one part truth, two parts mixer

Vote Dizzee

Finally got round to watching Dizzee on Newsnight. 'Mr Rascal' points out that Barack 'embraced hip hop, that's the way he got through to the kids, there was more young vote than ever'. I find it fascinating because a whole section of society who have been linked to crime and violence because of their music tastes (and remember that hip hop outsells country music Stateside) have a leader who understands that hip hop is not a gateway drug. No wonder they turned up to vote. Imagine a British PM who listed Dizzee or Wiley amongst his favourite artists.

Cheers maki for the link

West-fiield

So, we have a new luxury shopping mall as we officially enter recession. I haven't been to the Westfield mall, and I'm not really interested in doing so. Apparently they aren't very kid-friendly, which immediately puts me off, plus all the shops I'm interested in have branches much closer to me.

The reason I'm writing about Westfield is because I remember reading a comment in Campaign about how unsuitable the logo is. I quite like it, but mainly because it looks like it should be a logo for a fifties cigarette brand.

Gen DIY

'We traded photocopiers for Macs.'

What a nice quote from the brilliant Kate Moross about the DIY generation, which is basically another name for what the Future Laboratory call the Slash/Slash generation, which I have written about before and Neil writes a whole blog about here. What I like about the quote is that it nods to the creativity in youth and sub-cultures that went on before cheap technology. Slash/Slash kids or whatever you want to call them aren't doing anything particularly new, it's just that they have better tools to be creative and more effective ways of self-promotion.

I caught the end of the fanzine era and remember fondly sending 50 pence pieces in the post and then receiving a lovingly made fanzine. Moross is so brilliant is because she obviously puts a lot of love into her work, like the fanzine heads before her.

Slash/slash GO!

So I was at The Future Laboratory trend briefing yesterday, which gave me a chance to catch up with the clever people who work there. Anyway, Martin Raymond had some quoteable things to say about what Future Lab call the Slash/Slash generation, a generation who basically do it all and shamelessly self-promote because they can. Neil writes a whole blog about it (here).

According to Raymondus, 'they are a generation who create opportunity out of necessity', which got me thinking about art, culture and impending financial doom; and how the recessions are times of great creativity. I also liked the quote that s/sers gained 'celebrity by intention or by default if they had the right network'.

But the most interesting thought came from guest Gabriel Shalom, who spoke about how licensing is the most important thing for this generation because ownership is how you make paper. This throws up an interesting question for record labels, film companies or any other company that operates a traditional model of monetising creativity: how do you convince entrepreneurial mercurial youth to hand over any of their paycheque? Will the future be about distribution models rather than promotion models, because the creatives are quite adept at promoting themselves?

Brandlash

Interesting bit of thinking on Neil's blog (sorry, can't link to the story but it's called Brand Unsavvy Youth).

Basically, certain entrepreneurial teenagers are trading on knowledge rather than branded goods, which is obviously different from when I were a lass and the amount of Benetton you owned was directly linked to how cool you were. Neil has a nice quote from some young fellow that sums it up neatly: 'I express myself through the 'brand I am' not the 'brand I wear'.

Anyway it's a nice thought that teenagers have come full circle (proper Ascent of Man/Hierarchy of Needs shit) from using brands to define them to creating their own style, becoming their own brand.