Ink’s Awakening

You know what’s weird? I never got used to symmetrical nose piercings. See, as a kid in the seventies and eighties, piercings never strayed from the earlobe, unless you wanted to completely leave society behind. Then in the nineties, people started piercing the side of the nose. That was pretty unprecedented in western society, but I thought it looked good. Some time around the turn of the century they moved to piercing the middle part of the nose, and I never could get used to it. I’d like to think that there’s some aesthetic principle at work here, but more likely, it’s just the old fact that adults aren't able to accept new ideas that the kids come up with. If that is the case, it’s a strange example, since middle-nose-piercing became common only a few years after nose-side-piercing, which would imply that I went from open-minded free-thinking youngster to grumpy and intolerant adult in the short space between the two trends.

To be clear, this is just the gut reaction I have. I realize there’s no good reason that one type of piercing is acceptable and the other isn’t. I don't look down on people because of piercings, I'm just being honest about my emotional reaction, and hoping young people will understand that it's a nonsensical habit cast years ago, now continued unconsciously and with some regret. Same with putting two spaces between sentences. I know it makes no sense; but I had to learn to do it to pass typing in grade nine and now I can’t stop.

Tattoos had a similar story. In the nineties, tattoos started getting wider acceptance, but people were just getting small tattoos. Again, this was something I found easy to accept. And then tattooing went from a minor accent on the body to something you turn your entire body over to. Again, this came after I became an adult.

So there're still some aspects of tattoos that I  struggle with. First, tattoos don’t fit the person. I mean, the stereotype of the person. You know, everyone has a picture of what the heavily tattooed person looks like. And yet, so often it’s their polar opposite who has the full-back skull tattoo peaking over their neckline. I’m used to seeing large tattoos, but less-so when they’re peaking over the neckline of a conservative sweater, rather than a Slipknot T-shirt.

And this leads us to the odd fact that the need to conceal hasn’t gone away. In my previous post about tattoos, I referred to the nineties trend of small, easily-concealed tattoos to let people feel badass without anyone actually seeing that you have a tattoo. What’s weird is that people still place a value on the idea of tattoos you can cover up. The difference is that we’ve gone from a tiny tattoo on the ankle that can be covered with a boot or a sock, to a full-body tattoo up to the neck that can be covered by a full set of clothes. But the principle remains bizarrely the same. That's a commentary on today's society: we want to stick it to the man, as long as the man doesn't find out.

Of course, there are people who bravely cross that threshold and get a tattoo on the side of the neck or back of the neck, or maybe behind the ear. But  there’s still an aversion to tattoos around the face and front of the neck. Yes, there are a few who cross that line, but they're rare compared to the total number of people who have tattoos. Mostly, the parts of a person we interact with are off-limits. I’m sure there’s some cognitive scientists who could explain that because we see faces in a different way than we see others objects, we prefer to avoid artificial changes to that area. Or it could be that the face is the ultimate uncoverable place. If it's on your arm, a long sleeve will cover any embarrassing testament to an ex, or The Bloodhound Gang, or the Sega Saturn or something. But the face is the ultimate commitment.

And the fact is that people aren't really committed to anything that much. Another thing that hasn't changed is that people want a tattoo, not a tattoo of something. In another old post, I mentioned that a big reason I have no tattoos is that there is nothing I’m so dedicated to that I would want it permanently on my body. But that clearly doesn’t stop most people. There are so many tattoos of generic things that it’s clear that they want a tattoo, and the subject matter is less important to them. I suppose that's a strange commentary on our society too: people want to make a public, life-long commitment to something, but they aren't sure what.

Things The Teenage Me Would Never Have Believed About Life In The Future, #44

The theme music for Monday Night Football is a cover of “In The Air Tonight” performed by a country star and a rapper.

Winning (More) Time

How about this NBA in season tournament? It’s an idea borrowed from soccer and grafted on to a North American basketball league. It's a new and unprecedented idea in basketball <does some research> Oh, the WNBA has already done it three times? Well, I'm just going to blame their lack of Canadian teams for that, rather than examine my own latent sexism.

Anyway, I would have thought hockey was the sport where an extra tournament makes the most sense. As many have pointed out, hockey playoffs are infinitely more intense than any regular season game. So artificially creating even more playoff hockey would sound like a good idea. I mean, except for the whole hockey culture-hates-change thing.

But I actually like this idea of the NBA in-season tournament, and the biggest reason is that it gives some intrigue to the NBA's neglected middle. So many teams get trapped in that Catch-22 of not good enough to contend for a title, not bad enough to draft the superstar they need to contend for a title. So the only intrigue for fans of those teams is whether they'll just miss the playoffs, or get in and get smoked in the first round.

This tournament will offer them a bit of hope, and thus, more reason to pay attention. Yes, the favourites for the in season tourney will be the same as the favourites for NBA champion. But as a single-elimination tournament (after the brief round-robin) there's some randomness thrown in. With one game to decide who goes on, there's more chance of an upset, and those good-but-not-great teams can dream of riding a hot streak to glory.

It also addresses one of the big, but rarely-mentioned aspects of modern team sports: there are a lot of teams, but not much glory to go around. If your league has thirty or so teams, you’re going to be waiting a while for a championship. Unfortunately, our ideas of what to expect from team success were set in an era when there were half as many teams. We expect to win lots of championships, when really, we can expect to see just two to three in an average lifetime. Having more titles available is one way to make it more tolerable as you wait that couple of generations between championships. 

I know, lots of pundits will complain that it’s not a real title. There will be plenty of hot takes the first time a team raises an in-season tournament banner — especially if it goes to a team that’s never won a championship. There have been plenty of complaints when a team commits the sin of celebrating a win in the play-in games to get the final playoff seeds. But I don’t think there’s any danger of watering-down the importance of the overall championship — just look to European soccer to see that. And the in-season tournament will be worth something — I know those hot takes are even now looking for a way to compare it to a participation trophy, but it will be a difficult thing to win. You could make the argument that a single-game-elimination tournament has too much randomness to be a good test of merit, but that argument would invalidate March Madness, so I don’t think we’ll hear it too often. And having special courts with wild colours for the tournament, thus distracting all the hot takes, was a stroke of genius.

Say My Name, Say My Name

In the U.S., companies can advertise prescription drugs, but there are a lot of requirements, most notably the requirement of reading the list of side effects, however long and embarrassing. They can be kind of gross and scary, but I actually like hearing those lists. It’s refreshing for ads to have to present both sides of the story, and it’s amusing to think how much money was spent to tell you about all the humiliating shortcomings of their pill. But most of all, it reassures me about the structures of society. We often think of government as being a puppet of big business, but if a multi-billion-dollar pharma conglomerate still has to warn you that their product may cause 'anal leakage,' then it’s clear that regulations still have some teeth.

(Fun fact: The U.S. and New Zealand are the only countries that allow the advertising of prescription drugs.)

In contrast, here in Canada, we have pretty severe restrictions on these ads. You can advertise prescription drugs, but you can’t mention what the drug does. And I have to say, these ads are even worse than the fast talker trying to sneak anal leakage past us.

For one thing, if you can’t tell anyone what the drug does, there’s not much else you can do except repeat the name of the drug over and over, in an aggravating and blatant exercise in name recognition. In their defence, the advertisers do try to make a joke of it. And in their offence, even that is really annoying.

It’s the most insultingly cynical that advertising can get. I mean, advertising can, theoretically be a good thing: a business is making the case of how beneficial their product is. That’s how it should be, and — I assume — how it once was, when advertising first crawled out of the primordial goop. But we all know most ads are not really very useful; it’s mostly just psychological tricks, trying to associate the product with a catchy jingle, or sex, or a promise of restoring confidence in your masculinity. We know all this, but we tell ourselves advertising can be a good and useful thing to justify to ourselves that this is all acceptable.

But these prescription ads puncture that pretence, because they’re the purest form of anti-intellectual advertising. You can’t pretend they’re a useful service to the public, because they tell you literally nothing other than the product name. These ads are actually dumber than showing half-naked women in a beer ad; that ad is at least making the (ridiculous) case that the beer will make you attract women. Prescription ads don't even do that. There's no hiding the fact that it's pure repetition aimed straight at lodging the brand in your lizard brain.

And I have no idea how this regulation makes sense. As I said, it’s good to have some limitations on the advertising of prescription medication, but in this case it’s not helping. They’re telling us what is available, but not telling us anything else. Even the American ads warning us about anal leakage are at least giving the public some info. (And don’t worry, by the comic rule of three, I won’t bring that up again.)

It should also be noted that there is another kind of ad allowed in Canada, which is essentially the opposite. In this case you’re allowed to talk about the medical problem, and even tell people that there are one or more solutions available, you just can’t tell anyone what it is. So essentially it sounds like a non-profit public service announcement, except for the note at the end to talk to your doctor about prescription medications, hint-hint, nudge-nudge. For some reason, these kind of ads are mainly used to tell us about toenail fungus cures. Apparently there’s a lot of money in that: It's at the top of the list of things I can't believe are sold so hard, ahead of home-delivered mattresses and reverse mortgages.

Anyway, if you’re like me, you’re hugely curious about what some of these commonly-advertised drugs are for, but you never actually look it up, because that would feel like you’re giving in, and you can’t let these ads win. Well, I figured I’ll take that on so you don’t have to. I looked up the drugs being advertised in name only in Canada right now: Ozempic, Rybelsus, Saxenda and Contrave. The answer is, they're all for weight management and diabetes. There are differences in how they're administered, and what specifically they're used for, but they're all after a similar market. I guess I should have guessed that, since these ads are among the few with actors of a variety of body types, a Sherlockian hint that came dangerously close to giving us real information.

Absolutely All Hallows’ Eve

Halloween is a strange holiday for a lot of reasons. One of the oddest is the many ways you can celebrate it. Compare it to Christmas, say. With Christmas, you can take your festivities and decorations in essentially two directions: hokey, or religious. Okay, you can try to be classy and elegant, but that just looks hokey, but expensively so.

Most holidays are similar, with a dichotomy of directions:

• Easter: cutesy vs. religious
• Thanksgiving : vaguely-religious vs. just-here-for-the-food
• Canada Day/Independence Day: “I wish I could be this patriotic all year round” vs. “I wish I could shoot off fireworks all year round”

But then Halloween offers you several choices:

Darkness vs. General pretending

Halloween is generally about spooky-scary stuff, but it can be about just generally pretending to be something you aren’t. As I mentioned in a previous post, Halloween’s vague requirement for scariness seemed a little restrictive as a child, at least when compared to the usual freedom kids are given to pretend. And a lot of adults want to throw off the oppressive sorta-scary-requirement. Maybe they want to return to the childhood freedom to make-believe. Maybe they find the adult world scary enough. Though many seem like they’re using their Halloween costume to push something about their personality, like, “Look everyone, I’m really funny and playful! I must be if I’m a 300-lb bearded man in a princess costume!” Or, “I must be cool, I’m dressed as a meme I saw last week!”

And of course, the pop culture-industrial complex gets involved too: lots of people just want to dress as the latest thing, and lots of companies are here to enable you. So that's how there will be countless Barbies this Halloween. (And I'm assuming, a small number of ironic Oppenheimers.) But on the scare scale, she doesn't register. Ironically, you'd be better off going with Oppenheimer for that.

Traditionally Occult vs. Genuine Horror

What's especially weird is that a lot of the scary aspects of Halloween aren't actually scary. Witches, Frankenstein-esque monsters, and sheet-based ghosts have long since ceased to be scary in our society. But there are still many genuinely scary things. Or at least, gory things. So you have some people being "scary" with symbolically scary things, or you can actually scare people. That’s made worse by the fact that “scary” is another one of those concepts where we vary wildly as a society. If slasher pics are your comfort zone, then your Halloween lawn display may worry your neighbour who went back to their tent before the campfire stories started.

Disturbingly Realistic vs. Comfortably Fake

If you’re staying on the traditional side, you can dial-up the authenticity to suit your tastes. It’s easy to find adorable little witch and ghost decorations that are about as threatening as your average Christmas decorations, or you can go for some more authentic darkness. And that goes if your idea of “authentic darkness” means Wicca or Bauhaus. It may not scare anyone, but it will have your friends asking if you actually practice this year-round and only come into the open during this one time that it’s socially acceptable.

But surprisingly, even if you’re on the horrific side, there's also an option for hokey, but gory: if you go to the dollar store, you can find bloody severed limbs that look incredibly fake. I'm struggling to understand the mentality behind that: you want to imply tremendous horror, but god forbid it should be realistic. I think the idea is to aim for a humourously over-the-top gruesome display. But as with so many attempts to be ironically excessive today, no one can agree on what is excessive.

Child vs. Adult

Halloween is a holiday centred around horror and children - which is a weird combo to begin with - but it begs the question: just how scary are we supposed to make it? On the one hand, a scare that an adult can withstand is probably not something you want to subject your kids to. And on the other hand, kids don’t always know what they’re supposed to be scared of; the whole world is new and strange to them, it’s all kind of scary. Getting ushered around the neighbourhood to get food they don’t know from people they’ve never met is pretty scary to them. The costumes and decorations don’t really make a difference.

And then there’s the issue that Halloween costumes for adults — at least, adult women — have fallen into a rut of being sexy-whatever. On the one hand, that's a funny commentary on humanity: as a child, everything is scary, but as an adult, everything is sexualized. On the other, it’s further pushing us towards our having two Halloweens: one for kids and one for adults.

What's really weird is that these different aspects of Halloween don't really conflict with each other. While the religious and secular Christmases stay at arm's length, everyone seems okay with mixing Halloweens. So it's like, "You'll have a terror-ific time watching the Paw Patrol Halloween Special!"

How The Meaty Have Fallen

Years ago, I wrote a post about how many ads use “It’s Your Thing” by the Isley Brothers. The point was that it’s really over-used, and worse, lazily used — by advertisers looking for a cheap expression of … I don’t know, individuality, or something? I was pointing out that it just keeps getting warmed-over by the ad industry, despite it already being associated with the last second-rate brand that used it, and also, in complete obliviousness to how cliched it is. 

(After the recent passing of Rudolph Isley, I should point out that I have nothing against the song itself, but it’s become generic ad music, about as fresh as 70s Muzak.)

So I was absolutely shocked when I saw McDonald’s latest ad campaign built around that most over-used song. It might not be a surprise for younger people: Today, McDonald’s is just another established brand casting about for something that will appeal to Gen Z and Gen Alpha. (Seriously, that’s what they’re calling it.) 

But when I was younger, Mickey-D’s were legendary for their marketing prowess. Among anyone with the self-awareness to realize that marketing was happening, they were the epitome of corporate Svengalis making the public dance to their choice of tune. Children loved them. Teens loved them even though children loved them. Parents hated them but let their children drag them there anyway.

To be honest, I always thought the legend of their gastronomic propaganda was a little exaggerated. After all, if they could control the general public’s tastes, wouldn’t they choose something easier to make than burgers? I mean, they are a fairly complex food; they do have all the food groups one way or another. Wouldn’t it be more profitable to command everyone to desire raw soy beans or something?

But even if they were never a burger collective controlling the American palate, they were the pinnacle of twentieth-century marketing. Yes, they had missteps like the Arch Deluxe or their foray into Pizza. But on the other hand, they built an empire with a clown and a big purple lump, convinced kids to have their birthdays there, got us to drink some kind of orange syrup at public events, made the McRib into a major event, and made a legend out of a burger that’s half-bread and has an unclassifiable-sauce.

So it was a shock to see them build an ad campaign around this cliched song that a regional chain of muffler shops would be embarrassed to use. On the one hand, it’s kind of refreshing; instead of marketing going after the youths, here they’re going after, I don’t know, the Boomers, I guess? But it’s also a bit sad. It’s like a TV show that came back for one season too many, an aging rock star dabbling in smooth jazz, or an athlete that doesn’t know when to quit. Wow, I saw communism fall, and somehow the fall of McDonald’s marketing is more shocking.

Swilce? Tayvis? Traylor?

I don’t know if you’ve heard this, but Taylor Swift is dating Travis Kelce, star tight end for the Kansas City Chiefs. You probably have heard this, because it’s created a perfect storm of American popular culture, combining the hype of football and the ubiquity of pop music. The Yin and Yang of American culture have been suddenly pushed together, and both sides are acting kind of awkward. 

As someone who watches football, but shies away from popular music, I’m only seeing part of it. But the football half is pretty embarrassing. On the one hand, a lot of people want to talk about it, but aren’t really sure how, so they just make a lot of bad puns on Swift’s songs. And that got old really fast. I don’t know if something similar is going on in the pop world. Oh God, I just realized, they must be making endless “tight end” jokes. My condolences.

It’s also embarrassing the way the football world is acting like a nerdy kid who gets a chance to sit at the cool kids’ table. That’s a bit surprising, given the grip that football seems to have on American culture. But even football has room to grow, and suddenly getting exposure with a young and female demographic has them seeing dollar signs. So now the NFL is passing notes in class asking if the cool kids have said anything about it.

But more than anything, this incident shows how we, as a society, still haven’t figured out how to handle the current culture. The celebrity industry wants to make this the story of the century, but many of us have got the message that obsessing over people we don't know is a bad idea, even when we are fans of them. The fact is, there isn’t much for any of us to say about two people dating, when we personally don’t know either one. Whether you’re a fan of one or both or neither, there’s not much of a reaction you can have, other than wishing them luck. Again, the football world is demonstrating this well, with football analysts suddenly being asked to say something about the couple, but not really having anything to add, and instead just making the umpteenth "Blank Space" joke.

Part of the problem is that we just don't have universal touchstones in society anymore. There are few things that everyone cares about, but the media keeps excitedly hoping it will find one. Even Swift on her own is a good example of it. Her fame has reached a level where the media is assuming she is a universal obsession. But we don't really have universal obsessions in a world where we're so free to choose our personal culture. The most anyone can hope for is fandom from a dedicated and large minority, like Swift has. (Or, for that matter, football has.) But that still means that most people don't have a strong connection. So although you’ll see some examples of fans crossing over into both cultural worlds — like those who famously flooded retailers with orders for Kelce’s jersey — more people are just aggravated with the expectations to suddenly care about the other side of American culture.