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What Does the Lana Del Backlash tell us about Social Media?

posted March 2nd, 2012 & filed under insightful, Miscellaneous, Trends

The last few months have definitely seen tons of new cultural backlashes emerge on the Internet, and none have been more interesting to watch and dissect then the majesty of Lana Del Rey. From her self-produced YouTube hit “Video Games”, Del Rey rose from a meager viral hit to an Interscope record deal in a matter of a few months. Almost as immediately as her video was reaching millions of views, the Social Media bandwagon began heralding her as the downfall of authentic indie culture as we know it. Not to mention her signing with a major label and subsequent poor / ill-prepared SNL performance, which eventually made the backlash movement delve into overdrive as she became a perpetual trending topic for all the wrong reasons.

One of the most important questions and cultural signifiers that’s raised within this indie-meme is does she really deserve such an onslaught of negative criticism, and how does the culture of Social Media change the landscape and sway the opinion of the masses? It seems that a lot of the discussion of Lana Del Rey almost sidesteps the actual quality of her musical output, and instead focuses on her aesthetic being sold to the masses under the guise of indie credibility.

People are used to the svengali wrangled boy bands and pop groups that have existed as long as popular music itself, but they aren’t as comfortable with being sold what seems like a pre-packaged all encompassing musician within the realm of the indie sphere. From her name change, to her earlier more mainstream oriented material, and the nonstop Instagram pictorials with her Real Housewives pouty duck lips du jour, and “gangster Nancy Sinatra” pandering, no matter how authentic or contrived the mélange actually was, it had literally every tastemaker and even their most uninformed underlings crying fowl.

Even Brian Williams, who wouldn’t even qualify as a Guided by Voices cool dad, jumped on the anti Del Rey bandwagon when Gawker released a snarky email he sent to their Media chief Nick Denton, but is all of this hoopla just the Internet overreacting as it always does? Sure maybe her image was a little too grungy polished, like the fashionistas who spend $3,000 to look homeless, but is her music really of such low quality too deserve such a massive indie-meme backlash?

Sometimes what happens especially with Social Media is these trends or anti-trends kind of snowball quickly accumulating muster from minute specks of gravel. Once Pitchfork picks it up, then it’s The Fader, then Gawker, and it eventually trickles down to every grassroots blog and Tumblr with an attaché RSS feed. Hipster Runoff, probably the all time most important meta-scathing hipster blog, even temporarily changed their name to the “Lana Del Report” and for a few days they had literally up to the minute coverage of every tiny revelation in the Lana saga, which was especially honed and perfectly articulated in their infamous Content Farm post that critiqued the way indie blogs feed off of alt-memes just to satiate their audience’s thirst for negative criticism and new culture to dissect and disarm.

Overall it’s really important to take a look at how Social Media can alter and affect the sway of public opinion, even in these micro-genres and indie circles. There’s definitely some aspect of Del Rey’s aesthetic and output possibly being contrived, but with the advent of technology and instantaneous sharing of opinions, these memes and their subsequent backlash can literally take form overnight. Sometimes it’s important to not formulate an opinion until the entire picture presents itself. The majority of this happened way before her major label debut was released, and then after it came out and was number one in 11 albeit mostly European countries, their was then the inevitable backlash to the original backlash, which goes to show how quickly these things can emerge and dissipate, just to make room for another indie-meme to be roasted over the coals.

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Social Media in Asia 101

posted February 27th, 2012 & filed under digital trends, marketing/advertising, Miscellaneous, Serious Stuff, social networking, technology

For the last few weeks I’ve been working on a project in Asia and during my travels I’ve learned a few interesting things about the Social Media landscape in Asia. For starters, the Social Media consumption in Asia is greater in some markets than it is in the US. Countries like Indonesia, Malaysia, India, Taiwan, Thailand and the Philippines widely use Facebook, and the mobile internet market share is also much larger in these countries than the global average.

Countries like China, Japan and Vietnam use different but similar platforms such as Weibo and Renren (in China), Mixi (in Japan) and Zing (in Vietnam), and Google+ is also slowly gaining popularity. It doesn’t have as much penetration as the larger more established platforms, but brands like Cathay Pacific and Uniqlo are among the first to create their own Google+ pages.

Overall, the Social Media behaviors vary in these countries because of their inherent cultural differences. One of the main reasons is because Asian culture is more shy and reserved, and it’s usually considered rude to promote yourself directly. Some of the main ways Social Media in Asia is utilized is through pop culture re-mashing, sharing photos of yourself out socializing with friends, learning about products online, and sharing tips instead of self-promotion and touting how great you are, which is definitely more common with Social Media in the US.

Even though there are some similarities, each country has its own specific behavior and Internet content usage patterns; here are some of the highlights of the Asian Social Media market:

Photo sharing – Photo sharing is HUGE in Asia; literally any occasion deserves photo sharing. The general audience doesn’t use tools like Instagram as much we do in the US, but instead they directly upload them into their Facebook pages. Although Instagram is slowly making strides in the Asian market. A great example is Candy Mafia, a Thai pop group, who avidly use Instagram, and pop groups in general have a huge Social Media presence. Beauty and Fashion sharing is also extremely popular online; I’ve seen users taking pictures of their new possessions from Louis Vuitton to their North Face collection. There are also entire Tumblr sites dedicated to sharing picture collages of pop stars and TV shows, along with a variety of different gifs.
Social Media Games – Social media games are used as stimuli to drive new users and gain reach within existing users, while actual content sharing is more popular among the more experienced users.
Bulletin board systems underpin popular Social Media behavior in China; more than 80% of their Social Media content is based on bulletin board systems.
Product Reviews – Online product reviews are increasing their influence on purchases in India, particularly for consumer electronics. 55% of Indians that read online product reviews have purchased products based on feedback. Consumer durables / electronics are the most common products that are purchased based on reviews (64% of purchases).
Tweeting: Among the Asian market, Japanese Internet users are the most avid bloggers globally, posting more than one million blogs per month, which is significantly more than any other country in the region. Japan’s adoption of Twitter also continues to grow, with unique visitor numbers increasing in the last year from less than 200,000 to more than 10 million. 16% of Japanese Internet users now use Twitter, compared to only 10% in the U.S.

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Google Plus Launches For Teens

posted February 23rd, 2012 & filed under digital trends, Miscellaneous, Serious Stuff, social networking, technology

Google Plus is now welcoming an entirely new teen audience with its recent lowering of its age restriction from 18 to 13. When it initially launched in June of 2010 it was an only 18 and over service during the initial beta stage until they were able to tailor a new teen-centric version of the defaults and content sharing functions. It’s basically the same exact service that’s available for adults, with just a few minor changes to the default settings for sharing and privacy options.

The defaults for teens protect more of their privacy online and give them more options as far as controlling who they share content with. The main sharing portion of Google Plus is within its Circles feature, and a teen’s profile is more restrictive on sharing content outside of their Circles. The same goes with a teen’s posts; only people within their circle can comment on their posts, but for adults anyone who can see their posts is able to comment. Another interesting aspect which has proven to be one of the most popular parts of Google Plus is their Hang-Out Video Conferencing feature; the only difference for a teen’s default is when someone from outside their Circle joins the Video Conference, it pauses their feed and asks them if they want to continue the conversation.

It’s definitely commendable of Google to put these few but important safeguards in place to make teens feel like they have more control over their Google Plus content, and of course parents always benefit from any extra online safety measures. The important thing also to remember is these are only differences in the basic defaults of the service, which can be changed at any time to resemble the conventional settings for those who are 18 and over. Defaults exist more as guidelines for how a company thinks a service best works for certain users, and more often then not, people tend to stick with whatever the original settings are. Another interesting aspect of Google Plus is how Google intends it to be utilized by the teen audience. They want it to be more of an extension of their real life, instead of a venue for them to create a persona or misrepresent themselves, which is often what happens with more freeform Social Media like Facebook.

What will be interesting to see in the future is if the proportion of teens embracing Google Plus will rival the enormous market share Facebook currently has in younger demographics. There are definitely features available on Google Plus that Facebook lacks, especially the popular Hang-Out Video Conferencing feature, which Facebook users usually leave the service for to utilize in Tinychat rooms for video socializing and even curated online DJ nights. Google Plus definitely offers a structure and features that teens will find as an interesting contrast to Facebook, and with their specifically tailored defaults and sharing options, it may eventually become a solid competitor for the massive Social Media teen market share.

This is a great article from the Huffington Post that outlines the Google Plus rollout for the teen market.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/larry-magid/google-plus-safety-_b_1235552.html

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Has Social Media Become Our Own Reality Show?

posted December 1st, 2011 & filed under Fun Stuff, insightful, social networking, technology

Since the early 2000s reality shows have completely taken over not only television but pop culture as a whole. MTV has been slowly changing their network into a reality based free-for-all since the 1990s when the The Real World was established, but the 2000s were really the origin of a mass across the board reality show influx. Social Media also became popular around the same time and it seems like both of these now commonly accepted institutions have started to ebb and flow into one another and are sharing many similar cultural aspects.

MySpace was almost an incubation period for social media; all the kinks were still getting worked out, Blingees made loading pages almost like an off road course, and the visual format seemed like it took precedence over the actual function of the site, but when Facebook started rearing it’s monolithic stature, the entire world of social media was torn asunder. That’s when the real similarities and gray area between reality show culture and social media really started to emerge. Facebook has organically (and rather artificially) become a virtual parallel to the docu-reality series that have forever changed the landscape of television and our perception of cultural constructs.

One of the most similar aspects between social media and reality shows are the construction and evolution of archetype abstractions. Every reality show casting director talks about the extremely specific almost algorithmic equations they use when formulating a new show. They need Character A. to react to Character B. so Constant C. can interject creating a whole new set of variables for D, E, and F to become flustered with; and then this process repeats throughout the season, accumulating steam along the way for the inevitable finale / reunion where the whole process begins anew.

Social Media has become a similar half-fabricated / half-actualized venue that allows it’s participants to write their own storylines as they shape and mold the outcome through their personal online tableau; a cryptic little tweet here, a specific photo vaguely framed there, an eclectic Spotify playlist that seems incongruent at first but slowly reveals abstractions in the sense of a fiber optic board game. All of these little details, whether purposely articulated or by accident, add up to an online persona that can be every bit as simulated as the most elaborate reality show scenarios. Social Media allows us to change as little or as much of our own reality to create a linear or abstract storyline that ends up personifying our own persona construct.

Another major parallel between reality shows and social media is the ease of it’s participants to take part in the contruction of their persona. That’s one of the major flaws reality show casting directors have talked about since the massive proliferation of reality shows since the 2000s. It used to be easy for them to find the rough and tumble hillbilly with a heart of gold, or the housewife with golden locks and an armful of existential crises to match, but now everyone is way too self-aware of what casting directors are looking for, and they come to the auditions already in “character”, or they say something like “I’m the such and such arche-sterotype you’ve been looking for”.

The same exact thing has happened on social media. Instead of organically articulating exactly what comprises themselves on a visceral level, people create versions of themselves that are more palatable both in the real world and in online venues; not in the context of “I don’t want my boss to know I went to Hooter’s with my gram-gram for Easter”, but more so that they’re sculpting and purposefully editing out or exaggerating their own online persona to appeal to a seemingly larger audience. Even if you’re 100% authentic in real life there’s still aspects you might edit out within social media to present a more well-rounded auto-tuned version of yourself. It’s kind of like how MSG evens out the five main tastes to create a more pleasurable but inherently banal palette, some people use social media to quality control their own organic shortcomings. The same way reality shows have catacombs overflowing with 14-hour-a-day editing kiosks, social media can be used to crossfade or edit out our undesirable facets only to heighten and spotlight our glorious and nutrient rich accomplishments.

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Is Repurposing Culture Really Accomplishing Anything New?

posted November 17th, 2011 & filed under digital trends, Fun Stuff, insightful, Miscellaneous

Drake looking all super warm and cozy

The Internet and especially new web culture have completely ushered in a new era of cultural reinterpretation and repurposing. A large part of the underground artistic movements that are occurring online are sourced from previously existing culture. The idea of sampling or remixing has become so commonplace for a net artist or a tech savvy Millennial, that sometimes no one stops to think if their reinterpretation is actually accomplishing something new. There are definitely positive and negative attributes to this vantage point of creating new cultural models based on the old culture, but is this movement really benefiting the culture as a whole, or is it simply regurgitating the old principles without expanding on them?

Drake’s mad introspective Take Care album cover

The rapper / singer / former Degrassi maven Drake recently made an interesting statement on his blog about his decidedly negative outlook on the culture perpetuated by Tumblr:

“I’m really scared for my generation, you know. The thing that scares me most is Tumblr. I hate what Tumblr has become. Because it like, it reminds me of those clique-y girls in high school that used to make fun of everyone and define what was cool, but in five years, when you all graduate, that shit doesn’t matter. No one gives a fuck about that shit. Instead of kids going out and making their own moments, they’re just taking these images and living vicariously through other people’s moments. It just kills me. Then you’ll meet them and they’re just the biggest turkey in the world. They don’t actually embody any of those things. They just emulate. It’s scary man, simulation life that we’re living. It scares me.”

Although Drake the musical artist has definitely had some backlash from the hip hop community for his Woody Allen-esque softly crooned testimonials, he definitely makes an astute point about the possible negative aspects that Tumblr culture creates. A massive part of Tumblr are the Notes and Reblogging features that allow someone to grab content for their Tumblr without having to actually create any of it on their own. It’s similar to someone curating an art show or a compilation where their keen eye is the only lens that creates the overall aesthetic of the package. When a compilation, a mix, or an art show is put together well it really highlights the astute focus and necessary editing that goes hand in hand with a competent curator. Within culture there’s a practical use for the curator, even with online culture, but what Drake mentions, and is definitely commonplace within some social media platforms, are the people who only create their brand through the culture and abstract identities of other brands and entities.

Hunting In Haute Couture via Everything Is Terrible!

The Internet and especially new web culture creates an atmosphere where the physical origin of this media becomes extremely secondary, and it’s really easy to forget that almost everything that exists online comes from the real world. Besides of course CGI graphics created with computer programs or other forms of entirely computer created content, almost everything else existed in a physical version before it landed online. Every single old press photo of embarrassingly dressed celebrities, magazine advertisements from the 70s, old TV show clips, Z-movies, ironic / un-ironic / post-ironic clothing; it all existed before the Internet and someone had to take the time and effort and their insightful aesthetic lens to actually archive or capture it to be preserved in the digital realm. Besides for user created content, a large amount of the clips on YouTube are from dusty rundown VHS bungalows or someone’s grandma’s attic ensconced treasure chest. It’s not that simply recycling this culture negatively impacts it, but it’s important to remember that the Internet is merely a point in its destination, but very often not the origin.

Nicki Minaj in Versace

Another tangent on the concept of repurposing culture are the recent influx of massively popular capsule collections that have popped up at H&M, Target, and other mass retailers. A large portion of the interest for these collections is both the lower price point that allows the mass market to own a brand that might otherwise be out of their price range, and to also resurrect certain aesthetics and cultural motifs that otherwise would have slowly faded into obscurity. One of the most recent collaborations that’s set to go on sale this week is H&M teaming up with Versace. In a recent article on MTV.com both Nicki Minaj, Big Sean (a rapper on fellow fashion provocateur Kanye West’s G.O.O.D. Music record label), and Donatella Versace discussed why right now was the perfect time for a capsule collection at H&M:

Donatella could clearly sense nostalgia was in bloom. “It’s a moment that I felt was the right moment,” she said of launching the mass collection. “It’s a lot of requests for Versace iconic pieces like printed shirts, and everybody is doing homage to Versace so I decided to give them the real thing to H&M, to the kids!” she smiled.

What’s different about this concept is the culture is being repurposed and relaunched by the same person (or at least related to) that originated it. As Nicki and Big Sean discuss in the article, there’s been a long standing love affair between the hip hop community and the Versace sense of gaudiness and absolutely outlandish ornate prints. The Notorious B.I.G, famously referenced the label in the J.U.N.I.O.R. Mafia song “Get Money“ with the lyrics “My Moschino ho, my Versace hottie“ as well as him and P.Diddy garishly dancing around in matching Versace silk shirts in the video for the track “Hypnotize”.

P. Diddy and The Notorious B.I.G rocking Versace in their video for Hyptnotize

The real question though isn’t whether or not there’s an audience for this capsule collection, but is it really beneficial to the brand, the aesthetic, and the Versace legacy? You can still find vintage Versace pieces on Ebay, Etsy, and other high end consignment shops, sometimes at a very similar price point to the new H&M collection, but is there some aspect of authenticity getting cleansed from history by reinterpreting your own landmark prints and aesthetic? There’s a facet of it that’s almost nice of Donatella to dramatically decrease the price points of their staple Italy via Miami via Guido Renaissance prints, but as we’ve seen with similar capsule collections from Missoni, Vera Wang, Stella McCartney, and couture hologram himself Mr. Lagerfeld, the original price points are tripled and sometimes quadrupled in the resell market on Ebay and other sites. Even though aesthetically the collection definitely maintains the original vision of the best Versace garments, doesn’t it make more sense to just buy an original vintage Versace piece instead of waiting all night in line to wail along with the throngs of agitated shoppers grabbing at racks of a derivative take on a classic fashion totem?

Vintage Versace Magazine Ads

More then anything there’s positive and negative aspects to cultural reinterpretation and repurposing. A lot of it has to do with the intent and the overall contribution it’s making to the culture. Even if someone curates their Tumblr with content solely created by other people, it’s still possible that their astute lens will positively accomplish a new vantage point or way of considering culture that wasn’t previously articulated. It’s always important to remember that a large portion of Internet culture was harvested from physical artifacts, and someone somewhere had to put the effort and consideration in to archive and purposefully capture these items so they could live on in the digital cloud of perpetuity. It’s not bad to repurpose and reinterpret as long as it’s expanding the culture instead of diluting and diminishing its original impact.

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Who or what are the #HDBoyz?

posted November 10th, 2011 & filed under Fun Stuff, Miscellaneous

As pop culture evolves, so does the context of how we frame and categorize culture, and the more rapidly it changes, sometimes the harder it becomes to exactly define what we’re talking about. A great example of this new conceptual pop culture are the #HDBoyz. Who or exactly what are the #HDBoyz? Are they a boy band based on photo editing gradients that some Svengali cast from national auditions? Are they a tongue in cheek conceptual art project that seems so authentic on the surface that it’s hard to decipher? Why are they always wearing Under Armour and what do all those little icons mean in the corner of their promo photos? More then anything the #HDBoyz are a perfect example of pop culture skewering itself by being as direct and authentic as possible.

The best examples of modern satire are so close in design to the actual culture they’re mocking that only the most astute audience can actually tell the difference. The Colbert Report has been on for years now and there’s still a portion of his audience that’s convinced he’s just another layer on the O’Reilly Glenn Beck bandwagon. The #HDBoyz truly evoke the same “are they joking or aren’t they?” response from anyone who’s unfamiliar with either online culture, boy band culture, or maybe a little of both. The actual origins and background of the group is a little murky. It’s comprised of 5 dilettantes who each have a vested interest in some of the best online and art world culture that’s out there. One of the members Ryder Ripps is behind dump.fm and Internet Archaeology, and the #HDBoyz seems to be another expansion of his innovative aesthetic into a completely different arena.

The #HDBoyz had their inaugural performance at MOMA PS1 at an event sponsored by DIS Magazine that promoted a diverse roster of pop culture mutated art and performances. Their tagline is “The World’s First High Definition Boy Band” and they totally brought out all the 1080p pixels they could possibly muster. Their lyrical content is also an awesome approximation of standard Boy Band tropes mixed with common online tech speak. On their song “Photoshopped” they try to convince a girl to leave her boyfriend because he looks too artificial and polished by the Adobe engine, and on “Unzip” they use the analogy of compressed files as a love induced come-on with other awesome tech speak double entendres thrown in for good measure.

After watching a few of their videos and hearing their lyrics most people would probably understand they were satirizing something, but exactly what they’re poking fun at is kind of up in the air. More importantly I think that’s exactly how this project was intended. I don’t know if, A, it’s really necessary to understand the punchline for the joke to be good, and B, the actual punchline might just be that this project or concept or whatever is actually done really, really well. Their photoshoot for DIS Magazine is an amazing amalgam of early 2000s Backstreet Boys androgyny mixed with an awesome filter of tech jargon and new web stylistic motifs.

It’s almost exactly what the future of boy bands will really look like; completely cleansed of purpose but simultaneously wrapped in an aesthetic package that tells you everything about them without saying a word. Just like how your grandma watches Colbert and agrees with everything he says right before the laugh track rolls in, the #HDBoyz just might be the most convincing boy band of the new web era because their aesthetic and overall concept is every bit as authentic as any other megazoid amalgamation that rose from the Florida catacombs in the last two decades. The future of pop music and boy bands is truly going to live in the pixels and terabyte servers of every faceless Cisco warehouse and the #HDBoyz are just waiting for everyone else to catch up.

Images via DIS Magazine

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Hypnagogic Pop and the New Pop Culture Mutations

posted November 3rd, 2011 & filed under Miscellaneous

In an article David Keenan wrote in The Wire magazine Issue #306, he coined the term “hypnagogic pop” in reference to an underground music movement that utilized the concept of memory and revisionist nostalgia as a launching point for an entire sub-genre. Hypnagogic is defined as “Inducing sleep” or “Of, relating to, or occurring in the state of intermediate consciousness preceding sleep”, which is the perfect adjective for this loosely based micro-genre. Hypnagogic pop is a recent quasi-movement within the experimental underground where musicians take aspects of modern culture and nostalgia and transform them into new collective memories that incorporate parts of the old model but at the same time shape them into an entirely new creature. It’s a very Frankenstein-esque process where new organisms and ideas are conjured from the debris and rubble of the previous synaptic runoff. Hypnagogic pop in general and the aesthetic behind it is one of the most accurate representations of our modern cultural perception and exactly what defines the new version of our muddled hyper-reality.

One of Keenan’s main focuses in the article was the beyond prolific artist James Ferraro. He’s released countless limited run CD-Rs and more high profile releases on the record label Olde English Spelling Bee including last year’s critical darling Nightdolls with Hairspray. There’s a lot of other examples of hypnagogic pop but overall Ferraro is the best representation of the aesthetic and how it mutates a culture that’s so familiar to us into an indecipherable slurry that becomes amorphous but still has it’s original parts visibly jutting out at oddly rendered angles. Keenan sums up the genre as “pop music refracted through the memory of a memory” and it couldn’t be a more accurate summation for the overall aesthetic. Especially Ferarro’s music, and for tons of artists who might be considered hypnagogic, they’re using the genre to create a revisionist history of popular culture that utilizes the concept of nostalgia to rewrite collective memories instead of simply trying to evoke them.

Teamm Jordann – “Stadium” from Haunted Internet

A major parallel exists between the inspiration of hypnagogic pop and the current trend of online cyber-nostalgia. There are countless Tumblrs, YouTube channels, and basically every Social Media platform that exists who utilize the culture and aesthetic of the early Internet to revise and construct new memories based on bits and pieces of actual culture. Everything from dunp.fm, Internet Archaeology, to ScannerJammer and “The Second Internet”, and even the Tumblrs of Midwestern small town teens are taking an entire culture and reshaping it to fit into whatever mold they see fit. When this starts happening on a universal level, and everyone is rewriting the history and aesthetic of popular culture at the same time, it starts to change not only our perception of the past but the actual past itself. If your only exposure to early Internet culture was through the modern revisionist take on it, your vantage point would be worlds apart from someone who experienced it as it was actually happening.

via Vela Phelan & Temple of Messages

One aspect of hypnagogic pop and especially James Ferraro’s aesthetic is his constant use of low culture and pop culture totems, which are very often one in the same. Ever since Warhol started transposing soup cans from the supermarket to the gallery and Lichtenstein was taking single comic books panels and creating wall sized monuments from them, pop culture and high art have become amorous bedfellows. Since then the concept has only expanded and grown larger and younger generations would never even think to question the idea of marrying low culture into a high culture venue. Even Susan Sontag’s Notes on Camp essay from 1964 (which is also referenced in the Keenan article) established an air of credibility for the inclusion of the kitsch aesthetic and camp culture within the confines of galleries and museums. In an interview with Dummy magazine Ferarro even referred to his music as “pop in a pop art kind of way” which perfectly encapsulates the overall aesthetic and mentality behind the hypnagogic perception of culture.

Class of Nukem High Movie Poster

A great way of describing his music and a good amount of music within the genre is that it refers to everything in a broad sense while not referring to anything specifically. A track like Ferraro’s “Leather High School” sounds like the soundtrack to every Class of Nukem High sequel that never existed. It really puts Keenan’s description of “pop music refracted through the memory of a memory” into action. It leaves you with a veneer of nostalgia through trash culture, B-movies, cyberpunk mythology, and dada mash-up street fashion that’s so familiar you could swear that you can pinpoint the exact of origin of each facet, but in reality it’s an entirely purposefully constructed new entity.

via Fruits Magazine

Hypnagogic pop is definitely an aural parallel to the current crop of new web culture and perfectly bastardized online aesthetics. The sometimes haughty DJ / producer Diplo made a comment in an interview that teens growing up now don’t necessarily care or aren’t interested that 20 genres had to happen for the song their listening to come into existence. They’re merely enjoying the modern equivalent of hyper-hybridization and the nonstop influx of cultural Frankenstein monsters. Hypnagogic pop acts as the perfect vehicle for the current crop of musicians to absolutely Cuisinart everything in existence that came before them. It doesn’t matter if its reality shows, action movies (one of Ferraro’s cultural obsessions), or some high end LED embossed Japanese fashion label, it’s all completely sample worthy and ready to be transformed into anything and everything. These new Tumblrs and musicians and digital artists are the farm to table purveyors of the new cultural underground; they’re involved on a micro level with absolutely every minute detail as they prepare new sustenance from the ingredients of the past.

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My Interview on WeAreNYTech.com

posted November 1st, 2011 & filed under marketing/advertising, Miscellaneous, projects, Serious Stuff, social networking, technology, tips

I’m so excited to be featured in an interview for WeAreNYTech. It’s a really informative and comprehensive website that showcases some of the best people working in the technology industry in New York City. I was happy to talk about my background in digital marketing and the different projects I’m currently working on. There’s a transcript from the interview and a link below.

http://wearenytech.com/262-luna-vega-digital-marketing-consultant

You mention in your bio that at one point you just decided to make your childhood dream come true and start your own business. How did you come to the decision that it was the right time?

I have always been a perfectionist. It was important for me to get plenty of professional experience under my belt before starting my own business. I took me several years to work up the courage to take the leap.

I vividly remember the day I launched an extensive project for company I was working for at the time. If I had successfully managed and survived this project, I could undertake anything that came my way, I knew I was ready. I had earned the confidence needed to be an entrepreneur. A huge weight also lifted the day I finally quit my job, as if I was finally allowing myself to be me and go for what made me happy deep down.

Is there any particular reason that you choose projects aimed at Gen Y, Hispanic, and Tween target audiences?

When I started my business, I quickly realized I needed to specialize. I dug and wrote down what came to me naturally. I had an affinity for pop culture, fashion, music combined with an internal flair because of my up-bringing (french/hispanic). Indisputably, my strengths rely in pop culture trend forecasting, and understanding the youth demographic. So I decided to apply this knowledge to the work I provide my client. A digital strategy is vacuous if you don’t understand demographic you are reaching out to. You can tweet and blog all you want but if no one cares about what you have to say than it’s a lost cause.

PluggedIn is a new project that you started that is a new web series where you invite your colleagues to debate digital platforms, relevant issues and new technologies affecting the New Media landscape. Where did the idea for this project come from and what were some of the challenges that you faced when putting the web series together?

My goal in 2011 was to create a video blog educating folks about the power of social media. It was hard at first as, everything had already been done. After going through a series of ideas, I decided to collaborate with my friend Trevz founder of thenewpop.com and create a debate show where our colleagues would size up issues in the Social Media landscape. I felt there was little constructive criticism out there about new technology especially from “real users”. It was time we gave a voice to the non techies and for them to provide their insight about which tool they like or dislike. It was important for Trevz and I to create a specific aesthetic for the show while making it entertaining.

Google + hangout launched not to long after we came up with concept, as a logical progression we decided to use the chat technology to host our debates. Producing this show has been one of biggest logistical challenges we have ever faced. It hasn’t been done before so we are literally making it up as we go along. We are constantly testing new video screen grabbing technology, accessing which browsers are better for streaming etc..

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Is the Future of Hip Hop Androgynous?

posted October 20th, 2011 & filed under Fun Stuff, insightful, Miscellaneous

For as long as rap music and hip hop culture have existed, its been known as one of the most hyper-masculine genres. A lot of hip hop culture is based on machismo and posturing to the point where hyperbole eventually becomes actualized. That’s why its interesting to see that rap culture and male culture to a certain extent has become more androgynous over the last few years. Not that it’s become an entirely effeminate day at the spa across the board, but here and there a tinge of a cultural upheaval has become a much more common occurrence.

What’s really interesting is that the very early aesthetic if not directly was at least partially inspired by gay culture. The very origins of some rap DJs and early rap records got tested out in New York City gay clubs before they had a chance to make it to the boombox, and on top of that many early rap songs were derived from disco hits. One of the earliest and most famous was The Sugarhill Gang’s “Rapper’s Delight” which was based on a few second breakbeat from the Chic track “Good Times”. Beyond the musical inspiration for rap origins the clothing was also appropriated or sampled at least partially from gay culture. If you look at very early hip hop clothing from the late 70s to early 80s it was tons of leather and spikes, and gauntlets and chains; it was almost an urban spin on the collective aesthetic between punk and gay leather clubs.

With hip hop culture being one of the most experimental genres of course the aesthetic eventually mutated into tons of different forms over the years and quickly progressed away from its origins to a more urban sportswear look that came in the 1980s and 1990s with Run DMC and their Adidas partnership, and tons of other highly sought after hip hop brands like Troop, Fila, Nike, Coogi, Puma, and countless others. Eventually this aesthetic changed again in the late 1990s to early 2000s and gigantic triple XL everything became the standard hip hop wardrobe.

It wasn’t until the late 2000s that the hip hop aesthetic made a return to a more fitted, and less comically oversized look. Around this same time androgyny within male culture overall became more of a culturally accepted aesthetic. The infamous metrosexual movement in the 2000s (as expertly satirized on South Park) made it okay for men to care more about their physical grooming and a feminine style without suffering the risk of mockery from their male counterparts. As this trend progressed in the mainstream it eventually made its way into hip hop culture.

Kanye West, who has received his own fair share of sexuality comments, was one of the first rappers who made it okay to be seen in the front row at a Galliano show accompanied by Taz Arnold in leopard print leggings (again immortalized on South Park on the classic Kanye gay fish episode) while at the same time maintaining at least some element of street cred within the music industry. Kanye was more of an isolated example at the time he first started immersing himself in the world of fashion, but eventually it became okay for hyper masculine rappers to reference these haute couture designers and still maintain a sense of bravado on their songs.

Artwork via Teen Witch

The last few years has really expanded on what Kanye quasi initiated and now androgyny in rap music has really come to the forefront of the hip hop cultural discussion. One of the main if not the most vocal advocates of this new culture is definitely Lil B. Even before he named his most recent album I’m Gay (I’m Happy), he was lacing his dada based raps with tons of almost gender neutral sentiments. Although Lil B says that he’s 100% straight, he constantly refers to himself as a pretty bitch, has repeatedly called himself a f****t and lesbian on tons of different tracks, and he constantly refers to his wardrobe as “tiny shirt tiny pants” which is a direct inversion of the initial bigger is better aesthetic. Because of his extremely out there album title Lil B has spoken on numerous occasions about the role of sexuality and androgyny in rap music and more then anything he refers to his perception of hip hop culture as all accepting genre with no judgment towards any minority group.

One of the most interesting aspects about this discussion is the sharp contrast between the experimental nature of rap music and its sometimes extremely strict rules of conduct. It’s something that’s completely modern in nature in that it’s the only genre that is entirely based on sampling other genres, but at the same time its aesthetic for the most part has strictly defined rules about what’s acceptable. Something like skinny jeans have really only been worn by men for a few years, and when sub-sects or small areas of the rap community began wearing them, there was a huge backlash in both interviews and songs from the more traditional rap artists. Even recently the rapper Danny Brown was in talks with 50 Cent to be signed to his label G-Unit and one aspect that made the deal fall though was that Danny Brown wears vintage rock t shirts and skinny jeans and has half of his head shaved with an almost wavy pompadour, and even though he’s one of the most talented underground rappers right now, his aesthetic was enough of an issue to sour the deal.

That’s what’s really interesting about the current rap climate and even how androgyny is perceived in different cultures across the board. There was an article in The New York Times recently about a trend among gay men in New York City that wear pumps and stilettos with their otherwise masculine outfits (which is also something that’s been a constant on The Real Housewives of Atlanta since Season 1). On the runway and with street fashion especially in Japan and Europe male leggings have become at least somewhat commonplace for more experimental aesthetics.

In tons of different cultural arenas male androgyny has started to make headway as a more accepted form of expression, and its interesting to see that even in the hyper masculine climate of hip hop culture there’s at least a tinge of that happening, even if the proponents are few and far between. Andre 3000 was wearing absolutely garish almost drag-esque costumes for years, and even the ultimate anti-hero “your rapper’s favorite rapper” Cam’ron was absolutely infatuated with the color pink for a year or so in the early 2000s, to the extent that he was constantly seen hopping out of his custom Laffy Taffy pink Range Rover in head to toe pink chinchilla that looked like a cotton candy factory imploded. Of course Camron and his Dipset cohorts also came up with the well known “No Homo” adlib, its still interesting that hip hop culture has evolved to the point where you can maintain a sense of hyper masculinity while still immersed in an almost Lisa Frank esque aesthetic. Hip Hop culture will probably always have a complicated relationship with androgyny but at least over the years its scope has expanded to start including more experimental aspects that truly hark back to its groundbreaking origins.

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Online Personas and the New Web Avatars

posted October 13th, 2011 & filed under digital trends, Miscellaneous, social networking, technology

The idea of an online persona has become so commonplace that it’s almost easy to forget how recent of a concept it really is. Over the last few years Facebook, Tumblr and other sites have become the go to platforms for teens and Millennials to seamlessly merge their real lives into an online persona that’s equal parts reality mixed with a good helping of hyperbole. Online personas and avatars have become a normal and conventional part of a social media presence where people can easily elaborate on their real world identity while creating a new amalgam where your real life becomes part of a virtual world.

Part of this phenomenon comes from the normalcy most teens feel when going online. They don’t really see any separation between the real world and social media and they view their online profiles as merely an extension of their actual personalities. If you literally grow up within Internet culture then it never really seems false or inorganic; it just becomes another layer of your actual life. Some people take this concept further and create online personas for themselves where they can evolve into any idea they want and shape and mold each and every variable that personifies their online presence.

With the Internet and especially the evolution of new web culture an online persona is easily attainable for anyone that wants to participate. You can create a multifaceted presence within social media by incorporating different elements of your persona through the various online platforms. You can tweet about your avatar’s daily minutia, you can post pics of yourself and your scope of influences on your Tumblr, you can post webcam snapshots or entire vids on your vimeo or Youtube while personally interacting as your persona on your Facebook wall. Each platform becomes another layer of your avatar that eventually accumulates and begins to personify your entire “brand” as a whole.

That’s almost what these avatars turn into, depending on the extent someone wants to get involved or what they’re attempting to accomplish with their persona. Dracula in Dior is a blog that covers current fashion trends from the perspective of a fashion obsessed vampire. Although it’s a persona that’s slightly less real world accented then some other examples, its still exemplifies the infinite possibilities one can incorporate when developing their own persona, avatar, or online brand

Molly Soda has definitely become one of the standout stars of the new web Tumblr era, and her brand has become really well represented through every online platform, eventually leading to physical press like her interview in the underground culture magazine SuperSuper. There’s numerous examples of people that develop an online persona for themselves, whether purposefully or letting it organically evolve over time, which could potentially become as influential for others as some of their own personal persona influences.

That’s another aspect that’s so interesting about the phenomenon of social media avatars. It’s still such a new concept that’s its evolving everyday and someone could start a Tumblr based on aspects of the avatars of other personas and if they’re innovative and standout enough their own “avatar” could eventually come to influence others, and the process and culture would keep evolving and changing from there.

That’s what’s so intriguing for the current crop of tweens, teens, and other Millennials that spend a majority of their waking hours online. Within a certain extent you really can be anything you want online. Sometimes when reality interferes with this concept as in the “documentary” Catfish the results aren’t exactly what’s initially expected, but for the most part developing your own persona or avatar online in the context of creative pursuits only serves to expand your brand and the extent of your creative possibilities.

A lot of people’s online personas incorporate aspects of their real life personality but they expand upon them to include qualities people might feel their lacking or wish they had in real life. That’s why so much of this new culture is so attractive for tweens, teens, and almost anyone who’s grown up or to a certain was extent raised by the Internet. You can be anything online you can dream up and it doesn’t matter which aspects are real or which are hyperbole; they all eventually coalesce into an amorphous mush that’s one part organism and one part entirely virtual until the two are virtually indistinguishable from one another.

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