expert you should have a lot of Twitter followers. How many? Well, more than some tit who tweets a few links, the odd joke and lots of opinions of John Terry that use the word ‘cunt’.

In short, me.

They should have more Twitter followers than me because I do it recreationally for my own amusement, am no kind of ‘expert’, certainly don’t sell my ‘knowledge’ to massive companies and don’t use Google Plus, Instagram, Linkedin, Pinterest or anything else to cross pollinate my number of followers (I do write a blog, but you already know that).

I have 2701 followers on Twitter. Not loads; not bad. But if you are a ‘social media expert’ and you have a smaller Twitter presence than me, you can’t be much of a social media expert.

And then there are people like Dave Trott and the aforementioned Bob Hoffman, who have 9670 and 7960 followers respectively, more than everyone on that list. I don’t think either of them would describe themselves as a social media expert (although, intentionally or otherwise, they both are), but they’ve done better than the people who do it for a living.

And if I wanted advice on how to build a brand online, I know who I’d ask first.

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

(Thanks, J.)

A couple of weeks back we had the great Steve Harrison in the agency to talk about the great Howard Gossage (Steve will happily pop round to your agency to do the same. Comment if you want me to put you in touch).

In the Q and A at the end I said that one of the many things Howard was remarkably prescient about was his desire to keep his agency small. He worked in an old fire station in San Francisco and never employed more than a few people because he couldn’t see the point in growing. He was the font of quality, aided by a few others; why dilute that by increasing in size?

These days that idea is ridiculous. Of course, if you are doing something well you do more of it and earn more money. Then you get more people to join in and do the work you can’t do and earn even more money (never mind the question of diluting the quality of the work). And on and on until you become Martin Sorrell.

It is taken for granted that what human beings want is ‘progress’, but that is defined as ‘moving onward or forward to a destination’. The problem here is that we have no destination. In general, people just want more than what they have. The idea that anyone should be satisfied with the way things are and just stop is a bit of an odd one to get your head round. You can’t just stop. That’d be crazy. What would you do? How would you be able to afford a bigger TV or go on more holidays or just be more ‘successful’?

But the problem is, as Steve said to me, capitalism is just one big Ponzi scheme and at some point we’re all going to realise that we can’t just keep taking to make more. Whether it’s the massive and obvious destruction of the environment (have you seen the weather lately?) or the terrible consequences of financial and political greed that millions of people continue to suffer, this love of progress doesn’t seem to be improving the world (see here for why the introduction of agriculture screwed the human race in so many ways). Of course, making progress in civilisation, learning and creativity are not bad things in themselves, but marching on to ever greater levels of consumption will have to end somewhere disastrous.

Like many things happening right now (any support for Mitt Romney, climate change, Rupert Murdoch not being in prison etc.), I don’t really understand why nothing is being done. Why aren’t we collectively demanding justice, or an improvement to the way we live on this planet?

My little effort is this blog, but beyond that I feel pretty powerless to stop what appears to be a great slow slide into oblivion.

If I’ve got it all wrong, please let me know in the comments. I would love to believe it’s not as bad as it seems.

I thought this campaign was dead, or at least coughing up blood, but this gives it an intravenous injection of crack-flavoured Red Bull.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_GbHpqfv9is

Funny all the way through.

And of course there’s no idea: it’s a Carlton beer ad.

For several months now I have noticed that Campaign’s front page headline is essentially the same story: an account is up for pitch/being reviewed:

Here is a selection since June:

As I say in the video, that must be for one of the following reasons:

1. Nothing interesting is happening in advertising beyond these pitches. Possible, but surely someone has started up an agency in this time. When did 101 start?  What’s Beta doing now?  What about when Farah Ramzen left AMV? Wasn’t that a big enough story for the front page?

2. Campaign doesn’t consider anything but account moves to be significant enough for the front page. Maybe. I mean, it is a really awful, lazy, dull, unambitious, craven excuse for a magazine. It’s just possible that they can’t be bothered to do anything other than regurgitate press releases.

One of the two.