Comments on: obscenity

By: Douglas Philips

Douglas Philips — Fri, 07 Jan 2005 21:19:31 +0000

Well, if you can’t be Hemingway, or even better, Oscar (Wilde), well, then fuck this and fuck that. Ho hum. Like any kinda avante garde, you have to be different to be different. The question isn’t whether fuck still shocks (depends on your audience), but what do you replace it with when its worn out.
P.S. If you think sex sells because FUCK means sex, you are really confused.

By: Jon Husband

Jon Husband — Fri, 07 Jan 2005 12:27:32 +0000

From up thread: Hugh, I hate to break it to you, but approximately 50% to maybe even 66% of businesses in the world WILL NEVER BE YOUR CUSTOMER because you choose to drop a c f s bombs
Guess what .. it’s a big world and 50 % or 66% of businesses in the world will never be Hugh’s customers NO MATTER what he does or says, salty, profane, polite, sycophantic or otherwise. If he’s hughly successful ;0-) he’ll have about 20 or 30 clients … that only leaves the other 99.7% of the businesses in the world looking for him … but he’ll be too busy with that 0.3%.

By: john t unger

john t unger — Fri, 07 Jan 2005 03:46:14 +0000

I used to work as a freelance designer in Chicago. I’ve probably spent time in at least half the tall buildings in the loop. When I first started out, I made an effort to kind of blend in, dress appropriately, tone down my natural foul tongue, etc. Until I got too bored to care anymore whether I was ever asked to come back, at which point i reverted to type.
Oddly, I found that my filthy mouth and all the other visible atributes of a frustrated sculptor trapped in a cubible thinking about gnawing his leg off, deeply endeared me to most clients. They didn’t swear any more frequently at work, but they LOVED it that i did. Go figure.
Anyway, now I make sculpture for a living and no longer spend much time in high rise cubicle farms. The jury is still out on whether people want artists to act more like contractors and businessmen, or like raving degenerate freaks, but it seems to be contextual. I can certainly get away with a lot and blame it on my artistic temperament (whatever that is) but at the same time, when I make a good business point or offer someone demonstrably sound financial advice, they like that too. So I play ‘em as I see ‘em now, which keeps the whole thing more interesting.
last thought: I find swearing to be most useful as punctuation. When you read written text, the punctuation is often helpful in determing the rhythm, meaning, etc. In spoken language, the well-placed expletive can drive a point home quite nicely.

By: "Hello_World"

"Hello_World" — Fri, 07 Jan 2005 03:36:53 +0000

Strategic swearing

I use this tool in meetings all the time, in fact, we actually train people on the value of it. I simply slip in a subtle “shit” near the beginning of the meeting e.g. “Yeah, the weekend was great

By: Chris Corrigan

Chris Corrigan — Thu, 06 Jan 2005 11:00:07 +0000

boo said:
“this blog would be on a “potentially unsafe” list in any company with more than a couple of employees and an active HR department in the US due to the fear of sexual harassment lawsuits from disgruntled ex-employees.”
Are you serious? I had the image of a company like the Gap, who make fairly provocative ads and skimpy clothes actually having a sexual harrassment policy that would find a web site like this one offensive:
“I’m sorry but it’s fine to do on the public airwaves, but don’t leave Hugh’s site on your PC at the office.”
It’s absurd. This is a very surreal thread. Obviously Rose was wrong when she thought the business man would like gapingvoid. You’ve got to learn to read your clients better, Rose. You got busted!

By: mrG

mrG — Thu, 06 Jan 2005 10:19:45 +0000

“Perhaps your glazed-over eyes are blind to the fact that business is still business”.…
now THAT is obscene.

By: djcoffman

djcoffman — Thu, 06 Jan 2005 01:40:15 +0000

Oh dear. I swear like a pirate here at my tiki-bar.
It doesn’t seem to hurt my wallet any at all. Hmm..
Oh, it just occured to me, that I may have sent Rose here by posting about Gaping Void on the Toontalk message board. Rose, if you don’t like the language or atmosphere here, don’t let the link hit you on the way out!

By: Johnnie Moore

Johnnie Moore — Thu, 06 Jan 2005 00:49:51 +0000

Hmm, why all the speculation about what “other people” might or might not think? What if we settle for owning our own opinions about swearing or whatever instead of idly projecting them onto the rest of the world.
My opinion: swear all you like Hugh.

By: Katherine

Katherine — Thu, 06 Jan 2005 00:39:21 +0000

Evelyn Rodriguez up-thread hit it on the head. Some potential customers will be turned off by the language here. I suspect Hugh knows that and doesn’t care. Those customers are people he wouldn’t be happy working with anyway, in part because they wouldn’t understand what he’s trying to tell them.
A good free agent often has more potential clients than they can handle effectively. Being able to screen out the bozos — for whatever definition of bozo you like — is one of the joys of free agency. It also tends to infuriate those who don’t have that freedom. Oh well.

By: Huw

Huw — Thu, 06 Jan 2005 00:09:00 +0000

Hamish hits the bull’s eye …

By: AcouSvnt

AcouSvnt — Wed, 05 Jan 2005 23:04:00 +0000

boo sez: “And it isn’t a matter of personal preference: this blog would be on a “potentially unsafe” list in any company with more than a couple of employees and an active HR department in the US due to the fear of sexual harassment lawsuits from disgruntled ex-employees.”
There are obviously exceptions to that. I won’t waste my whole morning looking things up and writing long lists, but suffice to say South Park is still on television.
I think we as humans have a moral obligation to prevent soulless “verbal discrimination” from swallowing up the remaining 10% of our culture.

By: Thom Lawrence

Thom Lawrence — Wed, 05 Jan 2005 20:46:04 +0000

5. Ruthlessly avoid working for companies that “don’t get it”.
Yeah, you may have to turn down a few gigs, and that can really hurt when the rent is due. Still, anything that’s easy to get isn’t worth having.

By: SEO Book.com

SEO Book.com — Wed, 05 Jan 2005 19:52:41 +0000

Google on 60 Minutes, Patrick Gavin Interview, & Interesting Links

Google was recently featured on 60 minutes. Google recently created an ad only search and started to test placing images in their regular search results. SMA NA formed. I interviewed Patrick Gavin. Six Apart is to buy LiveJournal. A few random links.

By: tonygoodson

tonygoodson — Wed, 05 Jan 2005 19:17:42 +0000

Please Don’t Swear!

Have a read of the debate going on in Hugh Macleod’s GapingVoid weblog.

By: david

david — Wed, 05 Jan 2005 18:43:44 +0000

I just spent all day yesterday sitting at a conference table… with an asshole no less.
So … Thanks Hugh! I needed that laugh!