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Ever have someone tell you to do something you knew in your head you should do, but couldn’t avoid a gut-level reaction to do the opposite? When you see a “Keep off the grass” sign, does it make you want to play a game of football? Does all the anti-smoking rhetoric make you want to flare one up?

If the answer is yes, then you may have a high level of Reactance. We love our freedom, and will act in irrational and self-destructive ways whenever it is threatened. It’s a factor behind things like the Boston Tea Party, poor performance at work, and the growing rejection of Global Warming.

The full article on Reactance at Harvard Business Review.

This was originally posted on meshack.com on 5/20/2008.

So I took a nice little drive of about 1100 miles to Reno, Nevada recently. I’ve never minded long drives, but people keep asking me how I keep from going stir crazy on trips like that. I tell them, “you load up your iPod, hit cruise control, put your feet up on the dash and your head back in your hands, and come up with brilliant ideas like: the Oh Shit Light©.”

Read the rest of this entry »

Once a year the nation gathers to celebrate an unabashed display of testosterone and masculinity. The manly virtues of competition, violence and even war are honored in this ceremonial display known as… The Super Bowl. So it’s incredibly funny that in this year’s Super Bowl, viewed by the largest audience in TV history, the most masculine figure to appear in the commercials is a 4 year old boy.

Advertising narratives are interesting. They can’t be too true to life, or they would be boring. But they can’t stray to far from truth or they won’t connect with the audience. At 3 million dollars for 30 seconds, you can bet that the brands involved spent copious amounts of time, money and research to calibrate and deliver the perfect narrative.

Did they succeed? Read the rest of this entry »

Former Ralph Lauren model, Filippa Hamilton is 5′10″ and weighs 120 lbs., and despite this image, no, her head is not really bigger than her waist.

These days you can assume that every commercial image you see has been touched up in some way. The less innocuous ones erase stray hairs, remove a zit, or even out a blemish. More gratiuitous ones remove any signs of pores, erase 10 pounds, or increase bust a cup size or two. But this image from Ralph Lauren is just ridiculous.

So ridiculous in fact, it has made it’s way across the blogosphere in places like Photoshop Disasters and Boing Boing. Normally I wouldn’t bother commenting. Yes, this is a case of the fashion industry creating an impossible ideal of beauty, possibly devastating the self-esteems of women everywhere… but what else is new?

When called out on their photoshop flub however, Ralph Lauren issued DMCA takedown notices to the above mentioned websites, which were critical of the image. Nothing is as outrageous as a company hiding behind their lawyers and abusing the DMCA, when the usage is clearly protected as criticism and comment. Nothing that is except another company that complies with the takedown notice blindly, removing the content without question or appeal, like Google did when it removed the image from Photoshop Disasters.

Ralph Lauren issued an apology, saying

“For over 42 years we have built a brand based on quality and integrity. After further investigation, we have learned that we are responsible for the poor imaging and retouching that resulted in a very distorted image of a woman’s body. We have addressed the problem and going forward will take every precaution to ensure that the caliber of our artwork represents our brand appropriately.”

Ralph Lauren however also fired poor Filippa for of all things, being too fat. Sorry Filippa… but even though you’re fat, I still love you. Call me, we’ll go out for cheeseburgers.

To anyone who has ever posted a clip of their favorite NBC show on YouTube or another social networking site, only to have it taken down and be slapped with a threatening DMCA infringement notice… Your day of reckoning has finally come, sort of.

http://cityfile.com/dailyfile/7508

First you need to understand that when YouTube pulled down your favorite Jay Leno skit because of a DMCA infringement, it wasn’t YouTube, so don’t be mad at them. It was NBC flagging your video as a DMCA infringement with YouTube, who then takes down your video without question. Though you do have an appeal process, most people are frightened off by the legalese of the notice.

Working for NBC’s Anti-Piracy division, I learned that where fair use ends and where copyright infringement begins is a big grey area, and media companies like NBC have erred unapologetically on the side of what makes them the most money. They can do this because they have more money, more clout and more lawyers than you do.

Read about The Inexact Science Behind D.M.C.A. Takedown Notices.

Now NBC is getting a taste of it’s own medicine, being sued for copyright infringement by Font Bureau for allegedly using a single font license on multiple computers. The fruits of which can be seen in the typographic logos of NBC’s fall lineup.

A number of idioms come to mind, now the shoe is on the other foot, turnabout is fair play… or maybe the immortal words of The New Guy, “who’s the bitch now?”