on that live-streaming suicide...

some people found the whole thing repulsive, some folks blamed social media, but i just got really depressed and decided to watch PuppyCam after reading an article on it. after reading David's post, i decided i did want to talk about it.

i don't think it's about the fact that it was online, really. he was depressed from the outset. being online didn't make him more depressed. i really think being in a chat room didn't make him more or less likely to commit suicide. he seemed pretty intent on that, anyway. he talked about how he was going to do it, just as many people tend to do beforehand. in fact, it just seems like many other teen suicides:

"I have let everyone down and I feel as though I will never change or never improve. I am in love with a girl and I know that I am not good enough for her."

and i don't mean that in a belittling way. as some of you know, i'm a major supporter of To Write Love on Her Arms, which is a charity in support of getting people help who deal with suicide, depression, and self-mutilation, among other aspects (you can donate via PayPal here). he loved a girl and didn't love himself enough (or didn't get enough love through relationships, hat tip to @mtartag) to discover whether or not he was 'good enough for her.' and that just makes my heart hurt.

i think perhaps it was executed on justin.tv mainly as a last act of attention, of a version of love-seeking. i think the intent here was different, and in some way intriguing (after all, i favourited it on twitter), when @anniemal said "if I'm going to die, I'm going to broadcast it. I'm not going out without an audience."

and yet, the heart of it isn't the broadcast. it's just bringing it to your attention because so many eyes are on it. for once, you don't have to die alone. you can die with a thousand people watching. you are not alone. but you need to tell the kids that before they die. the take-home message isn't ban social media, but instead reach out and help them. it's in your face. don't you think it's time to believe this isn't some "stupid teen thing"?

"But love is the answer to a question That I've forgotten But I know I've been asked And the answer has got to be love." - Regina Spektor <3

PS: another effort in loving your fellow stranger, brought to you by zoomdoggle. check it out.

sad mac & charity follow-up

intense apologies on my end for infrequent posting this week. as i'd mentioned, my mac showed me the sad face of death and totally kicked it a few days back. i'm finally getting the new machine set up, so i'm going to go ahead with "friday posts" and save the lengthy one for monday.

i want to follow-up Blog Action Day with a few items. primarily, this really stellar thing @AmandaMooney has arranged through Twitter. it calls on us to donate money every friday--just the price of a morning latte, or whatever you have to spare, even a buck--to a designated cause. the idea is simple: if we spread the word between followers, it's easy to donate $500--1,000 to a cause each friday if we each only gave just $1.

you can learn more about it here. you can also DM Amanda a cause you'd like featured on a friday; she will be posting causes in the order in which they were received. i already cast my vote for To Write Love On Her Arms, as most of you know that's my pet charity.

TODAY IS FOR BREAST CANCER at the suggestion of @ValeriaL. so go ahead, toss in $1 or two and then drop Amanda a DM to let her know that you participated.

first impressions: agencies gone wild, more.

this post is about things i am jealous of.

i am jealous of the Plaid Nation tour bus. i wish i was on it. in fancy plaid. maybe the plaid i wore in high school. i had some serious punk rawk b&w plaid pants. oh yeah, i'd wear those. it'd be wild. i am forlorn that all the fun will be on the opposite coast. i anxiously await my shirt (thanks RJ et al!) and i will pretend i was cool enough to be there.

i am jealous of 1 Person Trends. i want to start a 1 person trend. i especially enjoy the one about the woman and the facebook status. see it here. and by the way, i do totally use "yrs" because i'm a rebel grrrl like that. so that makes that one a 2-person trend. my 1 person trend: going to McDonald's only to buy the toys.

i am jealous of these bizarre lists which tell you What You Need If... yanno, you want to become a baller. or go to prison. or go fast (faster pussycat kill kill). or pick up a 7th grade chick (hey i didn't write it). how about if i want to get hired at the agency of my dreams? yeah i didn't think so, either. some kind of postmodern problem there, i assume, about the paradox of the assumption of such an agency.

i am jealous of debranding a home; i don't think i could do it. some brands comfort me. i have become a brand. my friends are brands that endorse other brands. we are the entities we project. without my brands, what am i? and yet, i am jealous of that freedom. plus those labels are pretty badass. you have to admit they're, dare i say, pretty.

i am jealous of the good work TWLOHA is doing in collaboration with PostSecret to save the Hopeline (1800SUICIDE) from being government-run (and thus non-confidential). i am jealous of the movement and anxious to donate, help, and get involved. can't wait to get the PickUpThePhone tee after August 1st. if you're also jealous, buy a shirt or donate directly.

deadlines ftw.

some claim ftw means for the win.
my sixteen year old brother has a second meaning.
an inversion of wtf. you do the math.

short posting hiatus while i kick this copy's ass.
should be back to the blogging grind on monday.
sorry for interrupting this week's theme.

turns out this spiffy pic belongs to a band i've never heard of.
go them. deadlines are totally taking over.

1 draft, 3 editing sessions to go...
if anyone is going to SheSays tonight at Razorfish, i'll be there.
wearing a To Write Love on Her Arms necklace
(technically, it says Love is the Movement).
with Am&a, of @reverieapparel (& .com) fame.

twitter as int'l pr/ad firm merger.

so yesterday i was chatting with my 'big brother' @griner on GChat and, among other things that are likely unrepeatable, we got to talking about what we look for in our jobs, and, what our jobs would look like ideally.

both of us are intrigued by social media (big shocker right?) and somehow we got on the topic of twitter... as many of us tend to do. it seems everyone wants to figure out why, exactly, twitter is awesome, how it could be more awesome, and why younger kids (and older folks?) aren't yet sold on its proverbial awesome awesomeness.

David and i realized that twitter is pretty much the best ad agency we could ever want to work at. as in, if we selected folks we know on twitter, regardless of location, it would make for a pretty sick setting. the thinktank there is marvellous. so many ideas are being bounced, debated, and realized. we're cerebral professionals, only also people, and accepting of that.

twitter is pretty much the staff meeting we always wanted.

in consideration hence, i think this is why its so alluring to our demographic, which i'm going to gingerly put in the 22-50 age bracket of varying professions. i know us social media and digital types are all up on it, but we're not the only ones. study the Everyone tab long enough and many professional communities emerge, from clothing designers to astrologists.

if someone were to form an agency from just our circle of twitter insanity, David and i suggest the following names:

Swallow (David adds: "We do what others won't." har har, pervy social media)
Finch (i counter in buzz cliche: "The next evolution in communication.")

but, to go back to why it's not catching on down the line, young kids don't need that same thinktank. a lot of them are very localized to one another and their desire for idea sharing isn't quite the same as ours (not that it doesn't exist--it just has different needs), a lot of which are solved via regular txt messaging and don't need a supplementary txt message program.

perhaps if there were an organization to join twitter and inform of parties in each area, that may be more attractive to a younger demographic across multiple spaces. or if charities working with a younger target market did it. i mean, even my personal fave charity, TWLOHA, doesn't have a twitter--and given its demographic influence, i would think they should.

huge... tracks of land. yeah.

can i get another "duh" and "i was right" in this corner? kthanx.

adrants picked up a piece on SocialVibe which--guess what? makes social networking ads more relevant by appealing to peoples' ACTUAL interests.

effin' novel, i tell you. bloody hell. finally. "huge tracks of land" aside, awesome way to advertise, and even better that it's linked to charities. that gets a huge KUDOS from Riot. in fact, i'm going to go implement it. so there.

next step? have user-chosen ads REPLACE non-chosen ad placement on user-interfaced social media sites like Facebook, Myspace.

Lovefool: 1: TWLOHA.

this is the first official post of project Lovefool, wherein i promised i would:
"post about how much i love your brand. why i love your brand. and how much i'm willing to talk about how much i love your brand."

target #1: To Write Love on Her Arms.

why you should care:
unless you're entirely apathetic, have never been depressed, have never known anyone who was depressed, was never a child, never had children, and hate teenagers, you should help this cause. from their FAQ:
Q.What is To Write Love on Her Arms?
A. TWLOHA is a non-profit movement dedicated to presenting hope and finding help for those struggling with depression, addiction, self-injury and suicide. TWLOHA exists to encourage, inform, inspire, and also to invest directly into treatment and recovery.
Q: How did TWLOHA start?
A: To Write Love on Her Arms began in Orlando, FL in February 2006 as a (written) story, the true story of five days spent with a friend who was denied entry into a drug treatment center. The story was a look at those five days, and the t-shirts were printed and sold initially as a way to pay for our friend's treatment.

why i love them:
the phrase "to write love on her arms" directly responds to the tendency of many young girls(/people) to cut their arms with razors (for a multitude of reasons). having helped many of my friends through this in our teenage years, and, having had my younger (HS aged) brother recently ask me why his friends were cutting, i believe that this organization is doing a great thing. it's giving hope and voice to a situation previously beyond (what we felt was in) our control.

how much i'm willing to talk about how much i love them:
i bought 2 tee shirts and a button pack to help fund them ($35 +S&H) so i can wear the message and talk about it in real life. i tweeted about it earlier today, and now i'm writing a blog post about it, hoping to get others to also see the value in the endeavor. to help lift up the young folks that many of our firms target for the next it-toy. as self-value plummets in teenage years leading to a multitude of situations, some created by the very media we sell, the least you can do is buy a button pack ($5) and speak up when someone asks you what "to write love on her arms" means on your stylish ironic tee shirt. please spread the word.

how much i love them/aka/the backstory:
! i first saw the phrase on "to write love on her arms" a tee shirt of a random person photographed online via google. as a poet and lover of words, the phrase stuck with me. i simply liked it. i decided that i was going to, at a later point when i had funds, scour the internet for whatever that shirt was a purchase one.

! before i could acquire the funds to do that, i had been saving up for this past weekend, where i went to the 2 day music festival Bamboozle with my friend Amanda of @reverieapparel. i was pretty much a scene queen for 2 days. it was wicked awesome. anyway.

! while i was there, i saw a shitload of young scene kids wearing these shirts. i had no idea why. i'd never seen one in real life before. confused, i turned to Amanda, who knew of my previous love of the shirt, and said, "wtf?" basically.

! Amanda told me that she had 2 or 3 of the shirts herself and that it was actually a product of a non profit organization dedicated to helping people in need battle depression, addiction, and all the malevolent behaviors that go with it. that made me love it more.