Tag Archive for 'anticapitalist bullshit'

Why We Do “Product Placement” in Your Face is a Saxophone


At a screening of Your Face is a Saxophone Episode 2 last weekend, someone asked me why we had product placement for Lay’s potato chips. He suggested that we use a fake brand name that evokes the same product. This isn’t the first time I’ve had someone bring this up to me — why we litter real brand names and logos all over the place, instead of showing “Zony” TV sets and “Croaka Cola” — so I figured I’d address it once and for all.

The common practice of using fake brand names is to avoid claims of trademark infringement. Production companies will go to great lengths to create fictional products to show on-screen because they fear a lawsuit from the trademark holder. This is because trademark holders will go to great lengths to sue every unapproved appearance of their logo on anything because they fear losing their trademark. Trademark law requires holders to maintain control over their marks, which generally results in them go completely overboard about it.

This cycle of fear results in the censorship of reality. Part of what we’re trying to do with Your Face is a Saxophone is to vehemently point out how pervasive branding, commercialization, and consumerism actually are in our world. We casually refer to “drinking a Coke”, “buying an iPhone”, and “checking Facebook” in everyday conversation. We’re surrounded by our electronics from Audiovox, LG, Sony, and Antec; our office supplies from Scotch, 3M, Bic, and Sharpie; our Kraft macaroni, our Heineken beer, our Hershey’s candy, and our Mott’s fruit. This is what the real world looks like, people.

But the moment we start populating our real-world settings with bizarro-world brands, the impact is gone. We’re no longer satirizing the real world, we’re escaping from it. Perhaps we’re vaguely commenting on the concept of hyper-commercialization in general, but the unreality of drinking a Doke while using a Pineapple uPhone to check on Friendbook neuters it entirely.

I’m chiefly referring to the incidental use of brands there. There are certainly examples of fictional brand names being used to great effect in satire, without lessening the impact very much at all.
So, in Your Face is a Saxophone, I suppose we could structure our plots not around Pepsi, but around Schwepsi; not around Miller Lite beer, but around Schmiller Lite. But it’s those little things in the background — the Apple computers, the Lay’s potato chips on the receptionist’s head, the Motorola/Verizon logos on Leora’s phone — that we can’t ignore. We’re not going to let fear of a trademark claim (which we’d have a very strong fair use argument against) stop us from pointing out that in the real world, real brands and real logos surround us everywhere we go.

Perhaps it’s jarring that all of the characters are decidedly bizarro-world — nobody in the real world has a light bulb for a head — but the brands and logos aren’t. Good. We want you to notice the brands. That’s the point.

In Your Face is a Saxophone, we refuse to make up fake companies* to make fun of. If we want to make fun of Pepsi, then dammit, we’re going to make fun of Pepsi.

*Yes, there was Sqwoogy in the first episode. Sqwoogy was not a parody of Twitter, it was a parody of Silicon Valley startup culture and all of the dumbassery that stems from it.

    Why You Should Support Your Face is a Saxophone


    The copyright industry is not going quietly. The legitimacy of its monopolist and consumerist practices are still upheld by policymakers and panicking creators who haven’t seen any real alternative in action. I humbly submit my silly cartoon about people with inanimate objects for heads as a first step in that direction.

    Your Face is a Saxophone is a surrealist satire of the advertising industry, which makes fun of actual companies and brands. It tells the story of the staff of Buzzword Marketing, and their dealings with the absurd demands of their corporate clients. Also, everybody has inanimate objects instead of heads for some reason. It’s either an artistic statement on how consumerism objectifies us all, or an excuse for us to not have to animate their mouths moving; you decide. As a bonus, Your Face is a Saxophone is Public Domain under CC0.

    My friends and I formed Plankhead to produce the series. At the beginning of 2011, we released the first full-length, 25 minute episode — a pilot that we pitched not to a TV network, but to the Internet. We were able to raise enough money from individual donors to make a second one, which came out astronomically better than the first. Naturally, we’d like to continue the series — we have five more episodes planned, and we’re starting on the third in the next few weeks. But this isn’t just yet another crowdfunded indie project.

    Your Face is a Saxophone started out as an assault on advertising. Since it began, I’ve realized that the problems with advertising are just one part — along with the copyright monopoly, unchecked greed, the pursuit of censorship, and other problems — of the holistic problem that is the ancien régime of the corporate entertainment industry. Much like these motivations, Your Face is a Saxophone is a part of a larger whole; a prototype for how to produce, promote, and proliferate culture in complete opposition to the problematic habits of the copyright industry.

    I certainly hope you find the show entertaining. But even if you don’t, let me explain why you should still help it succeed:
    Continue reading ‘Why You Should Support Your Face is a Saxophone’

      PC Gaming is a Donor-Supported Industry with the Pretense of Selling a Product

      In today’s world, everything digital can, and will, be made available free. They’re non-scarce goods. One industry has reacted to this new reality by sustaining itself with its fans’ desire to voluntarily reward creators — even if it won’t admit that to itself.

      The act of physically purchasing PC games is going extinct. More and more gamers are finding it simpler, easier, and more convenient to download their games without leaving home; sometimes, of course, these downloads come from unofficial sources and aren’t paid for. But Valve Software’s Gabe Newell has famously called piracy a “non-issue” for their company. That’s because they sell all of their games via their Steam platform, which he claims competes with piracy on service.

      But in most cases, Steam doesn’t provide any real advantage over piracy. Nor do any other paid digital distribution platforms or methods. So why, then, do people continue to throw money at them? Is it marketing bullshit about convenience? Fear, uncertainty, and doubt about viruses?

      No. PC gamers are a generally savvy group of people. They’re probably spending money because they want to.

      Continue reading at Falkvinge on Infopolicy

        Debugging the Profit Motive: Part Three — Pressure


        Here’s an article I wrote for Falkvinge on Infopolicy, the third in a three-part series on how the theoretically reasonable and rational “profit motive” is actually broken and damaging to society. But we can fix it.

        A banker offers you a loan so that you can buy a house located near your cushy new job. You sign, comfortable that your salary will allow you to afford the payments. Months later, your employer downsizes, and your job disappears. With no job, you can’t pay back your loan. But the banker’s not upset — in fact, he was hoping for this. As you miss payments, your interest rate goes up. You need a new job to pay your increasing debt, and conveniently enough, the banker is the only one in town hiring. This is the crux of the issue with the profit motive: those who profit can put harmful pressure on others.

        At its core, profit is power. Whether it takes the form of having many coins, being owed many debts, or something else entirely, profit is a measure of one’s ability to get other people to do things. By giving a merchant money, I can get her to give me her product. By reminding my friend of all the favors I’ve done for him, I can get him to do me a very large one. I gain these abilities through profit.

        As I’ve tried to drive home, this is a perfectly reasonable thing to desire, and a perfectly natural thing by which to be motivated. But today, sometimes profit enables us to make people do things that they don’t want to do. Is this a necessary evil, or just another fixable bug?

        Continue reading at Falkvinge on Infopolicy

          Debugging the Profit Motive: Part Two — Shiny Gold Coins


          Here’s an article I wrote for Falkvinge on Infopolicy, the second in a three-part series on how the theoretically reasonable and rational “profit motive” is actually broken and damaging to society. But we can fix it.

          A salesman sells you a tube of toothpaste, claiming it will make your teeth whiter than they’ve ever been in just a week of use. It’s a bold claim, but he wins you over — for twice what you’d normally pay for toothpaste. A week later, your teeth are still yellow, and you’re tremendously ill. Not only was the toothpaste nothing special, but it was also contaminated with a nasty bacteria; apparently, it was cheaper not to sanitize the toothpaste factory equipment. Now your friends certainly won’t buy any of this not-so-miracle toothpaste, but the damage is done. You’re vomiting, and the salesman’s got your money. Herein lies the problem with the profit motive: bad behavior is profitable.
          [...]
          Fortunately, it isn’t insurmountable. It’s a bug in the system, and bugs can be fixed. To fix a bug, you often have to dig deep to find the root of the problem, deconstructing it — and the system it exists within — to its bare essentials.

          Continue reading at Falkvinge on Infopolicy