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.

that DeclareYourself voting vid? think twice.

it seems that the Don't Vote video i discussed here yesterday has caused quite a stir in the advertising and marketing community, from a number of age ranges and locations, like Public School Intelligentsia and Dear Jane Sample, both of whom are devoutly, it seems, against it. in a way, rightfully so. it's unappealing. but...

i think that there has been sight lost on the target group for the video. it's not meant to convince jaded 30-40 somethings to vote through use of the wiles of overpaid celebrity--you and i see through that by now. neither does it appeal to my age group, unless they act younger, because many of us have graduated college, have decided to vote or not vote already, have assessed our politics, and so forth. as such, we likely won't care about the spot.

it is meant to appeal to high schoolers and recent high school grads, whose attentions spans, as i've mentioned and many know, are incredibly difficult to capture. you can't coddle them like mommy and daddy or tell them what they should do. they're teenagers, they're rebellious, and likely, they don't give two shits about you, the government, or Wall Street. but if you get their back up by being condescending, you may just have a shot. MAYBE. though to get them to watch for 4 mins is asking a lot of the ADD generation.

to verify my thought process on this, i tossed my brother, a high school aged kid, the video. told him to watch it and just tell me what he thought. no prepping, no framing. then i asked him a few pointed questions: would it have made you register to vote? what did you think about the use of celebrities? what did you think about the use of sarcasm?

--
the responses were as follows:

on voting:
it would have persuaded me to vote, within reason yes i would try to but it would be put on a list of personal priority meaning i'd get to it asap but i wouldnt go out of my way instantly to do so

on sarcasm:
if i could vote, and wasnt planning to, it sure would've made me feel like crap. their approach was very sarcastic (obviously on purpose). i think the sarcasm was just right, but as i said it would come down to personal priority to whether or not i left that second to register

on celebrity:
sarah silverman(silvermen? sp?) was a little over the top with her...nonsense - it didnt fit well with the seriousness of the video. otherwise they worked well together.

any other thoughts:
ME: if i hadn't told you, specifically, to watch the whole thing, would you have if you stumbled on it?
HE: with a proper description and/or title, yes. i dont just click randomly at yt vids
ME: do you want to add anything else?
HE: the length was abit much, only when they started "waiting" for you to register
--

i don't profess that my brother is the be-all end-all answer; in fact, he's atypical. he's highly aware, interested in politics, and extremely bright. if you were following me on twitter, you noticed that i didn't think he'd like it, since he tends to have views nearly as mature as ours. so if this video works for him, i urge you to think about that, and to ask others in the high school age group what they think. no prepping, no framing. just, does it make you want to vote? food for thought.

youngsters; yr doin' it wrong.

found originally on AdFreak, this still annoys the shit out of me.

how old were the folks making this ad? have any of them had kids? ever touched a Playstation? mind you i SUCK at Playstation and XBOX and whatever. my experience is limited to things like Spyro the Dragon and Guitar Hero. and even i knew that controller didn't match up to that game.

not to mention that dorm room doesn't match up to that kid. he looks like he's sitting in the main room of a hotel. the decorations are too classy, the room is too clean, and to boot, he has a bloody flatscreen tv. yeah, cos i had a flatscreen in college. (i didn't have ANY tv in college!)

you can tell from this ad that they were trying to improve their image with the younger demographic, and yet, didn't actually use any input from that age group. (wtf kid model, didn't you point out the nonmatching controller? or are you too into fashion to be bothered?)

this violently violates a sense of relevancy to the customer. rather than saying "hey, we get you, give us a second chance," it says "we want your money and can't be bothered to take the time to get you right."

if you're targeting a demographic like that--male college age gamers--you'd better believe they know their shit and will see through yours, too. you may have gotten away with it if you were being general, but "gaming" is intense--thus the "play hard"--unless they didn't even make that connection.

this is why agencies should hire a few younger kids. a la dave trott's suggestion. otherwise you'll just do more harm than good to that market.

Yeas & Nays: IV

found here, re: greyhound stabbing here
Riot saith: NAY!
okay, so, i'm sure for all humourous purposes, this advertisement has surfaced. i would imagine, and from the look of it assume, that the ad came out before the stabbing. (i really, really hope so.) it's almost in bad taste to show it, if only because it makes me make that groaning noise. for those of you who don't know, a sleeping person on a Canadian Greyhound was stabbed in the throat and decapitated with a hunting knife on a bus full of people. what's Greyhound doing about it? not enough, Jaffe says, and i have to agree. on another note, the advertisement is pretty shitty, regardless of timeliness. i haven't heard of "car rage" either, and both buses and cars (and trucks and hummers) all use roads. 'nuff said.

TIGS, re: gorillas, chimps, ads, primates
Riot saith: YEA!
as if you didn't already know, Faris is wicked awesome. his post, linked above, catalogues something we all learned in 3rd grade and forgot: "they may not remember what you say, but they will always remember how you made them feel." that was supposed to teach us to be nice to one another. and even if advertising isn't exactly about being nice, it is about emotional response. i would like to see an effective ad that appeals not at all to any emotions--in an unironic way. the more and more i think about advertising, the more and more i come to realize that the youth injection is important. folks have got to stop thinking like marketers and remember that they're people, and relearn those things that made them people in the first place.

doesitsellstuff, re: social media
Riot saith: YEA!
i love stumbling across blogs that make me want to redo my entire blogroll (which i will be getting around to doing, there are some much needed additions). this is one such blog. Scott Sigler chronicles social media campaigns and their effectiveness in really interesting ways; the ways that make you actually want to spend time reading it all. and it is really, really interesting. i forget how i stumbled across it but i'm very glad that i did. his blog's subhead reads: "A look at case studies of companies using Social Media to, well, sell stuff. Forget theory - does it add to a company's bottom line, or is it all just a waste of money?" if you're into social and strategic planning, check him out.

revisiting facebook, jobs, millenials

in light of this post, i'm revisiting this post.

i wonder if this is going to change.

me, i am a brand. i embrace my inner brand and utilize it. i am the CEO of the brand of the girl Riot™. however, even CEOs get to go home. no one is Cheerios, or BMW, or Adidas all day long. even Adi, Adidas' founder, shares the responsibility with other well-titled folks. at one point, you go home. you sleep. you see friends. you connect with other people. you know... a la the point of social media: being social. and after hours, i'm sure they don't all sleep in Armani and talk jargon in their theta-state.

what gives you the right to inspect a person's private life for their job?

isn't that what applying is about? references, presentations, self-craft. now we're pushing away from that, toward transparency. "twit-pitch me. tell me what you're after and how you can help me--i'll do the background check. nevermind that you can't control what pictures other folks put up of you. nevermind that you can no longer access accounts to things you created, age 14. nevermind what exploration you did in your youth years that made you a good creative--i don't want to see it."

then how transparent are you, really? you want the real person--but only after they've covered their tracks? deleted their pics during those college years everyone had but everyone is supposed to deny? it's a shame facebook wasn't around when you Xers and Boomers were younger. are we handling this like 50s prudes asked to sit in on a sex addicts' meeting in a church basement? if you don't want the "full story" then why are you looking? keep it to the "legit" side of things. we craft those.

sure, check out their blog, their website, their portfolio, newspapers who reference them, other blogs who link to them. i'm not saying don't Google search. i'm saying to assess your digital detective choices--chances are you won't find that information solely on their facebook accounts. to me, that level of invasion borders on pervy. all 100+ pics of me on facebook? i haven't uploaded one. not one. i don't care if it's "personal and public"--it's discerned as a private space for friends (unlike, say, Twitter, which is searchable, Google tracked, and anyone can follow). just like your brand is not my friend, my employer is not my friend unless i invite you in. those spaces are not about you. they're about me.

and i'll be damned if you want me to censor my life to fit your desk job. you wanted a forward-thinking creative, you wanted experience and intellect--this shaped me. this is who i am. and yes, my stuff is on private. but then you're going to want to know why it's on private, aren't you? i'm supposed to connect with friends but not with employers. can i have a "only folks born 1986 or later can access this profile" option? why do i have to keep my personal life private if the whole reason of having the profile is to share?

moreover--will this disdain for (supposed) transparency change as more millenials enter the work space?

and if you think just cos i can do a keg-stand that i'm going to do one with your client, then i'm really concerned. my maturity isn't directly related to my flip cup abilities (which, mind you, are stellar). don't ask for transparency (look at personal sites) if you don't want it. my brand is excellently crafted. my personal life isn't. and if you can tell me how to control all aspects of your personal life, that's really a blog post worth writing.

so i return the question to you all:
how well do you expect someone to cover their tracks? what are you really looking to get out of trawling potential employees' facebooks and myspaces as opposed to their blogs, LinkedIns, websites? ...what are you really expecting? --and will those expectations change?

[post script & further transparency--i had a really engaging conversation with Jason Falls about his post; this is not an affront on his views: i actually highly value and understand them, and respect him, which is why i engaged in the conversation to begin with. after all, my facebook is on private. i'm just arguing that it shouldn't have to be.]

interesting bits on gen-y.

how to engage us once i've convinced you that your company really, really needs 20something thinkers. and in case you didn't know, we're gonna change the world, or at least the interwebs... yeah. that we are. at least it's a far cry better than that hideous nytimes article citing us as lazy bastards. again, i reiterate: i do not have to hate my job. i'm sorry you do.

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.

full circle, 1 of 2: 2.0 literacy "IRL"

study 1: students say "e-text" isn't writing (CNetNews)

study 2: students use "text speak" in school work (TimesOnline)

funny thing? they're talking about the same study: Pew Internet and American Life Project. so how can, in the same study, it be found that 1) students differentiate between txting and writing, and that differentiation makes them understand the time and place for each, and, 2) that in fact that differentiation means nothing and txting is used within scholarly writing.

"What's at stake here is just the ability to express oneself in more than one register," she said. "As long as children are taught to use the standard spelling and to appreciate the difference between registers, this could even be positive."
(excerpt from Times)

yes yes, i agree. there is no trouble with being "multiliterate"--able to txt-speak and write essays also. the problem here is, why, oh why, would you ever need 'LOL' in your essay? or a smiley face? why would there be a need for this expression in academic writing which a teacher must assess and decipher??

i enjoyed this comment response: "I hope those students who do use abbreviations in their essays receive an unhappy face sticker for their incorrect use of the English language." (Farore, Melbourne, Australia)

hahaha, could you imagine? i'd have been livid to get back a frowny face sticker. what does it MEAN? B-? F? it's almost as ambiguous as "A-/B+" (i hated those with a passion). pick one! oh, the teachers' revenge.

in essence, i think the CNet article about the study got it better; it seems that students believe correct spelling/grammar is vital in the academic sphere as well as central to future success in their careers. however, that doesn't stop the error, every so often, of slipping into "native tongue" (txt speak).
[though i'd still love to know when its usage is called for... "and then atticus finch defended tom robinson at trial, showing the ewells for the liars that they are--LOL!" ?]

stop txting me pls. (!)

subtitle: i have an adcrush on danah boyd.

if you don't know about her yet, what's wrong with you? love her or hate her but you need to know. she's doing ethnographies that are incredibly relevant to the shifts of emphasis in the ad biz. so listen up. i know some of you are, and i love you for it. [brief rundown? Agency Spy rocks my socks.]

anyway. long story short? stop texting me.
i know that email won't remain the best way to get in touch with my generation in the future, but that doesn't mean you need to turn to text messaging. as we all know, my generation is increasingly more public with our information on the internet, regardless of how we craft ourselves. key words? on the internet.

if your spamails aren't working out for you, text messaging surely won't. i would be more annoyed receiving texts (and being charged for them by my service provider!) that are unwanted than emails. not to mention, you can't opt-out of text spam like you can unsub from emails. that results in me getting cranky with my carrier.

cell phones? personal and business. spam has taken over email. if it takes over text messaging, that will a) be less productive than intended because of the unwanted setting and b) will only decrease in effectiveness.

! but i'm not all bitch and no suggestions here, folks.
you want to utilize text message spam so badly? how about you do this crazy thing called... respect. i know that means very little on the 'net these days, but it's something that might be considered over phrases like friendly stalking and privacy invasion.

why don't you offer people the ability to subscribe to text messaging for products they like? some commercials advertise this ability. because that changes the game. that means i am interested in what you're trying to sell me. you want me to subscribe to a DriveThru Records (or any other label for that matter) text messaging feed in order to tell me what concerts are now up and when tickets go on sale? GO FOR IT, i'm in.

it's all about relevance, which is what the lovely danah boyd and others keep trying to express. you can't just throw up an ad into a Facebook setting and expect people to suddenly love you and be loyal to your brand. engage with them. become relevant. i know the movement is toward mobile, but can't you be respectful about it?

a la miss danah:
"I think that most brands make mistakes because they don’t understand the social dynamics. Think of MySpace/Facebook as a public hangout space. When is it socially acceptable to go up to a group of friends hanging out at a pub or having a picnic in the park? If you treat it that way, the boundaries are much more logical. If you have something relevant to add to the conversation, you might be asked to pull up a seat/join the mat. If not, you will be seen as sketchy and annoying. You are always welcome in the backdrop, but don’t expect to be included just because you’re there. And be careful.. there’s a fine line between being an active participant on an SNS and being seen as a spammer. You’re often better off being a legitimate participant (a.k.a. buying ads) than trying to coldcall folks."

take home message: if i WANT your spam, i'll ASK FOR IT.

proof that higher ups need a youth injection.

dear AdAge,

it is nice of you to finally notice a viral vid just last week that has been out since i was in high school. we sang about badgers throughout spanish class and then some. it was right up there with the llama song and material like the end of the world (dang that is a pretty sweet earth--WRONG!) along with a few other savory vids from albinoblacksheep.com and -my- 'childhood.'

i would laugh outrageously if Quiznos did anything of the sort. and i know i'm taking you seriously when i hope i shouldn't be--but even if you're joking, how did you not find this until now? it's been out so long there have been spoofs on spoofs on spoofs on the Badger Mushroom video. like this stellar one with great soundtrack on Harry Potter.

here. let me help you out. maybe this might come back and haunt you as a good idea, Charlie... we've been quoting Candy Mountain for a year.