Behold the Dangerous Power of Cheese

Behold the Dangerous Power of Cheese

Lancaster Intelligencer Journal April 19, 2008

By: Stanley Marsh

A Lancaster teen was hospitalized yesterday from urea poisoning, as a result of “cheesing.” Cheesing is a new phenomenon among high school aged teens, wherein cat urine is used to achieve a drug-like high through inhalation or smoking.

The “high” achieved from Cheesing is actually the premature sign of urea poisoning, a result of increased ammonia intoxication into the bloodstream. Urea poisoning, which can occur in as little as 10 minutes after the initial “high,” is recognizable through frothy salivation, grinding of the teeth, rapid breathing, muscle tremors, and seizure-like activity. In extreme cases, urea or ammonia poisoning can lead to death.

The hospitalized teen, whose name has been withheld due to family request, was taken by ambulance to Lancaster County Hospital at 8:14 Friday evening after a friend phoned 911 due to the teen’s compulsive shaking. The teen was given IV fluids and monitored overnight before being released early Saturday morning.

The hospitalized teen reportedly learned about Cheesing from a classmate, “[We] were bored on a Friday night, and heard about Cheesing at school, so we strung my Mom’s cat up with stirrups, and tickled her belly ‘till she Cheesed on us…I felt great for a few minutes but then passed out…”

This is the third, and most serious Cheesing incident reported this month in the Lancaster area. Cheesing is becoming a public health concern, but the Lancaster County public health director couldn’t be reached for comment. If you know someone who may be cheesing, contact the Lancaster County Board of Public Health at 717-299-7597.

Fly free magic jet pack people, fly free!

As a man of German and Eastern European descent, shaving has been a reality since the ripe age of about thirteen. The adolescent shards of stache that so promptly dotted my upper lip and cheeks weren't however met with celebration, as if it were some non-secular signifier of becoming a man, instead, it became a tedious activity of removal that I now must endure on a bi-weekly basis, yes as a young boy, I came to see that shaving was a royal pain in the ass.

Had I seen the Edge commercial, I may have felt differently. In all of my ignorance and ineptitude, it took me all of twenty-two years to finally learn the truth; that shaving elixir I had been putting on my face all of these years, which I callously mistakened for shaving cream, is actually a small utopia of scantily clad women partying and spraying the elements of said cream. And that intoxicating scent, oh the smell of demigocic masculine musk that all this time I thought was a by-product of Aloe and male marketing, it turns out to again, be women with jet packs, assaulting my olfactory senses through their raw sexuality and utter deliciousness.

Now this ad is not without faults, in fact, it brings up some disconcerting and frankly downright disturbing questions.

The ad depicts the products use on the face, now as I have previously mentioned, I am of German and Eastern European descent, an needless to say, my mustache wasn't the only hair growing in my early teen years. Spring cleaning, dusting for cobwebs, trimming the hedges, shaving some pubes, whatever euphemism you use, one thing is for sure, that cream isn't just for the face. Without preface or qualification, this product seems to have consequences of non-facial applications, particularly, the disconcerting tickle that having magic women dancing in your more private areas, or worse, a mis-guided jet pack journey ending in a tragic cathartic result.

What's more, I am disturbed by the work ethic of the female cream appliers; with the exorbitant price of commodities, the waste produced by the women shooting eachother with each ingredient ostensibly jacks up the price to an unneccesarry level. I'm sure this is a concern of most viewers, and that it will be addressed in corporate policy and training.

I also can't help asking myself, why do such attractive, tiny women find work applying face cream? They didn't appear to be intellectually handicapped, nor did they appear to be overtly lazy or cynical.

Finally, the last question I posed to myself was, is there a converse for women's shaving products, ie. are men employed to apply cream in women's shave gels/foams? Also, is there any crossover? I'm not sure how I feel about shaving my more delicate parts knowing that tiny women (and possibly men depending on the availability of workers) have full panoramic view of my junk. I also wonder how consumers would react to knowing that tiny women and/or men are running around their shaven parts, as the average consumer doesn't dig as deep as we here at GINA.

Inter-axe-ive garbage.

(Click the image to see the ridiculousness)

Today we will discuss Axe, of "chauvinistic non-sequiturs that reduce all females to man-craving h-bags" fame, and their foray into the world  of interactivity, that's right, the internet.  

GINA (dot com) has recently obtained the creative brief for this project, which sheds a bit of light into the psyche of both Axe, and it's target audience.  

The Brief:

Project Description:

A website that further re-enforces Axe's positioning for men, behind a sexy coed with his hoohaw in her heehaw.  

Target Audience:

Primary: Male virgins 13-36

Secondary: Economically disadvantaged gay men

Purpose:

This website should communicate, to an online-savvy audience (because let's be honest, our target audience spends LOTS of time online, and not looking at news, no they look at the sites that result in spyware and pop-ups.  To be perfectly clear, we are talking about pornography, particularly, with midgets.) that Axe will get you laid.

The site should have little trinkets and doo-dads to support the main goal.

Rational and Emotional Promise:

Rational: Using Axe gets you laid, perhaps even by entire sororities.

Emotional: Getting laid, perhaps even by entire sororities, will allow you to fulfill your lifetime goal of getting laid (perhaps even by entire sororities).

Mandatories:

For SEO purposes, the following words and phrases must be used as many times as possible:

Sexify

Sex

Sexy

Sexy-time

Sexy-bodacious

Get you laid

No longer a pathetic virgin loser

Clothing-Removal

Roofies

Sorority

Delta

Sigma

Phi

Fraternity rush

Axe effect resulting in unwanted children

Date rape.

Quite an interesting creative brief to say the least.  I would like to highlight my favorite copy on the entire site, and perhaps even the entire internet.

"Science shows that Axe's improved fragrance acts upon the female libido and stimulates the clothing-removal section of the female brain.  Which means you can fulfill more of your manly desires.  One application of the new improved Axe and you'll smell like a hunk of man candy all day long.  Which is good, because babes like man candy. lots."

This is quite the interesting block of copy; as we can see, Axe has decided to appeal to each man's scientific sense (or scents, see what I did there, because it is a fragrance [sic.], it's a joke, get it?) to illustrate the very scientifically grounded, Axe effect.

I don't have a re-print copy of the breakthrough study "Axe Fragrance Effect on the Female Homo Sapien Clothing-Removal Section of the Medulla Oblongata" (Journal of Sexyology) but it concludes:

 "Axe is quite efficacious in stimulating nudity in females."

Interestingly, the Axe group received concomitant dosing of Gamma Hydroxy Butyrate (GHB, aka roofies) with each dose of Axe, which the study design explains, "..was included for the highest level of accuracy to real world scenarios."

Uh, yeah.

Study: Skinny Women Better for Bottom Line;

Researchers find thin models make viewers like brands more, but themselves less.

This gem of an article can be found here.

I will sum this article up very concisely: hot babes sell, fatty-regular-non-celery-eating-tub-o-lards not so much.

You say lactose intolerant, we say girly-man

Mike's Hard Lemonade (not just a ballpark refreshment for kids mind you) has gotten back on the advertising wagon after a few year lull.

Much like their past efforts, MHL is targeting the "tough guy" demographic which is reflected in the (lack of) substance of their advertisements.  Gumisnotasnack.com spoke to Mack Holden, chief marketing officer of the World Wide Web about this strategy.  "Mike's Hard Lemonade's new marketing is an apparent contradiction because of the lack of reality distilled into the efforts.  My 15 year old daughter wouldn't even be caught dead drinking Mike's, as research shows that 84% of Mike's consumption is by the 8-11 female demographic."  Mr. Holden and his firm, known simply by most as, 'the internet,' also found that there is no empirical or verifiable evidence of Mike's Hard Lemonade consumption by the following groups:

-Construction workers

-Factory Foremen

-Tough guys

-Frat boys

-Human beings over the age of 14

The contradictory efforts become even more convoluted once the advertisements are actually viewed.  The essence of the execution above is ostensibly aimed at detracting any yuppie-girly-men, the type who drink soy milk (or are lactose-intolerant for that matter, as that is an apparent sign of 'sissy-tude') from consuming the beverage. This effort would be well and good, if not for the insertion into both the product line and advertisement, of Mike's Light Hard Lemonade.  

A brief analysis of the selling message yields the following: It is ok to worry about caloric intake (and ostensibly body-image, blood sugar, et al.) but if you drink soy milk, back off buster, this product is not for you.

Double-Intenuandos

In an absolut world, advertising this bad would be punishable by flogging

These ads were sent to us by an avid reader, Mack Holden, a fine writer in his own regard. I think I speak for all GINAS readers when i say, "thanks Mack."

In continuing the theme of advertising that really grinds my gears I proudly [sic.] present three executions from the "In an Absolut world" campaign. What is especially troubling is that, judging by Absolut's past advertising trends, this shitstorm of a campaign will likely last for decades.

The boring headline/tagline/amalgamated mess (which is begging for ellipses.  Does Chiat/Day not have proofreaders?) segues into trite imagery that can only be described as "gear grinding."

Rather than analyzing these ads verbatim (which really grinds my gears), I will provide the ostensible sublines that were so conveniently ommited to make them less morally reprehensible.  Ok fine, I will also briefly rant on each.

Ad 1: In an Absolut world...

"Obvious and predictable images would be edgy"

"You could stick with the bottle campaign for 10 more years"

"This wouldn't be considered anti-semitic" (it's ok, my dad's a Jew)

"Everyone would get Pinocchio references"

Kudos for finding the single most generic and benign secret-service agent ever.  The absence of dark aviator glasses is quite cutting edge, only in an Absolut world.

Also, with Disney movie references, perhaps Absolut should amend their "Absolut World" idea to better reflect the totality of those who understand the whole "big nose= lying" connotation.  Something tells me that little boys and girls touted by Sally Struthers in third world countries would be rather confused by this one.  Quite the dilemma, as "In an Absolut developed capitalist market World" doesn't really have the same ring to it.

Ad 2: In an Absolut world...

"everyone's name is dirk"

"an inch feels like eight"

"standards of measure are thrown out the window to accommodate the well hung(take that metric)"

"everything measures up to that one guy in college"

"foreskin would really be eightskin"

A dick reference, edgy.  I suppose this has been an underlying theme in Absolut's advertising, as the bottle could be perceived by Tipper Gore types as "phallic."  I'm extremely distracted by the decision to go with 8 inches here; I imagine the decision was made on a slow tuesday about an hour before lunch, in a conversation much like the one below:

"So we need to somehow convey that in an absolut world, everyone has a huge dick"

"How big is huge?"

"I dunno, 12 inches?"

"Damn, that is huge"

"Too huge?"

"I don't know man, that's pretty huge."

"That's true"

"What about 10 inches?"

"Dude, I one knew a guy..."

"Bro..."

"..."

"10 is pretty huge"

(Female AE walks by)

"My ex-boyfriend was 8 inches, that was the biggest I've seen"

(AE walks away)

"8 sounds good"

"Yeah"

"That chick's a slut"

"Totally"

"I'd hit it"

Ad 3: In an Absolut world...

"My apartment would be furnished exclusively by ikea"

"Sex dolls would be modularly designed, and easily packable"

"You wouldn't have to clean up your Hung Harry doll when grandma comes over for brunch"

"Your man-friend would be an amalgamation of Brett Michaels, a generic Williamsburg hipster, and Billy Zane"

"This box would have come with lube"

Ignoring the obvious gender stereotyping and playing into the whole "ideal man" thing, what really grinds my gears about this ad is the packing peanuts.  Seriously, in an Absolut World, packages still come with those annoying, crumbly, get all over everything in sight packing peanuts?  Perhaps I don't fully grasp the "idea" behind this campaign, for a moment I thought that they substituted "idyllic" with "Absolut," but clearly not, as in my idyllic world, packages would be padded with money or my sense of self-pride, not the most heinous invention in packing history.   

As this is the internet, which I've been told is interactive, please feel free to come up with your own subliness in the comments section.  The best one will win the admiration of the entire internet.

please examine this closely

(click on the image to get a better view)


Amy Winehouse- wtf, cnn.com visitors? ::sigh::

When a man's junk becomes a women's choice

There is a disconcerting trend that is becoming increasingly prevalent in the world of advertising, one that looks to sabotage and erase any remaining autonomy men in relationships have over their consumption decisions. I'm talking of course about advertising male-exclusive products to women through the use of male eye-candy.

This trend seems to be deliberate and contrived, as each ad follows a stringent set of guidelines without any level of deviation. The guidelines are:

• All men must appear shirtless, and if possible, in tight-fitting, gonad displaying undergarments

• All said men must have at LEAST a six-pack of abs; eight-packs and greater are strongly encouraged

• There should be no copy present in the ads with the exception of that which further articulates the hunkiness of males depicted

• All males must appear glistening with apparent post-copulation induced sweat; procreation sells

• Products/Brands should have no logical connection to any of the imagery and/or be depicted on the models. To clarify: An ad for Diesel blue jeans should not depict anyone wearing blue jeans, the appropriate iconography would be a total beefcake, dripping with sweat, wearing either a shard of denim, or more favorably, an androgynous waif's head blocking said beefcakes genitalia (Note: Unless ad is for a European market, then prominently displaying the beefcake's junk is the proper mode of action).

These ads seek to circumvent males in the male-specific product buying decision by appealing to their significant others, who through delusional logic, will encourage (read: force) the male in question to purchase the product with the hope that it's consumption will directly lead to eight-pack abs, and general increase in beefcakieness. Of course when the mere mortal males consume the products their guts still hang distended above their belt in shame and disappointment. This reality has forced advertisers to find even foxier male models, models who have muscles we didn't even know existed, toned to a perfect level of beefcake.

It will be interesting to track the progress of this trend in the future, to see if advertisers can recreate and one up themselves in hopes of fooling dissatisfied girlfriends into an idealized notion of reality. While the future may be unsure, many advertising experts believe that the far reaches of Eastern Europe will have to be tapped to find abs only thought possible with the help of Adobe Photoshop.

Editors Note:

The same advertising logic applies to women-specific products being marketed to men. To fully understand this, re-read the above article replacing any mention of males with females and females with males. Two articles in one.

Grinding My Gears...

10 template options for blogging? really? my gears are grinding...