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Stop eating Lady Gaga's Oreos

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Re: Stop eating Lady Gaga's Oreos

#81

Post by frollogaston »

gkoberger wrote: post #5

I don't know if I buy this framing. The intro Pearl Jam story is only noteworthy because it's unique. Cobain wasn't one of a million examples of counter-culture; we still talk about him today because it was uniquely his brand (to be incredibly famous while seemingly rejecting the fame). Michael Jackson's hair caught on fire filming a Pepsi commercial in 1984. Bill Cosby famously hawked Jell-O Pudding. Sports stars we…

There's one good part of this article, the chart of sequel/reboot/spinoff movies. And I wonder if it's just cause of movie piracy, cause it started going to crap in the 2000s. There's effectively a price ceiling now on how much you can charge to view a movie, which tilts the risk/reward in favor of reliably making ok-ish movies, and also milking old IP harder.

Re: Stop eating Lady Gaga's Oreos

#82

Post by gkoberger »

pimlottc wrote: post #73
gkoberger wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A band covering a song for a Hyundai ad? Michael Jackson did a parody of his own song Billie Jean for Pepsi ("You're the Pepsi generation")

Michael Jackson was a pop star. Selling out was never a sin in pop music.

Agreed, which is my point: the framing of the article (specifically the title) is about Lady Gaga, and she's a pop star. There's a lot of good points in there, cheapened by the framing.

Re: Stop eating Lady Gaga's Oreos

#83

Post by soulofmischief »

micromacrofoot wrote: post #64
tptacek wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was alert to popular culture by the time Thriller happened and I don't recall anybody thinking Michael Jackson was a "sellout". Paul McCartney and Michael Jackson did not one but two duets together.

if you were into indie music scenes at the time, basically anyone in the pop genre was considered a sellout

To a degree that was a sentiment, for sure. But many of us just like good music no matter what shape and size it comes in. Some of us even like bad music. I listen to a lot of bad music. I make a lot of bad music, too. But I'm having fun and I like to see other people have fun and even make money doing it.

When I was 5 I had every Backstreet Boys CD. I had Backstreet Boys action figures from Burger King. I love the Spice Girls and stadium bands like Pink Floyd. They stay on rotation. And I also really love finding the most obscure music possible and frequently dive into old, obscure artists, particularly folk and early electronic music. I love hearing masterpieces that have gone unnoticed for decades. I love hearing some stranger's brand new shitty song with 20 views on YouTube. My algorithm knows this too and very frequently shows me videos that are 10 minutes old with 5 views from accounts with a dozen subscribers. All of these things bring me different joys.

The line is when a celebrity starts actively hawking harmful things to everyday people. Doing a Pepsi commercial is a sellout move. But I still listen to the Jackson 5 all the time. It's good music.

Re: Stop eating Lady Gaga's Oreos

#84

Post by sanderjd »

gkoberger wrote: post #5

I don't know if I buy this framing. The intro Pearl Jam story is only noteworthy because it's unique. Cobain wasn't one of a million examples of counter-culture; we still talk about him today because it was uniquely his brand (to be incredibly famous while seemingly rejecting the fame). Michael Jackson's hair caught on fire filming a Pepsi commercial in 1984. Bill Cosby famously hawked Jell-O Pudding. Sports stars we…

Yeah I tend to agree. What is the thesis here? Is it that being indie and not selling out was mainstream and now it's not? I don't think that adds up. It wasn't mainstream then either, that's what was notable about it...

So is it that there is no culture that feels this way about selling out in the present? I'm pretty skeptical of that! Is it really true that if I went to a high school or university right now and asked every kid there what they think about selling out and consumerism, that I wouldn't find a subculture there that feels that way? I suspect I would find that subculture.

So is it just that this subculture is smaller now? Ok, maybe so. But this seems like a much weaker thesis?

Or is it actually that this subculture is less visible now? This seems the most plausible to me. Kurt Cobain and Pearl Jam were interesting and frequently reported upon. But then this is a more boring phenomenon: things that are interesting become less novel and less interesting over time.

I do very much like the section in this essay pointing out that the masses in the US have changed from temporarily embarrassed millionaires to temporarily embarrassed celebrities. That resonates!

Re: Stop eating Lady Gaga's Oreos

#86

Post by sanderjd »

xhevahir wrote: post #70
gkoberger wrote: post #5

I don't know if I buy this framing. The intro Pearl Jam story is only noteworthy because it's unique. Cobain wasn't one of a million examples of counter-culture; we still talk about him today because it was uniquely his brand (to be incredibly famous while seemingly rejecting the fame). Michael Jackson's hair caught on fire filming a Pepsi commercial in 1984. Bill Cosby famously hawked Jell-O Pudding. Sports stars we…

I think you're overstating the uniqueness of Cobain's "brand" and underestimating the size of the anti-corporate movement in the popular culture of the 1990s. First, it wasnt really Cobain per se—Nirvana were huge for a few years, but Cobain really only became a household name in death. More importantly the rejection of corporate influence and "mainstream" art was the guiding ethos of that whole genre, and eventually…

This reminds me a lot of the tension the I felt when I was first coming of age as a young adult in the late 00s. At that point, it wasn't grunge, it was hipsters. But I always felt like: How can hipsters be hip and counterculture and a movement that is big deal culturally at the same time? As soon as a "counterculture" becomes a mainstream movement, it's no longer a counterculture...

So which is it? Was Cobain a big deal in the mainstream, or was he countercultural? I don't think you can have it both ways.

Re: Stop eating Lady Gaga's Oreos

#87

Post by MostlyStable »

I actually don't think we should expect artists to be something bigger or more than their art. He is right that the fix needs to be consumer driven, but I think it just needs to be that we care a lot less about celebrities of all kinds outside of whatever it is that made them famous. We shouldn't be arguing about whether whatever thing an artist or sports star did or said that wasn't related to their art and/or sport is good or bad....we should all just collectively not care. Read the book, listen to the music, watch the game, and beyond that treat these people like any other stranger: someone whose actions and opinions you do not care about.

Celebrity themed oreos shouldn't be a thing, but not because we demand our celebrities think of themselves as above crass commercialism, but because no one would consider "celebrity themed" to be anything even remotely close to a selling point for oreos, and that therefore there is no value in them being hired by Nabisco.

But I may as well be pissing in the wind. Celebrity worship seems to be incredibly deeply ingrained in human psychology. Maybe he's right that we can't get rid of it, we can just change the norms around it.

Re: Stop eating Lady Gaga's Oreos

#88

Post by nxc18 »

WJW wrote: post #63
nxc18 wrote: post #18

Author is way off base. Might as well tell me to stop breathing air, except they stopped selling air 6 years ago and I’ve been gasping ever since. Chromatica Oreos were absolutely wonderful (as far as mass produced garbage that is unfit for human consumption is concerned) and I miss them dearly. Telling me to stop eating them is like telling me to stop seeing a boyfriend who died tragically years ago. Worse, it bring…

> when Oreo Coke (actually good, unlike Coke Oreo) came into my life Sometimes I think Americans are completely lost to the rest of us, residing in a haze of consumerism and political divide as they do. Then sometimes I read something like this and I cannot deny a certain curiosity as regards the finer differences between Oreo Coke and Coke Oreo. We have coke in my country (of both the Coca Cola and cocaine varieties…

WRT to Oreo Coke, the best description is Vanilla Coke with a dark chocolate flavor, but somehow not like the chocolate a European might imagine.

I found out recently that Oreo is in fact made with real cocoa; I find this surprising and still somewhat hard to believe.

The drink’s unique combination of flavors somehow made the whole experience less cloying than a typical zero sugar coke. And also, mysteriously, it was quite satiating, almost like I had eaten actual cookies. Except not, because any American can tell you that Oreo has negative satiation - you can eat an Oreo from a state of not being hungry at all, then discover you have eaten a whole Family Size pack.

Re: Stop eating Lady Gaga's Oreos

#89

Post by micromacrofoot »

soulofmischief wrote: post #83
micromacrofoot wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if you were into indie music scenes at the time, basically anyone in the pop genre was considered a sellout

To a degree that was a sentiment, for sure. But many of us just like good music no matter what shape and size it comes in. Some of us even like bad music. I listen to a lot of bad music. I make a lot of bad music, too. But I'm having fun and I like to see other people have fun and even make money doing it. When I was 5 I had every Backstreet Boys CD. I had Backstreet Boys action figures from Burger King. I love the S…

I'm not talking about the existence of individual anecdotes, I'm talking broadly as a culture because this is a comment section for a blog post about culture. I was an adult working in the music industry in the 1990s.

By and large if you were part of the indie music scene it was incredibly common to consider anything in mainstream commercial music "not cool." Boy bands were reviled for it, and people felt strongly about it.

From a cultural standpoint much of this sentiment has been lost entirely. This is part of the change the author is talking about.

Re: Stop eating Lady Gaga's Oreos

#90

Post by tptacek »

soulofmischief wrote: post #83
micromacrofoot wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if you were into indie music scenes at the time, basically anyone in the pop genre was considered a sellout

To a degree that was a sentiment, for sure. But many of us just like good music no matter what shape and size it comes in. Some of us even like bad music. I listen to a lot of bad music. I make a lot of bad music, too. But I'm having fun and I like to see other people have fun and even make money doing it. When I was 5 I had every Backstreet Boys CD. I had Backstreet Boys action figures from Burger King. I love the S…

If you had every Backstreet Boys CD when you were 5, you are probably not a reliable narrator of the zeitgeist of Michael Jackson in the early 1980s. :)
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