- The 3/50 Project: Pick three local businesses you would hate to see close. Spend $50 at each.
- Amid hard times, an influx in real superheroes: “Everyday folks are taking on new personas to perform community service, help the homeless and even fight crime.” Well. That’s interesting.
- New iPhone impact on ‘citizen journalism’: “A new video recording function will turn millions of the company’s phones into video cameras & includes a send to YouTube’ option. … The possibilities for on-the-scene videos of breaking news are profound. The iPhone isn’t the first platform with this option, but it is the most popular, and it will very likely lead to increased uploading of eyewitness video.”
- Old Coupons: Flickr set. Via Coudal.
- More specific drug ads, labels would help consumers, a study reveals: Studies reveal things that are obvious, a study reveals.
- New Netpix Service Sends Unlimited Photographs For Monthly Fee: “It’s so convenient. You get a photo in your mailbox, look at it for a while, and then drop it in the prepaid envelope and send it back,” Houston resident Jonathan Collins said. “I’ll never look at pictures the same way again.” Onion story.
- Photo: iPhone Launch Versus Palm Pre: Amusing.
Links compiled via delicious, and repurposed here with plug-in Postalicious.
- When the Thrill of Blogging Is Gone …: More nostalgia for blogs. Long taily side note: “Richard Jalichandra, chief executive of Technorati, said that at any given time there are 7 million to 10 million active blogs on the Internet, but ‘it’s probably between 50,000 and 100,000 blogs that are generating most of the page views.’ That’s a serious letdown from the hype that greeted blogs when they first became popular. No longer would writers toil in anonymity or suffer the indignities of the publishing industry, we were told. Finally the world of ideas would be democratized!”
- Proposed: Emmys for product placement: “Television programming and advertising copy can hardly be considered enemies anymore.” Somebody should come up with a term to encapsulate that trend.
- Competitive Altruism: Being Green in Public: “Griskevicius and his colleagues recommend that companies find a way to publicize the fact that celebrities buy green products. They might also consider keeping those products at a higher price, since penniless people can’t afford to indulge in status-seeking and others will pay a premium for it.” I think this is absurd. The “celebrities use green stuff” strategy is hardly novel advice — it’s been beaten to death in the actual marketplace. And keeping prices artificially high to stay out of reach of lower income levels might be good for business, but it’s catastrophic for actually achieving the ends that “green” business supposedly wants. It literally makes change impossible by assuring that any green business is, by definition, only for elites.
- The Millionaire Investor Index: Had its biggest one-month surge ever in May.
- The irrational war on electronic cigarettes.: Fascinating.
Links compiled via delicious, and repurposed here with plug-in Postalicious.
No Consumed in this week’s mag, but buy the Sunday Times anyway, it’s always worth the money.
I am tired, so this is all I have, linkwise:
- How high will savings rate go?: It’s at 5.7 percent of disposable income. One economist predicts it will “continue to grow until it surpasse[s] the record high of 14.6 percent, set in May 1975.” That’s quite a prediction.
- For the ‘funemployed,’ unemployment is welcome: Lots of articles on this buzz-concept lately. “Buoyed by severance, savings, unemployment checks or their parents, the funemployed do not spend their days poring over job listings. They travel on the cheap for weeks. They head back to school or volunteer at the neighborhood soup kitchen. And at least till the bank account dries up, they’re content living for today.”
Links compiled via delicious, and repurposed here with plug-in Postalicious.
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Flickr Artifacts by Rob Walker on June 3, 2009
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The Times Mag‘s cover story this weekend, about Bill Clinton, opened with a scene of the former president shopping, in Peru.
The store owner showed him a selection of shoulder bags for women. Clinton selected one he thought would be great for his friend, Frank Giustra, the Canadian mining mogul, to give to Giustra’s girlfriend. Clinton said he likes picking out gifts for his friends’ wives and girlfriends.
I found that last point strange: Who buys gifts for their friends’ wives and girlfriends? I can’t imagine doing that. “Hey man, picked up this purse for your girlfriend. Trust me, she’ll like it.” I’m also trying to figure out how I’d react if a male friend of mine (or, for that matter, Bill Clinton) started buying presents for me to give my wife.
E thinks this might simply be normal behavior among people who have lots and lots of money. Or perhaps it’s just part of Clinton’s, um, general interest in women.
It struck me as very odd behavior.
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Flickr Artifacts by Rob Walker on May 31, 2009
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- Flea markets, swap meets draw crowds: “Flea markets have seen a 10% to 15% increase in attendance during the recession.”
- Atoms For Bits: “With more and more of our artifacts being replaced by digital files, when do physical objects matter, and why?” Very interesting essay by friend of Murketing Carla Diana on creating (in essence) meaningful physical containers for our immaterial (digital) possessions. Consumed on immaterialism here.
- On the Street and On Facebook: “In America today, even people without street addresses feel compelled to have Internet addresses.”
- When women hide behind their children on Facebook: “A larger and more ominous self-effacement, a narrowing of our worlds.”
Links compiled via delicious, and repurposed here with plug-in Postalicious.
SAY WHAT?
Adding to the structure of online expression, but giving you something to express.
It has never been easier to express yourself in public. Whatever you might want to say, the online tools to let you say it to a (theoretically) worldwide audience are innumerable. Say it long, say it short, say what you want, when you want and how often you want. As the title of a forthcoming book about blog culture puts it: “Say Everything.” You have the technology. The only thing the technology cannot do is solve this problem: What if you don’t really have anything to express?
Ah, but technology can solve that problem for you….
Read the column in the May 31, 2009, New York Times Magazine, or here.
Discuss, make fun of, or praise this column to the skies at the Consumed Facebook page.
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"Social" studies,
Consumed by Rob Walker on May 30, 2009
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- ephemeratopia: “Antique trade cards, postcards and other old paper scraps.”
- Celeb tweets help push Anvil to success: I’m not sure about this. The New Yorker‘s Anthony Lane gave this movie a rave, pretty much out of nowhere. How often does that happen for this kind of film? Is that irrelevant? Did it happen because of Twitter? Does it perhaps suggest that the quality of the actual movie might have something to do with its relative success? And why isn’t that success defined — why isn’t there a number of some kind in this story to help us understand how successful the doc actually is, relative to other docs?
- Most-Popular Lists Breed More Popularity: “Frequently, popularity rankings speak less to the merits of what’s being observed and more to the fact that crowds are observing it.”
Links compiled via delicious, and repurposed here with plug-in Postalicious.
- Kickstarter: “Aims to let creative people of all kinds raise money for their projects from fans, who receive access and rewards in exchange for their patronage.”
- Weezer’s Snuggie: “Band is — no joke — planning their own line of sleeved blankets called Wuggies. Rivers Cuomo told Rolling Stone, ‘A Wuggie is basically exactly like a Snuggie, except it says Weezer on it. The people at Snuggie are doing it with us and promoting it with us. It’s a totally legit Snuggie.'” Via Listenerd.
- McDonald’s / Night at the Museum tie-in adds “virtual” element: “The Happy Meal toy collection features eight characters from the movie. Each U.S. toy will come with a special code that ‘unlocks more fun’ at McD’s virtual world, McWorld (located at happymeal.com). McWorld lets kids create their own avatars and play games.”
- Are Humans Genetically Programmed To Care About Long-term Future And Climate Change?: Study: “Humans, like all creatures, generally value a reward today more highly than a reward tomorrow – in other words they discount future benefits. But the model shows that the discount rate is lower for social, rather than individual, benefits.” I didn’t find this particularly convincing. See for context: Why Isn’t the Brain Green?
Links compiled via delicious, and repurposed here with plug-in Postalicious.
A 10-minute Youtube video about “the hardware hacking community” in Montreal is now making the rounds on some of the big blogs, so maybe you’ve seen it (though if not, check out here via the Unconsumption blog, where Tom Hosford posted it several days ago). It’s worth a look.
Plus: I have a question:
Toward the end a guy remarks: “I forget who said it, but the philosophy behind it is: Shape your tools, or you will be shaped by them.”
I’m very interested in that, but my Google-fu is evidently not up to the task of figuring out the source. So does anybody know: Who did say it? What’s the reference to?
UPDATE: The answer (see comments) seems to be Marshall McLuhan — sort of. Apparently McLuhan said: “We become what we behold. We shape our tools and thereafter they shape us.” That’s a different sentiment than what I took the hacker/maker to be expressing. But it seems likely that this is more or less what he was thinking of (and he hacked it?). Still accepting counter-evidence or theories if you have them, of course.
Here’s how the video is described, by the by:
“A look into the hardware hacking community in Montreal, including the Foulab collective. Why are more and more hobbyists experimenting with hacks and circuit bends? What relationship does this imply about consumer society and technological advancement? Is this a real-world analog of ‘user generated content’?”
- Somebody hates everything: Next time someone slams your work, visit the Cynical-C Blog to be reminded that everything — everything — gets slammed mercilessly by somebody. The blog catalogs harsh one-star reviews from Amazon: The Godfather, The Odyssey, Anne Frank, Gone With The Wind, they’ve all been trashed by someone, and here’s the proof.
- Cocaine found in Red Bull Cola?: This is good news for Red Bull. Fresh rumors are in-line with its murketed identity.
- Objectified Review: “There aren’t very many movies that leave you wanting to go out and buy some cool new furniture while simultaneously giving you the urge to clean out your garage.”
- ‘Suburban survivalists’ prepare for “The Road”-type scenario: “Top sellers include 55-gallon water jugs, waterproof containers, freeze-dried foods, water filters, water purification tablets, glow sticks, lamp oil, thermal blankets, dust masks, first-aid kits and inexpensive tents.” Don’t these people read the “consumer confidence” numbers? Via Recessionwire.
- Furniture from street debris: “Lost & Found Stools are made from furniture found on the street combined with solid timber. Same goes for their Lost & Found Tables.” Brian W. Jones on the unconsumption tumblr.
- Threadless co. helping filmmaker: “Skinny Corp [Threadless owner] has line called The Storytellers Collection. 100% of the proceeds garnered from the sales of these shirts goes to Patrick O’Brien’s film, ‘Everything Will Be Okay,’ which is very much about a worthy cause. O’Brien is documenting his battle with ALS, the terminal disease which results in the gradual degeneration of the body.”
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Non-Daily Linkpile by Rob Walker on May 27, 2009
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