'Underground writers' ads on tube - proving Bill Hicks right

[johnnymarrsbars]

They're asking for copywriters. so what?

it fucking annoys me how on sites like this everyone hates advertising. without advertising the western world wouldn't function and economies would collapse.

 

[butchersapron]

No, I just think it's bollocks. I get the argument, I just don't accept it, and I think that lionising people, creating heroes, will only ever lead to the anger you have whenever they are 'misused' - love people, not their products. The existance of things like 'celebrity' and 'heroes' are both aretefacts of hierarchy anyway.

For you this is also a form of secular blasphemy - just as a Xtian get's excised when you take God's name in vain, you get excised when you see artists you value deeply used in a crass fashion.

Burroughs made a good point when he was under attack for the Nike ads, he argued that art and artists were/are a prouct of the bourgeois commerical revolution, they've never been outside or autonomous from that, creating their own values - that even the things like the romatics who were supposed to be the antihthesis of commerical culture were also in fact parasitic on it, they represented one of the two souls of the bourgeois revolution - they were inescapably of it, and that consequently to hold onto a notion of the free artist in todays culture is a little bit, well...quaint.

 

[Brainaddict]

Anyone got a link to some? The site doesn't have them...

can't find an image. they are images of people with wrapping paper bows over their mouths, with the strapline something like 'Speak out against the horror of bad presents this christmas'.

 

[Badger Kitten]

Most artists do flog their work, or try to.

 

[johnnymarrsbars]

I found it...in poor taste, let's say, to parody human rights adverts in order to increase their own funding stream. I am informed that Oxfam and Amnesty share a marketing team, but of course Amnesty has moved onto rather more vacuous sloganeering itself so I can see why they wouldn't object. I know, I know, it's progress. Personally I just thought it in rather poor taste.

the current amnesty adverts are brilliant. they've won d&ad's i believe.

 

[butchersapron]

<useless fact>Salman Rushdie worked for two advertising agencies and coined the strapline '' Go to work on an egg'' for the Egg Marketing Board.</useless fact>

Fay Weldon i thought?

 

[Brainaddict]

the current amnesty adverts are brilliant. they've won d&ad's i believe.

mmm, they don't actually *say* anything though do they?

 

[kyser_soze]

yeah, well, I always thought he was a cunt.

Me three. Still a nice play on words tho.

 

[Badger Kitten]

Fay Weldon i thought?

Think she was ''naughty but nice'' for the Milk Marketing Board but I could be wrong...

 

[Fruitloop]

<useless fact>Salman Rushdie worked for two advertising agencies and coined the strapline '' Go to work on an egg'' for the Egg Marketing Board.</useless fact>

His best work, IMO.

 

[Brainaddict]

The point about these:

is that they've given up on trying to actually say anything about human rights. It's just a branding exercise. And why shouldn't the charities brand themselves when everyone else is? In fact they're almost duty-bound to do so in order to increase their income etc etc. The logic is flawless.

 

[kyser_soze]

can't find an image. they are images of people with wrapping paper bows over their mouths, with the strapline something like 'Speak out against the horror of bad presents this christmas'.

hmmmm...hmmmm...think I might be inclined toward 'bad taste' from the sound of them...

Are we talking about the Amnesty bus posters?

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Think she was ''naughty but nice'' for the Milk Marketing Board but I could be wrong...

Go to work on an egg was definitey Fay Weldon. I have many of these useless facts in my brain.

 

[Badger Kitten]

You are right, it was Rushdie who did ''naughty but nice''

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Burroughs made a good point when he was under attack for the Nike ads, he argued that art and artists were/are a prouct of the bourgeois commerical revolution, they've never been outside or autonomous from that, creating their own values - that even the things like the romatics who were supposed to be the antihthesis of commerical culture were also in fact parasitic on it, they represented one of the two souls of the bourgeois revolution - they were inescapably of it, and that consequently to hold onto a notion of the free artist in todays culture is a little bit, well...quaint.

Sounds like shameless after-the-fact justification to me.

If you write a book or a poem, or paint a picture, there is no need for you to endorse any kind of commercial body at all. What is needed is for you not to demand to be paid for it - simply accept the money gracefully if you are. (Nobody has the right to be paid for making art.)

Burroughs was full of many different kinds of bullshit, although he was consistent in that he had already advocated that artists should make adverts.

 

[butchersapron]

Sounds like shameless after-the-fact justification to me.

If you write a book or a poem, or paint a picture, there is no need for you to endorse any kind of commercial body at all. What is needed is for you not to demand to be paid for it - simply accept the money gracefully if you are. (Nobody has the right to be paid for making art.)

Burroughs was full of many different kinds of bullshit, although he was consistent in that he had already advocated that artists should make adverts.

It might well be that, but it's also a pretty standard historical interpretation amongst certain approaches and has been for a very long time.

 

[Fruitloop]

Shit, that means Rushdie's back to having done nothing of merit.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

It might well be that, but it's also a pretty standard historical interpretation amongst certain approaches and has been for a very long time.

But it's a truism that is so true it is meaningless. We cannot stand outside our culture. Fine. But we can refuse to actively endorse certain of its values.

There was a Virgin billboard advert a few years ago that bellowed out 'Hey, capitalist... yes you.' or words to that effect, implying that we're all capitalists now whether we like it or not. This is hatefull and self-serving. We all live under a capitalist system, but this fact does not imply that we in any way endorse the capitalist value system. It simply means that we prefer some level of collaboration to jail.

 

[danny la rouge]

You are right, it was Rushdie who did ''naughty but nice''

Yes, and Unbeara-bubble etc. Weldon was the egg one.

 

[danny la rouge]

Shit, that means Rushdie's back to having done nothing of merit.

I liked Midnights Children. To be fair.

 

[butchersapron]

But it's a truism that is so true it is meaningless. We cannot stand outside our culture. Fine. But we can refuse to actively endorse certain of its values.

There was a Virgin billboard advert a few years ago that bellowed out 'Hey, capitalist... yes you.' or words to that effect, implying that we're all capitalists now whether we like it or not. This is hatefull and self-serving. We all live under a capitalist system, but this fact does not imply that we in any way endorse the capitalist value system. It simply means that we prefer some level of collaboration to jail.

It's not meaningless if someone's arguing that we can actually stand outside and that this is what artists do. It's entirely relevant in that case.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

They're asking for copywriters. so what?

it fucking annoys me how on sites like this everyone hates advertising. without advertising the western world wouldn't function and economies would collapse.

That's because it is designed that way.

As a species, we may well, one day very soon, consume ourselves into oblivion.

 

[Blagsta]

Recuperation innit. Nothing new.

 

[butchersapron]

I liked Midnights Children. To be fair.

And you liked this:

http://www.urban75.net/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=3690833&postcount=1

 

[Haller]

He was also one of the bods behind 'Labour isn't working' and many other famous adlines of the 70s...

Are you sure about this?

 

[Barking_Mad]

Im currently reading 'Babylon' by the Russian author Victor Pelevin. It's about a guy who gets into advertising in Russia following the breakdown of the former USSR.

It contains a wonderful piece where after going into a shop the guy buys a ouija board and it reveals to him an explanation of advertising, money and the role of the media.

I won't explain it here, because I couldn't do it justice, but its one the most wonderful and mindblowing pieces of prose ive read in a long time.

Well worth a read. Ok, as you were.....