AntiFriday: Your weekly compendium of backlashes, dissent & critiques

Posted by Rob Walker on September 6, 2008
Posted Under: Anti,Artists,Backlashing,Murketing

That’s right, AntiFriday is on Saturday today. Here goes.

* Heart asked the GOP to stop using “Barracuda” as Sarah Palin’s de facto theme song — and the GOP promptly played it again after her convention speech. “I feel completely f—ed over,” Nancy Wilson says. She and sister Ann add: “Sarah Palin’s views and values in NO WAY represent us as American women. We ask that our song ‘Barracuda’ no longer be used to promote her image. The song ‘Barracuda’ was written in the late 70s as a scathing rant against the soulless, corporate nature of the music business, particularly for women.” Slate says the GOP may not need the band’s permission.

* Unplug Your Friends features a cute video intended to counter “screen addiction.” Specifically you can counter screen addition by joining/forming a Meet Up group — or (in a classic murketing tactic) emailing your friends to get them involved in Meet Up. And I must disclose that this came to my attention because someone at Meet Up sent it to me. [Link goes straight to video]

* The Washington Post assesses retail signage that looks a lot like Barbara Kruger’s work. Guy responsible says it’s an “obvious homage.” Kruger doesn’t seem to care one way or the other. Writer Blake Gopnik concludes: “Sometimes — maybe even most of the time — the look of an image is itself the thing we care most about it. Its look is its crucial content. Its style is its meaning; it’s what gets distilled out of it, as the message we take home. When a real estate agent borrows Kruger’s look and leaves most of her ideas behind, he may be treating art the way most of us do.” [I’m a devoted WaPo Style page reader, but thanks also to Braulio for mentioning this.]

* And finally: E directs my attention to this video in which you “meet the graphic designer behind Hollywood’s most famous floating head movie posters.” Amusing. [Again, link goes straight to video.]

Further diversion may be found at MKTG Tumblr, and the Consumed Facebook page.

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