First off, a warning: I gave blood yesterday (Monday) and, while I'm pretty sure I'm almost full-on back to my normal self, I could conceivably go on many a tangent with relation to this entire endeavor, this last blog entry of the class. Also, to come full circle, I had to order the first book for this class online, and so it was with this one. Circle of life, I guess.
Anyway, something that stood out to me in considering this blog entry with regards to Ulmer's Avatar Emergency was that he pointed out how "brand" in the sense that it's used in social media and indeed in everyday conversation these days is different from "avatar." I'm not sure that I believe that, or that the distinction can be so easily made. For one thing, when I first began surfing the 'Net, going to message boards about favorite obscure bands from the Eighties (my particular drug of choice in this was Joy Division, which after Ian Curtis' suicide became New Order, the group responsible for "Blue Monday" and most of techno music in the Eighties), I had to create an "avatar," which I understood as being "me but not me." That is, it was something promised in the early days of the internet, to "lose yourself" in the creation of an online identity that shared some tertiary traits with you but which could be enhanced, downgraded (in case you didn't like yourself but the world saw you as confident or something), or just tolerated by the others. Said toleration could be exhausted if you were an asshole online (as, regrettably, I sometimes...okay, often was). We still see it today, with Internet "trolls" who, far from ever offering anything constructive to say, simply feast upon the insecurities of whomever they're pursuing, posting comments and other such ephemera to take down their intended target. I think that's why I posted the link to the Gamergate story from Deadspin (and also, to help increase my grade in class via Facebook group postings), a way of making amends for my own troll-like behavior in the past by pointing out more recent instances of it by people (usually men) who really should know better at this juncture. The internet is about twenty to twenty-five years old, at this point. It's time it started acting like an adult.
Another thing: the terms "brand" and "narrative" have been in use a lot lately (I watch ESPN a lot, and both come up whether discussing a particular player's image or how a story plays out), and what I think merits discussion is whether this is a good thing or not. Branding yourself (figuratively, at least) as a concept has been around for decades, but it's only recently, it seems, that we're more open about discussing it. Branding is a term from marketing, I once had a job interview with a marketing firm in Greenville and when the question of "what is marketing" came up on the application I should've just written "branding" (instead I wrote something nonsensical, in retrospect. No wonder I never heard back from them). "Narrative" is borrowed, to my mind anyway, from literary studies, that is, the basis of fiction as an art. If the narrative doesn't work, the fiction falls apart. This is a lesson many a screenwriter of various late-night Cinemax movies never learned (not that narrative was ever the motivating factor behind such films, or indeed action films, which leads me to think that the beats both porn and action strive to hit are so similar as to merit a discussion of what each owes the other and what each gets from the other. Told ya I'd ramble).
I think we hear a lot about brand and narrative today because, in a sense, these are analog responses to a digital future. These are concepts that have been around forever (or at least seem to) and the internet, while more than old enough to drink, vote, and die in a war, is still really young compared to more ancient and established media. In terms of both terms, allow me to mention two people who, really, should never be mentioned in any academic setting: Kim Kardashian and Jameis Winston. God help me, I know, but hear me out.
Kim Kardashian is branded as a sexy woman whose main attribute, whose sole contribution to Western society (apart from her sex tape or her reality show) is her buttocks. They are ample, indeed, and she has literally made a career of showing them off (most recently for a magazine desperate for the publicity). We know (or "know") that there's nothing of substance going on behind that face of hers, that her brain is simply a repository of Kanye West lyrics and "how can I show off my ass this week" queries. That is her brand, and we (even those of us who are sick of her) buy into it. But the narrative, such as it is, is flawed: clearly this woman has the intelligence and self-awareness to know that what sells (this image of her as a sexualized woman not afraid to flaunt it in various states of undress) is what keeps her business (the business of being Kim Kardashian) going. She is much, much smarter than we would give her credit for, in public. Her skills of manipulation when it comes to the media (even when they're talking about how sick they are of her, and what kind of message is she sending to our kids who idolize her) are worthy of any discussion of media strategies. In ten years, her celebrity will most likely fade (then again, people said that back when she got famous, and she's still in the news). At any rate, someday she'll be sitting on a huge pile of cash because we all bought into the narrative that her presence merits discussion.
Jameis Winston comes to mind because, well, the book we're studying is written by a professor who teaches at the University of Florida, but the color scheme on the book cover (orange and green) suggests associations with the University of Miami, so the quarterback at Florida State seems a fair topic. In terms of brand, it's this: he's never lost a game as a starter (and the way this season is going, he never will), he's got talent on loan from God (to borrow a phrase the ever-so-humble Rush Limbaugh applies to himself), and he's got some off-the-field issues. The narrative, however, is this: He's a villain because of his off-the-field issues, and every win his team experiences is a slap in the face of decent society, and oh boy what about his arm (but too bad it's connected to such a "thug"). Now, taking into account the fact that the media (sports media in particular) needs someone like Winston to galvanize discussion (in case the games themselves don't live up to the hype that ESPN and other networks invest in such displays of brutality), is any of this fair to Winston as a human being? It may or may not be, depending on the truth surrounding the allegations against him when it comes to women (recently, beloved entertainer Bill Cosby has himself been the target of rape allegations, whether these allegations are true or not will affect the narrative and brand of Cosby as "America's family man" and as a child of the Eighties, I hope it's not true, but as a child of post-OJ celebrity exposes, I fully expect there to be some truth to the allegations). Each competing narrative, each competing brand, seperates us further from the truth of the individual, the truth of the actual person. Online bullying exists because some people can't seperate themselves from their online selves, can't pass it off as just people picking on their avatars, brands, narratives, and not themselves. Maybe in time, such building up of narratives and brands can extinguish the flame of online bullies and trolls, help mediate between those being bullied and those doing the bullying.
Roger Goodell could certainly do with some re-branding or fashioning of a new narrative, because he's damned if he does (suspends Adrian Peterson for the year) and damned if he doesn't (suspends Ray Rice for two games, initially). All of this affects the real Roger Goodell (or if you believe South Park, the Goodell-bot), but what we see is the brand of "protector of the shield" in awkward, embarrassing press conferences. We live in an age of "no publicity is bad publicity," but I wonder if that's such a good thing. I feel outrage at Winston when I see him on TV, decrying what he's alleged of doing...all while being a fan of Woody Allen (alleged child molester), John Lennon (beat his first wife, neglected his first son, may have been under Yoko Ono's control), Hunter S. Thompson (decades of drug abuse), and so on. Morality might not have a place in the brands or narratives we construct today.
Also, narrative depend on the dominant group in charge, so maybe it's a good thing to have multiple narratives of events. I was joking around on a friend's Facebook page about how, in a certain light, Luke Skywalker is a mass murderer when he blows up the Death Star. It sounds ludicrous, of course, but that's just because we've bought into the narrative that Lucasfilm promoted. Always interesting to think about it in different terms, I think.
At any rate, I have enjoyed this class (and even come away understanding more about the subject that I initially thought), so if this is the end, it has been a trip.
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