hegemony rules

The second entry in an ongoing series.

Oh my eyes and/or ears and/or brain!

(via Slog)

vs.

It’s Super Bowl Sunday, which means that not only is there a bunch of new ads to enjoy (of course, notably missing will be MoveOn’s commercial), but also a halftime grudge match between Sir Purr and Pat Patriot. This won’t be the first time these two have met; every year the NFL mascots get together for a convention, presumably to trade stories about getting kicked by small children and large NFL players.

If this year’s ads don’t satisfy your craving, AdLand has archived all of the Super Bowl commercials from the last thirty years. Of course, in keeping with capitalist free-market system we live in, you’ll have to pay to see them.

In Lost in Translation, Bill Murray’s character endorses Suntory whiskey(?) in some famously brillliant ads. On Japander.com, you can check out other actors who have used their fame to promote various products – like Nicholas Cage who’s all about pakchino, and Ben Stiller who only says “Fresh” in his commercial for Chu Hi soda.

There was a great Frontline report a few years ago called “The Merchants of Cool” that invariably comes up in every conversation I have with others about a) media conglomeration and/or b) trend watching.

I have this love/hate relationship with cool hunters – I openly mock their work, but I secretly wish I were one. It’s how I felt in high school – I viewed the popular “in” crowd with derision and scorn, but had they ever offered me the opportunity to enter their mysterious world, I probably would have jumped at the chance.

So today’s article in the NYT filled me with many of the same feelings of scorn, bemusement, genuine interest and secret envy.

Q. …Could you detail some of the trends you have been tracking recently for clients?

Mr. Welch: There’s “anticool,” for those who think cool has been democratized, and the mainstream has access to it because of InStyle, MTV.

Ms. Lazarus: It’s a defensive strategy by the leading-edge culture against the mainstream appropriation of cool.

Mr. Welch: There’s a reappraisal of things traditionally deemed uncool: trucker hats, Pabst Blue Ribbon and Miller High Life beers, heavy-metal music.

Ms. Lazarus: It’s the whole “white trash” culture, which has been the antithesis of designer culture. In the U.K., the coolest places to hang out are plain old pubs.

We’ve seen a resurgence in what we call ironic pastimes: camping, lawn bowling, knitting.

Um…yeah. I want to be cool, therefore I mock marketing efforts that openly cater to my desires. I look instead to my “cool” friends and neighbors (all of who sport mustaches, star tattoos, and regularly throw around words like “pomo”) and emulate them. Of course, these people are the ones who are being approached by “cool hunters”…so, in the end, I’m being marketed to anyway. But only indirectly, so I guess that’s ok.

I’m growing weary of irony. I still want to be a cool hunter – but only if I can be an ironic cool hunter.

I was wandering around the tiny Capitol Hill QFC yesterday afternoon, and I saw an advertisement for colored goldfish. Blecch. I thought it was pretty strange when they further anthropomorphized the creatures by adding a smile, but now I have to eat blue, green, and red fish? Is this some sort of sick homage to the Dr. Seuss classic One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish?

(And yes, I realize that I am probably not the target market for these funky snack crackers. Still, it’s hard not to wonder which exec at Pepperidge Farm green-lighted them.)