The Adventures of Accordion Guy in the 21st Century

The hair! The awkward VJ delivery! The public-access TV production values! Night Ranger! It’s all here in the two Google Video clips below, featuring three hours’ total of MTV from 1983, back when it was a channel that showed music videos…

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Weird ads for a product called “Obay” have been popping up all over Accordion City for the past week:

Click the photo to see it on its Flickr page.

It’s obvious that the product doesn’t actually exist and that it’s some sort of viral marketing campaign. As for what the campaign is meant to promote, most people with whom I’ve spoken to about the ads think that it’s some kind of jab at parents who are following the disturbing trend of medicating their teenage kids out of normal teenage behaviour and into Stepford adolescence.

One person on the TorCamp mailing list wrote that a colleague doing consulting work for a nearby college says that it’s an ad campaign for Ontario colleges.

I suppose we’ll find out soon enough.

Click the photo to see it on its source page.

Have you seen these ads?

A very snarky and amusing blog has popped up in the past few months: Stuff White People Like, and the title is a pretty good summary of what it’s about. Among the stuff covered are:

• Hating their parents.
• Asian girls.
• Wes Anderson movies. See the links here for more on the debate about his films.
• Religions that their parents don’t belong to. “Mostly they are into religion that fits really well into their homes or wardrobe and doesn’t require them to do very much.”
• Writer’s workshops. (cough Cory cough Doctorow!)
• 80s nights. When I was a teen, it was 60s nights.
• Vegan/vegetarianism. When once asked if there was a Filipino word for “vegetarian” or “vegan”, I replied “retard”.
• Renovations.
• Apple products.
• Arts degrees. “But what about the white people who study Science, Engineering or Business? Unless they become doctors, they essentially lose white person status (and can only be regained by working at a non-profit).”
• Whole Foods. “White people need organic food to survive, and where they purchase this food is as important as what they purchase. In modern white person culture, Whole Foods has replaces churches and cathedrals as the most important and relevant buildings in the community.”
• Apologies. White people know that their ancestors did some messed up things. As a result, it has become hard wired for them to apologize for almost anything. In fact, white people are so used to apologizing that they start all sentences that might cause disagreement with “I’m sorry.” For example “I’m sorry, but Garden State was a better film than Hard Eight.”
• Juno.
• Knowing what’s best for poor people. “It is a poorly guarded secret that, deep down, white people believe if given money and education that all poor people would be EXACTLY like them. In fact, the only reason that poor people make the choices they do is because they have not been given the means to make the right choices and care about the right things.”
• Divorce.

I am surprised that they haven’t covered mayonnaise yet. Perhaps they’re saving it for the 100th post.

I do like a number of the things listed in Stuff White People Like (Apple products, microbrews, wine, kitchen gadgets and bicycles in particular), so depending on your point of view and your personal politics, I’m either well-adapted or I’ve sold out. Feel free to discuss this in the comments!

Photo courtesy of Miss Fipi Lele.

Card courtesy of Miss Fipi Lele.

This old Valentine’s Day card would be offensive if it weren’t so pathetic and laughable. Has someone notified Angry Asian Man?

Click the card above to see others.

Click here to see some equally bad Valentine’s Day cards along the same theme.