More Than Meets the Eyes, Adverts in Disguise

Anyone who reads this with any frequency knows that I have my pet issues, and one is my promotion of corporate responsibility in advertising. I'm also a fan of art, a form of expression that is exclusively human. Sure a computer or a monkey can paint, but not without human aid. Advertising and art have had a long and sweet marriage. You know this union as "product placement".



Reading the article, you'll be reminded of some of the great examples. ET pushing candy. Apple computers popping up in everything, logo to the camera. People never seemed to mind, I know I didn't until a few years back. But a funny thing happened recently. Multiple people mentioned to me that after watching Transformers, they realized it was "just one big commercial."


[Apparent clip from the movie... Note the Micro$oft Xbox 360 and the Mountain Dew]

I started to think to myself that maybe the days of product placement were dwindling. A few years back, no one said anything about placement in "Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle." I realized that my friends didn't really mind. They were giving a movie review, not social commentary. But one thing is for sure: some movies are more advertising and less story, more bought and less thought. And hopefully people will find a way to give art back its uniqueness. Because can you imagine if Basquiat were around today?



What a bastardization. But then again, Nike would have paid for his drug habits.

\V/ikipedi4

So lately I've been brushing up on cocktail conversation topics on Wikipedia. You know, like cults, serial killers, and drugs. Things that can keep a conversation going after it starts to trail off because no one knows for sure why Ted Bundy became a murderer. Next time this happens, just drop another ice cube in your Manhattan and say, "Well, it could've been the tap dancing grandpa, but my guess it was the fact that he was led to believe his mother was his sister for a good part of his life."


The amount of information on Wikipedia is astounding, many many times any encyclopedia ever, even though you run across lots of "joey blanco is pwnned suxxors" 1337 speak. Don't know what 1337 speak is? Look it up, holmes, right here. And granted, a lot of it is slightly incorrect, as the Onion made light of in this picture.

But as some people know, I have a little illness that is so rare that it isn't in Wikipedia. So what to do? I created a page here, and then linked it another page. You could edit it for some laughs, like Stephen Colbert. But then I'll have to pwn you.

EDIT: as much as I (don't) want to put my face on the page, I've thought about taking a video of myself having an episode next time it happens. Cassidy plans to if she's there, but since they happen once every 3 months, it might be a month or two before you see my youtube video of this linked from the page, haha.