Sometimes I think of side projects.

Last week at the office, we segued into a conversation about the absurdity of the award show gift bag.  The idea that the most famous people in the world, who already get to attend something as exclusive as the Oscars, need a $20,000+ bag of swag to make them feel valued.

And I started to think: what is the total value of all of those bags, at auction.

And I started to think: what is the simplest way to reach out to as many award show attendees as possible, asking them if they’d be willing to donate their bag to an online charity auction.

And I started to think: how much would the perceptual value of the goods (iPods, Swarovski crystals, designer clothing, etc) included in these bags increase due to the connection with 1) the event itself, and 2) individual celebrities.

A system that would let celebrities (or their reps) make a public pledge, some sponsorship to reduce the costs of shipping, and a nice chunk of human hours, could create a nice amount of money, and awareness for charities, directly out of one of the clearest examples of unnecessary excess that I can think of.

That said, I’d not passionate enough about the idea to actually see it through, even if I think it’s a neat idea.  So, someone should probably steal it.

The Importance of Perception.

Last night I mentioned, on twitter, that I find Keira Knightley exceedingly attractive.  The few responses I got were judgemental, to say the least.  The word ‘anorexic’ was thrown around, which I personally find distasteful (Aside: in general, calling every thin woman anorexic is the same as wandering around calling every heavyset person a disgusting pig, with a nice dollop of insisting they have deep mental problems on top.)

This is a reaction I have gotten several times regarding admitting I find Knightley, or any woman of a similar body type, attractive.  Other common responses include a reference to ‘real woman’ which indicates that thinner females are somehow not female enough, or accusing me of chauvinism and/or causing eating disorders due to finding certain women attractive.

The thing I find funny, however, is this: If I mention that I find Natalie Portman attractive, I won’t hear a single thing about what is wrong with her.  Why is this interesting? Mostly because of this quote, from Knightley’s wikipedia entry:

Knightley appeared in several television movies in the mid to late 1990s—as well as ITV1’s The Bill—before being cast as Sabé, Padmé Amidala’s decoy, in the 1999 science fiction blockbuster Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace. Knightley was cast in the role due to her close resemblance to Natalie Portman, who played Padmé; the two actresses’ mothers had difficulty telling their daughters apart when the girls were in full makeup.

The big difference is public perception of the two, despite the fact that at one point, they were close enough in appearance to be considered doppelgangers.  But when mentioning finding Natalie Portman attractive on twitter, the irked response wasn’t there.

My guess is that it comes down to the associations made in tabloid culture.  Portman is more likely to bring to mind her extreme acting talent, her Harvard education, or her work with the UN.  She is also unquestionably certified as acceptable by most of my peers, who are, to be fair, twentysomething urbanites.  And yet, when I bring up Knightley, someone who is allegedly interchangeable from a physical standpoint, the first things that comes to mind are likely the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, and how thin she is.

I don’t know if either of these women struggles with an eating disorder, but I find it interesting that one is instantly assumed to, while the other is generally just praised for being so awesome.  If public perception of the overall traits of a person, is the major separation between a thin woman being called anorexic or not, maybe we can understand why so much work, money, and importance is put on public image.

[End Note: I have a personal problem with assuming someone’s body type is inherently the result of mental illness, an eating disorder, a physical problem, or a lack of self-control.  It not only trivializes a serious issue, it also encourages exactly the behaviour it is supposed to discourage, by insisting people have to be ‘broken’ in order to look the way they do.]

Greatest ‘Hits’: Paris Hilton and the Attention Arms Race.

[This post originally appeared on my old blog, BrokenGentleman.com, on Feb 18, 2007]

As mentioned in this earlier post, The Rebel Sell influenced my view of many things in society as a kind of arms race. While I read not too long ago that Paris Hilton could best be considered a platform, rather than a celebrity (the argument being that she can aid promotion by associating things with herself, but can’t promote her own works successfully), I’m starting to think that she’s actually the perfect example of the arms race worldview in terms of the mass media.

Let me explain.

We live in an over saturated media landscape. Whether it be advertising or television channels, or celebrities, we are blasted in the face with an insane amount of information on a second by second basis. I don’t know about anyone else, but even going to school in a suburban area, I’ve gotten so used to the noise that silence feels eerie.

What do small children do when no one is paying attention? They start to yell. And when all the children start yelling, they begin to act out. In the same way the girl that no one paid attention to in grade 10 ends up making some bad decisions in her quest for attention, people (in this case, media producers) decide that being a little ridiculous isn’t a big problem, as long as people are looking. Upping the t&a isn’t that high a price to pay, as long as people keep looking. Starting every episode of CSI with three dead hookers and an exploding caddy isn’t that bad, if someone will please for the love of god look.

Having your homemade nightvision porn leak online for every teenage boy to spank it do isn’t shameful anymore. It means people are looking. And the simple fact that people are looking means that you matter, regardless of issues of respectability.

Paris Hilton being famous is the end result of the attention arms race. So are movies where Johnny Knoxville and the Jackass crew get the shit beat out of them by bulls. It has nothing to do with quality. It’s the simple reality that there is so much signal out there, that getting people to look is seen as a matter of being more attention-grabbing than the other guy.

This makes perfect sense, given the broadcast model of mass communication that has dominated for the last several decades. More reach meant more power. Louder meant more power.

The problem is, signal is now noise. All of it. And yeah, people will look when a screech emerges from the static, when a bright flash disrupts the snow. But what happens when that stops being a distraction, and people turn off the radio and the TV?

When signal is noise, you basically have three options;

1) Create a new type of signal.

2) Make people seek you out, instead of vice versa.

3) Get louder.

Obviously, the last option eventually stops working. So, two more things to explore. But the point I’m trying to make is, if you want attention, and screaming isn’t getting it, a conversation will. Interaction is louder than night vision pornography. Creating a discussion among others is essentially viral marketing. Creating a discussion with them, and with you, often falls into the world of crowdsourcing.

Which I guess, is something to talk about next post.