This was sent to me today by a market research company. It is a screenshot from a potential cellphone video game called Paris Hilton: Glittering Inane Slapper or similar. My first instinct was to fire the curmudgeon torpedoes at them, yelling that this sort of thing marks the end of civilization, is responsible for anorexia, and destroys realistic economic expectations but instead I thought I'd screw with them so I replied that I thought it was a brilliant idea. In fact, I said, the best idea since Edward Jenner decided to inject 10 year old boys with cowpox.
I love how a Paris Hilton avatar suggesting that "we are thinking alike" is supposed to be a positive thing. Personally, if I ever heard that sentence out of her mouth I'd jump off a cliff.
10 comments:
I don't think it's supposed to be a compliment, I think they're trying to fool you into believing that you might be able to "get with" Ms. Hilton.
The sentiment, however, loses all credibility as soon as it gets to the word "thinking".
Paris Hilton, of course, is most famous for appearing in a South Park in which she buys Butters from his parents for $500 million, so she can dress him up in a teddy bear suit and have him as a pet. All of her previous pets had committed hari kuri after spending too much time with her.
(Butters' parents were fair about it, though. They gave Butters 24 hours to come up with $500 million on his own.)
The episode ends with Paris engaging in a "who's the biggest whore?" contest (a whore-off, if you will) vs. Mr. Slave. The details, of course, are not suitable for this family blog.
I also hear that she (Hilton) is in the running to play Mother Theresa. This is of course nonsense. Eileen Wuornos was the only woman born to play that Albanian hypocrital fake-holy psychotic.
On the plus side, I understand that should Ms. Hilton get the role, I believe a good case could be made for NYPD Blue alum Henry Simmons get to play Pope John Paul II.
I think if I heard those words myself, we'd be in a race see who could get to the edge fastest.
Paris Hilton is of course the 9th sign of the impending apocalypse.
The Cubs winning the World Series being the 8th...wait!
They're 5-2 right now!
Oh Noooooooooooo!!!!
Arguments could be made that our popular culture was always somewhat "crass" (just read H.L. Mencken, one of my fave posthumous reads).
What's different today, is that technology makes the marketing of that crassness, ubiquitous. There's no way to escape, unless you become a Ted Kazinski and move to a remote cabin in the wilderness.
The overriding message being communicated loudly to all of us is this--the only thing that matters is making money; if you can't, or won't subscribe to that, you have no value.
Hence, those of us who are incapable, or unwilling to embrace the values of our god of the 21st century, the free market, are left behind.
Jim, I love you man, but its just an ill-conceived cellphone gimmick, not a neural endorphin stimulator surgical implant... Besides, I thought those who didn't embrace Jesus as their personal savior were the ones who get left behind.
Oh, and H.L. Menecken was a Nazi apologist who believed in eugenics. Good writer, though.
As to your point about marketing; I agree to some extent but want to add that we have also become more savvy about attempts to sell us. Hence the fear of the TIVO generation by major advertisers. If the le forces sinister and their grand overarching conspiracy to rule us all© were as successful as so many left and right doomsayers claim them to be, how come so many folk have picked up on their nefarious plan to the point where they spend endless hours blogging, talking, writing, and yelling about it?
Human progress has good and bad, I suppose. For every kidney dialysis machine improvement we also get a new animated billboard or something. And so it has always been; some of the first sights that greeted archaeologists excavating Pompeii were advertisments for various services at one of the town's brothels.
Oh, yes, for a return to a purer time.....
Course, the other point lost in this is akin to the "blinding flash of the obvious" from the post below. Cell phone companies killing themselves to come up with new ways for you to "enjoy" your phone. Takes your mind of the fact that you can't get any frigging coverage.
When I killed my old cell phone last summer, it was nearly impossible to get a new one that didn't have a bunch of gimmicky crap installed on it. I might have had to pay more for the streamlined phone!
I feel like I'm being too mean to Jim. What is intended as rib-chucking boisterous back and forth reads a little cold on reflection.
Note to self: do not respond to comments before 10am ever again.
Regardless of one's feelings of consumerism and the marketing religion of our society, without it all we would have very little material for hysterical episodes of South Park.
Absolutely, Wes. I'm with Swift: "Satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover everybody's face but their own."
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