If you're a long-term reader (waves at all three of them) you'll know about "the smugosphere". It is Smugosphere [sməɡ ō sfir]: 1. “the protective fog of (unjustified) self-congratulation and complacency that surrounds any ‘community’ of people claiming to be making the world a better place, but which lacks commonly accepted and utilised measures of success... Continue Reading →
Headshots, “humour” and Priming us?
The "hypodermic" model of media is sooooooooooo 1970s. Nobody serious believes that monkey see, monkey do. The whole thing is dodgy, and rendered politically unpalatable by those who try to use it for nefarious (CENSORSHIP!!!) purposes. And of course, the historians and sociologists will point - with some plausibility - to previous moral panics around... Continue Reading →
James Rockford and sustainability in the twenty-first century, or “the reel of the desert”
James Garner was a cool American actor. He had starred as ‘Maverick’ in a 1950s comedy-drama Western TV series. In the 1970s he was James Rockford, a private-eye (“two hundred dollars a day plus expenses”) in a genre-shifting TV show called ‘The Rockford Files’ (1). What the hell has this got to do with sustainability in... Continue Reading →
Planes, Claims and Automobiles – #masculinity, #cars and #advertising
Two adverts have been on the idiot's lantern at the gym (I am one of those tremendous bores who doesn't have a television and lets you know at every opportunity) Briefly, the plots; In one, a generically handsome (quietly athletic, mid-30s, stubbly; basically the male equivalent of the beige cheeky-boney woman you see in the... Continue Reading →
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