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stayfree - Stay F---! | 5 June 2007

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  • From: Carrie McLaren <temporary181 AT stayfreemagazine.org>
  • To: stayfree AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Stay F---! | 5 June 2007
  • Date: Wed, 6 Jun 2007 09:46:33 -0400

Hello, here are recent highlights from the Stay F---! blog for you. Apologies again for the delay, but we've been busy working on a book proposal at Stay Free! HQ. Per usual, see http://blog.stayfreemagazine.org or full text, images, and more articles.



KILLING TREES FOR ADS

In case you've run out of reasons to hate outdoor advertising, here's one: billboard advertisers are poisoning and chopping down trees that get in the way of people seeing their ads along highways.

Continued at:
http://blog.stayfreemagazine.org/2007/06/trees_billboard.html



THE VIRGIN THAT WANTS YOU

After Virgin Mobile's painfully misguided attempt at targeted advertising, Jason Torchinsky discovers that Virgin's micro-marketing is even worse than he thought.
http://blog.stayfreemagazine.org/2007/05/the_virgin_that.html



A 1934 AD FOR "SKINNY" WOMEN TO GAIN WEIGHT

It's hard to imagine a time when it was common for American women to try to put *on* weight. But thanks to this awesome 1934 ad we know it happened.
http://blog.stayfreemagazine.org/2007/05/fat_ad_women_sk.html



NEW ZEALAND FIGHTS BACK AGAINST ATTRACTIVENESS

Pity poor Burger King. A distant number two to McDonald's, they try to close the gap with a little T&A and a bunch of New Zealand tightasses shut them down. It appears that the Kiwis don't allow advertising that uses "sex appeal simply to draw attention to a product." Apparently, some people in New Zealand have daughters or are women or something.
http://blog.stayfreemagazine.org/2007/05/burger_king_bab.html



ARE CONSUMER PRODUCTS MADE TO BREAK?

Carrie interviews Giles Slade about his book _Made to Break: Technology and Obsolescence in America._
http://blog.stayfreemagazine.org/2007/04/are_consumer_pr.html



ARE OLD HOUSES REALLY BUILT TO LAST?

While it's often said that consumer producs are "made to break," a little over a year ago I started wondering about buildings. Do real estate interests plan for obsolescence in the same way product designers do?
http://blog.stayfreemagazine.org/2007/04/brownstones_old.html



REPLACING ADS WITH ART

Stay Free! blogger Steve Lambert of the Anti-Advertising Agency got some coverage in the New York Times for AddArt, a Firefox App that replaces advertising on web pages with modern art.
http://blog.stayfreemagazine.org/2007/05/replacing_ads_w.html



THE "GOOD" NEWS ABOUT JAPAN'S INCREASINGLY AMERICAN DIET?

This story in the Wall Street Journal just caught my eye: "Japanese Clothiers Update Their Lines; Changes in Diet Produce Curvier Bodies in Women." It begins: "All over Japan, retailers are scrambling to keep up with a new look known as 'bon-kyu-bon.' It means 'big-small-big' and it signals a change in the way Japanese women look: They're getting curvier."
http://blog.stayfreemagazine.org/2007/05/japan_diet_fat.html



EUPHEMISM OF THE WEEK

What do you call the "agitation, anxiety, akathesia, panic attacks, irritability, aggressiveness, worsening of mood, dysphoria, crying spells or mood lability, overactivity or hyperactivity, depersonalization" and other symptoms suffered from getting off of SSRI antidepressants such as Prozac or Zoloft? Well, if you're in the pharmaceutical business, you don't call the problem "withdrawal," you call it "Antidepressant Discontinuation Syndrome."
http://blog.stayfreemagazine.org/2007/05/antidepressant_.html



CLOSED-CAPTION COVER-UP

Sometimes my role as a Luddite assists in my more prominent role as defender of the underdog. In this instance, the underdogs in question are users of television's closed-captioning feature: the hearing impaired, viewers of any BBC series, and hammered fans in loud sports bars. I was watching a VHS tape of the final episode of the sadly ignored sitcom, Andy Barker, P.I. The recording's sound quality was dreadful, so I periodically had to revert to those trusty closed captions to catch a particularly garbled word....
http://blog.stayfreemagazine.org/2007/04/closedcaption_c.html



A MAGAZINE YOU CAN READ IN YOUR UNDERWEAR

I've been spammed for a lot of things that I neither need nor want. Out of all the junk I've received, however, I can think of nothing I want less than Blogger & Podcaster magazine. Finally, a print magazine worth leaving my computer for!
http://blog.stayfreemagazine.org/2007/04/magazines_about.html



THE SOCIOLOGY OF TRANSIT

I've been reading about urban planning and transportation lately and thought I'd share an observation gleaned from a couple of books--namely, _The Geography of Nowhere_ by Howard Kunstler and _How Cities Work_ by Alex Marshall. The observation goes something like this: seemingly simple changes to city streets or pathways can change entire ways of living. In the same way that removing a particular insect can spark a chain of events that ultimately transforms the "natural" world, the design of roads, trains, and city spaces can radically alter the social environment -- the way people live...
http://blog.stayfreemagazine.org/2007/04/sprawl_cities_n.html



KIDS WITH AUTISM LIKE TO RECITE ADVERTISING

In response to my post about autism and TV, reader Bernardo tipped me off to this story from China Daily about autistic kids' penchant for reciting advertising...
http://blog.stayfreemagazine.org/2007/04/autism_ads.html



TARGET MARKET CROSS REFERENCE

Alexis Lloyd has created a mini-database of outdoor advertising in different New York neighborhoods; East Harlem, SoHo, and the Upper East Side. Adscape is an online inventory of ads appearing in public space in the week she took her survey. The site provides evidence for all those hunches on how marketers target groups of people.
http://blog.stayfreemagazine.org/2007/03/target_market_c.html



  • Stay F---! | 5 June 2007, Carrie McLaren, 06/06/2007

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