Gynomite’s Reading Room!
There’s going to be a 25th anniversary edition of Willow you guys! Elora Danan! Madmartigan!
My Sawbuck Gamer review of Humbug 2 at Gameological!
This is a very scary video of a polar bear trying to attack a documentarian in a plexiglass box. (No one gets hurt)
Rookie Magazine had us all contribute stories about local legends, and they’re all amazing. Mine was about Gangster Gary.
Someone added up all the sex partners that each of the Friends had.
Words can change meaning over time.
If you don’t believe me, check out this little gem that Sociological Images dug up.
Hefty: Keep your garbage in the dark. Like your secrets.
I just saw an ad for Hefty Blackout Bags, and their main selling point is that they’re so black that NO ONE CAN EVER SEE WHAT HORRIBLE THINGS YOU HAVE IN YOUR TRASH.
This goes two horrifying ways for me:
1) This is the home equivalent to those Dove deodorant ads that are like “It’ll make your armpits prettier, because did you even know you’re supposed to be self-conscious about your armpits?!?” Well, you’re supposed to be ashamed of your trash too!
2) What kind of murdering psychos are buying these bags? Good lord, what market research did you do to come up with this idea?
Killing Us Softly
I bought Jean Kilbourne’s book, Deadly Persuasion, on a vacation about seven years ago, and I couldn’t put it down. It’s about advertising, and the kind of image that advertising makes us strive for, and how damaging it can be for women, for relationships, for everyone. It’s an amazing book.
Today on YouTube, some friends posted a video of one of Kilbourne’s latest talks, Killing Us Softly 4, which is being released on DVD.
Here’s a clip.
DumbDumb
In the 50s, TV hosts would speak directly into the camera, telling you about a product you should buy.
At some point, that became uncool, and we let the commercials talk rather than the TV hosts.
In the 80s and 90s, American celebrities would do commercials overseas and try and hide the fact that they’d ever done them, so uncool it was to be a spokesperson for a product.
In the 00s, product placement went from being a background annoyance on TV to the focus of the episode.
In exchange for the wonderful company Carvin donating Nerdist Theater at Meltdown (where I’m the Program Director) a new sound board and speakers, I’ve been tweeting how awesome they are all day long. (ahem.)
And now this- have you heard of DumbDumb?
Now with more action!
There is a common complaint that in advertising and in the toystore, girls are consistently expected to be passive and boys are to be active.
This ad exemplifies this complaint in a one stop shop, but there are loads of them. Girls are always quietly holding flowers, or being led around, or just sitting, while boys are hanging off jungle gyms and you know, fishing.
But it doesn’t stop there.
Tell me how to feel!
Hey look, it’s Gerard Butler shilling for Loreal moisturizer for men. I don’t know how to feel!
From Towleroad!
Naked women are being used to sell laptops.
Why?
Because true beauty is curved, duh.
Shameless sexed up advertising alert from Copyranter!
