Wednesday, June 23, 2010

HIPSTER RUNOFF

HIPSTER RUNOFF

Passion Pit gets ‘more mainstream’, does shitty remix of mainstream Katy Perry song

Posted: 23 Jun 2010 12:22 PM PDT


Not sure ‘who actually likes’/'respects’ Passion Pit as a relevant band. I think they are sort of representative of the modern model of bands who are ‘marketed as indie buzzbands’ but are ultimately monetized/plugged in to the mainstream machine. Feel like they ‘trick’ tons of larger blogs/magazines into blogging about them like ‘a buzz band’ when they are actually just ‘a marketing experiment.’ Passion Pit is a man made buzz band.

N e ways, Passion Pit did this remix of a mainstream Katy Perry song called “California Gurls.” It is probably some sort of ‘requirement’ of their major label record contract or something. Song sux/isn’t really worth listening to, just felt like writing this post to ‘hammer’/'make fun of’ Passion Pit and all of their fans. Feel worried for their next ablum. Wonder if Pitchfork is gonna give them a 4.0 or a 9.0. Gonna be really bleepy bloopy in a ghey poppy way.

Feel like the original “California Girlz” song reminds me of a blog house song from the blog house era. Sound better than the pointless Pashy Pit version.

Do yall like Katy Perry’s slutwave pop brand, or is she ‘trying 2 hard’?
Does she have an advantage over most females in music because she has ‘huge knockers’?

Should Best Coast write more anthems about California to be more like Katy Perry?
Are California Girls ‘effing sluts’?
What kind of people ‘actually like’ Passion Pit?
Do u <3/h8 Passion Pit?
Do u wish more indie starts had ‘a rack as big as Katy Perry’s’?
Is “California Girlz” trying 2 hard to be a ‘mainstreamer summer anthem’?

The Emergence of the USA BRO

Posted: 23 Jun 2010 11:03 AM PDT


In the United States, soccer is the official sport of suburbia. More American kids play soccer than any other sport in the United States. There is tons of space in the suburbs of every city in America, which provides local communities with great opportunities to build decent facilities to host youth games every weekend.

White parents want their children to be successful. Realistically, most white Americans have no chance to become a professional athlete, since African Americans have a superior blood line. These premium African American athletes often choose to play football and basketball, the sports which represent ‘making the most bank’ and ‘becoming the most famous’, mainly based on ‘how many commercials ur in’ and ‘how many sweet highlights u end up in on SportsCenter.’ (Note: Many white journalists ‘hold this against African American atheletes for chasing ‘impure’ glory.)

While many American bros enjoy the spirit of the mainstream sports of basketball, football, and even Yankees/Red Sox baseball, there is no purer American Sport for the modern bro than the sport of soccer. A generation of bros has grown up ‘playing soccer’ but not necessarily knowing how to consume it in a professional / international context. Most Americans don’t even really have a local league/website/tv station from which to consume the standard drama + newsbits + controversy on a daily basis

USABROS have been searching for other USABROS since after the 1994 World Cup in the United States. After that local World Cup, USA bros gained a ‘global perspective’, understanding that there was a ‘whole nother world out there’, beyond the traditional ‘trapped in their lives’ Americans who watched mainstream/weekend sports (NFL, NASCAR, college football, March Madness, golf, etc). The USABRO ‘narrowly’ escaped the overmarketing of extreme sports, which involved stoners on surf boards / snow boards /motorbikes doing ‘retarded ass tricks’ in front of Mountain Dew billboards.

The USABRO is just looking for a ‘breakout’ opportunity every 4 years. Every World Cup since 1990, USABROS have been growing. USABROS are searching for justification with their lives’: WHY did they play soccer all those years? Was it because they were athletically inferior to the African Americans who ran them off the football/basketball teams in high school? Was it because their parents wanted them to bond in a team/group environment? Was it because their parents had expendable income to pay for an overpriced trainer who wasn’t really qualified, but had a sweet foreign accent? Was it because they were a part of ’something bigger than themselves’?

The USABRO has been marinating for the past 20 years, born from the ashes of the downfall of the American family. The emergence of the ’soccer mom’ in the 1990s wasn’t really just a ‘pop culture cliche buzzword’–it was the bond that was formed between a mother and a son after the downfall of the Babyboomer Father Figure. Mothers and sons shared long drives to the outskirts of the suburbs every weekend to play in meaningful soccer teams. For many American bros, the first spirit of ‘true bro’ was born on ‘the pitch’ [via the 'soccer field'].

In the modern United States, soccer never has really had a legitimate professional league that warranted national attention. Americans don’t have the technical skill, the history, or the analytical skill to consume ’soccer.’ Old news hacks have found comfort in ‘hating’ on soccer, since they really couldn’t identify with it. ‘Sports’ are a product/way of life that you learn how to consume from your father. Gen Xers and Baby Boomers had alcoholic fathers yelling at black and white TVs, watching baseball, Larry Bird, and other white man games on television. This father was ‘not present’ in many Gen Y lives’, leading USABROS to emerge,

Popular Generation X writer Chuck Klosterman wrote in his book Sex Drugs and Cocoa Memes that soccer was ‘bullshit’ and made tons of pre-blog era snarky arguments about ‘why soccer sucked’ and ‘was for pussies.’ It seemed like a ‘funny take’ in the pre-blog era, but an entire generation of ‘pussies’ was born. Now Generation Y is ‘growing up’, and they are ’searching for their justification.’ They want to reconnect with nostalgic images of youth, back when ‘youth soccer’ was all they had. Back when they actually had a symbiotic relationship with their parents, before they started 2 resent them.

To the rest of the world, “soccer” isn’t even a real word. It is a word that America made up for no good reason.

But to USABROS, ’soccer’ means even more than ‘football.’ It’s not just a sport that is attached to the livelihood of an entire country. ‘Soccer’ is an idea that one day we’ll understand why ‘we’ exist as American bros. There are so many different types of bros in the world, but many are happy ‘just being bros’, not really searching for anything more than a nice pair of breasts and a vagina to keep their penis hard and warm.

Every time the United States scores a meaningful goal, I feel a strong connection with USABROS all across the United States.

The USABRO didn’t really know who they were or why they existed until the success of the United States National Team during the 2002 World Cup in South Korea. As young bros, many pre-formative USABROS spent many weekends forging connections with fellow soccer bros, traveling to tournaments in different cities, trying to become the best player/team possible seemed ‘irrelevant’ since the NFL and NBA are ‘the most popular/best branded sports in the United States.’

The USABRO is a micro-phenomenon, only understood by true USABROS. USABROS have turned to the internet to ‘connect’ with other USABROS, consuming soccer news from leagues and countries across the world as aggressively as other people follow pop culture / celeb gossip / indie buzzbands. If the United States became a ’soccer nation’ (after the USA wins the World Cup in 0-1000 years), ’soccer’ will probably be ‘gobbled up’ by the same cliches and impurities that have ruined other sports. But for now, soccer belongs to the USABRO. Understanding our triumphs (which mean nothing to the rest of the world), and understanding our national identity in a global context.

The broternity of USABROS is a special one. More powerful than the spirit of youth sports. Channeling the authentic bond formed between a son and his mother.


Sitting at home
in my mother’s house
unemployed (but she still loves me and makes me a hearty meal every night)
watching the World Cup
on our flat screen HD TV
Following along with my laptop,
monitoring twitter trending topics
(twitter gives gives me reassurance that a world exists outside of Middle America)

If the USA wins
this means more than anything
more pure than any American professional sports championship
There is a reason my mom was a soccer mom
There is a reason why I was a soccer bro

If the United States wins the World Cup
My existence as a USABRO has meaning

Old Navy Flag t-shirts
are more than just a ‘personal branding decision’

What is nationalism? A sense of bro-ness with your bros.
What is patriotism? Knowing that you and your bros are better than any other bros in the entire world.
What is capitalism? Knowing u and ur bros are gonna make ‘mad bank’ one day (possibly even just ‘metaphorically’).

What is the spirit of the American Bro? A need 2 understand ‘why’ you were put on this Earth as an American bro, with a life that seems ‘easy/chill’, but still lacks the mainstream meaning that u r searching for. American success in an evolving niche sport might be the only thing that can make the modern bro feel like they are on this Earth to do more than just ’spend time on their laptops.’

I want to understand suburbia.
I want to understand the downfall of the modern American male.
I want to understand ‘why’ soccer moms existed in the 1990s.
I want to the impurity of professional sports to manifest themselves as the Americans capture ‘glory’ in the World Cup.
I want to accept my limitations as an inferior genetic specimen and root for American soccer players, as opposed to LeBron James.
I want a spirit of bro to come over me which is understood by only a small sect of American bros.

Every 4 years, the USABRO has an opportunity to be ‘more than just a bro.’ Most likely, the spirit of the USABRO will be crushed. However, what bonds the USABROS 2gether is ‘the chance’ that 1 day being a USABRO will provide the meaningful universal/national outcome that most bros can’t cultivate out of ‘just getting married to some dumb slut and popping out a few kids.’ USABROS need to know that there is a reason we all drove to the outskirts of suburbia to chase a ball around in some ‘boring’ game that ‘is hated’ by ‘the majority of Americans.’

I’m proud to be a USABRO.

Alt tween shows off her boring day while listening to Toro Y Moi’s “Blessa”

Posted: 23 Jun 2010 06:35 AM PDT


Ho hum…
Another boring day in the summer
Can’t wait til I’m 16
and I get a license
I am humble enough to be satisfied with my mom’s used Toyota Avalon

Sitting around all day,
watching MTV
facebooking
tweeting
texting
sexting

Parents at work
Nothing 2 do
Gonna get creative
Gonna

Vlogging is the master art of the tween
i can show u my life
i can show u my face
more meaningful than a picture in .jpg format
this is my life
this is me
this video will last forever
or until youtube is hacked/the servers ‘go down.’

Kinda sad that the school year is over
and I am stuck here with limited social interaction
relieved I have a smart phone / laptop compy
to connect with all of my friends

I guess Toro Y Moi was right
every day is a blessing…

might go to the mall this weekend

Cheap Alt beer Miller High Life redesigns their brand, tries to look ‘more classy’

Posted: 23 Jun 2010 06:03 AM PDT

Link: http://www.thedieline.com/blog/2010/06/miller-high-life-redesigned.html


Miller High Life is a popular alt that is ’somewhat famous’ for being ‘mad cheap.’ Some alts prefer Miller High Life over the popular alt ‘PBR’ and the popular alt energy drink ‘Sparks.’ It seems like Miller High Life had to rebrand in order to ’stop looking so cheap.’ Maybe they weren’t making enough money from it, so they want to rebrand it and drive prices up, tricking people into thinking it is a ‘classy’ .

“Once the flagship brand for Miller Brewing Company, Miller High Life had over time been repositioned as a below-premium that belied both its product quality and rich 100+ year-old heritage. In order to improve consumer perception, we contemporized and better leveraged its revered and iconic brand elements—the Miller High Life Soft Cross and the Girl in the Moon. The new visual identity allows the brand to stretch beyond the below-premium category into a more premium territory that we think positions the brand to reclaim its iconic status.”

Do u think they ‘deserve’ to be an iconic brand, or should they have just tried to play up the ‘ironic brand’? I feel like after the Bros Icing Bros era and the PBR model which embraces grassroots ironic hipster branding, it would be ‘chill’ if Miller High Life ‘gave up’ on High Life being a ‘premium .’

A tag line like ‘the Champagne of Beers’ probably can’t be taken seriously in the modern world.

Here’s a bunch of designs to try to make people think that High Life was created in a microbrewery in Colorado/Maine/Oregon.

Is Miller High Life ‘Light’ 4 ass holes? If u buy ‘cheap ’, does it make sense to ‘buy light’?

Might buy a bunch of vintage High Life tall boys to sell on eBay in 30 years

Gonna miss their old brand. Really looked like ‘the stuff that homeless people drank.’ Made me connect with the brand whenever I had it for $1 per bottle at my local relevant dive bar.

Do yall like ‘high life’?
Is this brand/identity ’solid’ or ‘effing stupid’?
Can Miller High Life reach new, high end markets, or do those high end markets already drink gimmick regional beers / low calorie beers?
Is Miller High Life the ‘champagne of beers’?
Is Sparks the ‘champagne of energy drinks’?
Is The Alt Report the ‘champagne of alt meme bloggregators’?
Is Washed Out the Champagne of chillwave?
Is Tom Cruise the champagne of scientologists?
Should brands embrace their modern ironic status?
Will a new ‘hipster ’ emerge in the 2k10s?

Is Miller Chill ‘the champagne of beers marketed towards Mexicans’?