So long, good friend

VHS is finally dead.

“The last major Hollywood movie to be released on VHS was “A History of Violence” in 2006. By that point major retailers such as Best Buy and Wal-Mart were already well on their way to evicting all the VHS tapes from their shelves so the valuable real estate could go to the sleeker and smaller DVDs.”

I know, not my usual shocker article, but I’d like to pay homage to the VHS.  After it was made mainstream by porn, VHS has entertained us for something like three decades, really taking off in the 90’s.

So I’d like to write about some memories that I have with VHS. A eulogy, of sorts. Feel free to add your own memories in the comments section.

I remember still being in Russia, so I was under the age of 6, and how I thought my Grandpa was something close to god (secular Soviet home) because he could make TV stop, rewind, and play at will. I watched endless reruns of the same episodes of Gummi Bears (in Russian of course). I thought the TV power solely belonged to my Grandpa. Sure, I didn’t know it was a trusty VHS that held my joy on it, but there it was, a token of  my early childhood.

In case you’re curious as to what Gummi Bears sounds like in Russian..

You can only imagine my sheer happiness when I discovered that this strange new land, America, also had Gummi Bears, albeit in it’s own language. America also had those adorable little cheese wrapped in wax (Babybel), which I first met on the plane coming to the USA, where I promptly ate the cheese, wax and all, until some nice lady took pity on me and explained to me that I can take the wax off.

Oh VHS, I remember the sheer control. I could put it in, record anything I want on TV, play it back, record over it again. I remember recording mistakes. I remember footage being lost. I remember the joy of finding it again, accidentally, that as you’re watching some old cartoon, for nostalgia value as now you’re too told for the cartoon, that you recorded at a very tender age that would get interrupted midway through by the porn that you recorded from the TV at that same tender age.

I remember feeling so powerful. I could capture moments. I could rewind and play at will. I could erase. Maybe this sounds so geeky, but the idea that one could take memories from the TV without permission. We don’t have that anymore. We pay for it. We are also watched. Someone else knows what we record. What we prefer. The privacy is gone. That was really the glory of VHS, video home system, the privacy in your own home. Obviously this was primarily for porn purposes in the beginning, as it’s nicer to watch it at home instead of some peep show theater. With VHS we had our own personal cinema. It was so revolutionary. It was so intimate. I loved hitting pause, and then play and watching everything move very very slowly. I loved the noise of the machine when it would fast forward or rewind. You could feel the little guy working.

I remember the anticipation of tracking. When the tape was too old and it would be fuzzy and not so perfect, and you would hold your breath hoping that tracking would fix it. I remember actually the days before auto-tracking and how that was a bitch and a half to set the levels just right. It was a sense of pride and accomplishment every time I made a video look good.

I loved the working technology as a kid, but I also loved it when my parents gave me the important task of destroying videos as well. I’d pull the black tape out and out and dance with it in the house. Sometimes I would rewind it manually with my fingers. See if I could put it back together. See if I could undo it more. I would braid it into my hair, then take it out because I wasn’t allowed to look like that outside the house. I loved how tangible VHS was.

My college house still has a ton of VHS tapes. Old Disney movies, not digitally remastered, that we gather around and watch. We bask in the feeling of being young again. Of the tape sometimes being soft around the edges. How everything wasn’t so perfect, and that is, and was, part of the appeal. Nothing more exciting than taking that clunky VHS tape and watching the VCR eat it. No menu screen with options. Just ff and then play. No DVD that sits and keeps replaying the menu screen over and over.

Don’t get me wrong. I love the new digital world. Yet sometimes I miss the fuzzy memories of my youth.

So goodbye and so long, VHS. You done good. I know others will make a far more creative and artistic omage to you. You might get some gallery installations. Some modern art pieces. Maybe a movie and documentary. Maybe a porno.

But you will never again teach young immigrant girls how to capture memories on their own. Don’t worry, VHS, your memory is already captured. It keeps playing inside. My generation watches your graceful death. You embody the death of our childhood.

Everyone Hop On The Bailout Train!

Another major American industry is asking for assistance as the global financial crisis continues: Hustler publisher Larry Flynt and Girls Gone Wild CEO Joe Francis said Wednesday they will request that Congress allocate $5 billion for a bailout of the adult entertainment industry.

…

But the industry leaders said the issue is a nation in need. “People are too depressed to be sexually active,” Flynt said in the statement. “This is very unhealthy as a nation. Americans can do without cars and such but they cannot do without sex.”

“Millons of homecrafters face bankruptcy after Jan 20 from new law”

The January 20 2009 deadline for millions of American homecrafters to object to a new law requiring expensive testing of their products, is approaching fast. Child-products without certificates proving they have no lead content, will have to be scrapped.

The new Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act – passed hastily to bar poisonous foreign products – also will require millions of American homecrafters to have each of their products tested at huge cost, ranging from $500 to $4000 per product – including their old stock which was manufactured before this law had even been thought up.

No more selling old things on eBay or Craigslist…
And all the products sold on eBay or Craigslist will also require such certificates of compliance or they will be breaking the law. Also affected: millions of charities, which will no longer be able to accept donations without a certificate of compliance. And this certificate can only be obtained through expensive testing by an SCPC-accredited laboratory.” Without such certificates, billions of dollars worth of uncertified children’s products will have to be destroyed because they can’t be legally sold without an CPSI-certificate of compliance, and this will cause major environmental problems,” said Massachusetts campaigner Kiki Fluhr.

“Larger corporations that can afford testing will incur thousands, maybe millions of dollars in fees, and this expense will be handed down to the consumer, probably making the prices for children’s products go through the roof.” Fluhr: “This law will put thousands of manufacturers of children’s products out of business -hurting our economy and causing even more loan defaults. Though this legislation was well-intentioned, it cannot be allowed to stand.”

“This law affects every stay at home mom trying to help put food on the table and every grandmother knitting blankets for the local craft fair. It makes the thousands of us who have found a niche in the burgeoning handmade market have to make a tough decision – continue to produce items illegally and possible incur a $100,000 fine, or close up shop and maybe not be able to pay the mortgage this month….”

That really sucks. What will wonderful websites like Etsy do? Why are we trying to kill off small-time artisans..especially with this economy? Is our land really the land of the corporate?

Gosh. I used to buy diy items on Ebay all the time. Special little items that someone else used and can now sell to me rather than throwing it away.This will only encourage people to buy new products rather than invest less money in more durable items. No more hand-me-downs. No more individual craftsartists.

This really makes everything seem so bleak. If it’s not factory-mass-produced, you can’t have it. What a crazy monopoly that we are presenting to large businesses. I’m rather distraught about this. If you click on the above link to the article there is a petition you can sign. As useful as that is.

Golly gee, can you imagine a black market for used products? People trying to sell their hand-made soap and jewelry? We could write dystopias on this.

But again, it’s not just the trouble of having a harder time consuming cheaply…charities are affected. I remember before I left England we randomly found a soup kitchen workshop and we asked them where we could donate our clothes and blankets since I can’t take them with me. She told us to bring them over tomorrow, they’d wash them for us. It was nice just to pack bookbags of clothes, blankets and other trinkets and give them to an organization directly.

The law isn’t evil, it’s trying to protect. Yet within this protection there is an excess. Sure we’re trying to keep people safe, but within the zealotry people get hurt, small businesses suffer, small people who can’t even count as a small business suffer.

Textbook Buy-back

If the Real World Used Textbook Buy-Back Policies

Buyer: I’ll give you $5,000 for it.
Homeowner: Are you crazy? I just paid $100,000 for it in January. Haven’t you heard of value appreciation?
Buyer: All I’m hearing is that your house is used.
Homeowner: Hardly. I spent like 2 days there in March and then 6 hours yesterday. This house is in perfect condition.
Buyer: Oh yeah, what’s this note above the backdoor?
Homeowner: It says, “Low door. Mind your head.”
Buyer: Low door, huh?
Homeowner: Yeah, but that’s not a problem. It’s just a feature of the house. It’s supposed to be like that. That’s just a helpful note in case people didn’t notice the height of the door.
Buyer: It sullies the whole house. The whole house is crap because of that note!
Homeowner: What are you talking about? This isn’t even a pretty house.
Buyer: So you admit it!
Homeowner: Yeah. It’s a stupid looking house on a boring block, but people still want to buy it. Haven’t you heard of supply and demand?
Buyer: Nope. And I’m not going to give you more than $5,000 for this dump. That’s just policy.
Homeowner: What are you talking about? What policy?
Buyer: Just policy.
Homeowner: Well, maybe I won’t sell it to you. Who knows, I might need this house in the future. It’s got pretty cool…faucets. I might want to use those. Ugh, fine. Give me the stupid 5 grand.
Buyer: Great doing business with you.
Ex-Buyer: Attention, all prospective buyers! Who wants to buy this fantastic, mint-condition home for $90,000?
Ex-Homeowner: What?!
Ex-Buyer: Sucker.

Blahblah market blah blah conversations blah blah please hold blah

72. We like this new marketplace much better. In fact, we are creating it.

73. You’re invited, but it’s our world. Take your shoes off at the door. If you want to barter with us, get down off that camel!

74. We are immune to advertising. Just forget it.

False prophet of the internet age. Deluded in the idea of the meek inheriting cyberspace.

What do you mean we are creating it? What about digital enclosure? What about websites tracking your interests and selling them to companies? What about Facebook owning everything you put on there, even if you take it off? What about warrantless electronic wiretapping? The Patriot Acts? We’re helping big corporations get more out of us, sure…but creating it?

“Immune to Advertising”? Check out Emotional Branding or how about Born to Buy. Sure, maybe you are immune when you are an adult that was not brought up around advertisements or markets, but not when you’re young and you’re getting a very expensive education from companies.

(CBS) In 1983, companies spent $100 million marketing to kids. Today, they’re spending nearly $17 billion annually. That’s more than double what it was in 1992.

Marketing firms and advertisers are looking to a younger demographic, increasingly targeting tweens and even younger children. And these kids have huge control over the flow of parents’ spending, statistics show — 8- to 12-year-olds spend $30 billion of their own money each year and influence another $150 billion of their parents’ spending.

Sure, you as an adult can be immune to advertising…but if children were so immune why would the companies spend so much money on making these children loyal from such a young age? They’re investing in their future consumers.

Markets aren’t really conversations. I don’t really know what ClueTrain means by this. That the CEO is talking to his consumers? That WalMart is treating their employees right? It seems like going through the internet is the best way to ignore conversation, considering you don’t have to see someone. It’s not like someone coming into your office demandning answers. Demanding discourse.

I think it’s important for our class to move into the direction of the market perspective. It is unavoidable as somehow it seems to me that everything on cyberspace is commodified. Everything is for sale, and everything is an object.

Obama Launches a Video Game Campaign

Excerpt from the article:

Obama Ad Campaign Targets Video Games

Following in the footsteps of leading-edge advertisers like Red Bull, the Obama campaign has diversified their ad blitz to include not only print and television spots, but also ads in social networking sites and video games.

The campaign has reportedly purchased ad space in several Internet-enabled video games running on Microsoft’s Xbox 360 platform. The titles include popular games like Burnout Paradise and Madden NFL ’09, and the ads will be restricted to users connecting from battleground states like Colorado, Florida, Ohio, Iowa, Indiana, Montana, North Carolina, New Mexico, and Wisconsin. The ads in the game burnout appear as billboards that say “Early voting has begun / VoteForChange.com.”

This is the latest tech-savvy step for a campaign that has shown unprecedented mastery of social networking, text messaging and targeted emailing to spread information about its candidate. This isn’t the Obama campaign’s first foray into non-traditional advertising, however; the candidate also sponsors spots on popular sites like Hulu.com, a streaming television site, as well as Google’s YouTube. If you’re a Facebook user, you’ve probably seen his ads there, too.

Whether or not this is a wise investment of last-minute capital — or if users even pay much attention to in-game ads — remains to be seen, but if Obama wins in November, it’s likely that other candidates will attempt to duplicate his strategy to enfranchise the elusive 18-34 age group.

You don’t need to click the link because this the entire thing, the rest of the link talks about dorky things that probably only I would care about such as Windows OS and Adobe Suites.

I also don’t know how effective in-game political ads would be but gosh darnit, that’s a very innovative strategy. His campaign is doing some interesting things. Regardless of what I feel about Obama, I have got to give him praise for awakening the 18-30 something demographic politically. We have been both ignored politically, and politically apathetic, and again the two feed into one another.

Is Voting for Young People? is a short, but concise book on the issues around youth voting. In a very short summary what is created is a rather vicious circle of a lack of participation and a lack of attention. Young people have a crappy voting record, so politicians hardly tailor to them because there is little benefit to them. At the same time, young people feel that they are not being represented politically, and in their resentment they become even more politically distant. The more distant they become, the less politicians pay attention to them. So what Obama has done is a national service, but also a great re-energizer to democracy. More representation to a part of the voting block that has been silent for many decades. Whether or not he wins, he has started (as my old History teacher would say) a fire under our asses to get us to act. To become political once again. To become interested and aware of politics. To participate. That’s pretty awesome. So while I supported Hillary, I do respect Obama for what he did.

The apathy of my peers is a great concern for me. While the statistical trend is that people become more political and more civically-engaged with age, I’m worried that the passitivity and indifference that most youth feel will carry on as they grow older.

As for bringing politics to video gamers, I think that’s awesome. Sure, I can see this being used for darker (and more annoying) purposes (you have to watch an ad before you can enjoy the glory of whatever game you’re playing, but also you will be opened up to marketing and ad-bombings). What I think is awesome is the fact that gamers are being acknowleged by political leaders. I’m rather sensitive about gaming (good god my obsession with WarCraft), and I think gamers, as a group, are often poorly described. But that’s a blog posdt for a different day.

Also…because I cannot resist..a game! It’s sort of like Risk. I had fun. How well did you do?