Media Misrepresentation Breeds Ignorance

Nothing is more dangerous than fostering misconceptions of important issues- it leads to prejudice, ignorance, even violence.

That being said, George Clooney is short. Fucking short. I saw him today running up the street, filming an obviously important scene where he has to look at a speeding black car and sweat. Oscar-worthy, I'm telling you. But after the scene was shot, he was escorted to a small SUV where the top of his head barely hit the top of the window. His escort couldn't have been much taller than me, and he dwarfed Clooney.


That microphone is actually only 18 inches off the ground.

The media has lied to us about just how big these Hollywood "heartthrobs" are.

Did you know Mark Wahlberg is a midget? Tom Cruise is actually some sort of insect.

What are the consequences of this misrepresentation? Dire. For example, say I was going to meet the Clooney for dinner and I wore heels. I would tower over him, and that upsets the entire gender balance. Who would pay for dinner? Should I open the door for him? Should he put out?

I mean, sheesh, these are important questions that need answers. The media should just tell us the truth, show us what these stars really are (they're making headway with the realistic portrayal of Britney Spears as redneck meth addict). If we start with truthful depictions of stars' height, just think what we can do about realistic portrayals of this little war we're fighting in Iraq.

It blows the mind.

Only California Matters

Any Californian would agree with that statement, myself included. But turn on your TV. Today, as yesterday, and the day before, the only thing that has happened in the entire world is that Southern California is burning to hell, as if it wasn't going there already.

I'm not belittling the very real loss of thousands upon thousands of people, and I'm not just acting on my Northern California distaste for SoCal (and, for that matter, acronyms). No, no. I'm highlighting two facts:

1. Wildfires are normal, people. Southern California needs to burn every so often; otherwise, the soil would be so arid that we wouldn't have oranges or whatever the hell they grow in San Diego. Seriously. Don't you like oranges?

2. CNN can suck my...oranges.

CNN and similar parties would have you believe that the only thing that is newsworthy is a cyclical and natural phenomenon that affects only a fraction of the United States, and a negligent, minute portion of the world. It's no surprise that American media has an American bias. See my post on News That Matters and you will plainly see that people, at least enlightened people, have identified this problem.

The broader implication is that as susceptible television viewers, American citizens will learn that nothing else matters more than the USofA. Reliance on fluff does not breed thoughtful, intelligent citizenry. Nor does rampant use of acronyms. What it does breed is the "biggest pile of idiots in U.S. history." Well, maybe it's not exactly the news media that is rotting the brains of the tweens.

But it's relatable.

And I'm pretty sure other stuff has happened in the world since the fire broke out, but quite frankly, I don't care. But I do like my citrus.

Unleashing Your Own Ideavirus

Get it free.

“The idea is to create an environment where consumers will market to each other.” If, as the cluetrain manifesto claims, markets are conversations, this idea should work. An ideavirus (an ambitious word with awful connotation) is basically an idea or product or service that takes hold in a major way of a specific population. Ideaviruses can be intentional or unintentional, but clearly author Seth Godin believes intentional ideaviruses are superior. Unleashing The Ideavirus serves as a how-to guide to make your idea figuratively explode.

Getting your idea to explode involves many variables, but the most important are as follows:

CREATE AN IDEA THAT FACILITATES COMMUNICATION BETWEEN CONSUMERS. Hotmail is one of the most successful and literal examples of this, embedding an advertisement for free e-mail at the footer of every message you send someone. Polaroid is another example, as is anything that you can say, “hey- look at this, this is cool” to someone else, and they’ll want to try it.

TARGET SPECIFIC AUDIENCES. You’d think companies would have jumped on this a long time ago, but advertising continues to be a massive waste of money because the message is incoherent. Specific “hives” like specific things. Don’t market tech products to the technologically-impaired, for example. Market to the nerds.

WORK FAST. In today’s go!go!go! society, products quickly die (especially those in the technological realm). Money is to be made at the launch of an idea, because nerds who have money to spend tend to want the newest thing. You also want to be the innovator,

EMPLOY INFLUENTIAL MERCENARIES. Known as “sneezers,” and purloined from Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point, these people have the power to move products simply by suggestion. Perhaps we can call them “guerilla advertisers.”

MILK YOUR IDEA WHILE YOU CAN; LET IT DIE WHEN IT GETS SICK. Don’t “jump the shark.”

MAKE IT EASY TO SPREAD THE VIRUS. Put a little “e-mail to a friend” button somewhere. Similarly, MAKE IT CHEAP (OR FREE), at least at first. Building a buzz now can lead to profits later.

Simple, eh?

Two Theses, Closely Related

According to the Cluetrain Manifesto:

26. Public Relations does not relate to the public. Companies are deeply afraid of their markets.

64. We want access to your corporate information, to your plans and strategies, your best thinking, you genuine knowledge. We will not settle for the 4-color brochure, for web sites chock-a-block with eye candy but lacking any substance.


Consumers aren't stupid. They'll find a way to counteract corporate bullshit.

First of all, what kind of phrase is "chock-a-block?"

Second, I'm sure we're all aware here that corporate sites make it damn near impossible to find out the information you really need- that is, customer service contact information. One would think that since the advent of corporate sites about a million years ago, corporations would catch on that the single most searched-for item on a site is human contact information. They have not.

In 2001, a New York Times article identified the lack of public relations contact information. How exactly is the public to get information on a company or product when they can't contact the representative?

A similar trend was identified in a correlated industry standard- the automated operator system (and, coincidentally, the topic of my 505 Writing Diagnostic, deemed a "very nice paper"- thanks, Professor Garcia). Tired of run-around bullshit when checking account balances or trying to tell Comcast the internet is out but being put on hold for about 45 minutes, someone painstakingly compiled a list of shortcuts to human beings when calling ridiculous customer service "your call is important to us" robot lines.

The point here is that as we become more connected we become less connected. The point my class is forcing me to make is that these people that wrote my least favorite book I've read this semester were right. Corporations make useful information hard to find because they're afraid of consumers.

"Bringing Down Business as Usual"

“Real authority is based on respect for knowledge.”
Go tell that to my high-school history professor from Texas. Named Kirby. Who hated Californians.




Written as a dialogue between web advocates and oblivious corporations, the cluetrain manfesto (no capitalization necessary) posits that the marketplace is a series of conversations, turning the notion of technological determinism on its head. With tired, redundant analogies, the manifesto lent itself to the view that people just want to talk to each other, and through these interactions can shake up the order of businesses or fix a software glitch or point a loyal Saturn customer to a cheaper oil change. Corporations that can utilize web conversation skills are much more likely to succeed in the new (technological) conversation market.

The internet is awe-inspiring. The web is us, but even we don’t know exactly what it is or what it’s for. We just know it’s cool. And we know it’s highly insubordinate.

It can’t be controlled by businesses, and it cannot become a mass market. “Because the Net connects people to each other, and impassions and empowers through those connections, the media dream of the Web as another acquiescent mass-consumer market is a figment and a fantasy…The Internet is inherently seditious.”

The internet subverts the hierarchy of corporations as it advances. The “panopticon” view of the internet is reversed, where many can see in but no one is in the center, in control.

If marketing is a one-way conversation, the internet changes the nature of marketing. Scratch that, it destroys marketing and paves the way for new advertisement: the corporation cares. And the corporation can show it cares through customer interaction.

Metcalfe’s Law, an overused but nonetheless vital axiom of CCT studies, states that “the value of a network increases as the square of the number of users connected to it—connections multiply value exponentially.” It paves the way for mass market’s revenge: as more users become connected and start talking (and further, start thinking), they realize that the internet has the power to turn corporations into “replaceable merchants” after being “replaceable consumers” or “replaceable workers” for so long.

Here’s where I have a problem with the manifesto. Though I know manifestos are not, by definition, supposed to be rational or coherent in any way, cluetrain begins to contradict itself and widely known facts.

The authors claim that as markets become larger (markets of scale), choice increases. Well, not in this corporate climate. What about telecommunications companies increasingly monopolizing? What about Microsoft?

The authors also claim businesses are based on individuals, after spending pages upon pages trying to convince us otherwise. If that were the case, then why do companies need to humanize and talk to people in order to succeed? Wouldn’t they already be doing that?

The authors assume we talk to each other. If we’re headed to an “economy of voice,” then why do we feel even less connected to the people at the top or the people sitting next to us on the bus?

I suppose this is what you get when multiple people compose a “revolutionary” book.

I [Don't] Heart Huckabee

This video begs two questions:

1) Can a musical instrument playin' governor from Arkansas become president?*

2) What ever happened to Pop Up Video? That show was awesome.



* Has he committed any form of sexual misconduct in addition to his instrument playin' skills? Not yet? Then it'll never work. But extra points if he's inhaled.

Oh Jason Bateman, You've Been Knocked Down a Peg

The thing I love about studying Communication is that everything is research.

I saw “The Kingdom” yesterday with a couple of friends. Despite attempting to ignore Jennifer Garner’s oddly-chiseled face or Jamie Foxx’s annoying bravado or trying desperately not to vomit from the shaky-cam or the fact that my beloved Michael Bluth took part in such gung-ho Big Hollywood patriotic garbage--

Oh wait, he was in The Ex, nevermind--

Anyway, despite trying to ignore all these things, I can see the entertainment value in the film. I can see that Hollywood was really making an effort, trying to humanize Arabs (at least the ones who cooperate) by saying, hey! They’re just like us! They have families! They think their countries are a mess! Perhaps this is a step in the right direction. But there was still no objectivity. Brown people are still bad guys, blood-thirsty, ruthless, and dumb. And it's easier to kill them than it is us.

(And it's okay to kill them)

Nevermind that the whole reason terrorists are trying to kill us is because we have a looooooooooong history of interfering with their shit. I’m not unpatriotic here, I’m really not. I just think we need to get some perspective.


The [figurative] death of a smartass.

Also worth noting:

Movie-goers in Maryland typify the American response to patriotic violence: laugh and cheer when the bad guy is stabbed repeatedly, and graphically. That they are not disturbed and sickened by this portrayal has massive psychosocial implications. That they and their bratty little American spawn condone this violence, and may even be incited to commit other acts of violence, makes me physically ill.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to find the guy who invented the shaky cam and, not stab him repeatedly and graphically, in the groin, but think really mean thoughts about him. While simultaneously trying not to vomit.

Fox News is the #1 Cable News Channel in America

College juniors and seniors! Enter the Fox News College Challenge! Submit a WELL-RESEARCHED, OBJECTIVE news report and you have a chance to win $10,000* and a CHANCE to interview for a thankless entry-level job.

Holy Christ on a Fox News logo! A chance to staple shit and fetch coffee for grumpy old men who refuse to memorize your name! Oh boy! And for $5.85 an hour!

(You’re lucky you didn’t win last year, when minimum wage was $5.15, a pittance compared to the generosity now offered by the United States Department of Labor)

Notice the edgy contest logo; see how in touch with today's youth Fox News is? Isn't it rad that they're letting viewers participate in the news-making process? Look at the list of super-awesome topics! What a freedom of choice, not at all leading:

- Illegal Aliens: Let them stay or move them out?
- Separation of Church & State: Still needed or outdated?
- Reinstate the draft during this War on Terror era?
- United Nations: Irrelevant or worth our money?
- Religion and Education: together or separated?
- Health care: Socialize or privatize?
- Racial Profiling: necessity or abuse?
- School Voucher Programs: freedom of choice or disaster in disguise?

Also, take a gander at the list of universities that are allowed to enter. It’s a good thing Harvard or Yale or UCLA students aren’t eligible; they’re a bunch of pricks anyway.

*Subject to fees for invasion of Iran and Satan.

"And I'm Proud To Be An American..."

Pristine areas? Has anyone told Michael Chertoff how ugly Texas is?

In a blatantly racist and ridiculously dense fashion, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said today that building a border fence across the southern United States is better for the environment than Mexicans who discard beer bottles and defecate outside.

He actually said this. He actually said, "Illegal migrants really degrade the environment. I've seen pictures of human waste, garbage, discarded bottles and other human artifact in pristine areas…And believe me, that is the worst thing you can do to the environment.” Ummmmm, what the deuce?!

Might I remind our congenial Homeland Security Secretary that the process of building 370 miles of border fence and 200 miles of vehicle barriers doesn’t run on fairy dust and angel wings and all that lovely nonsense? Cars and building thingamajigs pour tons of, you know, polluting stuff into the air. Global warming is a fact, people. Stephen Colbert knows this; the “market has spoken.”

Might I also remind Mr. Chertoff that poop is an excellent fertilizer? Maybe the reason the Southwest is so dry and lifeless is that not enough people are shitting outside.

Oh yes, and something about how Chertoff saying illegal immigrants are bad for the environment only perpetuates the stereotype that Mexicans are dirty and this has immense social repercussions and those crazy bastards who patrol the border on their own, without government sanction, are going to have a freakin’ field day.

Meh.