somethin' about the way garyvee says douchebag

...just makes me feel all aflutter inside.



i found this via @TDefren's new post. in this video, Gary Vaynerchuk talks about passion and patience.

which is funny, considering both have the same Latin root, pati, meaning "to suffer." [HOL reference for you there, kids <3]

which is to say, garyvee [it just rolls so nicely, i have to type it like that] believes that if you don't like what you do--not even a little--STOP. just STOP. and do SOMETHING ELSE. even if that thing is smurfs. me, i don't buy into the monetization of a smurf blog, but hell, i believe him, and his Pinot Grigio Hour. that's where the passion comes in. life is too short to be doing something you hate. yadda yadda motivational speech.

[hey does it sound like that stuff your generation sold my generation and now you want to take it back because we all think we're genuinely entitled to that Pursuit of Happiness? i thought so--but there's a catch.]

yeah, that patience thing, which has to do with that suffering thing i mentioned earlier. "how do i monetize my new Smurf Empire?" you may ask, and he answers: by doing some serious damage between the hours of 7pm and 2am, before you pass out, go to work, take an hour break to "kiss the dog," and do it all over again. so that you still have to go to work. to make the money. to do serious damage. to make your new Empire.

i'm not at all belittling garyvee's view. i think it's powerful, poignant, and necessary. its passion is inspiring and the message is spot-on. but i've also heard it before.

i think that, reading between the lines, it's also a message that requires you to keep that passion when you're up until 2am working on the new Empire, have barely seen family or friends, and still aren't so keen on the job you're spending 8-10 hours of daylight on. the message is to feel like he does on that stage, only every morning. and i think that's the hardest part. not just saying "I Quit!" as Audience Man #1 did, but sticking out the suck for the better ahead.

not the interest, not the late night Empire, and not the years of development.
but keeping the passion, and acquiring the patience, through those times of suffering.

more facebook suckage. users? what?

FACEBOOK WAKE UP.

you are no longer about the end user.
it's becoming more and more evident as you slight your users.
and your users LOVE you. and your users want to HELP you.
but you are making it increasingly difficult.
yet another reason why: opening the gate to the walled garden.*
*i will address this further a little ways down. feel free to scroll to the star.

since yesterday alone, when the threat appeared, 120,974 more people joined the petition against the new facebook layout. and now there are even more groups. i was going to link to all of them, but there are too many. i'm over 20 groups, with thousands of members apiece, and i'm only at page 5 of the group search. my favourites thus far are "i miss the old me" and "i hate the [...] stalker layout."

you are clearly making it easier for advertisers to utilize facebook in the new layout. i also get that you're trying to "grow with your users" as the college age kids enter the job market--and that's cool, sort of. it's sleek, more organized, and trying to be more relevant. no argument there. the redesign was not a bad idea. i just feel like more PR could have been done surrounding users' concerns other than a blog post or two. users are feeling slighted in favour of The Business.

i already briefly talked about why i'm not keen on the redesign, but the other part is something ReadWriteWeb points out: "as Facebook becomes less of a place for them to hang out and more of a tool for networking in the business sense of the word, the cleaner design and additional controls make sense." Facebook isn't about business. it's about fun. did we lose that somewhere between when it started as a college networking site and now when it's trying to become LinkedIn?

because that's what marketers are interested in.
[and sure, that rocks for 'us' professionals, but if you USE Facebook, this is just lame.]

*and now Google is being allowed to search and index parts of Facebook. namely groups, discussions, wall posts, and events--you know, sites of interaction. i'm sure my alma mater will LOVE knowing when the next big kegger is going down--if they hadn't sorted it out by trolling the book already. not to mention if you ever wanted to NOT be a part of that ridiculous group you joined in high school, TOO BAD. you're internet-linked to it for life. CONGRATS!

WHERE ARE MY NEW PRIVACY FEATURES TO MATCH!?
you seem to be selling me a whole lot more than you're helping me. that's dangerous for you.

[sidenote: i already realize Google owns more of my life than anyone else short of the government; that's my choice using blogger, gmail, etc. i may not have a lot to lose through this index, but i'm betting a lot of the kids who use it will in the future unless everyone above shifts prerogatives about what the internet is and means to incoming generations. on principle i am against it.]

facebook is threatening me

IT WILL SOON BE. THE ONLY. FACEBOOK.
you will submit. you will use The New Layout. you will not Protest. all Complaints will be Futile. Press 3 to Assimilate Now.

facebook, srsly. wtf are you thinking?

never mind that i bloody HATE the new facebook to the assured point that if you make me convert to the new layout, i will use it less, and i'm sure i'm not alone in that. hullo. you don't pay us. we bring value to you by even being there. why alienate? regardless. this is beside the point. it's also simply tactically stupid.

if you want to make the new facebook layout the One True Facebook [cue "there can only be oooooone!"], why did you allow for this random period where users could opt-in and select to use the new Facebook or not? ok, maybe as a beta test it works, but then CALL IT A BETA TEST. not being up front about it not only makes users cranky, but leads us to believe that we do not HAVE to switch.

even when faced with the idea that we would have to surrender Ye Olde Facebooke, users petitioned and created groups to let Facebook know that we are not into the new layout. 691,269 members are actively against the new layout. but not only that, we gave shitloads of feedback about how to improve new Facebook to be equally useful so we wouldn't mind the switch. i haven't seen one thing really change. not one. this makes users who actively participate in creatively critical, useful ways feel inadequate and undervalued.

in this 20 minute extraordinarily long defense, Facebook says they're listening. i'm just not sure i buy it.
so what i mean to say is, the actual way it occurred gives a poor impression.

clearly, Facebook can operate with both layouts at once. why not keep this? if the new Fbook is SO wonderful, then naturally users will gravitate to it. i'm not saying to get RID of the new fbook; some people like it, that's cool. but why force users who aren't so keen? users could keep the layout they prefer. moreover, since the new Fbook resembles other sites (like FriendFeed, for example) than its own unique entity, it may also lead to further creativity--different skins would be fun.

in short, i'm not taking this threat lightly. and that's just what it feels like.
you aren't helping me connect--unless by that you mean, helping me connect forehead to monitor.

the good, the bad, and the ugly. other places to be.

link haze; things i don't have time to comment on, since i'm actually doing work on a friday, like you should be, haha. ;)

THE GOOD
just some random funny stuff i found... Unplug Your Friends made me smile, and also made me look up Get Off the Internet by Le Tigre on songza. Listen here. and if you need to get out of a not-so-hot date tonight but don't have the balls, there's always the coward's way out: Get MOOH [get me out of here!]. oh, and lastly, am&a's Reverie Apparel is clearing inventory; 2for1 sale, check it out.

THE BAD
i am not at all touching on Palin's politics here, suffice to say i disagree; that's my prerogative, and you can have yours, that's cool. i don't care what it is so long as you VOTE. regardless. i am floored that, above all else, she wanted to ban books. 1984 anyone? oh, and while we're on the topic, Heart isn't so fond of Palin's... musical choices.

THE UGLY
as if you couldn't tell from my post about Twittad, i am tired of people hijacking some other people's stuff. for more blatant ripoff fun, check out You Thought We Wouldn't Notice, a fave blog of mine for some time.

mad men, ogilvy: at least it's not 'shipping?

for those of you living under very tiny rocks this past week, i will give you a brief summary of the Mad Men AMC fiasco before proceeding. skip between the lines if you've followed.

---
1 - bored unknown assailants 'brand jack' characters from the tv show and portray them on twitter, interacting with one another and fans.
...see also: @Don_Draper, @Roger_Sterling, @Paul_Kinsey, et al.
2 - they develop following, and apparently popularity is bad for AMC, so they legally request the accounts to be suspended, of which the main characters' are. something something copyright.
3 - the awesome folks at Deep Focus convince AMC to stop being asshats. a 'gentle nudge' goes a long way--especially when done with a metal ruler.
4 - but not before the damage was done. the accounts are reinstated but the backlash from AMC's handling thrives.
---

moving right along.

there are a number of things that could have made this situation handled better, and other folks have said that better than i could, so i won't dally there. though i doubt they'll be paying the folks any time soon; that would mean condoning their behavior, and if they go against character grain, AMC will likely want to keep a distance. wtfever.

the greatest backlash, apart from the usual blogging wonders, actually comes from the fans who made the twitter accounts. for some interesting stuff, check out We Are Sterling Cooper [dot com]. they humbly request: "But please, don't treat us like criminals."

which led me to the question: where is the line?

there are fan fiction groups everywhere for everything (almost). i don't follow it, but i know there are ones for Harry Potter, Twilight, Star Trek, and any number of oddities that attract immersion in an 'other world.' (i think the 'other world' is most attractive--that a slip in time or place is more suggestive of immersion.)

these people rarely get sued, if at all, or asked to remove their written work, and often these fanfics greatly vary from the actual characters' intents. for example, 'shipping (a term i learned from @tokyohanna Amber @ Naked earlier this week). imagine Betty Draper and Joan Holloway as lovers. yeah, i didn't think so either--but people write it.

that's not to say you have to like it. this Mad Men twitter thing isn't for everyone. i'm not saying to run out and subscribe to it, proliferate or promote it, but i don't see how it's different from fanfic other than the medium. do you think the fact that it happened on twitter is really the reason for the uproar? twitter, where transparency is expected, even when writing twit-novellas?

~

what i find REALLY interesting, though, is this as of this morning: @David_Ogilvy. it's unverified as to whether or not this is actually him; he styles his name like the other mad men, and followed the mad men characters first. he is pitching @Don_Draper for a 'lunch meeting' concerning hiring.

Don insists he is happy at Sterling, as his character would. but the $5 million question: is Dave impressed by the tenacity of the twittering mad men and looking to hire the Man behind the Draper, OR, is even Dave a "character" and now the link between 1960s advertising fiction and post-millennial advertising fiction becoming a reality? bizarre to think about. which do you think?

is your brand a moth or a butterfly?

i was reading Faris' blog, as i usually do, when i came across his post regarding The Moth, a slam-style storytelling circle in NY and LA. apart from the fact that it's bloody awesome (and that i will probably go to the Nuyorican showing), it got me thinking about moths and butterflies--a motif that has been following me for months now.

"the founders felt was analogous to:
the characters in their best stories would often find themselves drawn to some bright light—of adventure, ambition, knowledge—but then find themselves burned or trapped, leaving them with some essential conflict to face before the story could reach its conclusion."

the moth represents conflict with the world. it is the self which both loves and yearns. like the butterfly, it too forms a cocoon and transforms itself, but that is not what it has come to symbolize. the moth is about the tension of reconciliation; the struggle for understanding with the exterior world and our place in it.

the butterfly represents conflict with oneself. the symbolic butterfly is about the personal journey, the thing one must undergo in order to develop into our full potential. it is an interior search. the butterfly becomes a symbol of freedom and beauty once the insect emerges. the story ends there.

the one, emphasis on the interactive journey; the other, emphasis on the personal journey. i identify a lot with moths in that regard, but i also came to think about it in terms of creative, and in terms of advertising. for a long time, advertising has been the butterfly. it has been about the personal, transformative journey of the brand. it is this point of view which expects others to love simply out of the respect and beauty of this journey.

this brand has not yet tried to find its place in the world. it has not reconciled itself to interaction, to the space outside of its own head. some advertising is handling brands like moths, are pursuing that tension between self and other, and are fostering those spaces. they are telling the stories not about themselves, but about connections.

in this way, moth branding is more accessible. it asks me to identify with our common spaces, rather than identify with your personal journey. i am not going to like you because you are a heap big 60 year old auto company that has survived through the years and shown your mettle; i will identify with you on my own terms, the ones that show the light of you and i.

but, like the moth, there will be tension. we are experiencing this now, with words like monetization, cashification, viral, social, what have you. we are trying to find our way through this jungle. advertising is romancing the light. only some will get burned. some will have never tried at all.

[photo shown left: Blue's Creative Outlet, specializing in funky moth & butterfly jewelry]

first impressions: cartoon avs, crazy blind dates

okay, so the hair really isn't right. mine's asymmetrical and quite short. apart from that, their options pretty much helped me get the face more or less spot on. at least the eyes. i have HUGE eyes. whatever. so in case you were wanting to know where to get those avatars everyone suddenly has on twitter, this would be the place.

it's called Face Your Manga. is it a fear i have, this Manga you speak of? must i go forth and battle its dragon? either way, i'm not using it on twitter. icon loyalty ftw. shun the trends. shunnnnnnn. (name that reference!) it was fun to toy with, though. oh, and while we're on manga/anime, the result of the twitter poll of who i should go to AnimeFest as resulted in Chii. apparently i'm a robot. okay.

EDIT 08.20.08: they really are facing your manga. and they're not liking it. the backlash is immense. and funny. sometimes.

in other news, there's been an Online Dating update. and no, i'm not doing online dating, if that was your question. but when faced with zombiEharmony or Lovebitten, still-living specimens still hold more of a draw. don't give me that "oh, but they're only undead!" bullshit. i'm won't hear of it. haha. anyway. in the new line of random dating, there's CrazyBlindDate. on short notice, you get hooked up with total strangers. in public settings, like bars or coffee shops. no communication, no pictures. you show up at the appointed time and hope for the best.

is it crazy that i'm thinking of doing it just for the fun of it?
if i do, i'll blog about it. i just think it's too funny. plus, @ninanyc dared me. ;)

Lovefool: 3: Etsy

this is the third 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."

because i'm so fickle, this project has become fewer and more far between. but i think that lifts up the things i'm dedicated to even more. previously in Lovefool, #1 was To Write Love on Her Arms, my favourite charity; #2 was Pandora, for all my music radio needs. this round, i give you the elements of style. it's up to you to arrange them and bring out your inner indie kid.

target #3: Etsy.
[as if you couldn't tell from my tweets over the past week.]
shown left: Rock'N'Bun-ee, a possession from JitterBugBark
why you should care:
if you ever wanted a closet full of personal designer gear, you should care. if you're that discerning connoisseur of home decor, you should care. if you are a geek and want all the bracelets from Twilight in different artists' interpretations, you should care (or if you're a geek and want Darth Vader lego earrings). if you are that kid who listens to 250 bands no one else has ever heard of, you should care. if you're the sort who wants a one of a kind gift, or loves the individual look a 1-of-only-5 tie can give you, you should care. but most importantly, if you want a say in your style, if you want to be social about your purchases, and if you want to support DIY in our economics, you should care.

why i love them:
i love Etsy because i have a very distinct sense of style and a need to be social combined with a deep love of and respect for DIY (do-it-yourself) culture. i love them because all the stuff is so interesting and unique, and because the price range (while vast) is also at one end very affordable. i love it because i'm a small person, and the artists are really, really excellent at working with me.

i've gotten a bracelet shortened, a wallet redone in black and white, a swallow necklace resized from 2" to 1", and two lovely Brooklyn ladies (Lianna and AJ) are making me a custom jacket--to name a few. many of the sellers are really friendly and welcome this sort of interaction. they want to see you love what they do just as much as they love to do it.

this ability to reach out to the artists and have collaborative conversations has dramatically increased my loyalty to the site.

how much i'm willing to talk about how much i love them:
in the past week alone, i have purchased 11 items, 4 of which were gifts to spread the love. i have another 7 items on the docket for my next paycheck. i have been talking about Etsy on twitter probably far more than my fair share. i've told my friends and family. i have installed Etsy widgets on Facebook and on my blog, which you can scroll down on the right to see what new fun things i've recently bookmarked.

there are many ways to search Etsy. if you go to the Buy tab, you can search by colour, proximity to your location, recently listed, and by "connection"--seeing who else likes the things you like, and then viewing other things they like--among other ways. it's also fun to search by team (groups of sellers with a common goal/theme); i love browsing DIYScene team. also, just run a word search of your favourite things--you'll be surprised what creative, insightful things come up! searching "Alice in Wonderland" found me any number of interesting necklaces, corsets, ties, wall hangings, decor, etc.

how much i love them/aka/the backstory:
! i am also going to take this time to highlight some of the sellers i've had truly excellent experiences with in case you are interested in their work as well. i highly, highly recommend the following thus far:

Emily, @ Faster Than You*
[old school tattoo style, hand-painted art on jewelry]
Lianna [& AJ], @ Vigilante Labs*
[vintage inspired modern custom clothing for men & women]
Erin, @ Insane Jellyfish
[hand-stamped silver/pewter jewelry, very unique]
Deanna, @ Baroque & Roll
[girly/artsy designs on leather and fabric, accessories]
Emily, @ Dismantled Fashions
[ladies' retro & punk clothing with cute accessories]

*those with asterisks have gone, in my eyes, above and beyond the call of duty as an Etsy seller. i have had extensive conversations with both these ladies about highly customized work. Emily is transforming a necklace of hers that i loved to sit like tattoos on my neck, and was kind enough to make a second set so i could give it to a friend. Lianna and AJ are meeting me in person for choosing fabric and taking measurements, which is not required (often, it's all discussed online and i'd take my own measurements). if either of these ladies can do anything for you or for a loved one, i would highly recommend them. they are prompt, accessible, friendly, and make me excited about their work.

! if you want to see other sellers i've bookmarked (but haven't yet had the chance to interact with) feel free to browse my favourites.

Rush epic fails at playing... Rush.

courtesy of @ischafer, this pretty much sums it up, but i had to share:



you can watch Rush fail at playing their own song, Tom Sawyer, on Expert in Rock Band here, courtesy of Laughing Squid.

[note: i'm not surprised. all my musically inclined friends tell me that all Rock Band/Guitar Hero do is teach you to miss, and thus fail. doesn't stop me from playing anyway! still, this gesture is really awesome, and fun to geek out to. kudos to Rush.]

Lovefool: 2: Pandora

i am going to be having a music-based theme this week. i am looking to consider and address different aspects of how digitalization, technological distribution, and social media have affected our consumption and understanding of music.

----

this is the second 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."

this is actually proving harder than i'd thought. i definitely hardcore love less brands than i'd previously thought. sure, i like a lot. but we all know how fickle i can be with brands. heh. anyway...

target #2: Pandora

why you should care:
if you're into music, this is the thing you want to be paying attention to. yes, stereogum, pitchfork, and obscure are awesome too, but to my knowledge they just hook me up with new tunes and don't yet create entire radio stations for me. Pandora will make radio stations just for you with music you WILL like. they're the best site to date to accomplish this. to boot, you can follow Pandora on twitter and get to know the folks behind it. Lucia at @pandora_radio is a favourite of mine, but there's also @pandora_kevin, too.

why i love them:
i have finely tuned at least 3 of my stations to the point where not one song i dislike comes on. i love that. rather than submit a band or a song i like and have an entire station based off of that, Pandora lets me add multiple bands or songs and configures the station to my exact tastes, rather than "artists similar to X." this combined with the thumb up/down function to better instruct the station makes this net radio amazing. i can listen to other members' stations as well as add an already existing station as my own to finesse, as i did with @spdracerx, whose riot grrrl station had a few years on my own, on the recommendation of Lucia.

i know this sounds simple, but for example, take Last.fm. sure, they can track what i'm listening to, which i grant is cool. but my "neighbours" never listen to what i like, and their stations are so vague that i hate almost everything that comes up. i put in Panic! at the Disco as a band i like, and i'm stuck listening to Simple Plan. GAG ME WITH A SPOON. i hate Simple Plan. i hate Good Charlotte. i hate most anything they toss up. so i stopped listening. no amount of scrobblizing or whatever is going to bring me back when i can't even stomach the music--or, for that matter, the fluctuating levels. constantly adjusting my volume DNE fun.

i also love that when i find music i like with Pandora, i can click on the song and it links directly to iTunes to let me buy it. yes, i am one of those oddballs who's alright with paying .99 per song (i also still purchase CDs, but hey, that's me). my only sadness about this is on iTunes' part: they don't yet sell every song Pandora offers. for example, i couldn't purchase More Than I Can by Jane Jensen (though i could add it to my myspace profile!). it's just a little counterintuitive. another thing Pandora has on Last.fm: i buy CDs from Amazon, not .mp3s. iTunes pwns there. in short, Pandora has made it easier to locate new music i love online, taking the place of a net radio that died for me (i used to use Spinner in high school).

how much i'm willing to talk about how much i love them:
well, i already chat them up any time i'm listening or talking about music online; i reference them in this blog quite a bit; if they were on SocialVibe, Pandora would be my sponsor and help me support my favourite charity; if Pandora made buttons or tee shirts, i would wear them (but they don't). i do refer Pandora to my friends. where music in concerned, they are the top online tool that i talk about. they do what they do well, and that gets a huge kudos in my book.

how much i love them/aka/the backstory:
! Pandora is important to me because it filled a void.

! in high school, i was that girl who knew seventy bands you'd never heard of (but would in a few years); i knew the EPs, what would make great singles, where they came from, what their band name meant, and probably knew either their booker or their main contact. it's what made me originally want to go into music business.

! since going to college and realizing that music business didn't have a future as i knew it, and that entertainment law was bloody boring, etc etc, i threw myself into the english/writing/art aspect i'd also done in high school, forgoing my musical hobbies in favour of newfound passion and a sincere lack of time due to work and classes.

! since graduating, i miss indulging that part of myself. being into music was part of what defined me as a person. without that piece, i had felt somehow less myself. Pandora is helping me to get back to where i want to be.

...previous lovefool projects: To Write Love on Her Arms.

pseudomodernity and "hyperliteracy."

Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow
... Life is very long [Eliot]

a response to Gavin at servant of chaos. a long theoretical friday-candy post.

i do have to agree that while both modernism and postmodernism had a "burdensome sense of a preceding cultural inheritance," that what Kirby calls pseudomodernism, i would argue, has this same sense of inheritance--in a different way. postmodernism worked to break up the linear. to think in circles. understands cycles, and also to step away from them. to know that A can link to F without any letters in between; that logic jumps are products of inflicted learning methods. which is also why i agree that the internet is the pinnacle of postmodern thought.

and yet, it is this internet-style pomo thought process which we have inherited, which produced the thought patterns necessary for this pseudomodernity. it is this which enabled classroom computers in which teachers are assigning Facebook profiles as homework to express Holden Caulfield. what Kirby, who feels that his "pseudo modernists are spookily devoid of agency, caught in the neverland between the capacity to effect change and the overwhelming minutiae digital interactions," did not anticipate is our capacity to navigate that space because of our inherited postmodern thought.

i agree with Gavin when he says that "production fails (and always will) in its effort to capture the live moment" because i have that postmodern schema. that is, with Magritte-like wonder, the video of the event will never be the event (for example): it is a representation of an event purchased and reproduced through angles, moments elongated or not long enough--editing, for lack of a better word, regardless of quality of craft. even if it is live-fed, those watching will not have the same experience as those experiencing firsthand. but the temptation to get it to that space has prompted movies like The Blair Witch Project and Cloverfield as well as a rise in mundane youtube videos, etc.

but because of my place as a gen-y "pseudomodernist" i cannot say this will always be the case, that we will never be able to access that. i think we have a genuine skepticism in these productions even as we participate in them. we know they consume our time and that it places a distance between ourselves and the experience, even if we are the ones experiencing. which is to say, if i'm having a friend video my morning routine, my morning routine will be different simply because of the presence of the video camera. and we know this, moreso than our parents' generation who believe youtube videos as true (generalization, but i've noticed a certain naiveté there).

Gavin points out social media as a possibility for the beginning of navigation between those spaces of experience and production because they result in real-life experiences (eg, tweetups). while i think this is an excellent start, i think it's only part of the picture. i think just as before us came oral tradition, we are hyperliterate; we are writing a hyperliteral tradition. this is not the same as books, which had too much 'production value' with editors and publishers. this is your point of view and my point of view on the same thing, both available, both time-transcendent and hyper-recorded on 18 different search engines.

it is this connectivity, like microblogging from a mobile device, which moves real-time information from people to the internet to records to the future. what youtube videos lack are the personalized element. and "me" in the youtube video is superseded by the "me" watching it. what film editors try to artfully capture: the thoughts, emotions, and feelings of an experience, expressed through only audio and visual. eventually, someone will sort out how to merge the recording with the experience seamlessly. you won't have to disrupt your experience to record it. there will be no "postmodern gap," the anxiety between the interactive and the action.

it will feel like freedom. and it will be scary. as this emerges, so too will those who search out total experiences, who reject the idea of this recording, i'm sure. i hope to be one of them. but maybe that's the postmodern, rather than the pseudomodern, in me.

it's like street fighter for your mouth.

alright... this is actually pretty funny. i'm speaking mainly because i was an avid user of Tekken. yes, i was that girl geek, and yes, i competed as Nina. i can still kick your ass. regardless. Mentos has created a street fighter-esque online game, Kiss Fight, where you can get your flirt on in three different scenarios.

as the narrator, someone with a silly name that i forget, you must seduce your date (asian girl #1, emo cheerleader of choice, and MILF), and kiss her more than she kisses you (aggressive much? it's like cat and mouse only visually twisted). you must duck to avoid her strategic blowing of kisses and jump over her head when cornered.

to get your kiss-bar all the way up to WIN (if you don't fill it, you lose, as i learned; i had more than she did, but i still lost) it helps if you get some kiss-boosting by letting the Mentos that magically drop from the sky fall on your head. you will then perform a Sims-like action causing ecstasy in your level partner and music to sound.

my only logic-complaints? i had thought in order to win you had to wait for the falling Mentos before kissing, otherwise be rejected. apparently, that's not the case. you must kiss. at every chance. and duck her attempts. even run. i'm not sure what that actually says, but some folks really enjoy it. i can definitely see her point about the "action kiss effect."

whatever, it encourages fresh breath in men (because apparently they need it more?) in a way they (and i?) can relate to (i'm such an oldschool gamer. what is this PS3 you speak of?). reasonably well made and surely entertaining, it does function as a useful tool to spike talk about Mentos. reminds me a little of that M&Ms Dark game that i loved.

[there, look! i provided distractions for two days. tipoff of Kiss Fight courtesy Michael @ Desedo]

how the internets are boosting music integrity.

i was considering this the other day when Am&a (@reverieapparel) and i were talking about how apparently Mae performs poorly live... among other bands. it had come from a discussion about this post, among other things. so if you want to read about the effect of social media on music, read that. it's good. i'm not going to repeat.

regardless. as the internets go up, the physical record sales go down.

itunes is pwning, amazon has a piece of the pie. record labels floundering. surprise nowhere to be found. bands are being forced to do a lot for themselves, often by choice. moreover, most of the pretty money is coming in from "grass roots" places: ie, the merch, the concerts--the experience, rather than the disc.

i argue: this is a good thing.

ming you, i love buying CDs, the actual physical thing. but for music integrity, i think this is doing wonders.

placing emphasis on live shows to bring in cash monies also places emphasis on the talent and ability to perform live, as was previously more prevalent. this enables people to actually see the acts they want to see--likely (or hopefully, i should say) for less money, in ratio to the amount of shows that should be played.

moreover, even if this should not be the case, it heightens the quality of music insofar as its integrity. there would be far less episodes of lip syncing, and those bands who perform poorly will be less likely to make money on the road where the music has to stand for itself outside of the "fixing" of record labels and track rooms, which has cast a pallour across the music industry.

(the more amusing aspect is once everything finishes its shift to live-base again, there will likely be a postmodern backlash of bands which never play life and only released synth-esque music in order to make a statement. they will be elusive and their cult following will be elitist. all of this will be wonderful. heh.)

plurkers, plurking, and plurk you.

plurk.
what does this evoke for you? lurking pigs? fluorescent pork? frat boy puke?
something unspeedy and possibly the antithesis of a bird, say... twitter?

some are pointing this new platform as the answer to our twitter addiction problems. it's new--that means more uptime, right? and it has to be better, if it's new. new and improved, or something.

well, i'm going to give you the good, the bad, and the ugly on plurk.

THE GOOD:
for visual learners, this is a plus. it's a flash reminiscent timeline that enables users to scroll through the day, with most recent plurks on the left, and a pull of the mouse enabling you to view back previous plurks (do i really have to say that?).

it's more visually engaging, offering different emoticon sets for those with different levels of Karma (which is earned via participation and recruitment), as well as personalized "plurk user mascots" to better express your plurkiness on your plurk profile. case in point:

[this winged thing best represents the digital plurk me]

to boot, when you respond to a plurk, it's like a little mini comment feed, enabling you to keep track of conversations in a neatly organized way. the following system is set up very similarly to Ning. you can have friends (mutual followers) and fans (those who you don't follow back) all plain to see (for some this may be a bad thing!) however, you can select what group (clique) sees a particular plurk, which i know some folks have been wanting (though i personally don't).

lastly, my personal favourite aspect is the Twistori effect, wherein my plurks are fed through tags like "loves," "likes," "shares," "feels," "thinks," and "asks." i'm sure i'm just associating my zen in its use, but it is, i find, a fun aspect.

THE BAD
it's closer to a mini social network than a micro blog feed. for those looking for direct comparisons, i don't also see any way for it to feed into your phones the way that twitter does, but i haven't looked that far because i'm a primary web-based twitter user and new to plurk. (as i assumed, i lied: "contrary to the official FAQ, there’s a mobile version of the site located at http://plurk.com/m which works just fine. SMS support is nowhere to be found, though." found here.)

it's really, painfully slow. i can add a friend, and they can add me back, and i won't know for twenty minutes at best. my karma doesn't update. it takes awhile for others' plurks to show up. it doesn't auto-refresh (so there's still that problem). the alerts are always "late" (ie, an alert was still there to add a friend, even after i'd added him ten minutes ago). as we speak, i have 3 plurk "responses" but the feed only clocks me at 1. statistics = fail.

also, it's not intuitive and somewhat confusing. it's certainly going to be more difficult for "easy adopter" types to stick with it. your mom won't be following your plurks anytime soon. the layout is a little clunky--i can't type a response and view my timeline comfortably at the same time. direct messages don't technically exist; instead, you plurk to a particular person and set it to private. clunky. it's hard to get a sense of who is saying what when. also difficult to figure out where someone "replied" to something you said--requires a lot of back-scrolling.

not to mention, it's difficult to find anyone else, though not impossible. you can go through your friends' friends myspace style. you can invite friends. you can search for existing friends via their emails. but it's so convoluted that it's a little hard to be bothered. all in all, it's very much "twitter 2.0" with all the web graphics and complicated nonsense. in some regards, it's cool, but it takes some getting used to with all the "noise." i don't think i'll be switching over fully anytime soon.

but, in case you want to find me, i'm here: user/thegirlriot or use this link, which automatically makes you friends with me, and you can skip that annoying part of the show where you have to locate me: make friends with Riot

THE UGLY
............PLURK?! really? wtf name is that?

what does "plurk" mean to you?
if you heard this on the street and had to define it, what would you say "plurk" is? noun, adjective, verb?

honestly. at least "twitter" and "tweet" is an actual word. "plurk" is like lurk with a superfluous "p" for flair, or pork with a random "l" injected. i keep typing plork instead of plurk. ick.

my contribution is that "plurk" is a noun, slang, for that person who sits in their office plunking away at their keyboards, lurking on extracurricular stuff, and only pretending to do work. heh.

twitter's fourth (brick) wall

i am not the first to discuss this, nor one of the best, either. but despite downtime, it's becoming quite apparent to me that the gods of twitter are displeased and are turning a deaf ear. and no, i don't just mean about the downtime.

am&a (@reverieapparel) and i were discussing ups and downs of twitter, functionally speaking. among the fact that easy to implement things would make twitter more useful (having a 'new messages' count for DMs apart from the lump sum, ie "1 // 12"; being able to select multiple DMs to delete rather than one at a time; the ability to search for a follower's name in the DM dropdown; all of these and more would be great)--we discovered there's no real way to get in touch with twitter.

continually people want to share (duh) and give feedback (hullo for free!) to make the service a better one for its users. and yet, there's no "feedback" button that gets you in touch with the company--at least not one that i've found or has been referred to me. apart from a lagging twitter account for updates and a blog in which they don't comment back, there's not much to close the loop.

the big question, o twitter which connects us, is: why?

why aren't you listening and getting involved? why aren't you utilizing your own work in the ways that other companies are? use twitter to get in touch with those on twitter. we're there. (a lot.)

badass, more badass, and badasser.

badass: Recount - showing us how badly we effed up since '00. it dares you to recast your presidential vote. if you can. (cue badass music)

more badass: Stoli Hotel - helping you forget to remember anything at all. it's a traveling circus, only with beds. the only way it could be better is if it weren't stoli. but hey, i already admitted i'm a vodka snob.

badasser: Beating Card - bringing you fight club in the safety of your interwebs. check out toad all decked out in black and blues. sexy, i tell you. heh.

and a parting gift, for those of us who have a slightly different definition of badass:
intellectual badassness: Inner Daemon - in His Dark Materials spirit, you can figure out what your inner daemon is. i've got a snow leopard. @dailybiz has some nice toucan plumage.

is there a person in the house?

NO. NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO. AND... NO?

"In other words, if everything else in a consumer's life is connected through digital, shopping should be, too."

if i want to be alone and not interact with people when i shop, I SHOP ONLINE.
i don't need to get on a car, in a subway, on a train, to go visit a store without people. granted, it's "less employees," not "no employees," but what's the difference? those people who still are employed will find better ways to "use the time" they're being paid for than to perform customer service, which requires patience, effort, and understanding. why do that when a computer can do it for you? besides, it's not like we need more jobs available anyway...

can i keep saying NO any more?

how many times do you call a phone of a company now and get into an endless automated loop about some stupid thing you never wanted to tell them just because you can't get a HUMAN on the phone? a human who could have answered your question in 2.5 seconds? i don't want to stare at a screen to discern my purchasing protocol. if i'm not doing it online i a) want a personal opinion about the product or b) i procrastinated and need said item NOW, at which point i'm not asking any questions anyway: my mind is made up. removing employed people from stores is a surefire way to lose traffic to said store. they could just buy online.

we are already disconnected. we are seeking connections via pixels. welcome to the age of mass communication. mass disillusionment. mass isolation. and you're just making it worse rather than fostering those connections. if anything, this technology should be a tool used by employees to help customers. like the computers in Borders or Wawa or your local tech-savvy deli. but for the love of interaction and humanity, don't lose the people. sometimes i leave the house just to see another face.

beware the stone gods.

the ... century

from here, found here.

i like it a lot. my one thought, however:
if
the 20th century = mass production for mass consumption
factories, cars, televisions, and fridges

then not
the 21st century = mass innovation

i still think it's missing the point a little. innovation is the sideproduct.
the "cashification" and "monetization" capable aspect, if you will.

it is
the 21st century = mass creation for mass communication

people want to communicate and connect, and so share. not innovate; that's secondary.

speaking of graffiti...

why should the Internets be any different?

rock on, Atmosphere. rock on. good music and good fun!

what would you creatively vandalize if given the chance?

me, i made an homage to my alma mater.

@dailybiz, thanks for referring a good time ;)

remorse & excitement about the state of creative

speaking of how i love my work....
Is it Time to Phase Out the Creative Function? via AdWeek.

answer: i hope not.

don't get me wrong. i am really excited about the internet. i am really excited about interactive. i love people. i LOVE people. putting art and words and business and people all together? making people more important--and the ads they see more relevant--than ever before? communicating and making real contact? THAT IS EXCITING.

it's exciting to have consumers participate in the creative. it's exciting to involve programmers and philanthropists and sociologists and ethnographers. you may not believe me, but i really am excited to be young and in this field. i think there's a lot of promise, a lot of hope, and a lot of authenticity that can be brought to it.

BUT! i am also remorseful.

when i decided to become a creative, i was sold on that method.
i WANT to be "the other half" of my creative partner. i want (i know, scoff and laugh, i'm young) those late night office hour sessions with coffee and pizza and tearing out of the hear and the brainstorming boards and the BIG IDEA that's wicked right now but in the a.m. will likely need a bit of finessing. I WANT INTERACTION AND COMMUNICATION that isn't only online.

i want that experience.

i feel like i'll miss out on it.
can't i have both? why are we forgoing one for the other?
creative can't really phase out. ....please?