photography

PotD  /  Social Commentary
Snapchat Is A Portal To Hell
February 10, 2016
charles i. letbetter - snapchat is a portal to hell

The information you get from social media is not a substitute for academic discipline at all.—Bill Nye

 

charles i. letbetter - snapchat is the portal to hell

The fact that we cannot be separated from our phones is disturbing enough, but to not use them the way we want is criminal

Look at the string of icons at the top of this page and one should understand that I am not shy to using social media. I have Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Tumblr, Skype, and Instagram all set up and at the ready anytime I feel their use to be justified. As with many websites, Facebook is responsible for most of the visitors coming to this page, with Twitter coming in second on most days. I have other apps just for social media on my phone, including Vine and Periscope and Yelp. Perhaps most importantly at this particular moment, I have the NYFW app that allows me to view fashion shows even when I’m stuck in traffic. Yay me, I  am so connected [insert eye roll here].

Yesterday, I received an email (you remember those, don’t you?) from my favorite editor at Pattern asking, “I’d love to figure out a way to use the reviews and the photos cross-platform…like on snapchat…do you know anything about creating graphics and uploading text to snapchat?”

Snapchat. There’s an app I wasn’t expecting to need. Instagram, sure. I know exactly how to work that one cross-platform. Pinterest? Not a problem; we can do that. But Snapchat? I don’t have a freaking clue, and with good reason: Snapchat is for teenagers.

Okay, so there’s no age filter on Snapchat that limits who can use it. Still, there are several apps on the market that are primarily the domain of teens and/or college students and I feel no compulsion to pretend I’m part of that group by downloading an app I’ll likely never use. Still, I told the editor I’d take a look. Having done so this morning, I can only come to one possible conclusion:

Snapchat is a portal directly to hell.

I should have known this app was going to be trouble when I first saw its logo. What is that thing? Is it a ghost? The soul of lost Snapchat users? A depiction of what your brain becomes after hours of Snapchatting? An unidentifiable GOP Presidential candidate? I should know better than to download an app whose logo I can’t dissect.

Next, as I go to download the app, a window pops up on my phone telling me all the things this app is going to access. My friends lists. My contacts. My location. My current physical position. The last five songs I’ve listened to on Spotify. My blood pressure (which is suddenly very high). My last doctor’s appointment. The list was so long I had to scroll. This can’t be good, can it? I have a very bad feeling in the pit of my stomach, but I promised I would take a look at the app and the only way to do that is to install it. Fortunately, my firstborn is already spoken for.

Upon completing the installation, one has to create an account. Immediately, I see another red flag: it won’t accept my full name. I’m still mad at Twitter for having dropped the final “r” from my name. I don’t like apps that won’t let me use my whole name because it’s dehumanizing. Not giving me space for my full name tells me they had lazy developers who didn’t want to create a database cell of sufficient size.  I feel as though a portion of my soul is being stripped away from me as I create my new account name: c.letbetter. Sigh. Do you realize how many c.letbetters there are in this world?

Once my account is set up, with both email and phone confirmation, Snapchat then asks me to create a profile picture. Now, normally, this isn’t a problem. I have a set of images sized specifically for social media profiles. After all, I’ve done this enough we should be experienced, right? No. This is Snapchat. There’s no warning what is about to happen. There’s no option to upload your own picture. No, you press a button, the app counts down from three and then this happens (warning: those with weak stomachs  or heart conditions may want to scroll down very rapidly):

charles i. letbetter - snapchat is a portal to hell

The most frightening thing I’ve seen in a long time.

Mind you, there is no option for editing out the bags under my eyes. There is no filter available. No, you just get a picture of me at 4:00 AM. At least, it should keep small children from accidentally adding me. We can only hope.

Next, they tell you that everything you do on Snapchat is in the moment. There’s no saving it for later. There’s no keeping it as a reference for what someone said or did. You create the Snapchat, someone sees it, and it’s gone. Hellooooooo trouble. This is probably why only teenagers use this damn thing; they’re not old enough yet to understand the need to save correspondence, even when it seems trivial at the moment. Snapchat opens the door to he-said-she-said arguments that are unsolvable because the whole record of the exchange is deleted. Sure, someone could always take a screenshot, but then faking a screenshot is rather easy.

Without evidence of any content, the door is open for all manner of malfeasance. One might share top secret information. An Apple employee in Ireland could let a hacker see their login info (for which hackers are paying a reported $10K). Vermin could run for President (oops, that one already happened). Your girlfriend could accidentally send nude pics to your mother. Just think of the horrors that could ensue!

Of course, all that is assuming that people add you. One cannot send a Snapchat to those who have not added them. Still, the more I’m reading about Snapchat hacking, the more I question just how insecure the whole platform may be.

There’s no question in my mind now that Snapchat is a portal to hell. And I still don’t have a clue how to cross-promote with it. NYFW starts tomorrow. Contact me the old fashioned way if you know how to solve this problem.

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Fashion
Putting The Fix On The Fashion System
February 9, 2016
charles i. letbetter - putting the fix on the fashion system

A leader is someone who helps improve the lives of other people or improve the system they live under.—Sam Houston

 

charles i. letbetter - Putting the fix on the fashion system

We all know the fashion system is broken. The big question now is how to fix it. There are a lot of ideas.

We are two days away from the start of New York Fashion Week. Stop and think about that for a minute. In two days, catwalks are going to be full of clothes largely designed not to be worn now, but next fall. At best, you’ll start seeing them in August. Then, by the time fashion weeks end in early October, those clothes start going on sale. How is anyone actually making any money in this silly game we call fashion?

That’s just it; a lot of companies are not making money and those few that are seem to be anomalies rather than leaders that others can follow. Consider the news from earlier this morning that the retailer Banana Republic had sales drop a whopping 17% in January compared to the same time last year. Gap and Old Navy also announced declines, but neither were as severe as Banana Republic. The fashion system is broken from beginning to end and that’s making some desperate to try anything in an attempt to fix what’s wrong.

Consider Russian-born designer Demna Gvasalia. If you’re not already familiar with that name, write it down and underscore it in red. Not only are he and his brother Guram the power behind the Vetements collective, but he was also recently named as creative director for Ballenciaga. We’re going to be seeing a lot of him, to be sure, but probably not where we expect. He announced last week that Vetements is going off-schedule and plans to start showing their collections in January and June instead. The concept behind the move is that this gives their clothes more time on the shelves before they start getting the mark-down treatment.

Gvasalia isn’t the only one trying things new. Burberry announced last week that they will consolidate their mens’ and womens’ lines in their September show and that customers can purchase pieces they like immediately after the show. Tom Ford joined Thakoon, Rebecca Minkoff, and Mathew Williamson in skipping the upcoming season entirely so that they can come back in September with their fall/winter collections and immediate purchase options. Hunter is abandoning the schedule completely and opting to show at music festivals.

Fashion industry magazine Business of Fashion published an opinion piece  online yesterday that is a conversation between an editor, a designer, a blogger, a retailer, and a consultant. The article is interesting and you can read the full conversation here if you have the time. While the effort was earnest, however, I’m not sure the people involved are the ones who can truly transform the system. Perhaps had the editor been Condé Nast’s Anna Wintour, the designer been Raf Simmons, and the retailer was H&M CEO Karl-Johan Persson, there might have been a conversation that actually had a chance of changing the system. [Not to slight anyone, but including a blogger seems, to me, more of a courtesy as they are not truly in a position to directly impact processes within the system.]

What the group did, however, was identify problematic issues within the fashion system that most everyone agrees need to be changed. Solutions are debatable, of course, and there is no one-size fits all method that everyone can follow. Still, they make for good talking points so let’s consider what those areas of concern are:

  • Fashion is moving too fast. JJ Martin of Wallpaper* said, “A lot of fashion houses today are being run like consumer packaged goods companies. There’s no difference between selling handbags and toothpaste.” Here is the reason that so many companies are having to fall back on accessories and perfumes in order to make money. The fashion system is moving too fast and, as a result, over producing. There are more clothes on store shelves at any given time than we can even begin to comprehend, let alone actually buy. Consumers are so inundated with wave after wave after wave of new clothing that they feel they can’t catch up. No matter what one buys, when it is replaced on the shelves the next day that new garment now feels out of style. The obvious solution: slow down and restock shelves a mere four times a year, not every week. Sounds simple, but it would mean retailers and department stores completely changing their business models.
  • Show schedules are disconnected from buying schedules. This is the problem to which Tom Ford and others are reacting by moving their fall/winter lines to show in September rather than now. This is not an easy switch, though, and, as I’ve mentioned before, there are going to be some serious logistical issues to conquer in making this profound change to the system work. Where do buyers fit in? How is the supply chain converted? Does this change how shows are presented? This is definitely a pro-consumer move, but changes for those caught in the middle could make delivery almost impossible.
  • Brands don’t understand how to do digital. Instagram. Twitter. Snapchat. Periscope. Online purchasing. There are a handful of brands that handing the digital aspect of fashion very well, but the majority are dumbfounded, trusting large portions of their fashion empires to 20-somethings doing inexplicable things with digital cameras and computers. There are still some brands that are not represented online at all, believe it or not. The digital takeover of all things consumer-based has been overwhelming for fashion brands and both creative directors and CEOs have huge gaps in their understanding of how digital can/should work for them. Consider how many brands still won’t stream their runway shows this season, despite the fact that it has a proven positive impact on sales. The challenge here is that convincing anyone to adopt something to which they are already resistant is nearly impossible. This deficit alone could spell doom for some long-standing brands.
  • Creatives are overwhelmed and in crisis. The 2010 suicide of Alexander McQueen should have been a wake-up call for the entire fashion system. There is a limit to how much a creative mind can produce and, for the most part, we are exceeding that limit. Witness the recent exits of Raf Simmons and Alber Elgar from Dior and Lanvin respectively. Both were being asked to do too much in too short a time frame. They are not the only ones suffering under this impossible expectation. Look at how boring fashion has become. How many designers have little time to do more than re-work the label’s catalog rather than create anything genuinely new? Slowing down to only four collections a year would help, but fashion is going to lose more great minds if this doesn’t change quickly.

I remain convinced that one answer overlooked by the gigantic fashion system at large is to buy more from local designers and boutiques. Consumers can push a lot of positive change simply by altering their buying habits just a little bit. Start taking some of the cash out of Karl-Johan Persson’s hands and put it into the local economy through local makers. If only 10% of fashion consumers dropped department store shopping completely, the fashion system would immediately turn and take notice, supporting more local fashion rather than investing in seeing how impossibly large two or three players can get.

I also remain quite certain that putting designers in charge of their own houses and letting some brands die off is a good thing for fashion. This would help reduce some of the over-supply that is choking retail and would also support younger designers who, perhaps, might find even better ways to engage digitally. This could be an especially critical move as Millennials, who are not especially materialistic, take over as the lead shopping demographic.

Great change isn’t going to arrive by Thursday. I’ll still give you the blow-by-blow account on Pattern, and we will do our best to make it enjoyable. But if anything, now that we are talking about the problems in the fashion system, we’re likely to see them even more glaring than before. The road could get rocky. Hold on.

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pop culture  /  PotD
Trolls And How To Be Them
February 9, 2016
charles i. letbetter - trolls and how to be them

Jesus tells us to turn the other cheek, which is an ancient way of saying ‘Don’t feed the trolls.’—Anonymous

 

charles i. letbetter - trolls and how to be them

The Internet is full of disgusting, disagreeable creatures that lurk in dark shadows and say stupid things. These are Trolls. We all flirt with them.

Somewhere, well back into the mid-1960s, my parents gave me a paperback book with a yellow cover. I still remember the event clearly. We were on our way to visit one of my aunts and, presumably, they gave me the book to keep me quiet and out of the way. The trick worked. I can only assume now that we were visiting my aunt for rather serious reasons. She was the single mother of five, her husband having abandoned her when the youngest was but a few months old. Single moms were rare back then, and the challenges she faced were significant. We visited often, and I would assume now that those visits were not necessarily social, but more to help with various issues. Therefore, keeping me quiet and out of the way was beneficial.

The short title of the book is Goops and How To Be Them by Gelett Burgess. The complete title, though, is: Goops and How To Be Them: A Manual of Manners for Polite Infants Inculcating Many Juvenile Virtues Both By Precept and Example, With Ninety Drawings. Yes, the title is almost as long as the book itself. First published in 1900, there can be an occasional challenge in how some words are defined. For example, when he uses the term “infants,” he’s referring to any child not yet in school. The book is meant to be humorous, to be sure. After all, this is the same person who gave us that poem about a purple cow. Yet, the manners he prescribes are timeless. The book starts like this:

Let me introduce a Race
Void of Beauty and of Grace,
Extraordinary Creatures
With a Paucity of Features.
Though their Forms are fashioned ill,
They have Manners stranger still;
For in Rudeness they’re Precocious,
They’re Atrocious, they’re Ferocious
Yet you’ll learn, if you are Bright
Politeness from the Impolite.
When you’ve finished with the Book,
At your Conduct take a Look;
Ask yourself, upon the Spot,
Are you Goopy or are you Not?
For, although it’s Fun to See them
It is Terrible to Be them!

The book was out of print for several years, so I was not able to give a copy to my own boys. Thankfully, a 2014 reprint is now for sale and I’m thinking of a certain seven-year-old who might well benefit from having a personal copy of this particular volume. The lessons truly are well worth the effort.

Yet, as I look back over the title now, considering where and what we are as a society so deeply embedded in digital content and social media, I wonder if Burgess, were he alive today, might re-work the title as Trolls and How To Be Them. After all, or so it would seem, Internet trolls and Goops would have a great deal in common. In fact, it may well be that the infantile Goops grow up to be the adolescent trolls and, no matter their age, never seem to grow beyond that stage of development. While their adult-sized bodies may be large and misshaped, trolls never really grow up. They never assume responsibility, they don’t take care of their own business because they’re too concerned about everyone else’s, and they never socialize with friends because even trolls don’t like being around other trolls. They’re Goops, to be sure, just in larger bodies.

I apologize for not writing this next section in verse, something at which Burgess was especially talented, but let’s consider for a moment some of the ways Goops and trolls are alike.

  1. They are aggressive and rude. Goops pull on little girls curls, and trolls enjoy making fun of women’s features in general, body shaming every aspect bust especially focusing on faces, breasts, and hips.
  2. Goops and trolls go out of their way to create trouble. Goops might trip someone walking or push them in the mud. Trolls hurl verbal mud at the nicest of people and then berate them for being “dirty.”
  3. Both Goops and trolls enjoy their ignorance. Goops tear up books and pay no attention to teachers. Trolls delight in spreading rumor and innuendo without bothering to check their facts and are consistently unable to provide a reliable source to back up their comments.
  4. Neither are respectful of authority. Goops are disobedient and don’t listen to their parents. Trolls don’t care about community standards and challenge administrators and managers charged with moderating comments. Trolls also enjoy attacking anyone in a position of authority, from the President or Prime Minister to the manager of the local burger joint.
  5. They think only of themselves and the things that bring them pleasure. Goops are lazy, never helpful, and want everything done for them. Trolls provide no benefit and tear people down rather than build them up. Trolls never have anything positive to say.

Trolls are nasty creatures and I am constantly astonished at how they are tolerated in places they don’t belong. You may or may not have noticed that I don’t provide for commenting on any of my articles. Goops and trolls are a large part of why that feature is not present here. I struggle to understand why it is present on things such as news stories or magazine articles. Why are comments necessary at all? If one has a legitimate disagreement, then make appropriate contact through appropriate channels. Trolling comments serve no beneficial purpose at all.

Burgess created Goops as an object lesson. He featured them in a comic strip for about a year and I do desperately wish that those would make a renewed appearance. I think we might learn a lot about how we should behave. Perhaps, just maybe, they might teach us how to not be trolls.

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PotD  /  Social Commentary
Why Football Has To Change
February 8, 2016
charles i. letbetter - why football has to change

Football is an incredible game. Sometimes it’s so incredible, it’s unbelievable.—Tom Landry

 

charles i. letbetter - why football has to change

If the NFL is going to make it to Super Bowl 100, the game has to fundamentally change

Late in last night’s Super Bowl game, the NFL ran a ten-second spot where they asked children who might still be alive what they think Super Bowl 100 might be like. The answers were cute if not a little outrageous including things like hoverboards and other stuff I don’t remember. Coming at the end of the game, I doubt too many people noticed the spot at all, but I couldn’t help thinking that unless the NFL makes some serious changes, there won’t be a Super Bowl 100, and there may not be an NFL at all.

Let’s be very clear, growing up in Oklahoma, I was immersed in sports, even though I was too clumsy and uncoordinated to actually play. I love watching a good game, whether it’s baseball, basketball, or football. I love being at a game live, I enjoy being passionate in supporting a team, and I have this strange thing for hot chocolate from a concession stand. I’m not anti-sport by any stretch of the imagination.

However, I noticed something at the beginning of last night’s game that almost made me cry. Being the 50th Super Bowl, someone thought it would be nice to honor the MVPs from each of the preceding games. The names were those from my childhood, the men I’d watched battle on Sunday afternoons, the champions that defined the game in my imagination: Bart Starr, Joe Namath, Roger Staubach, Larry Csonka, Franco Harris, Lynn Swann, Terry Bradshaw, Jim Plunkett, Joe Montana. I watched as they took their places, crossing a corner of the field and I couldn’t help but notice that every one of those men who had played more then ten years ago had something in common: They were hurting. Sure, some handled it better than others, but you could see it in how they walked, how they held themselves, and how they stood, uneasily, on the risers. This is what football does to you.

There has been a tremendous amount of overdue attention this past year to the physical dangers imposed upon those who play football, especially at a professional level. Most critical among those is a problem with concussions, resulting in Chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE. CTE is caused by repeated traumatic brain injury, the kind frequently experienced from concussions received while playing football. While advances have been made in regards to better helmets and other protective measures, concussions are still the game’s most dangerous injury. Even during last night’s game Carolina lost a player in the first half due to concussion.

CTE has only been identified in American football players since 2002. CTE is a degnerative disease that can lead to alzheimers, balance issues, severe changes in mood, blindness and hearing loss. There are multiple on-going lawsuits against the NFL from players, but the league has still been reluctant to fully address the problem and make significant changes to the game. Doctors are beginning to draw lines between CTE and erratic player behavior. Already, several retired players with CTE have committed suicide. There is even some speculation that O. J. Simpson has CTE and that it may have factored in the murder of Nicole Brown Simpson.

CTE isn’t the NFL’s only problem, though. Millennials are not embracing the sport in the same way Boomers did, and the Generation Z kids coming up behind them are even less enthused. While stadiums are trying to digitize in an effort to keep millennials in their seats, a handful of old-timers charge that millennials are soft, the reality is much more severe. Millennials are a problem for football because millennials don’t trust the NFL.

What we’re looking at are generations of young people who are more connected to what’s real, more adverse to taking risk, and place greater value in day-to-day life. They are less concerned about making millions (though several of them already have) and more concerned about doing better by the planet, society, their friends, and their families. As a result, when they come across an organization, whether it be the NFL, the GOP, cable companies, or Wall Street Banks, they tend to walk the other way and find alternatives.

How can football survive if upcoming generations refuse to attend the games run by corrupt owners? What does the NFL have to do to survive at all? Of course, opinions vary, but here are some critical elements that simply must change:

  • Acknowledge that in-game concussions are a serious threat to every player and not only change equipment but change rules to prevent them from happening. Yes, this will fundamentally change how the game is played, but it is necessary.
  • More closely monitor behavior of active athletes. Cincinnatti Bengals quarterback Johnny Manziel is the poster child for this one. Fans are tired of off-field aggressiveness and won’t pay to watch childish brats being paid too much money.
  • Provide more thorough and complete medical and mental care for retired players. One of the greatest scars across the face of football is players who are permanently disabled by the time their 40 and in financial trouble trying to pay for care.
  • Lower ticket prices. Millennials and those behind them aren’t keen on paying $100 a ticket for nosebleed seats to a game that only marginally holds their interest in the first place. The same applies to basketball and most concert venues. They’re going to find seats increasingly empty if this doesn’t change quickly.
  • Teams need to stop leaning on host cities and sponsors and learn how to pay their own way. Football teams, both college and professional, rake in billions of dollars, yet they don’t pay for the facilities in which they play, and in most cases they demand tax expemptions and other favors as well. Millennials and others are tired of footing the bill for the 1%. Let team owners and the NFL pay for their own damn stadiums, practice facilities rather than sucking host cities dry.

Dont’ let the excitement over last night’s game fool you. The writing is very clearly on the wall. Fans are not happy with the state of football and more than just millennials are ready to walk out the door and do something else with their Sunday afternoons. We love the sport and would like to see it continue, but the bullshit needs to stop. Football has to change.

Got that, Roger Goodell?

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Advertising
Bucking Trends: Our 5 Favorite Super Bowl Ads
February 8, 2016
charles i. letbetter - bucking trends

The trends that last and the trends that are relevant are the ones that make you look pretty.—Aerin Lauder

 

charles i. letbetter - bucking trends

There are times when a popular response and ad trackers can’t be trusted; this is one of them.

Whew, I am so very happy the Super Bowl is over if for no other reason than it’s likely to take a week for my indigestion to die down. There is still wing residue on my keyboard this morning and the over-abundance of dip and chips tells me what the kids will have for afterschool snacks this week. With some wacky weather moving in later this morning, it will be nice to talk about something else, once we tidy up a few loose ends around here.

Super Bowl ad watching has become just as much a part of the event as the football game itself. Some years, it’s been more exciting than the game, and let’s be honest, there were moments during the third and start of the fourth quarter when we might not have minded a few more ads to break the monotony of three-downs-and-punt. There were, as always, some very good ads, some horrible ads, and some that didn’t get the attention they deserve. There are also several rankings of the ads this morning. AdWeek and USAToday’s AdMeter are two decent lists if you’re interested. A lot of people look at Twitter response as well, but that can hardly be considered accurate, especially after half-way through the second quarter when a good portion of those tweeting are clearly drunk.

I’m going with a slightly different ranking system from what others use. Since we saw the vast majority of commercials before the game, what I found interesting was how some commercials actually felt different when viewed during the game than watching them cold beforehand. I was more likely to be entertained by an ad after one of the three touchdowns than one during the third quarter when the game fell into a rut. Reactions of friends also influenced my opinion, as happens for everyone. People viewing ads as a group almost always score them differently than when watching them alone. Overall, I was less entertained by the humor and more struck by the emotional ads. Let’s take a look at my top five:

Doritos, ‘Ultrasound’

Reaction to this one likely depends upon one’s age, whether one has children, and whether one was n a group when it came on. Kat and I had very different reactions. I thought it was hilarious. She thought it was a bit gross. We were both thankful the children were already in bed. This was the last of the Doritos “Crash The Super Bowl” contests, though, and one gets the feeling that no one was quite  as enthused about it this year as with previous games. Given a choice between this one and the dogs, this is the clear winner.

https://youtu.be/vH2LsFcWOFY

Kia, ‘Walken Closet’

I still have questions about this one, including whether the dude in the tan suit is driving that care barefoot. Christopher Walken makes an excellent case for a car I probably wouldn’t otherwise consider, though, and that’s what Kia needed. The fourth-quarter ad really helps them stand out from all the other automobile ads in the game and came late enough, when people were actually paying attention, that they might stand a chance of remembering the ad when they pass a Kia dealership on the way to work this morning. The add didn’t hit the trends hard, but it works.

https://youtu.be/9r0FrXXKeiA

NFL, ‘Super Bowl Babies Choir’

I fear the NFL may have shot themselves in the foot a bit with how they teased this one in five-second spots throughout the game. By the time the 60-second version showed up late in the fourth quarter, it felt as though we’d already seen it before and I have a feeling a lot of folks just weren’t paying attention so it completely missed the trends. Millennials without children didn’t seem to get the concept at all, which is not new. Still, the commercial is probably one of the few times the NFL has actually made me smile this season. The little ones are cute. Seal doing a parody of his own song is hilarious. And you know damn good and well there are going to be some babies in Denver come October.

Hyundai, ‘First Date’

Those of you with daughters understand. Actually, anyone with teenagers of driving age understands. The tracking technology built into this car has many potential uses. Live in a high crime rate area? Catch a car thief with this tracker. Suspect that someone’s not where they say they are? Follow up on them. There’s a potential creepy element here because if that thing is using GPS to do the tracking, then it can be hacked. Hello, stalker alert! Still, there’s not a dad alive who doesn’t want to send a message to the guy dating his daughter. This was funny.

https://youtu.be/-R_483zeVF8

Jeep, ‘Portraits’

Hands down, my favorite of the game. That may well be a reflection of my age, though. While the ad trends really well with the Baby Boomers of my generation, it resonated less with younger generations. Millennials didn’t get many of the references, some of which were a bit of a stretch in the first place. There are dangers to reaching too far back into history and the ad flirts with that line but doesn’t quite cross it. AdWeek has a nice article on the relationship between the faces and the vehicle, in case you missed a few. The ad touches on the nostalgia of the vehicle and its universal reliance as a vehicle that gets one through the rough patches. I’ve always wanted a Jeep and this ad really stoked that fire. Too bad I can’t drive.

https://youtu.be/wKn5K5V7tRo

There were some major disappointments along the way, too. The Coca-Cola ad with Marvel’s Hulk? Not a winner. Butterfingers big reveal? A complete letdown. Taco Bell’s new product? More of the same, just given a silly name. Perhaps most disappointing was the complete strike-out by all the Budweiser brands. When they’ve done so much better, this year’s crop fell well short of the standard.

But we’re done with them now. Hooray! Just in time to make fun of the gooey Valentine’s Day commercials!

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Music
Ethics Are A Real Thing, Bey
February 7, 2016
charles i. letbetter - ethics are a real thing, bey

Ethics is knowing the difference between what you have a right to do and what is right to do.—Potter Stewart

 

charles i. letbetter - ethics are a thing, Bey

Being a big star can get you a lot of leeway, but there are some lines no one has a right to cross

There’s little question that Beyoncé is one of the biggest stars on the music scene today, and when she hits the stage during the halftime of today’s Super Bowl crowds will scream and yell, forgetting the horror of Coldplay that they’ve had to sit through first. In addition to being a fantastic musician, Beyoncé is also a brilliant marketer. Last night, less than 24 hour before the Super Bowl halftime show, she released her new music video, Formation, which immediately set the Internet on fire, zooming to the top of both Billboard and iTunes hot charts. #Formation is still trending on Twitter and probably will continue to do so through the day.

There’s just one problem: The video makes heavy use of documentary footage from the documentary, That B.E.A.T., by Abteen Bahgeri and Chris Black. Chrisk Black was quick to lash out on Twitter:

Later, Entertainment Weekly publishes this statement supposedly from Queen Bey’s representative:

“The documentary footage was used with permission and licensed from the owner of the footage. They were given proper compensation. The footage was provided to us by the filmmaker’s production company. The filmmaker is listed in the credits for additional photography direction. We are thankful that they granted us permission .”

So, everything’s cool, right? Permission was granted, rights were secured, etc.

Well, hold on. If rights and permission were secured in advance, how did the filmmakers not know that? Yes, their names are in the credits, which had to have been added before the video was uploaded, but how is it even possible that the people who created the documentary wouldn’t know those things?

This comes on the heels of another dustup concerning the Coldplay video featuring Beyoncé  Hymn For The Weekend,  which was released last week. Almost immediately, anger erupted across the Internet over whether Bey and the band were guilty of cultural appropriation. Opinions were diverse and strong. Among the people from India or Indian-American, the greatest offense seemed to center around the sari and headdress that Beyoncè was wearing in addition to various backgrounds that identify with the culture. Was the video, as Coldplay claims, an appreciation of Indian culture? Or is it a westernized version of that culture appropriated for commercial purposes?

Thes are not easy question to answer, but then, matters of ethics are rarely easy. They take time to think through the multiple perspectives of an issue or situation, not just one’s own. One’s intention is not always how an action is receieved. Unfortunately, when one is a big star, with millions of people buying albums and screaming their adoration, ethics often flies out the window. Beyoncé is certainly flirting with that line, and in the opinions of many she’s crossed it.

Plenty of people would come to the singer’s defense, saying that any offense is imagined and that she’s simply being edgy or trying to bring attention to a specific situation. She’s trying to do good. Here’s the paradox: when one has to do something wrong in order to create the appearance of doing something right, is the wrong justified? Rarely is that the case, and certainly a music video does not justify any harm toward anyone, at any time.

The music industry has often crossed ethical lines and more than a few artists and record companies have paid a significant price for their errors. Yet, there are some who think the rules don’t apply to them, that it doesn’t matter if they don’t ask permission up front, or if they appropriate the culture of an entire country. We all love good music and Beyoncé is among the best, but ethics are a real thing, Bey. When our stars hurt other people in an  attempt to stay on top, what choice do we have but to walk away and leave those stars to fade?

When you sit on top of the world, everyone is watching. Ethics matter.

 

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Current Issues  /  PotD
Disaster In The Making
February 7, 2016
charles i. letbetter - disaster in the making

Even with all our technology and the inventions that make modern life so much easier than it once was, it takes just one big natural disaster to wipe all that away and remind us that, here on Earth, we’re still at the mercy of nature.—Neil deGrasse Tyson

 

charles i. letbetter - disaster in the making

Zika is one of those diseases that, unless we find a treatment, could unravel the fabric of society

I have been watching over the past few days as the specter of snow looms over tomorrow’s forecast. As much as a heavy snowfall has the potential to really mess up my schedule for this week, that may be exactly what we need. With our winter, to date, having been so very mild and comfortable, there hasn’t been enough snow and freezing temperatures to do what winter does best: kill bug larvae. Unfortunately, we’re likely to get little more than a dusting tomorrow, or so it seems. Our portion of the Midwest has missed the blizzards and the sub-zero temperatures that usually help keep the insect population in check. I’m beginning to worry. We could use a minor disaster to prevent a major one.

The problem isn’t all bugs, of course. The danger the lurks in the coming of Spring is a common nuisance: mosquitoes. We fight them every year and the wetter the spring the more challenging that battle becomes. For most people in the United States, they’re little more than a nuisance, but this year they hold the potential to bring society to its knees as they may be carrying a deadly disease known as Zika.

This past Monday, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared Zika a public health emergency. Such a move is fairly rare as it raises warnings that affect economies and social practices. Even in this statement, the WHO was been accused of playing politics in not putting a restriction on travel to affected areas by pregnant women. Why? Because ground zero for the disease is currently Brazil, the country hosting this summer’s Olympic games. Any level of travel restriction (which the US implemented last month ) could devastate Brazil’s already shaky economy. Yet, the risk to pregnant women is severe, and not exactly welcoming for anyone else.

While pregnant women and their unborn fetuses have been the primary focus of those attempting to corral the disease, Zika can affect anyone. Most healthy people would experience the all-too-common symptoms for about a week and not know what was the cause. Fever, rash, joint pain, red eyes, and perhaps a headache are the most common symptoms and most people who contract the disease never need to see a doctor or go to the hospital. They can wait out the symptoms, which last about a week, and be fine. So, what’s the big deal? Why are we worried?

Because Zika has the ability to do so much more. While mosquitoes remain the primary means of transmitting the disease, having sex with anyone currently infected with Zika can also spread the disease to an uninfected partner. Not everyone whose bloodstream is infected will present symptoms and while, for most people, the disease only stays in the bloodstream about a week, it can hang around longer without the host being aware of its presence. The one case of Zika that has occurred in the US was spread through sexual contact with an infected person. As we’ve seen with other sexually transmitted diseases, once the spread begins it can be difficult to stop.

Where Zika becomes a real disaster is in the effect it has on unborn children. Zika appears to affect the development of the head and brain, resulting in something called Microcephaly. There is no treatment that diminishes the effects. There is no cure. Children born with the disease are disabled for life and will never be able to care for themselves. Seizures, loss of hearing and/or sight, balance difficulty, and difficulty swallowing are among the dangers faced by children with microcephaly.

As if affecting children wasn’t bad enough, the great social disaster could be in how to respond, especially for pregnant women. Already, women in affected countries, most of which are in heavily Catholic South America, are beginning to re-think their stance on abortion, which not only puts them at odds with the church, but in most South American countries, such as Brazil, abortion is illegal except under the most extreme circumstances. The Church also forbids the use of any form of birth control, including condoms, which could contribute to the further spread of the disease.

Already, the United Nations has issued a statement urging “the repeal of laws and policies that restrict access to sexual and reproductive health services.” Here is where the disaster threatens to do the most damage. While few debate the need to curb the disease with medicine and science, when the most readily available means of prevention collides with religious beliefs, people are ready to go to war to protect what they consider their religious duty. Even in the United States, women’s reproductive rights are a hotbed of controversy, with Congress repeatedly attempting to defund women’s care providers, specifically Planned Parenthood, because of their willingness to provide various methods of birth control. Given that this is a presidential election year with passions already running high at both political extremes, this could be the disaster the ultimately leads to domestic violence on a level we’ve not seen since the Civil War.

Even in the United States, women’s reproductive rights are a hotbed of controversy, with Congress repeatedly attempting to defund women’s care providers, specifically Planned Parenthood, because of their willingness to provide various methods of birth control. Given that this is a presidential election year with passions already running high at both political extremes, this could be the disaster the ultimately leads to domestic violence on a level we’ve not seen since the Civil War.

Public health officials in the US are attempting, for the moment, to downplay the risks, citing effective mosquito extermination programs in the past. However, given that Zika can be spread through sexual contact, and we’ve not yet begun mosquito season, it is too early to be so dismissive. At the very least, it would seem prudent to impose even more stringent travel restrictions to places where Zika is a known problem. The CDC is already urging the use of condoms and other means of birth control as a way of avoiding pregnancy if one plans on traveling to an infected area. Consumer Reports, whose content is normally behind a paywall, has made public a list of mosquito repellants that best protect against Zika.

Disaster could still be averted, but to ignore the threat is foolish. We’re still three to four months away from seeing mosquitoes begin to spread across the United States. For many areas, especially rural communities, measures to fight mosquitoes are likely to require federal funding, something Congress has loathed. If the funding is not there, the risk for disaster increases. If people attending the Olympics are not careful in every possible sense of the word, the risk for disaster increases.

In comparison, maybe getting snowed in for a couple of days isn’t so bad.

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Current Issues  /  PotD
Matters Of Polite Conversation
February 6, 2016
charles i. letbetter - matters of polite conversation

A conversation is a dialogue, not a monologue. That’s why there are so few good conversations: due to scarcity, two intelligent talkers seldom meet.—Truman Capote

 

charles i. letbetter - matters of polite conversation

“Let them eat cake” is a fine party philosophy until you run out of cake. Then what?

There is no predicting the future, no matter how hard we might try. There are prognosticators and statisticians working like crazy in an attempt to predict how Super Bowl 50 is going to play out tomorrow. Everyone wants a good game, and everyone wants their favorite team to win. However, there are times when that just doesn’t happen. In fact, there are five Super Bowls, three involving the Denver Broncos, there were nothing short of blowouts. They were, in order of severity:

  • Super Bowl XXII – Washington Redskins 42 – Denver Broncos 10
  • Super Bowl XXVII – Dallas Cowboys 52 – Buffalo Bills 17
  • Super Bowl XLVIII – Seattle Seahawks 43 – Denver Broncos 8
  • Super Bowl XX – Chicago Bears 46 – New England Patriots 10
  • Super Bowl XXIV – San Francisco 49ers 55 – Denver Broncos 10

Those scores are rather depressing if one is a Broncos fan. No matter how much one might want to see Peyton Manning go out on top, the very real numbers are not necessarily in his favor. There is a frightening chance that by the end of the halftime show there’s not much left to do besides eat hot wings and chat with whomever is left in the room. This could get awkward, especially if one happens to be at a Super Bowl party where one doesn’t know many people. Yeah, we’ve been there.

However, and you can thank me for this later, I have compiled a list of topics that are great conversation starters. You have some time between now and tomorrow to study up a little bit so that should there be an unforeseen lull in the game, you can break the silence and monotony with one of these gems. You may be the one who actually saves the party! Any of these can work, so take a good look and find a couple with which you can get comfortable.

  1. Traffic fatalities took a huge jump last year. When one considers the increase as a percentage, 9.3 doesn’t sound like much. Yet, in terms of real numbers, we’re looking at an increase of 2,200 and those numbers are still preliminary; they could go up. Now, there’s no need for complete panic just yet. When one adjusts for the numbers of cars on the road, which also increased, the percentage falls to five percent, which isn’t nearly as alarming. What seems to be the difference? Two major contributors seem apparent. One is the decline in road conditions. We’ve heard about our crumbling infrastructure for a few years and now that lack of attention is costing real lives. The second is distracted driving, with cell phones being the primary culprit. That particular problem is 100 % preventable. Play this topic off one of the many new car ads running during tomorrow’s game.
  2. A sale isn’t always as good as it looks. Everyone’s looking for a bargain, right? In fact, we all know someone who enjoys bragging about the deals they’ve scored. They never pay regular price for anything. However, many stores, especially department stores such as Nordstrom and Kohls, are facing an increased number of class-action lawsuits based on what consumers consider deceptive sale pricing. Shoppers see a 75% off sign, but fail to read the small print that qualifies how that 75% is actually calculated. There are other times when sale prices and regular prices appear to be the same. JC Penney set aside a whopping $50 million to settle a suit claiming their 40% off prices were actually their regular prices. Designer Michael Kors settled a suit claiming made-for-outlet goods were misrepresented as discounted regular clothing. Stores often settle these suits so they don’t have to admit any wrongdoing. Remember that when your favorite retailer’s ad pops up on the screen between downs.
  3. Twitter is changing to be more like Facebook. This topic may only work if you’re watching the big game with people who are constantly looking at their smartphones. People who don’t use social media, and especially those who don’t use Twitter, won’t give a damn. Those who do, though, are likely to be furious. Switching the timeline feed over to an algorithm similar to the kind Facebook uses means that tweets will not necessarily appear in chronological order.  Popular and trending topics would appear first. On one hand, it might help sort out what’s important from all the white noise that Twitter attracts. At the same time, though, those who don’t have 20 million followers might have difficulty getting their tweets seen at all. While Twitter has yet to officially respond to this Buzzfeed article, the lack of a denial has the hashtag #RIPTwitter trending. Use this when you see everyone at the party staring at their phone.
  4. Beer is getting into the fashion business. In a way, this isn’t the biggest revelation in the world, but given the number of beer ads shown during the game, it’s an easy segue for conversation. What’s going on is that more beer companies, from small-label craft beers to mass-produced brands such as Heineken (which does have a new ad during the game) are doing collaborations with designers to work their logos into clothing designs. We’re talking about more than just the PBR fishing hat or the Bud Light t-shirt here. Brands are spending major cash to have their brands show up subtly on department store shelves attached to designer names. They’re also likely to show up in places like the comforter on the bed at your favorite B&B, or the shades your girlfriend is wearing. While the collaborations haven’t gotten too noisy yet, if those $5 million ads don’t work we may see Clydesdale imprints on the catwalk come fall.
  5. The Zika virus has the UN asking countries to loosen abortion restrictions. Warning: only use this topic if the game is a complete blowout and you’re desperate for some aggressive action. You won’t find this in any US newspaper because, to date, Zika isn’t an American problem. By summer, though, when the mosquito population increases and people are out more, we could see the issue here as well. Zika is a devastating mosquito-born disease that primarily affects the brain size of newborns. There is no cure, and to date there is no sure means of prevention. Pregnant women are, of course, most at risk, but it is worth noting that the disease can also be spread through sexual activity. The Zika outbreak has been declared a global health concern and even insurance companies, who are not prone to wanting government interference, are asking for help in finding some way to slow this deadly disease. Ths one is certain to start a lively conversation, though, so don’t bring it up unless the game is just so far gone that you’re need something dramatic to prevent you from stabbing your eyes with a colored toothpick.

Sure, we all hope the game is close and that you never have any reason to take your eyes off the screen. We also hope you don’t get food poisoning for wings that have been left out too long. Still, it is better to be prepared than caught sitting in a quiet room where everyone can hear you fart.

And if all else fails, try stripping in front of the TV. If that doesn’t start a conversation, it’s time to leave.

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Advertising
The Last Super Bowl Ad Review
February 5, 2016
charles i. letbetter - the last super bowl ad review

A bad review is like baking a cake with all the best ingredients and having someone sit on it.—Danielle Steel

 

charles i. letbetter - the last super bowl ads review

Just because one doesn’t have kids doesn’t make us immune to their charms

I feel as though I have spent the entire week doing nothing but looking at Super Bowl ads and teasers. I haven’t, mind you, it just feels that way. I’m now hungry, want a new car, and need a cold beer. CBS managed to sell a tremendous amount of air time for this game. In fact, I’ve wondered more than once if, once the total times are tallied, there might be more ad than there is game; that is certainly a possibility with a variable-length broadcast. We’ve seen previous games that went long and ads had to be re-run in order to cover all the timeout spots. I don’t think we’re in much danger of that this year, though. There are more than enough ads to go around.

Not all of them are going to be good, however, and I fully expect to see some pushback on the commercial from SoFi, which classifies people as great or not great without ever explaining exactly what they mean by “great.” In the same category, the new PayPal ad is going to come across as hypocritical to anyone who actually has tried to use the system and ran afoul of their myriad rules and regulations. SunTrust is a newcomer to the game, but their ad borders on being depressing. Maybe the Super Bowl isn’t the best time in the world to be talking about financial services.

There are also several brands that are keeping their lips shut about the ads they’ll be showing on Sunday. Coca-Cola finally revealed that they’re partnering with Marvel for their ad, but that’s about all we know. Buick, ChryslerFiat, Marmot, TurboTax and Disney have teased at the content of their ads, but none of those teasers really have me waiting with baited breath for the finished product. Knowing the production quality Coke puts into everything, I’m betting on that one to be in the top five come game day.

Of all the ads I’ve suffered through, there is still a handful that I think will play well. Some might even be inspiring. Certainly, one that is aiming to make you stop and put down your beer for a second is the ad from Mini USA. The ad, called “Defy Labels,” features major athletes and celebrities who themselves defy the labels that might be projected upon them. In an age where we’re all about labeling people who we think are different than us, the commercial sends a powerful message. Take a look:

https://youtu.be/Y9XqYAzbmTI

Also falling into that serious tone is a commercial from WeatherTech, a manufacturer of automotive floor covers. It feels a bit strange putting this in our review because I don’t really expect our readers to recognize the brand. While theirs may not be the sexiest of products, in fact, theirs is probably one of the most overlooked features of any automobile, their ad hits a strong patriotic nerve that is likely to resonate well during this election year. This is WeatherTech’s third time advertising in the big game, and given the price of a spot we have to assume it’s working for them. Here’s the ad:

I only wish they all did as good a job at holding my attention for 30 seconds. Sadly, they don’t and this wouldn’t be an honest review if I said otherwise. Ads by LG, Kia, and Apartments.com bring some big star power to their ads, but in the end were either just too silly or left us scratching our heads (did the guy in the Kia commercial ever get to put on socks?). Of course, schtick is part and parcel of game day advertising, I get that. It’s just that only a few do it really well. Two that you’re likely to remember are the ads for the Honda Ridgeline and Avocados from Mexico. Both are heavy on the campiness but still manage to leave you giggling rather than looking for a place to throw up. Here they both are:

https://youtu.be/kTaCT8ZmdJA

https://youtu.be/1ndPEQCoSzk

Then, there are the ads that are funniest if you remember what the brand did last year. It’s easy when we review these things because I can always go back and check the original. During the game, that’s a bit more challenging. Winning that category is Snickers. Remember that Brady Bunch-themed ad where Danny Trejo takes the place of Jan Brady? That one peaked ad meters everywhere. This year, they went with William DeFoe and a much more classic setting. Take a look:

https://youtu.be/WhfntLl6xx0

The ad I think is most likely to have people talking after the game is actually from the NFL itself. This made the hours of review worthwhile. They gathered together people who were conceived after their parents’ favorite team won the Super Bowl. How, exactly, they did this, I can’t imagine. Without question, a tremendous effort was involved just trying to identify people who fit such a vary narrow criteria. Then, re-writing the song by Seal, getting Seal to help sing the song, teaching the song to children … this is one very ambitious commercial. What’s more, it could potentially spell bad news for Stephen Colbert whose show is on right after the game. If football fans get the idea for sex in their heads, Colbert is the last thing they’re likely to watch once the game is over. Unfortunately, only a 60-second version of the spot airs during the game. So, aren’t you happy I have the whole three-minute version for you here? You’re welcome. Enjoy.

So many cute little faces! And there are plenty of babies and children through all the ads. There are still several, including Taco Bell, Doritos, and Butterfinger, that could very well end up being huge hits, and there are still four more ads from Budweiser we’ve not yet seen. I won’t speak to the quality of the game, but the ads are definitely not boring this year! So, stock up on cold beer and/or soda, order plenty of wings, and sit back and enjoy.

Except for that Mountain Dew Kickstart ad. I’ve no idea what the folks at BBDO were thinking. Leave the room for that one. Trust me.

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Fashion
Runway Or No Runway
February 5, 2016

I don’t even think when I’m walking down the runway. I don’t really breathe either.—Rosie Huntington-Whiteley

 

charles i. letbetter - runway or no runway

Has the usefulness of the fashion runway gone away or is it simply changing?

Pass out the brown paper bags. There are dozens of people in the fashion world who are currently hyperventilating. First came the news early this morning from Christopher Bailey that Burberry is cancelling its men’s presentation after this season. Instead, they will combine both men’s and women’s ready-to-wear into two seasonless shows per year, which will be called September and February, rather than Spring/Summer and Fall/Winter. Then, around 10:00 EST this morning, Tom Ford cancelled his NYFW show for this season. Instead, he will come back in September and show his fall/winter line then, in the fall, when people actually need it.

What both designers are doing is something that has been discussed heavily in fashion circles for the past six years or more: aligning the runway with retail. Both brands say they will offer runway items for sale immediately after the runway presentation. Rather than waiting six months for their favorite garments to hit the stores, customers will be able to purchase their favorite ensembles while they’re still fresh on their minds through the brand’s website.

Of course, this means some serious changes behind the scenes, starting with the supply chain. Traditionally, a designer creates the design, shows the design, waits for buyers to order the design (and request changes), and then send the design pattern to manufacturers. Obviously, that system cannot possibly work with an order-on-demand concept. Instead, designers and suppliers have to work together from the moment a design is sketched out. Decisions about fabrics and detailing have to be made further in advance and, once committed, are not easily changed. By the time the runway show comes around, what models are wearing is not a one-of-a-kind designer sample, but a finished product ready to be sold. Expect some challenges and delays as both the Burberry and Ford teams struggle to make this work. At the very least, I would expect some delays the first few seasons.

A second big difference is that this change dramatically changes the role of the department store buyer. Whereas the buyers have traditionally been able to request (or demand) changes in a garment before it hits the store shelves, this new off-the-runway concept does away with that option if stores want what is selling right now, and we know they all do. Stores that insist on holding out for changes will be behind the curve in offering designs that have already been available elsewhere. Does this mean buyers will be included in design conversations earlier in the process? That’s certainly possible, but then a designer has to made the decision which buyers to include and which to leave out. Too many cooks spoil the broth and too many opinions ruin a good design.

All of this comes as fast fashion has blurred seasonal lines and forced many designers into year-round designing with as many as eight different collections coming from major brands each year. Designers have been showing increasing signs of fatigue and the hectic schedule undoubtedly plays a role in why fashion has become increasingly boring. Who has time to think and be creative when there’s always another line that needs to go out NOW! By doing away with the antiquated season schedule, this puts designers back in control of what clothing is available when.

At the same time, the move acknowledges that modern runway shows are not the insider-only events they once were. Most major designers now stream their shows live, which allows potential customers to see what’s coming down the runway, fueling desires. Live-streamed shows are fantastic advertisements for the brands, but then shoppers forget what they liked by the time clothes actually hit stores, and often what they liked off the runway no longer exists in the same form. Buying off the runway is great for consumers and is likely to help bolster what have been some depressing sales numbers, especially for Burberry.

This is not so great, however, for department stores who may be beginning to feel a bit left out of the loop as the whole retail concept is beginning to feel more and more antiquated. Exactly how they will respond and how labels plan to address the issue remains to be seen.

Again, there are going to be plenty of bugs needing to be worked out, but should this experiment prove profitable for Ford and Burberry, be sure that many more designers are likely to follow suit. Department stores might do well to be concerned, but customers should be ready to celebrate.

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Current Issues  /  PotD
The CDC Is Victim Blaming
February 5, 2016
charles i. letbetter - CDC is victim blaming

You cannot have maternal health without reproductive health. And reproductive health includes contraception and family planning and access to legal, safe abortion.—Hillary Clinton

 

charles i. letbetter - maternal instincts vs. the cdc

Having a uterus should not in any way limit a woman’s activity, regardless of what her future plans may or may not be

Yep, I’m going there. While I, myself, can never bear children (for which I am intensely thankful), most of my favorite people in the world can, and many have. That factor is naturally limiting to some degree I suppose. Scheduling get-togethers can be a nightmare when one has children. Budgets are strained when one has children. Fatigue is often a factor when one has children, as is stress and worry. However, at no point would I, or any other sane person, suggest that women should limit their activity in any way, shape or form simply because they have, or might have at some point down the line, a child. Yet, that is exactly what the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) just did.

The assessment comes in Vital Signs, the CDC’s monthly health report and to say it is insulting to women is putting it mildly. Even the CDC’s press release is offensive when, right off the bat, it states: “Sexually active women who stop using birth control should stop drinking alcohol, but most keep drinking.” Yes, you read that correctly. It is the CDC’s opinion that, should you have any ability to have children, then you should either be on birth control or not drink. Ever.

What many women find especially offensive, and I wholeheartedly support their outrage, is this infographic the CDC released with the report:

Maternal Instincts versus the CDC

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Now, let’s be totally fair before we go off flaming the entire report. Yes, fetal alcohol syndrome is a totally preventable problem and yes, women who continue drinking heavily during the first 4-6 weeks of pregnancy, when not everyone knows they’re pregnant, is a problem. And yes, if one is intentionally trying to get pregnant, then abstaining from alcohol is just one of a very long list of adjustments one makes. Those portions of the report are based upon real science and are backed with several years of empirical scientific evidence.

However, not all the statements in the report are weighted equally. Much of the information related to women who are not pregnant is a derivation of data collected by the National Survey of Family Growth. Surveys, while useful for studies of social behavior at a given point in time, are not science. They can be flawed in hundreds of different ways from the type of questions asked, to the tone of voice used by the person asking, to how participants are chosen. Under no circumstances should the results of such surveys ever be considered anything more than opinion, not fact. Yet, that is exactly the error the CDC has made. As a result, they come up with some really offensive and scientifically unsupportable statements.

I’m running almost 48 hours late with my response here. What angers me is the inference that women who drink are sexually irresponsible. Such an attitude feeds directly into the infuriating rape culture which we screamed about yesterday. Anyone who takes advantage of a woman who is drunk or otherwise impaired is committing rape. Women who are drunk cannot give informed consent for sex and should, therefore, be left alone! To blame women for pregnancy or the transmission of disease during the course of a rape is wholly and unapologetically immoral ! Way to blame the victim, CDC.

Understandably, condemnation of the report, and especially that damn infographic, has been swift and severe. Here are a few you might want to read:

Yes, we understand what the CDC is trying to do in eliminating any chance of fetal alcohol syndrome. But so much of what they are recommending in this report actually relies not merely on abstinence from alcohol, but regular medical screenings and readily available birth control, something the US Congress has repeatedly attempted to make impossible by defunding Planned Parenthood. Sorry, you can’t have it both ways folks. If you want healthy babies, you have to fund health care for mommies, especially those at greatest risk.

We should also mention that women who might be planning to become pregnant are already concerned about the Zika virus, which is still new but poses a potentially greater threat. Can we expect the CDC to also suggest that women who don’t use bug spray are equally irresponsible?

Fetal alcohol syndrome is a problem, we get that, but I would challenge that victim blaming and perpetuation of the rape culture is an even larger problem that affects the health of both women and children far more substantially than does drinking alcohol. Blaming women for rape and sexual assault, which this report inherently does, is inexcusable. Shape up, CDC. Use science and abandon the good ol’ boy mentality that is dangerous to women.

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Fashion
NYFW: One Week To Go
February 4, 2016
charles i. letbetter - NYFW one week out

“I can handle crazy, but this is like a whole new batch of crazy.”—Overheard at NYFW

 

charles i. letbetter- NYFW ONE WEEK OUT

NYFW is only one week away!!

One week from today, the madness better known as #NYFW starts at The Dock with Nicholas K at 9:00 AM. From that point forward, we will spend the next four weeks carefully watching fashion show after fashion show after fashion show. Those that impress us the most we will review for Pattern. Those that don’t impress (which will be the majority) we’ll likely ignore. Those that are truly horrible, and that does occasionally happen, we’ll trash in the hopes that, like Mark & Estel, they don’t return next season (actually, we are beginning to wonder if Mark & Estel are going out of business. Their website hasn’t been updated since immediately after NYFW last year and no new collections have been added.).

With only a week left to prepare, we’re anxiously watching for any major announcements, especially should someone such as Hedi Slimane announce that they’re leaving their current label. For many designers, contract negotiations come down to the wire about now and it’s not at all unusual to see some of those fail right before a designer’s final show. So, here’s a quick look at the major topics we’re looking at for the moment, all of which are subject to change should something bigger come along.

Diversity is still an issue. We’ve talking about the lack of diversity the past two seasons, and last season (shown in September) was better than the one before it. Still, the early word from agents and casting directors is that very little is going to change from last season. That means we’ll still have an overabundance of runway presentations where two or three models of color appear only as tokens. What will it really take to change the status quo? Major editors and buyers staying away, which they’re not inclined to do. No one wants to accidentally miss a breakout line, so they put up with horrible behavior on the part of designers and fail to hold them accountable. When so much of fashion’s core demographic is any color but white, you’d think designers would do a better job of playing to a multi-ethnic audience. Unfortunately, this doesn’t look to be the season we see significant change.

How old is that model? Russian model Kristina Pimenova has done an editorial for Vogue Italia and campaigns for Armani, Gap, and DSquared² juniors lines. Her career is so hot at the moment that she just moved to LA. She’s ten years old. Yes, you read that correctly. Ten. While child labor and child modeling laws in Europe limit the age of runway models, there are no such restrictions at NYFW. While the CFDA strongly discourages the use of models under the age of 15, they have little recourse should a designer decide to not follow those rules. With the current editorial trend being toward young and younger models, there is more than a little concern that some may attempt to slip younger girls into the mix. This can be very  difficult to catch, though, so we may not know until it’s too late to do anything about the situation.

Challenges in the contemporary market. If you’re not sure which labels classify as contemporary, think Theory, Alexander Wang, 3.1 Philip Lim, and Public School. Those and other brands rely less on traditional silhouettes and focus more on styles and designs that are more modern, and often more urban, than what we get from older houses. We tend to think of contemporary brands as more cutting-edge and trend-setting, but that doesn’t always translate well when it comes time to fill store shelves. Shoppers want clothes that are distinct, but at the same time they want looks with which they are comfortable. They’re also wanting deeper discounts, such as the pricing they get from fast fashion. Supply is currently outstripping demand and same-store sales have declined dramatically. We’re expecting contemporary labels to step up the high-end game a bit more this season in an effort to woo those more traditional designer shoppers.

Zoolander references everywhere you look. It is no mistake the movie Zoolander2 opens next Friday, the day after NYFW begins. Cross-marketing between the movie and the fashion world is excessively strong and multiple designers cooperated in the making of the movie, including cameo appearances by more than a few. As a result, catching the direct and indirect Zoolander references is likely to become something of a game. The only problem is, with the NYFW schedule so very, very full, who has time to stop and go see a movie?

Who are all these new people? Looking through the NYFW schedule, there are new names on almost every day. While there are always some major designers, such as Marc Jacobs, who show off-site and off-schedule, there are more than a few recognizable names missing from this season’s lineup. In their place are not only a larger-than-usual collection of new designers, we’re seeing more group and retail shows signing up for presentations as well. Kids Rock! hits the catwalk Thursday night, Fashion Hong Kong shows Friday afternoon, Asian Fashion Collection hits Sunday at noon, and the much anticipated JD.com show is next Wednesday at 7. For those not familiar, JD.com is China’s largest online retailer and their presence at NYFW is notable. We’ll be watching the newcomers very carefully and won’t hesitate to lavish praise on those who do especially well. Who knows, we may even find a new favorite!

Still being a week out means there’s plenty of time for additional issues and concerns to pop up as well. We’re trying to find reasons to get excited for what has recently been the most boring month imaginable. Let’s cross our fingers and hope this season is an exciting one!

 

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Current Issues  /  PotD
Rape Is NOT Masculine
February 4, 2016

It seems that whatever we do is somehow beyond reproach – murder, rape, drunk driving – as long as we go on a TV show and apologize.— Eric Stoltz

 

charles i. letbetter - rape is not masculine

Rape is not a right of gender. Rape is not a right of marriage. Rape is not right. Ever.

I’m relatively certain that every woman I’ve met in the past 30 years, with maybe one or two exceptions, has been the victim of sexual violence at some point in her life. Don’t think for a second that such a statistic comes because I hang out with “that kind” of women, whatever “that kind” may be in your mind. Quite to the contrary. Women from every walk of life, religious or not, cautious or not, across every socio-economic status, across every level of education, are victims of sexual violence.

You work with them, these women who are victims. They hand you your morning coffee. They check you out at the grocery. They handle your tech support calls, your banking problems, your investments and insurance, your pious donations, and even the porn subscription you claim isn’t really yours. They sit as members of Congress, the chief executives of major corporations, and maybe even your own boss.

These women have been made victims at the hands of fathers, grandfathers, uncles, brothers, cousins, boyfriends, husbands, customers, co-workers, classmates, bosses, church workers, pastors and priests and many others who all, for some stupidly insane reason, thought they had the “right” to violate someone in the most intimate of ways possible. We have perpetuated a culture where some find it acceptable to use drugs or alcohol to coerce a young woman into sex. We have created a deplorable society wherein it is the victim, not the perpetrator, who is shamed and blamed. And being the male-dominated society we still are, we pass laws so that our sins can go without punishment.

I have been sickened over the past several years as elected officials and those running for office, those who are chosen to represent all the people, have attempted to justify rape in order to avoid funding healthcare for women. Just a few of their statements (verified by Snopes) include:

“Rape is kinda like the weather. If it’s inevitable, relax and enjoy it.” Clayton Williams (R-TX) 24 March 1990

“If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to shut that thing down.” Todd Akin (R-MO) 19 August 2012

“Rape victims should make the best of a bad situation.” Rick Santorum (R-PA) former US Senator and, until yesterday, presidential candidate. 20 January 2012

“Even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something that God intended to happen.” Richard Mourdock (R-IN) 23 October 2012

“If a woman has (the right to an abortion), why shouldn’t a man be free to use his superior strength to force himself on a woman? At least the rapist’s pursuit of sexual freedom doesn’t (in most cases) result in anyone’s death.”  Lawrence Lockman (D-ME) February 2014

There also seems to be a problem among professional athletes, many of whom accept plea deals for lesser charges rather than face up to the consequences of what they’ve done. Among those convicted for sexual assault are:

Kevin Allen, Philadelphia Eagles, released after 33 months

Thomas “Hollywood” Henderson, Dallas Cowboys, released after 28 months

Darren Sharper, retired NFL, lifetime probation

Nate Webster, retired NFL, 12 years

Milton Bradley, Major League Baseball, 2 years and 230 days imprisonment, plus 400 hours of community service

Chad Curtis, Major League Baseball, 7-15 years

Mel Hall, Major League Baseball, 45 years, charges involved children

Tom Payne, Atlanta Hawks (NBA), multiple counts, 15 years to life

Ruben Patterson, Seattle Supersonics, served 15 days.

Mike Tyson, boxing, served three years

Bob Hewitt, tennis, served six years of an eight-year sentence.

If that list feels short and dated, it is. Many athletes now avoid conviction by agreeing to enter some form of treatment, which further diminishes the severity of their crime. The problem is severe, but those in charge (all men) don’t want to taint the image of their sport by letting the public see just how many players are guilty of sexual assault and other violent crimes.

Most recently, and what currently has me beyond furious, is this bullshit concept of neomasculinity, as though, somehow, masculinity needs to be redefined in terms that reward aggression and domination with concepts that are misogynistic and pro-rape.  These jackasses even claim to have rape clubs, though I cannot find any direct evidence of any being caught by law enforcement. The movement is headed by one particularly creepy douchebag who goes by the name RooshV. I’m sorry to say he’s an American citizen, from Maryland, who has this warped idea that rape should actually be legal so long as it occurs on private property. He’s written multiple books on “seduction,” and, until yesterday, was organizing a global meet-up of like-minded douchebags around the world this Saturday. Fortunately, as word of this massive circle jerk spread and protests began to form to disrupt the meetings, they have been cancelled, though he encourages “private” gatherings.

There is absolutely, positively, without any possible exception, no terms or conditions under which rape is justified and it certainly is not masculine. Real men respect women. Real men support women rather than take advantage of them. Real men don’t threaten or cajole. Real men don’t use positions of authority to convince women to have sex with them. Real men don’t call women “bitch,” “whore,” or “slut.”  Real men understand that women have the right to maintain control of their bodies at all times.

We fully and unapologetically condemn the entire neomasculinity movement and the rape culture it perpetuates. We condemn RooshV and anyone who agrees with his dangerous and quite likely criminal methods and intentions. The time has come for real men to join women in their stance against reduced sentences and plea agreements that diminish the severity of sexual assault against women.

Rape is not masculine; never has been, never will be. Rape is a crime not just against women but against all humanity.  Stop making excuses.

 

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Advertising
Candy, Condiments, And Celebrities
February 3, 2016
charles i. letbetter - candy, condiments, and celebrities

Candy is childhood, the best and bright moments you wish could have lasted forever.—Dylan Lauren

 

charles i. letbetter - candy, condiments, and celebrities

Covering people in candy is one thing. Making portraits of them, however, doesn’t always work

The little ones in our house won’t be watching the Super Bowl this Sunday and that has nothing to do with the violence of the sport. I’m going to have a difficult time myself, though, as the ads that we’re beginning to see really go out of their way to ignite the yearnings of that ol’ sweet tooth. We’ll be careful to have plenty of real-food alternatives on hand to go with the craft beers that won’t be part of the ad parade, either. The folks paying $5 million per spot for air time during the big game probably won’t like us a lot, but we’re not planning on taking it personally.

Actually, CBS has apparently been working all year on getting us to watch this game. They played their first spot right after last year’s game and haven’t let up. They’ve included every major celebrity from their network in the spots leading up to Sunday’s game, and we can expect the be continually inundated with reminders with increasing frequency the rest of this week. CBS has gone out of their way to make this the biggest game ever, even pulling footage from the very first Super Bowl for this ad:

With a big build up like that, one might think that advertisers would step up their game a bit, and in a way, they have. We will see more celebrities making the rounds of ads this year than ever before. Big names, people we don’t normally think of as product endorsers, are showing up in ads, doing things we might not normally expect them to do. Not many of the ads are all that impressive, unfortunately, which might cause the same celebrities to back out of spots for next year.

The early favorite for celebrity spots has to be the #GiveADamn ad from Budweiser featuring British actress Helen Mirren. The full ad was released on Monday and is already getting a lot of attention. What’s important to note, and well worth mentioning here, is that for every tweet that includes the hashtag #GiveADamn, Budweiser will donate one dollar toward free ride programs to help those who’ve had too much get home safely. Given the amount of alcohol I know some of you consume, we will be tweeting heavily on your behalf. In case you missed it, here’s the ad:

https://youtu.be/Rb2VXVmUga4

One of the more surprising pieces we’ve seen going into this year’s game is the one Miami ad firm David created for Kraft Heinz. How does one sell ketchup? We typically don’t think of condiments as sexy, so that direction was out. Scenes of ketchup being poured onto food has been overdone. What else was there? Dachshunds! Dozens of little wiener dogs dressed in wiener costumes running as fast as they could across a field to a waiting family of Ketchups. Can you feel the love? Here’s the full 60-second spot:

https://youtu.be/LOlfhBT8i9I

For all the various celebrity ads, both good and bad, my favorite so far has to be Steven Tyler’s appearance for Skittles. There is no better pairing. The flamboyant singer is so colorful in his own right that putting him together with colored pieces for fruit-flavored sugar just feels right. To make things better, he even allows the commercial to poke fun at him a little bit. At 30 seconds, it almost feels a bit short. Maybe Tyler could have done a duet with those candy lips. Here’s the ad:

https://youtu.be/21ivbtgqJkg

Of course, the best ads are likely to stay sequestered until Sunday, but we will continue to keep our eyes peeled for the best and, of course, we’ll share our opinion as to who won the war for best Super Bowl ad next Monday. Keep watching!

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PotD  /  Social Commentary
Bookstores And Dreaming: A Natural Combination
February 3, 2016
charles i. letbetter - bookstores and dreaming

A bookstore is one of the only pieces of evidence we have that people are still thinking.—Jerry Seinfeld

 

charles i. letbetter - bookstores and dreams: a natural combination

Bookstores do so much to stoke our imaginations that our dreams cannot help but be influenced by what we see there

This past summer, I was downtown Chattanooga, Tennessee with two of my sons enjoying Moon Pies and Coca-Cola when we came across a store they hadn’t visited before. The storefront was unassuming, a simple black on yellow sign giving the name of the store but not really indicating its contents. From the opposite side of the street, glare prevented seeing through the plate glass window, so we chose to investigate.

Walking through the door, our senses were immediately overwhelmed. Books lined hand-made shelves from one end of the store to the other. Not just new books, either. Beautiful, old, brown-at-the-edges books that had been loved and read for years upon years were there, some dating back to the very first part of the 20th century. My boys are equally avid readers as their parents and quickly took to exploring everything they could find in the stacks. There were books they’d never known were available. Books that were so far out of print that even digital reprints can’t be had. Every genre one could imagine, at every reading level, was right there, waiting to be explored, to be loved, and perhaps to be taken home. Had common sense not prevailed, we might have gone broke.

Bookstores were once a staple of Western culture, a part of life that was critical to society. Having a bookstore meant a town had vision to look beyond itself. Having more than one bookstore meant the city was open to ideas and fostered intellectual pondering. Bookstores were part of a neighborhood identity and their contents gave as clear a demographic picture as any census or survey. Bookstores were heaven.

Then came the mega stores, Borders and Barnes & Noble, that forced the small mom-and-pop stores out of business. We griped. We complained. But the new stores had coffee and would let us sit and browse for hours without actually making a purchase, so we still shopped there.

Along came the Internet and a man named Jeff Bezos introduced us to this thing called Amazon.com and the entire business of bookselling changed. There were easy comparisons. There were ready reviews. There were lower prices; sometimes significantly lower. Slowly but surely, even the biggest brick and mortar bookstores began to close or severely downsize. While bookstores still exist, they’re much more difficult to find.

Yesterday, a mall real estate developer, Sandeep Mathran, said during a corporate earnings call that Amazon, that giant online retailer that drove everyone else out of business, is going to open between 300-400 new brick-and-mortar bookstores. The Internet lost its collective mind. Yes, we understand the irony. At the same time, though, the romantic thought of 400 new bookstores dotting the country got everyone very excited.

Since that initial statement was released, there has been speculation that Mr. Mathran may have been trying to paint a picture for investors that is less than accurate. Amazon has refused to confirm or deny Mathran’s statement and persons close to the company say the move doesn’t make financial sense for the retailer. So, don’t go planning those browsing trips just yet.

Still, we like to dream and nothing fuels dreams any faster than do bookstores. While shopping online might be more cost effective and give us access to a wider range of books, nothing beats wandering the aisles of a bookstore and finding titles and authors we would not have considered otherwise. Bookstore shopping is very different than online book shopping. When we shop online, we are typically looking for something specific, either in terms of subject or author. We might, occasionally, click on the automated recommendations of the website, but we go to the site with a fair idea of what we want to buy.

When we shop in a bookstore, however, we allow ourselves the option to browse. We might go in looking for a specific book, but then we stay and look at different genres, explore different interests, and allow ourselves to be swept away by all the possibilities. Instead of leaving with just one book, we are more likely to walk out the door with multiples.

As much as I like bookstores, I will admit that I frequently do shop Amazon. Not only do I shop on Amazon, I sell on Amazon. You can buy all my books, including the one in the pictures above, by clicking this link. One of the great advantages of Amazon is it that they have the ability to sell print-on-demand titles that a bookstore would not be able to stock. Where I would never be able to convince Barnes & Noble or Books-A-Million to carry my tomes, Amazon is eager to cooperate.

I love bookstores and can get lost spending hours wandering the stacks. I would not complain at all if Amazon were to actually open several brick-and-mortar stores (though 400 does sound unreasonably aggressive). Bookstores and dreaming are a natural combination and I don’t know any creative person who doesn’t like to dream. We’ll wait and see what happens. Should Amazon open a store near me, though, don’t expect to find me online too often. I’ll be somewhere midst all the shelves, indulging in dreams.

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Fashion
Fashion’s Failure: Clothes Made By Slaves
February 2, 2016

The very flag of freedom that waves over our heads is formed from material cultivated by slaves, on soil moistened with their blood drawn from them by the whip of a republican taskmaster!—Elijah Parish Lovejoy

 

charles i. letbetter - fashion's falure: clothes made by slaves

Workers who are denied basic freedoms are responsible for as much as 97% of clothing sold in the US.

Update: H&M responded to our article this morning (3 February) by directing us toward a specific statement regarding the use of child labor in Turkey. The statement, in part, reads:  “In accordance with our policy on Syrian refugees in Turkey, we terminated this business relationship immediately.” The full statement from H&M, dated the same day we published this article, can be found here. While we applaud H&M’s rapid response to this issue, there remain multiple garment factories, especially in India and Asia, that exploit their workers and treat them very much as slaves. We are thankful that one company has acted positively, but the truth is that fast fashion chains fuel a problem so large that keeping track of violations is practically impossible.

 

You may want to hold on to your chair. This is going to be a bumpy and unpleasant ride that is far overdue. I’m going to be extremely blunt: if you purchase your clothes from H&M, Target, Wal-Mart, Sears, Macy’s, or pretty much any other store in a mall, chances are your clothes were made by slaves. No, not slaves in the sense we think of coming from the American South in the 19th century, but rather immigrant workers around the world, some of whom are children, toiling for substandard wages in substandard conditions, without the most basic tenets of freedom such as the ability to come and go at will. These are the people who are making the clothes that make the nightmare of fast fashion possible. They are giving up their lives so that you can get a copy of a designer dress for $12. YOU are fueling the demand and they are the ones paying a most fatal price.

Pardon me if I seem a little over-dramatic here, but the rate of articles that have been published in the past three days regarding this subject have me sick to my stomach. We’ve known for some time there was a problem, and many of us believed that there were precautions in place to put an end to some of the worst conditions in places like Bangladesh, but that’s not happening. Any company that is claiming they regularly inspect their suppliers for human rights violations is either lying or, themselves, being lied to.

The Guardian has documented cases where Syrian refugees in Turkey, some as young as twelve years old, are working illegally in the garment industry there, with painfully low wages that cannot provide safe living conditions, and work conditions that are dangerous. There is little question that these people are essentially slaves. While the article focuses on clothes destined for European markets, be quite sure that some of those same suppliers are generating clothes for the American discount market as well.

Quartz magazine reported that some workers in Bangalore, India, working in shops that produce clothing for H&M, Tommy Hilfiger, The Gap, Zara, and many others, live in company-owned hostels where they are under strict guards that monitor their movement. Some women are only allowed out for two hours on Sunday to purchase food. The rest of the time their movement is limited to going between the factory and the hostel. Only slaves are treated so inhumanely.

The Guardian also found that, following the 2013 disaster at the Rana Plaza factory in Bangladesh that killed more than 1,100 garment workers, more than half of H&M’s suppliers there had yet to install basic fire safety measures. More than a third of top-rated suppliers have not removed sliding doors and collapsible gates. 13% had not even taken the steps to remove locks from doors so workers have a path of escape in the event of fires. These poor people are trapped. They are slaves making the clothes that we wear in the US and Europe.

What’s even more frightening is that the level of abuses may be worse than reported. Workers from human rights related NGOs often have difficulty getting a good look at working conditions and talking to factory employees. The Atlantic recently reported on a program called Laborlink that is specifically designed to help workers such as these report employer abuses, but many of the workers in Turkey and Bangladesh don’t have access to cell phones to use that system.

What can you do? Believe it or not, you have options. The strongest move you can make is with your wallet, by not shopping at stores that produce cheap, fast fashion. Stop and think for a moment. If you’re getting a new t-shirt for five dollars, common sense should tell you that garment was not made by someone who is being treated fairly and receiving a decent wage. Where you shop matters. Stop thinking that you need a new outfit for every tiny event that you attend. Pay more for properly-made clothes and buy less.

Another option is the growing makers movement happening across the US. Purchasing clothing crafted by local designers and artisans removes any doubt of who is making your clothes. Not only are you not putting your money into fashion’s slave trade, but you’re helping out the local economy as well. While I can’t speak directly for other cities, those local to Indianapolis can contact the very nice folks at Pattern Magazine for information on local makers.

There are political options as well, but time and space prohibit me from detailing those and, quite honestly, that’s a subject best reserved for some time after the election season. No one in politics is paying any attention at the moment.

It grinds at my gut to think that there’s any chance I might be wearing clothes made by slaves. We cannot allow this practice to continue. We have a voice. We have a choice. Use it.

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Photography
When An Upgrade Isn’t An Improvement
February 2, 2016

I don’t think you’ll ever have a perfect world because we humans are prone to error, and so we’re always in search of an upgrade.—Henry Rollins

 

charles i. letbetter - when an upgrade isn't an improvement

Just because a camera is new doesn’t mean it’s all that much of an improvement

I don’t talk about cameras and all their different brands and features that much because I’m just not a gearhead in that sense. As long as my camera is taking good pictures, and I can take the pictures I want to take, I’m happy. Neither the name on the front nor the age of the box make all that much difference. As a result, I’m shooting with an eight-year-old body from a brand that wasn’t taken seriously when I bought it. I worry about its longevity more than the quality of its pictures.

Nonetheless, the whole world, literally, seems to be in an uproar over yesterday’s announcement of Canon’s new EOS-1D X MarkII camera. It’s new. It’s shiny. It does 4K video (kind of). It has a functioning IOS range of 409600 in case you really like taking pictures in the closet. It’s fast, up to 16 frames per second in bursts of up to 120 frames in RAW (provided you’re using the right battery and a CFast card). Whee. Yay. Yawn.

At a price of $6,000 for just the body, I expect more from this upgrade. I expect more than 20 megapixels. A comparable Nikon does 20.8, and Canon’s own 5D series does 50. Sony gets more from its full-frame mirrorless box. Sure, the dual pixel technology sounds nice, but it doesn’t deliver an improved photo quality and without that what’s the point? And that 4K video talk? That’s input. The camera cannot output 4K HDMI so, again, what’s the point? Oh, and has anyone mentioned that there are NO pro-level, weather sealed lenses for this new box? None. Zero. In fact, there’s only ONE full-frame piece of glass for it, a 24-105mm f3.5-5.6. Sure, we would like to expect that to change over time, but why buy a new box and then have to sit around waiting for new glass before you can use the damn thing? Are we really bothering to call this an upgrade?

While my first SLR was a Canon, and I shot with Canon boxes for years, I’ve been extremely disappointed in the direction of their pro-level cameras the past five years as they’ve put more effort into video and less into taking a better picture. I’m finding myself more impressed with brands like Sony and Olympus, whose new mirrorless cameras are not only ergonomically easier on my arthritic hands, but provide the necessary range of pro-level glass I need to take a good picture, and they do so with sensors as good or better than what Canon and Nikon are slapping in their boxes.

I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again, the name on the front of the box means diddlysquat if it can’t take a good picture. Brand wars at this stage of the game are pure marking nonsense. What matters is the quality of the images and, sadly, this new Canon upgrade is not an improvement. There are too many options on the market now that produce images as good, if not better, and at a substantially lower price tag. Sorry, Canon, but you let me down on this one.

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Current Issues  /  PotD
Dance With Your Own Shadow
February 2, 2016
charles i. letbetter - dance with your own shadow

Everything that we see is a shadow cast by that which we do not see.—Martin Luther King, Jr.

 

charles i. letbetter - dance with your own shadow

Our challenge today is that we expect too much of others while expecting too little of ourselves

It is still dark as I’m writing this, but already hundreds of reporters and photographers are gathered in Pennsylvania for the weather prognostications of Punxsutawney Phil. The 130-year-old tradition, much like last night’s Iowa caucuses, has little to do with the actual outcome, but the tradition is one we can’t seem to break and, for a day, we are distracted by a myth that something might actually change. In our minds, we know both events are heavy on hype and short on substance. There’s a blizzard moving into the Northern sections of the Midwest, and powerful thunderstorms, some possibly with tornadic activity, will hit the opposite side of that system and move Eastward. Being in Pennsylvania, Phil could actually see his shadow, supposedly indicating six more weeks of winter but that won’t stop the storms from coming. We expect too much from a groundhog.

We are the same way with our politicians. None of last night’s results produced a clear winner. On the very crowded Republican side, no one achieved even a third of the overall vote. As I’m writing, most news outlets are saying the Democrat side is still too close to call, so again, no clear winner, no one standing above all the others. We know the system is broken. We know little, if anything, said on the campaign trail will ever evolve into reality. Yet, we buy into the rhetoric and hyperbole of a presidential campaign just as surely as we do the shadow of a chubby little groundhog.

I firmly believe that the measure of a person is not in the size of their stature nor the poetry of their speech but in the length of the shadow they cast. There is an overabundance of people who stand tall and talk big but whose actions fall quite short at their feet. Interestingly enough, a great number of those people are politicians. Talk is cheap on the campaign trail and it is easy to be boisterous and make promises that are popular with the electorate. What one discovers after being elected, however, is that moving a nation is as complex and slow and difficult as trying to move the Rocky Mountains from Colorado to Florida. To pin all our hopes and dreams on one personality is about as foolish as making picnic plans based on the predictions of a Pennsylvania rodent.

Change comes from those who cast a long shadow. To know who casts the longer shadow, pay attention to where they stand in relation to the light. Have you ever noticed what happens to a shadow at high noon? It’s almost non-existent. Those standing directly under the spotlight, those who seem to glow with the radiance of illumination, cast very little shadow and affect very little change. They are too concerned with keeping the light on themselves and do so by saying what pleases the ears of those listening. Those who stand at an angle from the light, those who buck the system, those who claw their way through red tape, those who spend more time doing rather than talking, those are the people who cast the long shadows, those are the people who get results.

To that end, who best to rely upon to create change, to get work done, to clean up the mess and change the system than ourselves. We are not powerless, and we certainly are not brainless (with a few questionable exceptions). There is much one can do through invention, creativity, and more often than not, good ol’ hard work. If the banking system is no longer meeting the needs of the people, let’s create a new system of money management that better addresses contemporary realities. If global corporations truly cannot be trusted to act in the best interest of their customers (and they can’t) then you have the ability to work around them, create a local cooperative if necessary to achieve the same service in a more responsible manner. If you don’t like how a coffee shop brews their coffee, do as I do: buy a french press, buy and grind your own beans, heat your own water to 150°, and make your own coffee (it really is much better this way). Dance with your own shadow.

You are the one who has the power. You have two incredibly strong weapons: your wallet and your vote. Don’t let anyone tell you that your voice doesn’t matter; people who say that are cowards who would rather complain about the system than contribute to its overhaul. You can do great things. So can the person next to you. Working together, we are invincible.

Yes, we need a strong, central government and we need strong people who can cast a long shadow running that government. Make no mistake, though, when it comes to real progress and creating genuine change, the shadow that makes the most difference is your own.

 

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Music  /  Mythology
Losing My Religion
February 1, 2016
charles i. letbetter - losing my religion

Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.—Albert Einstein

 

charles i. letbetter - losing my religion

When religion gets in the way of doing what is right, it’s time to toss religion in the dumpster

I think I’ve mentioned a time or two before that I often listen to gospel music while editing photos, especially nudes. The juxtaposition may sound funny, but this is the music with which I was raised. We didn’t even have a secular album in the house until 1972; mother wouldn’t allow it and Poppa wasn’t inclined to argue in the first place. So those old-time gospel quartets, the greater majority of whom are gone now, were the music on which I cut my teeth. Regardless of the texts involved, the music is as comfortable as a pair of well-worn jeans; always has been, always will be.

When I heard the gospel singer-songwriter-producer Kirk Franklin had a new album, I was eager to listen. Mr. Franklin is not your average gospel artist; he likes keeping his music real and contemporary. He set Twitter on fire last week when photos emerged of him in the studio with Kanye West. Even I don’t like everything he does. You’re not likely to hear any hymns on his albums, and the sound is a long way from the Blackwood Brothers quartet of the 1960s or even the pop-church sound of Amy Grant in the 80s. The direction he’s headed, though, reminds me distinctly of the attitude the late Keith Green had during his short life. Kirk has equal amounts of passion and honesty that often grates against established religious structures.

This new album takes that honest reality a step further. The first track, which is also the title track, is a spoken word piece, something different for Mr. Franklin. This sets the tone for the rest of the album, and at the same time is a clarion call to would-be believers that this thing called religion is the empty antithesis of being a true follower of God. His real-world pop culture references give nods to Michael Stipe and REM (who had a hit song by the same name), Taylor Swift, Michael Jackson’s hit Man in the Mirror, raising the minimum wage, LGBTQ rights, loss of the middle class, police brutality, economic disparity, and even a throwback to Franklin Delano Roosevelt. This is beautifully composed poetry that doesn’t need music to hit its mark.

The strongest lines may come toward the end. Expect some pushback as it takes a moment for these lyrics to kick in.

One nation under God
God, show us the way
The science of opinion
God is not a buffet
You pick what you want so no God on your plate
The preacher isn’t God
Religion’s first mistake
Serving stewards, shepherds, not kings
Has to die to his flesh everyday like me

Yeah, that’s not going to set well with the right-wing Joel Osteen/Creflo Dollar following, mega-church attending crowd that puts preachers on the same pedestal as deity.  Mr. Franklin intends to not only knock them from their perch, but disassemble their temples of money at the same time.

The hard-hitting sound isn’t just limited to the first track, though. The second track, Miracles, delivers the Kirk Franklin sound one expects right up until the five-minute mark, at the end of the song, when the music fades to the unsettling screams of a woman pleading, “They shot my baby! What am I going to do? They shot my baby!” That dissolves into a news report of a theater shooting, which segues into a mashup of similar news stories over which the growing chant of “Black lives matter” begins to emerge. The track ends with a very strong declaration: “The revolution is now being televised.”

This is not your typical Sunday morning gospel.

Make no mistake, the album is still God-centered, but it’s a message of love and inclusion rather than exclusion and limitation.

National Public Radio (NPR) published an interview with Mr. Franklin this morning that is well worth hearing. In the interview, he explains his reasoning and purpose more concisely than I can regurgitate here. Take a listen. Even for someone whose agnosticism is as jaded as mine, Losing My Religion is a very welcome entry to the gospel music scene. I do believe that Mr. Franklin’s goal is something that could make a tremendous difference in the overall health of our country. Whether one believes or not, this is a good cause.

You can listen to the full album here:

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Current Issues  /  PotD
Living Is Frightening
February 1, 2016
charles i. letbetter - living is frightening

We are always getting ready to live but never living. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

charles i. letbetter - living is frightening

Plenty of events make living a frightening proposition. Whether to hide or stand is up to you.

One of the first things to greet me this morning, besides three very hungry cats, was this story from the Associated Press about Nigerian terrorist group Boko Haram burning a village, killing 86 people including children. A survivor, hiding in a tree, said he could hear the children screaming as they died in the flames. A triple bombing claimed by Daesh killed 45 in Damascus.

Business Insider reports that nine US citizens are among 33 people being held by Saudi Arabia on terrorism charges. There are no fewer than five different stories this morning detailing the precarious state of the global economy, especially in China where people are beginning to sneak large amounts of cash out of the country. Britain’s largest lender has imposed a hiring and pay freeze amid economic concerns. Tensions between China and the US continue to mount in the South China Sea.

Meanwhile, everyone living in the Midwest is bracing for severe storms that threaten blizzards in the North and West and severe thunderstorms in the South and East. At the same time, all eyes are on Iowa today as people there caucus in the first official act of the 2016 presidential election. The outcome of today’s vote could seriously impact who is still running tomorrow.

No one ever said that living is easy; we don’t expect it to be so. At the same time, however, no one told us that living was going to be so incredibly frightening. Even as I’m sitting here writing, Kat read to me a story of a man who, fearing that there might be a shooter at the movie theater, carried his own weapon to the show, whereupon he accidentally shot another person in the shoulder. Even when fleeing our fears, living is fraught with danger.

Add to everything else the fact that this is a Monday and one might question whether it is even safe to get out of bed.

All my life, and probably all of yours, we have been told we should be living our lives to the fullest. While that platitude sounds good, how we define a “full” life is a matter of great subjectivity and the nature of one’s pursuit of that “full” life can introduce one to some rather severe circumstances threatening your very existence, not to mention severely diminishing how “full” one’s state of living might be.

For example, I know some truly wonderful, giving people who have dedicated their lives to helping better the living conditions of people in third world countries. While the lack of basic resources makes those situations difficult, they feel their lives are fulfilled in helping others. What we’ve seen in recent years, however, is that terrorist groups, specifically Boko Haram, targeting NGOs and aid workers with bombs and brutal killings. Terrorists are only able to control out of fear and the preventing anyone from providing help or assistance keeps that fear level high. Just wanting to help people can make one a target.

Even people who are simply trying to eke out a modest living and prepare for old age with moderate investments have reason to fear. China arrested 21 people in a $7.6 billion Ponzi scheme this morning. US investors, again mostly individuals saving for retirement, have been victims of similar schemes as well, such as the Bernie Madoff scheme uncovered a couple of years ago.

I realize that this is typically the point in the article where I’m supposed to offer encouragement, give a “go-get-em” conclusion that encourages everyone to stand up, take the bull by the horns, stare down the serpent, and claim dominance over one’s life. I’m not going to do that this morning, though, because it’s just not realistic. There are things in and around our lives which we legitimately need to fear. Everything does not work out for good. Life is not a bowl of cherries nor a box of chocolates. Sorry, but sometimes all we get is a box of rocks.

Yes, we need to respond to life’s dangers with determination and aggressive action. Cowering in a corner doesn’t help matters at all. But it’s difficult to stand up and face an enemy one can’t see coming, and for many of the dangers we face there’s no advance warning system. When one gets on an airplane, there can be no absolute guarantee that it won’t blow up somewhere over Michigan. While the odds are in your favor, the danger is still there and there’s not a lot, if anything, one can do to prevent whatever is going to happen. Winter storm Kayla? Yeah, go ahead and “stand up” to that blizzard. Buy all the milk and bread. That won’t stop the snow and the wind.

Living is frightening. Dangers are real. The best I can offer is to be your friend as we face the challenges together. Maybe we’ll make it, maybe we won’t. Either way, know that we’ll always be for you.

Good luck, and good living.

 

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PotD  /  Social Commentary
Sleeping Through Sunday
January 31, 2016
charles i. letbetter - sleeping through sunday

I have never taken any exercise, except sleeping and resting, and I never intend to take any.—Mark Twain

 

charles i. letbetter - sleeping through sunday

None of us are sleeping as much as we should. Going back to bed may be the healthiest thing you do

I would dearly love to be sleeping right now, truly I would. Unfortunately, my body has conditioned itself to wake up at this ungodly hour, while everyone else is still sleeping, so that I can actually get some work done before the world starts getting noisy. As a result, to sleep even past 6:00 AM is a luxury rarely afforded these days. I’m not the only one, though. For the past four years, doctors have been warning that we’re not sleeping enough. Cases of insomnia are on the rise. Sure, there are sleeping pills that help some, but those also bring the chance of abuse and, in some cases, addiction. The problem isn’t just limited to the US, either. The whole world is having trouble sleeping.

What causes us to have so much trouble falling asleep and staying that way? There are a number of issues, of course, but the three most common to our contemporary first-world lifestyles are:

  1. Lack of proper diet and exercise
  2. Worrying about events we cannot control
  3. Looking at our smartphones in bed

That third one, of course, is new, and largely limited to people in industrialized nations. In places where 24-hour wifi isn’t quite so prevalent, concerns over personal/family safety take the third spot, which is certainly understandable. In the US, especially, we have a problem putting down our phones even to sleep. Whether it’s playing some silly game, browsing the latest cat memes, or actually reading something worthwhile, we rarely turn off our phones. Making matters worse, recent studies indicate that the light emitted by our phones is bright enough that our brains mistake it for daylight so that the little trigger telling us to go to sleep gets turned off.

Such insomnia is not totally new. Throughout the twentieth century, there were plenty of things keeping our parents and grandparents awake at night. In the early part of that century, we feared becoming involved in a European war, so much so that we were almost too late to help, Then came the Great Depression and I’m not sure anyone slept much. Homelessness, poverty, unemployment, and hunger all have a way of keeping a person up at night. Then, from 1936 on, the threat of a second European war became a worry and those who remembered the first one were especially sleepless. The 1940s were a decade of war and no one sleeps well through that. Troops were back home for most of the 1950s, but the Cold War set in hard and the Red Scare had Americans wondering whether their neighbors and co-workers might be communists. Air raid drills were common in schools, making sure children didn’t sleep well, either.

By the 1960s, parents worried about war in Southeast Asia, violence around the growing Civil Rights movement, and an exploding drug problem. 1972 crushed our faith in government. 1974 introduced us to the worries of inflation. By 1979, we looked at the Middle East as our newest enemy and worried how to keep them in check. Fear of nuclear annihilation reached its peak in the 80s and we responded to any and every threat by attempting to outlaw it, sending more people to jail than the prison system could handle, most for non-violent offenses. By the 90s economics were again a major fear and this thing called the Internet threatened to change the very fabric of our society.

Society is too complex for us to not find things to worry about. My current personal list of immediate concerns is about 20 items deep, and that’s with me trying to be positive. I refuse to be pollyannish and say everything’s going to be alright. The fact that we’re not sleeping like we should is itself a warning that no, everything may yet go to hell in a handbasket.

So, why are we not sleeping through Sundays, every Sunday? I challenged my father on the topic more than once. If one is going to actually believe Old Testament mythology regarding creation, then one has to deal with the notion that, after six days of work, God rested. Throughout the Old Testament, he seemed rather adamant about that whole resting thing and to this day devout Jews struggle with the juxtaposition of secular demands to do things and their religious commandment to not do things on the Sabbath. Spending all day at church seems to me, still, as just as much a violation of that command as if one were working. One does not rest at church, at least, you’re not supposed to actually sleep through the whole thing. My father was never amused, nor moved, by that argument, though.

To me, it just makes good sense. Our bodies, and our minds, need a break. We fill our lives with so very much the other six days, we need a respite to allow our bodies to catch up, re-energize, and recuperate. We need scheduled time to laugh, to read fiction, to have pleasant conversations, to enjoy non-stressed company of friends who don’t care if the house is clean, to ponder, to appreciate. More than anything, we need to be sleeping.

Go back to bed. Chores can wait. Ducktape kids to the wall if necessary. You should be sleeping. Get to it.

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Advertising  /  Fashion
Sophia Loren Does Family Values For D&G
January 30, 2016
charles i. letbetter - sophia loren does family values for D&G

Americans try to talk about positive family values, although the actual state of things is disastrous.—Vladimir Zhirinovsky

 

charles i. letbetter - sophia loren does family values for D&G

Everyone loves their family, and every family has values; but if you’re saying your family is better than mine, we have a problem.

At 81, Sophia Loren is proof positive that real beauty and elegance never fade. The actress that stunned in The Houseboat and won an Oscar® for La ciociarau in 1962 is still every bit as stunning in the new fragrance ad (please, don’t call it a short film) for Dolce & Gabbana‘s Dolce Rosa Excelsa. Whether she’s brushing on paint while wearing a white button-down shirt or gracefully descending the stairs in a black lace dress, Ms. Loren still possesses the ability to outshine every other model on the planet. Her appearance in the 90-second piece is exquisite.

The move plays right into D&G’s spring campaign that casts a number of grandmothers as the featured models, and that on the heels of a fall/winter runway show that emphasized mothers. Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana have figured out that appealing to a woman’s maternal instincts is a great way to sell clothes to the whole family. You can’t fault them for a unique marketing plan that is working even better for them than it did for Sears & Roebuck back in the 1960s. Yes, you read that correctly; I just compared Dolce & Gabbana to Sears. If you just had a Brady Bunch flashback, you’re welcome.

While all the family values marketing seems sweet, however, one would be naive to think that it is being promoted only to sell clothes. Not hardly. While both designers are openly gay and have, in the past, been in a relationship together, their interview in Panorama last year presented a very narrow and non-inclusive view of family. Specifically, Domenico claimed that there is a sharp division between children conceived and “born to a mother and a father” versus  “children of chemistry, synthetic children. [Products of] uteri [for] rent, semen chosen from a catalog.” Never mind that a very large number of heterosexual couples have to use in-vitro fertilization to have children just the same as a gay couple might. Dolce goes on to say, “I am gay, I can’t have a child. I guess you cannot have everything in life. Sometimes it is beautiful to be deprived of something. Life has a natural course, some things cannot be changed. One is the family.”

Such views clash with what we see in the film as the well-muscled young models helping Ms. Loren revitalize an Italian villa take a moment to lose their shirts and play in the water hoses. Depending upon one’s orientation, this might be gay, or it may be a straight girls wet dream. Either way, it is a strong juxtaposition to the more right-wing, traditional family values tone D&G prefers to espouse publicly.

In the final scene of the film, Loren’s real-life son, Edoardo Ponti, presents a rose to “Rosa,” played by model Kate King, who then presents the same flower to Ms. Loren. All this seems so very lovely as though perhaps leading up to a big Italian wedding (don’t bother, ladies, Edoardo is married with two children). For 90 seconds worth of add, there are family values oozing from almost every frame. Too bad Dolce & Gabbana doesn’t see fit to make room for the entire family. Perhaps they’d prefer all those non-traditional family members shop elsewhere.

Here’s a look at the full commercial.

https://youtu.be/K6pdNpNgmtg

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for family values and I think the commercial is beautiful and Ms. Loren was the perfect choice for the role. However, I prefer family values that include everyone, not just someone’s exclusionary view built upon antiquated mythology. Perhaps, eventually, D&G will find a way to include the whole family.

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Advertising  /  Music  /  PotD
When Nipples Offend
January 30, 2016

The secret to success is to offend the greatest number of people.—George Bernard Shaw

 

charles i. letbetter when nipples offend

Policies suggesting that women’s nipples are offensive and men’s do not suggest God and/or evolution made a mistake

I’m rather surprised that I would have cause to visit this topic more than once in a week. Just a couple of days ago, we posted a video from the New York Times and talked about whether efforts by #FreeTheNipple and HeForShe were doing any good. While both are doing a wonderful job of raising awareness, which is a good start, the pace of change in painfully slow in the face of antiquated, hypocritical, and misogynistic moralities.

Just how heavy-handed some entities are become very apparent yesterday when Russian model Irina Shayk shared a collection of images from her recent Givenchy campaign. She appears in the ads with male model Chris Moore. Ms. Shayk is nude, Mr. Moore is topless, but their torsos are pressed together seductively so that nothing is actually showing. At least, that was the intention. Apparently, the fascists at Instagram get their jollies pulling out their magnifying glass and inspecting every little detail of a photo, because they managed to find just the hint of Irina’s nipple in the shadows and took down the photo.

Now, everyone who has half a brain is well aware that the censors at Instagram base their policies on a 13th-century morality that equates female nudity with the very devil him/herself while totally excusing men who do the same. This particular instance, however, is especially egregious as someone has to really get up close and wayyyyy to personal to even notice the hint of areola that can be found in the shadow of this photo. Here, look for yourself:

charles i. letbetter - when nipples offend

Givenchy

At this point, I fail to understand why anyone uses Instagram for anything more than photos of their cat and what was regurgitated from dinner. Sure, I have an account, but there are more pictures of cats and food there than people. I especially fail to understand why Tommy Hilfiger is putting in a separate Instagram pit at his Fall/Winter runway show and Burberry has chosen 16-year-old Brooklyn Beckham to shoot its new fragrance campaign, live on Instagram. Not only do both acts offend legitimate photographers everywhere, but they further endorse the sort of idiotic policies that Instagram uses to continue their inequality toward women!

Meanwhile, someone shoved pop artist Rita Ora in front of the lens of Terry Richardson, who has had more accusations of sexual misbehavior than Bill Cosby, but yet someone keeps letting him take pictures of naked women. Why, I fail to understand. Bill Cosby has been shamed into perpetual hiding, but not only does Richardson roam free, publishers keep hiring the creep! Exactly how this all is supposed to make sense, I don’t know. Richardson’s name alone has the power to offend, and perhaps that’s his schtick.

Of course, the photos themselves are, true to Richardson’s form, quite horrid. Again, don’t take my word for it. Look for yourself:

charles i. letbetter - when nipples offend

Pardon me while I yawn

Not surprisingly, there was pushback yesterday when these pictures became public. Some of the criticism was to be expected, given that the music industry as a whole seems to be in this rut of one artist disparaging another. However, I found it interesting that the Telegraph‘s left-leaning Rebecca Reid, who has supported nudes in the past, totally went off on Ora, calling her topless photos, “A slap in the face of women everywhere.” The points she makes, essentially claiming that Ora’s stunt objectifies women rather than celebrating and supporting them, are valid though the examples she uses are a little shaky. Rita’s appearance in the mag is only to promote her new album, not to express some greater sentiment or value.

And Terry Richardson’s bad photography just makes the whole thing trashy.

Let’s face it: our whole attitude toward nipples and breasts and body parts, in general, is skewed. We can’t have one standard for men and a totally opposite one for women. If you don’t think that approach is wrong, then you might be a degenerate misogynist in need of an attitude adjustment.

And through all this one thing seems frightfully obvious: I need to be shooting more nudes and offend more people. Apparently that’s all anyone notices any more.

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Advertising
Burgers, Barbies, and Vikings, Oh My!
January 29, 2016
charles i. letbetter - burgers, barbies and vikings

You can find your way across this country using burger joints the way a navigator uses stars.—Charles Kuralt

 

charles i. letbetter, burgers, barbies and vikings, oh my

Barbies give children a chance to explore and create a world the way they see it, even if it’s not a world adults like

It’s Friday! Bring on the burgers and the beer! Wait, hold on, we still have to actually attend to business first. Burgers are coming, though.

This has been an interesting week in the world of advertising, but the best of the bunch have, rather surprisingly had little to do with that big ol’ football game coming up a week from Sunday. Well, okay, one of them technically has something to do with the game, given that it is the winner of a contest. Still, what makes that one commercial a winner has nothing to do with the game.

Intuit’s QuickBooks sponsored a national contest among its users and a small upstate New York coffee company, Death Wish, won the contest. Yes, you’re reading that correctly. Death With Coffee is the actual name of the company. The name comes from their claim that it is the world’s strongest coffee. I know, that sounds incredibly strong and bitter, but their website claims that it’s actually smooth, with hints of cherry and chocolate. While that’s not enough to make me want to drop $20 for a one-pound bag, should I ever find myself lost in upstate New York (and being lost is about the only reason I’m likely to be up in Round Lake), I might risk stopping by for a cup.

The commercial is definitely a wonderful prize. The 30-second spot itself, which will appear sometime in the third quarter, is worth $5 million, which is almost as much as Death Wish made the entire year. That’s not even counting the incredible amount of production time and an award-winning team that put it all together. All total, the cash equivalent is something like $12 million, give or take a pound of coffee.

Whether the commercial is worth the cost remains to be seen, of course. Will it double Death Wish’s revenue last year? More importantly, will it convince more small business owners to use QuickBooks? Both are pretty big gambles. The game needs to be close, no more than a touchdown difference, for people to still be watching commercials in the third quarter. If the halftime show sucks, and with Coldplay being the headliner that seems quite likely, a good portion of the audience may be dead before the second half ever kicks off. So, go ahead and take a look at the ad now and you won’t have to risk bad music or a bad football game later.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past 36 hours or so, you are likely already well aware that Mattel has introduced a new set of Barbie dolls: tall, curvy, and petite. Allegedly, the move is being made to help boost girls’ self-esteem and address body issues that the traditional dolls created. While some would happily sit and argue all day over whether the new dolls actually achieve that goal or make matters worse, the truth is that children like playing with dolls that look like them and their friends. Children use dolls for a number of different fantasy and real-life scenarios, sometimes playing out things that have happened, other times fantasizing about the way they want things to be. For adults to superimpose too much meaning on their play, though, is probably inappropriate for the majority.

What’s different about the spot Mattel and BBDO dropped this week, though, is the involvement of documentarian Rory Kennedy, daughter of the late Bobby Kennedy. This is Ms. Kennedy’s first ad and the non-commercial, documentary feel she gives the piece may be just the approach needed to take on such a touchy topic. People, especially mothers, take Barbie and other dolls quite seriously and Kennedy’s spot does a good job of addressing some of the most common concerns while still keeping the tone of the commercial light and fun.

I don’t expect the new dolls nor the new commercial do actually do much to quiet Mattel’s critics. Some people are not going to be happy no matter what the toy company does so there really is no sense in pursuing every little complaint that might be made. Still, this is a positive step in a good direction.  Take a look at Ms. Kennedy’s work below:

https://youtu.be/vPETP7-UfuI

One thing the advertising world has enjoyed for a long time is the art of parody. We parody music, we parody pop culture, we parody celebrities, and we even parody ourselves. So, it’s no surprise at all that my favorite commercial from this week is a wonderfully horrible and yet brilliant piece of parody that is partly in bad taste and at the same time had me instantly Googling Schweid & Sons because I’d never heard of them.

The ad steps into somewhat dangerous territory, parodying the very serious P&G #LikeAGirl ads for Always. Women’s empowerment is obviously a critical issue and one that deserves serious attention. Schweid & Sons, which sells the meat for burgers by the way, isn’t challenging women’s issues at all, though, and brilliantly presents the one woman in the commercial as the only sane person in the whole spot. Instead, what gets justifiably lampooned is the snobbery, especially in upper-scale burger establishments, as to what makes a good hamburger. You want mayo on that? There’s no reason to feel oppressed by those who say you can’t. Go ahead, smash that box, eat your burger with a hot dog on it if you want. Burgers should be as individual as you are.

If you can’t watch the ad with a tongue-in-cheek attitude, realizing that we really do take the details of mere burgers far, far too seriously, then you’ve absolutely no business watching this ad. If you enjoy a good parody, though, and can handle the way both men and the dining industry get skewered, then sit back and enjoy. Then, go out and have a couple of burgers, and don’t be ashamed to ask for mayo.

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Advertising
Censoring The Super Bowl
January 28, 2016
charles i. letbetter - censoring the super bowl

You know, the Super Bowl is so fresh that every single commercial is even on, you know, some next-level entertainment.—will.i.am

 

charles i. letbetter - censoring the super bowl

Censoring ads in the midst of a program built upon violence seems a little more than hypocritical

I’ll admit to enjoying a bit of football, but, like millions of other people across the US, the primary reason I watch the Super Bowl is for the ads. Rarely do I care at all about the outcome of the game, though I generally hope that it isn’t a complete blowout. What is much more entertaining for me are the increadinly creative commercials that show especially during the first half and at half-time. I watch those ads with rapt fascination and, unless the game is unusually good, fall asleep somewhere in the third quarter.

Teasers for this year’s ads are looking especially promising. Already, we’ve gotten hints from Christopher Walken, Alec Baldwin, Dan Marino, Jeff Goldblum, and Lil Wayne, among others, that have me absolutely salivating to see the delightful pitches coming forth. There are also a fair number of first time Super Bowl advertisers putting up the $5 million-plus for a 30-second spot. Amazon, Bai, Shock Top, Pokemon, and SoFi are among the rookies who are putting it all on the line during this game.

Who we won’t be seeing during a two-minute timeout is People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PeTA). Their ad, titled Last Longer, focuses on the health benefits of not eating meat and how that, in turn, allows one the stamina to be more effective in bed. Sounds like the perfectly targeted ad for a Super Bowl crowd, doesn’t it?

Apparently not. CBS network censors, working under guildelines from the NFL, deemed the ad too explicit for television.

We’ve seen Super Bowl ads censored before; that part is definitely not new. The NFL takes a very prudish view toward any overt sexualization that might distract from the bone-crushing, concussion-inducing, permanently-disabling activities taking place on the field. Furthermore, we have seen just how terribly upset half-drunken moms can get at the mere 0.001-second slip of a nipple. They’re all so terribly worried about having to explain procreation to their precious little children, but don’t seem to have any issues with open acts of violence being referred to as sport.

Let’s be clear: I’m not a fan of PeTA. I’m very much a carnivore and while my personal sexual exploits are best left unmentioned, I assure you that it is arthritis, not my diet, most likely to limit the duration of my activity. PeTA is well known for their over-sensationalism and this ad is yet another example of that tactic.

Still, I cannot help but fnd it extremely hypocritical that this ad is banned from the Super Bowl of all places. Football is nothing but overt violence disguised as sport. Each year, the devestating effects of concussions and other injuries are demonstrated as debilitating in the lives of those who once played in the Super Bowl. Rumors are swirling that this may well be the final game for Denver quarterback Petyon Manning because of the life-threatening injuries he received and the punishment his body continues to endure. So, we’re okay with all the violence going on for the better part of three hours, but we’re not good with 30 seconds of simulated sex?

Please, tell me I’m not the only one who has difficulty making any sense of this decision. Don’t give me any BS about the children, either. If they’re old enough to watch grown men attempting to kill each other, they can handle a little fake nookie.

There is a time and a place for everything, and I sure wouldn’t run the PeTA commercial during the first two hours of weeknight prime time family comedies. But to censor implied sex while endorsing blatant violence, whether in a game or a scripted police drama, is not just hypocritical but about as immoral as television can possibly get. So, since CBS and the NFL won’t show you the ad, I will. Here you go:

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