7 Ways to Make a Content Junkie Cry

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I am a content junkie. I read, watch, and listen to anything. The New Yorker, Vice, Rolling Stone, my daughter’s Instagrams, or Vine selfies from people I don’t even know: everything is fair game to be consumed at my all-you-can-eat content buffet. I even check my Facebook and LinkedIn feeds before I’m fully conscious of being awake in the morning. So it takes a lot (and I mean a lot) to lose me as an audience. And yet, some content publishers are trying very hard to do just that by polluting the digital world with tired, annoying content ranging from clickbait headlines to quizzes that test our tolerance for cultural trivia. Here are seven types of content that are ready for retirement now:

1. Stories that wallow in epic failure. 

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 2. Clickbait headlines. (Thank you, @SavedYouAClick.)

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3. 99.9 percent of all memes . . .

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. . . especially involving this kid:

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4. Political rants on social media. Hearts and minds remain unmoved. 

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5. Pop culture quizzes.

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 6. Definitely this guy. Everywhere. Every moment.

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 7. Articles that scold me for doing everything wrong.

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And what kind of content should make me vomit but doesn’t? Well, I know I’m destroying all crediblity here, but I’m a sucker for photos of cats doing strange things, and I can’t get enough of those YouTube clips of crazy Russian daredevils dangling off buildings and balancing themselves on tiny steel beams hundreds of feet in the air (although I usually keep all those posts to myself when I see them).  And that’s the rub: my inspiration is your soul-sucking waste of time. The lesson? Content is all about context. Content creates an audience, even momentarily. Content with context — shared at the right time to the right person — creates a loyal audience.

OK: what’s on your list of content that makes you want to curse the day the Internet was born?

The Long, Strange Trip of the Ron Burgundy Brand

Anchorman: The Legend Of Ron Burgundy Q&A

What to make of Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues?

The sequel to the popular 2004 Anchorman comedy dominated the cultural landscape months before the movie opened December 18 thanks to an inventive marketing campaign. However, after “changing the way movies are marketed” (in the words of Adweek‘s Chris Heine) through original content, viral marketing stunts, and social media, the movie underperformed at the box office during its opening weekend — only to bounce back in following weeks on its way to grossing $122.2 million domestically and $163.9 million worldwide as of January 19. So did the clever marketing make a difference? Yes and no. I believe audience word of mouth and positive reviews were the real story of the movie’s box office success after a slow start. But the marketing blitz galvanized a one-man brand who may generate financial value for Paramount Pictures beyond the movie’s ticket sales.

A Formula for Success?

Paramount Pictures had every reason to believe Anchorman 2 would succeed coming out of the gate. The movie reunited the principal players who had made the original Anchorman a financial success, including Will Ferrell (as both lead actor and co-writer), director (and co-writer) Adam McKay, and producer Judd Apatow, whose work has shaped and even defined comedy for the past decade. And, as Adweek documented well, the run-up to the movie’s opening weekend involved an all-encompassing Continue reading

How Internet Pranksters Such as Elan Gale and Randy Liedtke Take Advantage of Our “Me, Too, Me, First” Culture

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Truth is the first casualty in the digital war for attention.

Throughout 2013, a rash of hoaxes perpetuated online have reminded us of the fragile nature of credibility in the digital world. So many attention-grubbing pranksters have hijacked digital media that CNN has declared 2013 as the year of the hoax. But 2013 is just the tip of the iceberg. Hoaxes perpetrated by entertainers, everyday people, and brands threaten to disrupt the Internet on a constant basis. Just within recent days, a rash of self-promotional hoaxes have bamboozled the news media, tarnished a national brand, and shamelessly capitalized on the death of a global hero to sling mud at a celebrity. In all cases, hoaxers are taking advantage of the “me, too, me, first” culture that pervades the digital world. It’s time to slow down and exercise some good old-fashioned critical thinking.

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Lady Gaga Gives Her Fans a Visual Hashtag with “Applause”

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With the release of her new single, “Applause,” Lady Gaga has served a visual feast to the news media. On August 12 she conspicuously wore Kabuki-inspired face paint while making the rounds in Los Angeles to promote the first single off her forthcoming album ARTPOP. Publications ranging from Buzzfeed to The Huffington Post responded predictably by plastering her image across the media landscape. But by appearing in face paint, Lady Gaga has done more than promote “Applause” and ARTPOP to the news media: she has created a brilliant visual hashtag for her fans.

Literally all over the world, Little Monsters are creating ARTPOP-inspired fan art and selfies seemingly every few minutes on sites such as Instagram and her own LittleMonsters community. And I’m not exaggerating. My LittleMonsters feed is flooded with a nonstop river of orange, blue, green, and red hues as fans show their support for Lady Gaga — and for each other — with their Gaga-style self-portraits and art. Here are just a few examples from Chile, France, and Wales:

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There is something touching about seeing fans just putting themselves out there, braving their fear of creating amateur art because they simply want to share. For example, Little Monster nicolaHMW from Paris says that his fan art is “not amazing, but im proud of it [sic]”:

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And the self-expression is not limited to her own website, as a few of these Instagram photos show:

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The ARTPOP face paint is like a totem: a visual symbol of something that inspires and moves people. But it’s also a way for Little Monsters to spot each other instantly and bond, like fans of sports teams who wear the same logos or people on Twitter following a trending topic through hashtags. Therein lies the brilliance of her latest promotion: she’s given her fans a way to celebrate her music but also to create a reflection of each other.

Lady Gaga carries the mantel for many rock artists who long ago mastered the art of iconography. In the 1970s, for instance, Kiss inspired the Kiss army with the band’s colorful costumes, make-up, and onstage theatrics, as did David Bowie. (In fact, one of those Bowie fans was Lady Gaga, and the cover of ARTPOP has been compared to the cover of Bowie’s 1980 album Scary Monsters.)

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What Lady Gaga does (as Madonna once did) is express herself visually onstage and offstage (whereas Kiss remained a mystery offstage during the band’s heyday). In doing so, she creates and sustains a whirlwind of conversation.

ARTPOP itself lands November 11. Looks like it’s going to be a colorful fall.

Flip off a Judge and Become a Celebrity

File this one under “Only in America”: on February 4, a Florida teen named Penelope Soto flips off a judge at a hearing for a Xanax possession charge, which earns her a 30-day contempt of court sentence.  The moment is captured via courtroom video. The video goes viral and becomes a story on CNN and CBS. Soto generates another cycle of news by issuing a tearful apology on February 8, which creates the perfect story arc and more mainstream media attention, including coverage from The Huffington Post. And, wouldn’t you know: she gains attention on social media, too, with a Facebook Fan page and Twitter feed making her out to be a victim of the U.S. “war on drugs and the poor.”

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Lady Gaga Ignites a Body Revolution

Lady Gaga is taking her clothes off to start a body revolution.

In response to news stories about her weight gain in recent weeks, Lady Gaga has taken matters into her own hands. On September 25, she posted unvarnished photos of her body on her Little Monsters social media site and encouraged community members to do the same. She calls the initiative A Body Revolution 2013. I believe Body Revolution is significant because the effort shows how a celebrity can use social media to make a powerful statement that transcends her art.

“Be brave and celebrate with us your ‘perceived flaws,’ as society tells us,” she wrote on her site when she launched Body Revolution. “May we make our flaws famous, and thus redefine the heinous,” she added — as she revealed that she has suffered from bulemia and anorexia since she was 15 years old.

Body Revolution has generated an overwhelming response, with Little Monsters members from around the world posting photos of their bodies — warts, scars, cellulite, and all. The posts come with some compelling commentary. Here are some examples:

Some posts discuss eating disorders, such as this one from Sk3llingt0n, a 23-year-old Little Monster from France: “My body revolution, I’m sick, Anorexia and bulimia since 14YO, cut myself since same time…I find hope with Gaga. So hard to show my scars and my body.” Or this from Morphine Princess: “My own father calls me fat and stupid almost every day. I’ve had on-off eating disorders since I was 13 years old, I just want to feel comfortable with my body.”

The Body Revolution feels authentic — not a PR stunt — because Lady Gaga has always used her art and fame to celebrate individuality and self-acceptance. She is an active spokesperson for LGBT rights. Her Born This Way Foundation combats bullying and empowers youth. And, of course, she sings about self-acceptance in songs such as “Born This Way” (sample lyric: “Whether life’s disabilities/Left you outcast, bullied or teased/Rejoice and love yourself today/’Cause baby, you were born this way.”

Lady Gaga is neither the first nor the last artist to use her fame to support causes. However, her use of social media sets her apart. Here’s someone who is not only promoting self-acceptance but connecting like-minded people to each other.

But Body Revolution is not without its critics. In the September 27 The Guardian, freelance author Sady Doyle asserts that “The stunt reeks of selling acceptance to the insecure.”

Doyle writes, “I work for a web magazine aimed at teenage girls, and can confirm that descriptions of weight loss or body shape have to be looked over carefully, so as not to trigger anorexic or bulimic readers. Here’s one thing I don’t imagine is helpful to the eating disordered: submitting pictures of themselves to be judged by their favourite pop star.”

Moreover, in The Huffington Post (U.K. edition), fashion blogger Aimee Wood muses that the site might encourage people to accept obesity. “Obesity kills. Fact,” she writes. “Encouraging people to LOVE their bodies is great, but let’s not encourage people to NEGLECT their bodies. We need to take action. We need to realise WHY our bodies look like this and that there IS something we can do about it (in most cases) instead of just learning to live with it and get over it. We need to accept the fact that we CAN have flaws, but that we can also ACT against them. We need to encourage people to feel HAPPY with themselves but also and mainly to strive for what they really want (to look like) in life.”

But there’s one aspect of Body Revolution that you cannot appreciate unless you spend some time on the Little Monsters site: the peer commentary. Little Monsters can comment on each other’s posts, and Body Revolution content is no exception. Hence when one Little Monster posts a photo of her curvy body and admits to being nervous about her appearance, another member responds, ” . . . you have nothing to worry about, you are GORGEOUS.” When one member posts a photo of her scarred face, another responds, ” . . . if we met, I would want to hold your hand.” Lady Gaga is making the headlines, and rightfully so — but the real story is the community that carries the torch for the Body Revolution.

Lady Gaga: controversial. Loud. In your face. But most importantly of all, authentic. What do you think of A Body Revolution?