Miley Cyrus Makes People Feel Things

    Okay fine, let's talk about the VMAs.

    Miley Cyrus's performance (some would call it "behavior") was an impeccably hewn diamond, each facet trolling a different subset of the internet with laserlike precision. She hit all the big ones. She was obscene, she was hideously racist, she's just not very good at dancing... And then there's anger at the event itself. There's her collaboration with Robin Thick in his apology for rape culture. There's the way she's been slut-shamed. There's the fact that she's distracting from actually important issues. There are even people who are angry about how angry everybody is. Miley Cyrus and the VMAs are, in effect, the worst thing to happen on the internet for at least several minutes.

    I have seen terrible things on the internet before. I think we all have at least one gaping asshole or horse-sodomy video we're still trying to purge from our subconscious. What interests me about this "scandal" is that everybody's equally up in arms about it, but we're all mad for different reasons. That says to me that there is perhaps something more primal, more unifyingly "human" going on here.

Eccentric Promotional Assistant(s) Wanted

THE A.D.D. VERSION: We are looking for a promotional assistant (or several, if there are several incredible prospects) for our network of indie / counterculture art sites. This is an opportunity to learn about web and media promotions and get personally involved in the process on a daily basis. 

INTERESTED? Read on.

Invisible Children, KONY, and the curse of virality

By James Curcio

You must have heard of the viral video created by Invisible Children (IC), a U.S. organization that has launched a one-year campaign (expires December 31, 2012) to eliminate Joseph Kony, the head of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), a rebel group in Northern Uganda that has been embroiled in civil conflict with the Ugandan government for 25+ years. The LRA has admittedly used atrocious tactics such as abductions to engage children in conflict, using boys as soldiers and girls as sex slaves. Needless to say, Kony and LRA must go. That’s where my agreement begins and ends with Invisible Children’s work. I appreciate the organization’s commitment to the issue and can see its good intent, but I strongly question the group’s approach, strategy, and work. Below are some of the reasons why. (Article.)

I don't want to add to or debate the points made in this article. But it does bring up a related issue about "virality," and how difficult it can be to produce something with that potential that isn't entirely devoid of subtlety.

You see, for something to become "viral" it has to be entirely ubiquitous, which essentially means that it must be stripped of all nuance and worthwhile content. This is an issue facing all propogandists who have any ethics at all. It must act on a common emotion, a simple emotion that is shared by many people. It must have the pretense of a genuine expression that all corporate messages must inherently lack.

Yet if you think that corporate and political interests aren't going to be the driving force behind most "indie" and "viral" content, you're fucking insane. 

Don't get me wrong. Despite the moral color that "propoganda" has, anyone that writes stories, creates blog posts, or viral videos, or movies, or music, etc are all propogandists. Or myth makers. Read more of this site if you don't understand why.

The more people we want to reach, the more we have to strip out the particular color and reach for the archetypical, for fear of turning off one person or another. As creators of media, no matter what decisions we make, we will accidentally lose a segment of our market, whether it is because they don't like the color orange for some reason, or because they don't like being emotionally manipulated.

I am not apologizing for such emotional manipulation. Just asking that we not throw the baby out with the bathwater, as they say. Reach for the off-the-beaten-path content.

Before I descend into a further long stream of idioms -- long day of content and beta prepping at the "day job" -- I'll bid you all goodnight.

(Oh hey, look. They're doing damage control.)


[Check out some of the books, albums, and soon movies produced by Mythos Media and our various media partners.]

Bees, Nectar, UX and Viral Marketing

As a follow-up to the thoughts considered in this post (the final version of this will be in The Immanence of Myth), here are some follow-up thoughts including a video provided by a commenter:




An Environmental Machinima film based on Willi Paul's modern myth, The Bee Cave Spirits

...To an extent we all serve both as “bees” (memebearers) and “flowers” (nexus points, which can be codified within books, movies, or really in whatever container seems most appropriate to the nature of the narrative.) So we may be lured in by the narrative, or some other element, but what we take in and carry on are the memes embedded within it, which may very well have been placed there completely unconsciously by the author. As I previously stated, this can be seen as the genetic code of a myth, and I imagine few of us are consciously aware of our genes. Consider this rather bizarre fragment from my even more bizarre first novel, Join My Cult!, (free PDF!)

Black Osiris: Time to start spreading us a little pollen, ain’ that right boys ’n girls?
Anne: Pollen?
Leri: That’s how we look at spreading memes.
Crazy Fingers: Viral marketing.
Anne: Memes?
Black Osiris: Bees help big flowers make little flowers, Anne. A
meme’s a… thought-language pattern, a contagious one.
Leri: (READING FROM DICTIONARY) “A unit of cultural
information, such as a cultural practice or idea, that is transmitted
verbally or by repeated action from one mind to another.”
Anne: Like… “mother hive brain,” or “I am America’s favorite soft
drink,” or “I am the monkey flower, pollinate me,” or “I am a
neurosurgeon,” or…
Black Osiris: So like I was saying about d’ bees…
Leri: (CUTTING HIM OFF) They have no vested interest in the
spreading of pollen. It’s just an accident that flowers capitalize on. It
allows them to reproduce.
Black Osiris: Yeah, yeah! Gettin’ wu wei with that shit. If I’m really doing things right, I’m doin’ them effortless.
Crazy Fingers: I was watching Muhammed Ali box today. He looked
almost careless to an untrained eye. But he tore Holyfield apart, or more
accurately, pecked at him until he made himself fall apart.
Leri: That’s why Bruce Lee was so impressed with him.
Black Osiris: So ya see, If I’m operatin’ effortless, dialed up the
morphone see, then I’m really spreadin’ pollen.
Rachelle: There’s a saying in the Hopi tradition… when you’re acting effortlessly like that, you’re “on the pollen path.”

     What sweet nectar and bright colors will lure in the unwitting insects? That's the question advertisers are bound to ask. The market is strictly concerned with selling the container. We imagine bees are blissfully unaware of the pollen, they are drawn by the flower. The same is true in advertising. Countless dollars have been spent researching customer reaction to different colors, configurations of symbols and patterns. Certainly, much of this plays into the cutting edge of UX design. But, in contradiction of the common wisdom that says our biological similarities make us all susceptible to the same patterns, at least if we are looking for big-picture trends, it has been my experience that results vary depending on the “species of insect.”






Pre-order a copy of The Immanence of Myth, published by Weaponized in July 2011.

A Brand Is Born

"I admit, technically this isn’t a film review. Hell, it isn’t even figuratively one- but I was told I could blog about “whatever,” so let’s see if that holds. If my posts stop, and I am later found, gnawed at by rats and cannibals in a back alley in Chinatown… well, you know what happened. Raise your glass to another patriot who died for his convictions.

For me, the process began about a week ago. I was told that we will be unveiling a new review blog, angled towards our gay male market. After much deliberation in the editorial and marketing departments, I was presented with the name of the new blog: “Homo Pop.”

Now when you’re presented with something like this as a designer, your job isn’t to make copy suggestions- it’s to “make it work.” (Project Runway can’t sue me for just saying that, right?) I’m not ashamed to admit that at first I was stumped. To the writer, and to the designer, the blank page is terrifying. You pace, think you’re nowhere, call your friends and ask for their condolences on your impending demise, appeal to higher powers that you don’t believe in, and then suddenly- you have something. Hammer it out in a flurry, and pass out in a pool of your own sick"...

(Read full article)

From

Viral Infucktions.

Viral marketing. It's become a buzzword that most people don't understand, but more corporations are getting hot under the collar when they hear it. "I don't know what this thing is Bob, but the kids love it!"

And if you haven't heard the term before, or don't know what it is... Well, I'm not going to explain it to you right now. I've worked on "viral" campaigns, so maybe at some point I'll bite off a large enough chunk of time to spell out some of the techniques... Probably not. (Another well considered piece of advice from a very successful marketer that I know: most people who have had some success at this don't have the time to explain how to do it. Those who do are often trying to reveal their MARKETING SECRET: pay attention to them, and give them money. SECRET REVEALED.)

Be that as it may, there are an increasing number of viral campaigns going on now, many of them funded by large corporations. Just yesterday I saw an ad on Myspace which read "CHOKEmate - satisfy your need." And which was laid out to look like some kind of horrific dating site ad. On Myspace, these are common, so I gave it little thought- except for the name. Was this some kind of auto-erotic asphyxiation thing? The hell?

I finally got curious enough to actually click on the damn thing, which I never do. And sure enough- it's a promo for the upcoming movie CHOKE, (based- somehow?- on Chuck's book.)

Good? Bad? Indifferent? Well- in a sense the ad worked. I had already seen an ad on TV and was vaguely aware the movie was coming out. I clicked on the ad, and now I have 2 points of contact- I am reminded that the movie exists. Now, based on the usual formula, I need to talk to my friends about it.

And here I am blogging about it. You see how this works?

Heaven help us.