September 30, 2004

hughtrain ramble

4 Comments

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THE HUGHTRAIN: “THE MARKET FOR SOMETHING TO BELIEVE IN IS INFINITE.”

We are here to find mea­ning. We are here to help other peo­ple do the same. Everything else is secon­dary.
We humans want to believe in our own spe­cies. And we want peo­ple, com­pa­nies and pro­ducts in our lives that make it easier to do so. That is human nature…

Had some more thoughts, mostly disor­ga­ni­sed ones:
: Blog­gers are a fairly idea­li­si­tic bunch. When you talk about spi­ri­tua­lity within a brand con­text they often get a bit twitchy. I guess some kind of self-imposed purity law is being mes­sed with.
: Jack, a young Com­mu­ni­ca­tions stu­dent from Aus­tra­lia wrote me today:

I’d like to see the future of adver­ti­sing in blogs. I can see how they’re part of it. But to be honest, I don’t think I see the big­ger picture.

So I write back:

Very few peo­ple can see the big pic­ture, inc­lu­ding those at the top of the industry.
The Com­mu­ni­ca­tions industry can’t see the big pic­ture because it doesn’t yet have a mecha­nism to handle Chaos Theory.

Worse than that, it doesn’t have any busi­ness models that allow them to do what they do cheaply. They only have expen­sive models. All those mouths to feed, all those exe­cu­tive golf club mem­berships to pay for etc etc.
You know that celeb on that TV show you watch? You know, the one with the fancy-schmancy lifestyle your long-sufferring wife spends all her time enviously rea­ding about in the tabloids?
Where does the celeb gets the means to buy all that cool stuff?
That’s right. From your paycheck. Her money comes from you. Because the money that pays for her TV appea­ran­ces comes from adver­ti­sers, who get their money from you when you go to Wal-Mart and buy their pro­ducts that you saw adver­ti­sed on your celeb pal’s TV show the night before.
Nice to see all that hard-earned money you take home from the job at the paper mill going to help such worthy cau­ses, like a new beach house in Malibu etc.
Big Media Cele­brity Worship is cor­po­rate feu­da­lism at its finest. The little peo­ple paying for the big peo­ple. I think it’s cute.

4 Responses to “hughtrain ramble”

  1. Brendan Thorne says:
    September 30, 2004 at 7:18 pm

    “Big Media Cele­brity Worship is cor­po­rate feu­da­lism at its finest. The little peo­ple paying for the big peo­ple. I think it’s cute.”
    I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. In any case, that’s a terri­fic observation.

  2. Kat says:
    October 19, 2004 at 8:41 pm

    I’m going to get this tat­tooed on the tops of my breasts.

  3. Brian Yamabe says:
    October 21, 2004 at 3:49 pm

    “Big Media Cele­brity Worship is cor­po­rate feu­da­lism at its finest. The little peo­ple paying for the big peo­ple. I think it’s cute.”
    Is this really that insight­ful? Sounds more like cyni­cism. A “cele­brity” is simply someone at the top of some desire pyra­mid. Peo­ple want enter­tain­ment — the pro­vi­der at the top is the “cele­brity.” Cor­po­ra­tions use that noto­riety to gain an asso­cia­tion with their pro­duct. The “cele­brity” is not a cele­brity because of the pro­ducts they pitch it’s for some other rea­son — Ron Popeil may be the excep­tion.
    The cor­po­ra­tions (lords) may con­trol the stars (vas­sals), but they don’t con­trol the fiefs (that’s us). We are free to walk off the land. When peo­ple start to throw out –isms to make a “pro­found” point it is often the sign of a weak argument.

  4. hugh macleod says:
    October 21, 2004 at 5:44 pm

    Well Brian, I find Holly­wood a strange place full of strange values. Then again, I say that about most pla­ces ;-)