Random musings on politics, society, and pop culture from the Internet's marketing curmudgeon.
How much do you know about penguins? Not the hockey-playing kind. The ones in Antartica. I know this sounds weird, but you can learn a lot about marketing from penguins. Here’s what I mean…
[Read more…] about Everything I needed to know about Marketing, I learned from Penguins.
When I was a kid, there was nothing better than an ice-cold bottle of Coke. My sister and I used to get a dollar from my grandmother, and walk about four blocks with my little sister, down to the Pak-a-Sak, and buy two Coca-Colas, two candy bars, and two comic books. I was six. She was four. We were barefoot and unaccompanied. It would have been around 1963. I can still taste that ice cold drink, feel the thick, green glass bottle in my six-year-old hand, condensation dripping onto my bare feet. I didn’t know it then, but this was what Heaven will be like.
[Read more…] about Woka-Cola.
I’ve always loved newspapers. When I was a kid, I had a paper route. I always had a couple of extra newspapers in the bundle, just to make sure that I had enough, if one got messed up, and every afternoon, I’d take one of the spares, and read it, pretty much cover to cover. Back then, reading a paper was a great way to learn about the world, the nation, and your own area. Newspapers used to have a couple of really important rules: 1) Don’t allow advertisers to influence your news coverage, and 2) Maintain a wall between hard news and opinion. Section A of the paper was always hard news – stories that provided the facts of the subject, in what we in Journalism class called the “Inverted Pyramid.” The idea was to provide all the salient details up-front, with more and more details further in. In a way, this is the opposite of how you’d write a story – in fiction, you want to create a hook at the beginning, to grab the reader and draw them deeper into the story. Well into the tale, you deliver the details and critical information to the story.
[Read more…] about Lies, Damned Lies, and The Media.
This whole “color thing” is getting confusing. We’re being segregated into “white,” “black,” “brown,” and “yellow,” as if that should matter. And “white” is supposed to be racist, because in the past, white people referred to people of color “black,” “brown” and “yellow.” In fact, you’re apparently a racist just for being white. But the Left claims you can’t be a racist if you’re black, brown or yellow which, ironically, sounds pretty racist to me.
So what’s the deal about color? I’m a graphic artist. I mean, if a graphic artist can’t get a handle on this, how will anybody else be able to understand color theory. Let me try to explain…
[Read more…] about Are Color Palettes Racist?
By now, you’ve probably heard about an internal Powerpoint stack that was leaked to the public, put together by the diversity department at Coca-Cola, and how they were trying to train employees to be “less white.” You might not have seen the original story, but you couldn’t miss all the memes flying about the ‘net, mocking Coke and their misbegotten messaging. (My particular fave are the ones that show Coke firing the polar bears, and hiring brown and black bears instead, because the polar bears are…wait for it…too white.)
Yes. Wokeness has gotten that stupid.
[Read more…] about Things go better when Woke?
I’ve held back from commenting on the SuperBowl Jeep ad for a bit, because I wanted to see if others felt about it the way I do.
Weirdly, both Leftists and Conservatives seem to feel the same way. They hate it. But for different reasons.
If you haven’t seen it, it features Bruce Springsteen as his trademarked character, the Working Man™, riding around Kansas, in a Jeep that’s gotta predate the Vietnam War. He’s drinking a cuppa Joe in a diner, driving the backroads, and (metaphorically) wrapping himself in the American flag, all the while staking a claim for unity in America.Lots to unpack on this one. So let’s get started.
I get a lot of people who ask me, “What should I buy to light myself, when I’m on a Zoom call?” Good question. Lighting is most of the battle, when it comes to looking good online. (Cleaning up the area behind you and dressing appropriately – from the waist up, at least – being the other critical factors.) There are a LOT of solutions you can find online, none of which appealed to me, because of the cost. So I set out to create my own, out of things I could find for cheap on Amazon. Here’s what I created.
[Read more…] about How to light for online video (on the cheap)I monitor a lot of different sites, looking for more business for my design firm. Sadly, a lot of the sites that match those who need a designer with people like me are filled with scammers, looking to make a quick, illicit buck off of coders, scribes, and graphic artists. Here’s a prime example of a scammer’s job request:
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Job type: Web Design [Read more…] about Caveat Venditor! (Seller beware!)
Something weird is going on. I can feel it. But I can’t really figure out exactly what…or why. I’m not a big “conspiracy guy.” I’m a believer in Occam’s Razor, and I think it’s nuts to see a conspiracy behind every tree and under every rock. Still, there is something weird happening, and I’d like to know what is the deal, here. I am speaking, of course, about the selection of flavors found in over the counter medicines and oral care products. Here’s what I mean… [Read more…] about Flavor of the Month.
When I was a kid, life was simple. There were boys. There were girls. Boys played “Army.” Girls played with dolls. Boys wore pants. Girls wore dresses. Life was good. I think I was 12 or so, before I heard the words “queer” and “gay” and learned that they meant “homosexual,” and was told what “homosexual” meant. I soon learned there was a whole panoply of people who had different ideas about sexuality. Boys who liked boys. Girls who liked girls. Boys who liked girls and boys, and vice-versa. Boys who liked to dress up like girls (and vice-versa). And then boys and girls who had their bodies altered to look like girls and boys, respectively. Confusing. I thought it was weird then. I’m not sure I think it’s any less weird now. Especially given that Bruce Jenner has “transitioned.” [Read more…] about Transitory State