#i drank prosecco and sugar and wrote a thing

[nokingsonlyfooles]

Brigitte Empire needs money, which can be exchanged for goods and services. Turns out, so do a lot of people! Some of them need it to live, and some of them need it to keep their shareholders happy, and some of them need it for blatant self-promotion. Watch the video and try to pick out who's who!

Then, if you feel like it, meet me under the cut for a little more on MARKETING!

All right all you cats and kittens, I got two discount bellinis in me and a silly topic that could still end civilization as we know it if we don't deal with it appropriately. Take my hand, and let me tell you the story of Capitalism figuring out that marginalized people buy things too!

Capitalism exists without the constraints of morality. If people are willing to pay for a thing, you should let them buy it, and jack up the price as much as possible. Regulations that prevent you from selling your child as hamburger meat are not a feature of Capitalism, but a constraint placed upon it by the rest of society. Thus, as soon as there is money to be made, multiple individuals and corporations will try to make as much money as possible. The only political consideration is, "What do I need to SAY I believe to maximize the profits?" It doesn't care about you, it just wants your money. We are all here to be exploited, no matter our various intersections.

Thus, it only fails to market to a specific group if it doesn't seem like that group would buy a specific thing, and/or if the consequences of the marketing would eat into the profits too much. A baby isn't going to buy a Virginia Slim cigarette (babies prefer Marlboros)

...and such a campaign would make mommies and daddies very upset, so they don't run ads with smoking infants in Highlights magazine.

But a funny thing happens when, all of a sudden, someone smacks themself on the forehead and cries, "Oh no! Babies DO buy Virginia Slims!" Or, more plausibly, "Wait! WOMEN BUY CARS!" Nobody has been marketing to that demographic, there is no playbook to follow, and they scramble for a strategy.

Oh, and it is hilarious watching them trying to figure out what a new demographic wants out of their product.

Uhhh... Pinkness and an automatic transmission, you guys? Is that good? Bill, would your wife buy one of these? If you let her, I mean, ha!

Likewise, in Brigitte's early strawberry ad: Uhhh... Glitter! The "tran"s love makeup and glitter! And a relatable, pretty nobody, and donations to worthy causes!

They're still dialing it in. Even poor Dylan up there doesn't seem to have much idea why someone who likes her brand would like a cheap, lite beer. She decided to just be honest and relatable too. "Well, it's nice having my face on a product, and one assumes you drink this while watching a sport...? Ha-ha-ha, this is kinda silly, but I guess they're trying to be nice. Well, anyway, Bud Light exists!"

It's really quite cute. It makes me like HER, but I'm not gonna buy a Bud Light. Likewise, that Gillette commercial was super sweet, but it didn't make me wanna go out and buy a Gillette razor, or anything at all. Conversely, when Goya foods shot their mouth off, I didn't stop buying them. I never started buying them. If they didn't have what I wanted in the store brand, I might have gotten a can or two of Goya, if they were the cheapest. After the beans hit the fan, I quit doing that with no more effort than moving my hand a few inches to one side or the other. No hardship to them and no hardship to me.

Me, and my friends on the left, are not big name-brand fans, or big Capitalism fans. These things are notable as cultural bellwethers - "Ah-ha! Someone did a thing! Now let's see how everyone reacts!" - but not as something we're going to go out of our way to spend money on. We define ourselves by the media we consume much more than the physical products.

The people who market physical products do not know how to handle that. It's kinda freaking them out. That's why we get all those stories about "MILLENNIALS ARE KILLING [THING]!" No, they're just not willing to be ride-or-die with a brand, or even a type. "Hmm, these ciders are all too expensive... How 'bout some box wine?" We don't have the disposable income to be picky, because Capitalism will devour itself for profit as much as anything else.

The throwbacks who are still willing to define themselves via a brand tend to skew right, but they're volatile as hell. Anything that looks like progress or "wokeness" makes them SCREAM. The pundits and politicians like it that way, it keeps them in power - the corporations, not so much. It's getting less and less feasible to be an AMERICAN [or other national identity] brand. There's a culture war in progress - but no matter which side you pick, they will not remain reliable, complacent consumers.

That's why corporate culture is involved in this weird "two steps forward, two steps back" dance. When it's clear who's winning, they'll pick a side. Until then, they're like a bunch a little kids at a party who really want to pick up the pinata candy, except the kid with the blindfold is still staggering around swinging the stick. Meanwhile, the leftists are busy looking for hot dogs in the trash, and the conservatives are screaming, pointing, and throwing more candy on the ground, so they can demonstrate how much they hate the latest evil product.

That last one doesn't make any damn sense, right? Boycotts are rarely effective, and buying more of a thing is not even a boycott. Bud Light will take your money whether you love their beer or hate it. You can throw it at a cop if you want, they just want your money.

Guess what? So do the conservatives. Also, your attention and your validation. That's why they're yelling so loud. All of us need to be heard and seen. All of us perform to show others who we are on the inside. When you film yourself performing and post on social media, though, you can make actual cash. Build enough of a following for your content and Bud Light will show up on your doorstep and offer to put your face on a can!

You're reading this on Tumblr right now, you are at least somewhat aware of how algorithms serve up content, and that the search function will serve you more engagement if you're doing something popular. I already know this post is gonna crash and burn, too, 'cos I don't have a lot of followers and it doesn't involve a fandom. Maybe later the Tumblr goblins will find it and like it, but not for a long while. If I wanted clicks (and I do) I'd give you something on Guardians of the Galaxy, or Spiderverse, or more Kung Fu Panda. If I were branding myself as a conservative gun nut, I'd get a lot of eyeballs on me if I bought a case of Bud and assassinated it right now. I don't want those eyeballs, but some folks sure do.

It's exploitation all the way down and we shouldn't be surprised. People need money to live, and if they have a little extra, they can have fun with it. Bud Light hires themself a trans spokesperson, as an investment, and she needs the money so she does an ad for the beer, and herself. Conservative culture warriors launch themselves at this latest target, every one of them also doing an ad - for themselves and their entertaining and justified outrage. And the platforms that host them rake in engagement from both sides, and more money. All that commerce, all that profit, all that potential, springs from the body of one trans influencer who likes to purchase goods and services - as one does.

In this instance, the beer people freaked out and spent a lot more money taking two steps back. It ain't always gonna be like that - and the next folks who want money from the trans demographic will have some valuable marketing data for the future - but we'll have to wait and see.

Now, I did say this was a silly topic that could end civilization as we know it if we don't handle it right, so picture some scary music right here. There is a market for grinning white faces who shoot guns at "wokeness," and the people with grinning white faces and guns know that, as do the platforms that host them. They make money for the platform and the platform makes money for them. Without intervention, this is a closed circle that only requires a new, popular thing to be mad about, and they can manufacture those at will. Violence and outrage are becoming a commodity, and people are already buying it.

It's popular to be mad at trans folks right now, but "woke" can be anything. They do not actually care what they are mad about, or what anyone who consumes their content does with that anger, they just want your money (clicks, attention, data, etc). Say what you will of the stochastic terrorism of the past, at least it had a political agenda. A privileged politician isn't going to turn on you nearly as fast as a social-media-climber looking for clout. Do you think you're stealth, invisible, acceptable? Do you wanna find out what happens if suddenly you're not?

Regulation and deplatforming are the only way to keep the outrage machine from eating up real human lives. But we are not asking sociologists or internet scholars or anyone who might have a clue to regulate anything. Regulation is something politicians do, and I wouldn't trust any of 'em to set up a wireless printer. As for deplatforming, for now, that's in the hands of the platforms, and they just want your money.

I'm just talking about one potential brand of annihilation, here. Capitalism will sell us everything we need to destroy ourselves, for as high a price as the market will bear. It doesn't care.

If we want it to stop, we have to care enough to apply the brakes. Ai-yi-yi, but I know we've already been trying, and we're not getting much traction.

Better get yourself one o' them pink cars with the automatic transmission, and buckle in.

[blackswaneuroparedux]

I drink to make other people more interesting.

- Ernest Hemingway

The famed American novelist Ernest Hemingway drank as prolifically as he wrote - or perhaps he wrote as prolifically as he drank. Regardless, he proved himself a voluble champion of all things alcoholic, and helped more than a few bartenders hone their recipes over the years. Having spent a fair amount of time in bars on Paris’ Left Bank, he developed a particular fondness for absinthe, which he showcased in his own intriguing cocktail invention. Simple, strong, but surprisingly refreshing, Death in the Afternoon melds absinthe with well-chilled champagne, and goes nicely over brunch or at sunset - perhaps while digging into the lucid prose of Papa Hemingway himself.

Hemingway named his cocktail after his 1932 book Death in the Afternoon, a non-fiction book that delves into the traditions and drama of bullfighting in Spain. His drink recipe first appeared in the 1935 compendium So Red the Nose, or, Breath in the Afternoon, which featured drink recipes from 30 authors, including Theodore Dreiser, Erskine Caldwell, and Irving Stone.

In the book, Hemingway explains (sort of) the origin of the cocktail: “This was arrived at by the author and three officers of HMS Danae after having spent seven hours overboard trying to get Captain Bra Saunders’ fishing boat off a bank where she had gone with us in a northwest gale.”

Hemingway also gave precise instructions for making and enjoying the drink: “Pour one jigger of absinthe into a champagne glass, add iced champagne until it attains the proper opalescent milkiness. Drink three to five of these slowly.”

Perhaps for some five seems a touch too many, though it’s hard to argue with a man who was tossed by a bull on the streets of Pamplona and was probably the first American wounded on the Italian Front in World War I.

1 oz. absinthe

4 oz champagne or prosecco

Method:

Pour absinthe into a fluted glass.

Top with well-chilled champagne or prosecco

Some recipes call for Prosecco and no simple sugar, and some call for a sugar cube, and some omit the sugar all-together. Papa Hemmingway was not a fan of sugar - even in his daiquiris - so he did not call for it.

Salud!

Bon weekend!