#Zazoo

[a-weird-cryptid]

Meet Zazoo!

Aka the kazoo demon.

Before Helel found him and decided to keep him by his side, Zazoo's life was extremely miserably and traumatizing.

Now, he's slowly starting to heal from his past with the help of Helel. Knowing for sure that his taller friend with a higher rank will do anything he can to protect him.

They might have started out as just "business partners", but they're way more than that by now for sure. Even if they don't show it publically that often.

Because of this, he really started to express himself again. Mostly by playing music and entertaining others. Both of which he loves to do. Though some things never change... and Zazoo still doesn't say a single word. It is unknown if he simply can't speak or if he refuses to, because of reasons yet to be discovered...

Zazoo in Helel's hands

When both of them are in hell.

[who-do-i-know-this-man]

⚠️Vote for whomever YOU DO NOT KNOW⚠️‼️

[v0nw0lfsart]

Over the course of this year I have developed a bit of a fascination with the fox kids programming, not big enough to do extensive research and watch them all, but enough of an interest to want to do that in the future (but not right now.)

due to the following

A lot of it seems to be lost media

The block failed (even tough I feel like it should've worked)

And most importantly the programming not just because I like some of it, but also a lot of it is in this weird were it feels so distant from the time period it's from but also I don't think it could exist in any other time.

[the-wizard-of-zazoo]

I JUST WROTE THIS...

I LOVE YOU MACKENNA.

WILL YOU SPEND ETERNITY WITH MEE?

IF YOU DONT KNOW HOW TO GET THERE,

I WILL TAKE YOU THERE.

BEFORE YOUR TIME OF PASSING!

THE SOONER, THE BETTER.

BUT, WE GOTTA LEAVE NOW.

BEFORE THEY CATCH ON TO US!

[zeitjournal]

Portable's Bullsh*t Detector Breaks, Claims He Got Played by Tinubu

In a twist that surprises absolutely no one, Nigeria’s resident chaos agent and occasional musician, Portable, is now crying foul over his bromance with President Bola Tinubu. The “Zazoo Zeh” hitmaker, whose political acumen is about as refined as his lyrical prowess, claims he got royally screwed after shilling for Tinubu during the 2023 election. In an Instagram Live rant that was equal parts…

[xikyuu]

WOAH!! its a small world after all!!

no, thanks—i already attend.

no way me too!!!! thats crazy!!!!!!

[polkadotmotmot]

Zazoo - Cordon d’argent, 2023 - Acrylic and spray painting on canvas

[boy4days]

November was my month. Sag szn so chaotic but I am learning 2 embrace it

I am not a prisoner !!!!

#climaticyear #Sagszn #Bdayboy #Zazoo #portable

[doggfish]

help guys my mom is still calling zuko zazoo and we just finished korra

[gothicprep]

another thing: i can't believe i didn't realize the mr bean guy played zazoo or however the fuck you spell that in the lion king until i was like 24. i guess that's good character acting!

[midnightmah07]

You and Leona's servant based on Zazoo thought

I'm sorry me and WHO

[a-weird-cryptid]

"Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven..."

-John Milton, "Paradise Lost"

Part 1 of his backstory, as well as more drawings of him

Tempted by Lucifer, he tried to assassinate God on the day the battle between angels and the, soon to be fallen, angels began. Though instead, he stabbed one of his closest friends by accident, who decided to sacrifice himself to protect God. Leading to Helel's eventual fall. Though he still kept his angelic wings which are stuck in a rotting state, as well as most of his angelic abilities.

It took him some centuries to move on from his little crush on the prince of hell, but eventually he found a new love: Zazoo. A lower ranked and compared to him extremely small demon. But both of them share a healthy relationship and passion: music.

[adewalehansonposts]

Portable Omolalomi with ZaZoo Zeh live performance at LAX’s Vibes With Z...

[velveteencryptid]

Follow up to my last post... is there a reference to Clue in The Lion King?!?

"Let us in! Let us in!" -everyone except

"Let us out! Let us out!" - Colonel Mustard & Ms Scarlet

--

"Let me in! Let me in!" -Timon

"Let me out! Let me out!" -Zazoo

--

I can't find relevant GIFs but IYKYK!

[jayessentialsblog]

August 1st protest is for the underprivileged, but I'm wealthy - portable

Diligent The scheduled statewide demonstration, according to Nigerian artist Portable, is for the country's impoverished citizens. According to News Men, a countrywide demonstration with the hashtag #EndBadGovernance is scheduled for August 1–August 10, 2024. Over the past week, the demonstration has been discussed in the media. Portable claimed that his poverty was the reason behind his decision to take part in the 2020 #EndSARS protest in a social media video that went viral. He pointed out that millionaires like Femi Otedola and Aliko Dangote don't take part in protests. “They said that I joined the protest in 2020. It was then, poor thinking! Now that I have money, I am thinking like a wealthy person,” he said. “Have you ever seen Otedola and Dangote protesting? You won’t see people like Dele Momodu. Better mind your business! I didn’t have money back then. I’m now thinking like a rich man.” Remember that Portable had previously declared that, due to his financial security, he would not be participating in the protest? After the release of "Zazoo Zeh," his smash song featuring Olamide and Poco Lee, Portable rose to fame in 2021. Read the full article

[siena-cawrse]

Analytical Application 1

Culture industry:

The culture industry includes many facets of our society, such as popular media and entertainment. Horkheimer and Adorno theorize that the culture industry was created with consumers in mind, hence why it is accepted with little resistance.[1] They also mention how technology has become a huge driving force in the control of those with less power in society. “Technical rationality today is the rationality of domination.”[2] Without the power of technology, the culture industry has less dominance over society.

The Amazon Alexa advertisement is the epitome of the culture industry at large, especially as it goes to show that technology is now a large part of what keeps the culture industry going. Having celebrities, especially these celebrities whose names are brands, act as the voice behind the product is an incredibly accurate way of depicting the culture industry, however accidental it may have been. Horkheimer and Adorno also mention the way celebrities are put up on pedestals as idealized versions of regular people that keep the masses dreaming for stardom, which ultimately helps keep the culture industry going.[3] The usage of celebrities to voice Alexa in this ad plays into the idea that celebrities do normal, everyday things just like the rest of us, yet they have achieved this level of success and notoriety that makes them worthy of our attention and respect. The irony of Amazon being the company to use celebrities in order to make their brand seem more down to earth is incredibly blasphemous, especially considering its track record with the environment and labor. Using celebrities like this distracts the audience from these failings, providing viewers instead with hilarious skits featuring well-known celebrities in order to keep the company in good graces with the general public.

Ideological state apparatus:

Ideological state apparatuses are institutions and systems that express certain ideologies, molding and sculpting the minds of those that participate in them. Some examples include schools, churches, family and communications (media and the like). Althusser also notes that “the Ideological State Apparatuses function massively and predominantly by ideology, but they also function secondarily by repression, even if ultimately, but only ultimately, this is very attenuated and concealed, even symbolic.”[4]

The Zazoo condom ad addresses one facet of the ideological state apparatus (ISA): the family ISA. The family is where we learn about the values we should be holding in our society, and what sort of things we should be trying to achieve to be successful later in life. Our family shapes these ideals, one of which being the way we think about raising children. The advertisement shows a father unable to control his son in a grocery store, leading him to think that he should’ve worn a condom instead of having kids. This ad explicitly goes against the general ideas that the family ISA tries to parrot, that raising kids is the most important thing one can do in their life. Perhaps it is because the family ISA covers up all the not so ideal moments, such as the kid throwing a fit in the grocery store, that necessitates an alternative perspective in the form of this advertisement. The no-kids sentiment is growing among people of the younger generations, if not because of direct experiences with children that make them want to put on a condom, then it is because of advertisements like this. The ISA, according to Althusser, often tries to mold our perception of the world into certain ideologies. With this advertisement, Zazoo creates a new kind of ideology previously untouched by the family ISA, that of not raising children—specifically because they’re annoying to work with at times.

Mechanical reproduction:

Mechanical reproduction describes the reproduction of art with technological advancements, such as the printing press to reproduce writing. Benjamin writes of mechanical reproduction, “The situations into which the product of mechanical reproduction can be brought may not touch the actual work of art, yet the quality of its presence is always depreciated.”[5] Though reproduced art may help distribute it to a wider audience, Benjamin’s theory suggests that this reproduced art is “less art” than the original.

The Sainsbury ad addresses mechanical reproduction through its main character, who works at a toy factory and ends up using it to make toy copies of himself. The toy clones are meant to replace the man at work and other places so that he can spend time with his family during the holidays. In the fantasy land of this advertisement, the toys are an acceptable copy of the guy and he is able to be in multiple places at once. However, according to Benjamin’s theory, the copies are a shallow representation of the original, and would ultimately be unable to hold up to the standards of the originals. Should Benjamin have written this ad, it might’ve gone something like this: the man is struggling to do everything, makes clones, they try to do his work but ultimately fail because they can’t do what the original did. The ad attempts to show it greater audience that the mechanically reproduced products are, in fact, able to live up to the original. This shows how advertisements are the cog that keeps the industry going; without advertisements to quell the worries of the people, they might realize that the mass-produced copies are not living up to the standards of the one-of-a-kind original.

Negotiated code:

Negotiated code is a manner of interpreting media that happens underneath the dominant code, typically by those who do not fall under the hegemonic culture. Hall writes, “Decoding within the negotiated version contains a mixture of adaptive and oppositional elements: it acknowledges the legitimacy of the hegemonic definitions to make the grand significations (abstract), while, at a more restricted, situational (situated) level, it makes its own ground rules – it operates with exceptions to the rule.”[6] While readers of the negotiated code are still able to read the code of the dominant position, their ability to read a code that appears outside of that dominance is what gives them the ability to resist.

The Bertlitz ad is an interesting one because it is clearly designed to be as humorous as possible. The comedic timing is on point and doesn’t miss a beat, staying strong until the very end. However, part of what makes it funny is the audience it’s designed for. The general American audience is primed to find this the most funny because of the man’s accent when speaking English and the premise of the ad being life or death. Somehow, those stakes feel funnier because it is poking fun at a person who doesn’t speak English fluently. While a general audience might get a kick out of this ad, there is a large majority of the world that doesn’t speak English fluently or as their first language who likely feel more seen by the man in the ad than anything else. These folks would be participating in the “negotiated code” as put forward by Hall. Despite being able to read the hegemonic definitions, seeing the way that the ad lays out a reason for improving one’s English speaking ability, there is also another way these folks can read the ad, which is the way it makes fun of non-fluent English speakers in a way that insinuates they should be learning how to speak it better. This all ties back to the dominance of English on the global stage, where English is valued over almost every other language spoken and to speak it without an accent is a survival skill.

Ruling class:

The ruling class is generally defined as those with the most societal power and money. Marx and Engels also define the ruling class as those that control ideas. “It is self-evident that they do this in its whole range, hence among other things rule also as thinkers, as producers of ideas, and regulate the production and distribution of the ideas of their age: thus their ideas are the ruling ideas of the epoch.”[7]

The Snickers ad represents the ruling class in a very subtle way through the assumption that the raw strength and power of the Snickers guy is desirable. In this sense, the best attributes of the ruling class are those of the patriarchy: strength, resilience and fortitude in men. The Snickers guy whips up the soccer player into shape who was complaining about an injury—as soccer players tend to do. Here, the audience is being told that those who have power should look and act like the Snickers guy because the strength and resilience he has is what makes him a man, and that is desirable. If the Snickers guy represents the ruling class in shape and form, then he also represents the ruling class as far as their ideas go. He goes forth into the world to put out the ideas he has about masculinity specifically when he sees others not a part of the ruling class abiding by these ideas. The tank he drives crushing the other cars before he even gets to confront the soccer player is a true testament to the lengths the ruling class will go to in order to ensure their ideas are the ones that proliferate through society.

Bibliography:

Horkheimer, Max and Adorno, Theodor W.. The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception. In Dialectic of Enlightenment edited by Gunzelin Schmid Noeri, 94-136. Redwood City: Stanford University Press, 2002.

Althusser, L. Ideology and ideological state apparatuses. In L. Althusser (Ed.), Lenin and philosophy and other essays. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1971.

Marx K. and Engels F. (1970). Ruling class and ruling ideas. In Storey J (ed.) Cultural theory and popular culture: A Reader. 4th ed. Essex: Pearson, 2009.

Benjamin, Walter. The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction. Translated by J. A. Underwood. Penguin Great Ideas. Harlow, England: Penguin Books, 1936.

Hall, S. W. Encoding/Decoding. In S. Hall, D. Hobson, A. Lowe, & P. Willis (Eds.), Culture, Media, Language: Working Papers in Cultural Studies (pp. 63-87). London: Hutchinson, 1980.

[1] Horkheimer & Adorno, The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception

[2] Horkheimer & Adorno

[3] Horkheimer & Adorno

[4] Althusser, Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses

[5] Benjamin, The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction

[6] Hall, Encoding, Decoding

[7] Marx & Engels, The Ruling Class and the Ruling Ideas

@theuncannyprofessoro