Archive for 2010
« Older Entries | Newer Entries »The Relentless Terror of Loituma’s Ievan Polkka
[ 1 Comment ]Posted on February 3, 2010 by admin in Music
Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010The Finnish song “Ieva’s Polkka” may be an excellent alternative to waterboarding.
What do 19th century Finnish villagers, 21st century nerds, dancing donkey girls, and Darth Vader have in common? Well, the “Ievan Polkka”, of course. We’ve touched on Internet memes before, but one that somehow escaped our attention was the Loituma Girl and the Finnish band Loituma’s version (clip below) of the Ievan Polkka. Our apologies in advance for the earworm infection you’re likely to contract if you actually watch these clips, you may need the aural equivalent of eye bleach when you’re done. We recommend something a little easier on the brain, like “The Lion Sleeps Tonight”. So what’s this all about? Well, it started innocently enough, with a catchy Finnish folk song. The haunting and bittersweet kind you write when it’s dark all the time because you live in the arctic circle, and with gibberish words in the lyrics so you can still sing it when you’re bombed on vodka. Fast forward a couple hundred years. A Finnish pop band called “Loituma” does a catchy version of it that becomes an international hit. Then – as is inevitable when Finnish pop bands have international hits based on 200 year old polkas – a Swedish DJ named Basshunter does a really bad rave remix of the tune. From there the history gets a little muddled, but like many Internet memes, it basically boils down to a question of whether you’re the kind of person who would say “Yes, I absolutely understand the humor in a female Japanese cartoon character spinning a leek while a Finnish polka plays” or the kind of person who would say “Wow. I really don’t see the humor in a female Japanese cartoon character spinning a leek while a Finnish polka plays“. From there, much like the Crazy Frog (strangely, also a Swedish creation) the meme took on a life of its own, so we end up with the song set to everything from the original “Loituma Girl” swinging her leek to Darth Vader swinging a light saber (Flash). And thanks to Internet Rule 34, there are hundreds of pornographic versions as well. For a slightly NSFW version (it’s a Hentai character shaking her breasts in a sheer top) see the Hentai Ievan Polkka (Flash). And if you want to watch the time pass as you listen to the tune 24 hours a day, there’s even a Loituma Girl Clock. We’ve rounded up a few of the more popular renditions below, let us know if we’ve missed anything important. Read the rest of this entry »
Thanks A Trillion, Frank
[ Comments Off ]Posted on February 2, 2010 by admin in Politics
Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010How the GOP will stick you with the biggest economic debacle in history and make you think Obama did it.
 This example uses $100 bills |
It’s time once again for people like you and me to have their heads spun by the incomprehensible numbers that are the US Budget. Personally, ever since I learned about fictitious capital, I’ve had a hard time understanding why the government expects us to pay OUR bills, when THEY operate at a deficit almost all the time. Short of a revolution though, not much can be done about that, so let’s just try to understand the numbers. There are two ways to look at numbers like this. One is to just look at them, and say “Wow. Those are some really big numbers.” The New York Times has a great interactive for doing just that. You can also try to visualize the numbers, as in the graphic at left, which was assembled from the larger images here. We explored this in more detail last year. You can also do what politicians do, and talk about the numbers in ways that sound good but make no sense in reality. That’s what the GOP has been doing for a while, largely with the help of Frank Luntz. Frank Luntz is the guy that was largely instrumental in the success of the GOP over the past decade, through their implementation of his GOP Playbook. If you’ve never given it a look, you should, because it was his language – refined through dial groups and other marketing-style research – that allowed the previous administration to rack up the hugest deficits in history, while making you think they were frugal conservatives. Now that the previous administration has trashed the economy, saying goodbye on the way out with Bush nationalizing the banks and essentially destroying American capitalism as we knew it, it’s time to make it look like it’s all Obama’s fault. And Frank is back, with the words to do it. He’s penned the new talking points in a memo called Language of Financial Reform. That’s a link to the full document, which is also embedded and excerpted below. Read the rest of this entry »
Valentines Day & Love Is Like Christmas At The Mall & Jesus
[ Comments Off ]Posted on February 1, 2010 by admin in Holidays
Monday, February 1st, 2010Valentine’s Day is more than a Hallmark holiday, it’s a time of fear, hope, rejection, and opportunistic product links.
  Let your man know how you feel, with a Power Gauge Erectile Quality Monitor |
I’m glad I’m not a romantic Chinese Catholic guy who lives in New Orleans; this February would be a rough month with Chinese New Year, Valentine’s Day, Mardi Gras, and Ash Wednesday all falling in the same week. Yes, after the almost holiday-free month of January, the holidays dig back in with a vengeance in February. As always, there are opportunistically scheduled health awareness programs with no clever marketing plans, like American Heart Month, which is presumably scheduled to coincide somehow with Valentine’s Day. Or Sinus Pain Awareness Month, which is scheduled to coincide with… oh. Never mind. As someone who occasionally experiences sinus pain, I just want to say I’d prefer not to have a whole month to make me aware of it. For most of us though, February means Valentine’s Day, and for people like me, Valentine’s Day means lots of opportunities to insert offbeat product links into cynical articles about the holiday. Don’t get me wrong, I’m actually quite a romantic. But the big VD seems to bring the same vibe to love that Christmas at the mall brings to Jesus. If you’ve ever waited tables, you’ve been on the front lines of the battlefield of love, and know what I mean. When you wait tables on Valentine’s Day, you get to see the penultimate expression of what the holiday is really all about: people who usually live in their jeans and hoodies wearing rented tuxes and recently-purchased dresses they barely fit into, people whose idea of a three course meal is supersizing at the drive-thru suddenly trying to figure out that extra fork, and the sickening tension of a room full of first dates and soon to be accepted or rejected marriage proposals. I can’t tell you how many times I called a cab for a sobbing woman who had just said “no” to her suitor. So yes, rest assured we’ll be back throughout the month with more thoughts on Valentine gift ideas. Because nothing says “I love you” like a Power Gauge Erectile Quality Monitor
ADD & Digital Indignation – Frontline’s Digital Nation & Web Video
[ Comments Off ]Posted on January 31, 2010 by admin in Popular Media
Sunday, January 31st, 2010I don’t know why I wrote this piece, you’ll only read 28% of it. And Frontline’s cool new show “Digital Nation” debuts against “Lost” on Tuesday, so you probably won’t watch it.
Digital Nation Debuts Tuesday On PBS |
Given the fact that according to this article you’re only going to read at most 28% of this page, I wonder if I should write less so you’ll read the whole thing? That sounds like an attempt at a humorous paradox, but it’s actually not; the fact is that according to this chart from the same article, users spend only 4.4 seconds more on a web page for each additional 100 words. So I better get to the point. This week PBS is airing a special edition of Frontline called Digital Nation, which explores how the Internet, texting, blogging, social networking, and other aspects of the “digital lifestyle” are impacting our lives. This is a topic that’s been very much on my attention-deficient mind for a few years. Although there are few solid scientific studies on the topic, I believe that as well as whatever benefits we derive from the technologies in which we’ve immersed our lives, these same tools have also caused perceptible changes in attention span, basic courtesy, and memory for many people. You almost certainly have noticed that more and more often, you and your friends can recall a film or book, but can’t recall the director, actor, author, or a major character. And who hasn’t found themselves sitting in a group of people that seem more intent on proving they have to “be somewhere else” digitally by texting, phoning, or checking a web account of some kind. Given the word count of what I’m writing, I lost you 140 words ago, but if you find this topic of interest, you might also find this TechCrunch article about what we watch and how we watch it interesting. It highlights things like how in the early 50′s, 30% of American households watched NBC during prime time, and how today that number has dropped to 5%, with other networks fairing about the same. Most of the remaining video content consumed is watched on the web, and in ways that may surprise you. This fact will almost certainly be relevant to the long-term viewership of Digital Nation; it debuts Tuesday directly opposite the season premiere of “Lost”. Read the rest of this entry »
When Did Everybody Become A Brand Expert?
[ 1 Comment ]Posted on January 30, 2010 by admin in Lifestyle & Culture
Saturday, January 30th, 2010Or, why you’re really just a piece of livestock.
I’ve been thinking about brands a lot lately. Mostly because every time I turn around, whether in a restaurant, on an airplane, or in a business meeting, some self-appointed marketing guru is telling me how I have to “define my brand”, and how I have to “do some brand building” by doing something that “goes viral” using “social media”. When did everyone become an expert on marketing and branding? Before I go on, I’d like to say that I’m not one of these experts. Although I’ve helped a number of organizations refine their pitch or their image as part of my work, I don’t have a degree in marketing, and have never worked with a global marketing firm or ad agency. I do speak English reasonably well though, and I think a lot about why people do what they do, and a big part of what people do is think about what they want, and then try to buy it. So let’s think about the word “brand” for a minute. Do you even know the origin? In Old Norse it meant “to burn” and may have referred to a burning piece of wood, a torch, or a sword, and referred to marking the goods one created with a burn mark. Later, it of course referred to branding livestock. It wasn’t until the 19th century that it referred to a specific product going to market, and for a long time it was still simply a way of claiming ownership, much like a trademark. Although PT Barnum was an early user of the “brand as identity” concept in the 1800′s as the Prince of Humbugs, it wasn’t until the end of that century that slogans and brands began to really take shape, with companies like Ivory Soap and Kodak. After a hundred years of companies “building brands”, many of you probably think you know what a brand is, but do you? If you think you do, there are Read the rest of this entry »