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Maybe video games are too creative
A while ago, Chris at Fismo.com pointed me to the site Cool 2B Real. At first blush, it seems like a typical up-with-teens site — the obligatory boosterish stuff trying to bolster the self-esteem of young girls. “Cool-2B-Real is about real girls like you! Whether you’re in school, playing sports or just having fun, strive to be the best you can be,” it gushes.
I poked around it for a bit, chuckling over the site’s combination of earnestness and hopelessly out-of-date lingo. The incredibly goofy text (“It’s totally cool to feel good about yourself! Take the self-esteem test”), the graphics of girls happily doing their homework … this sort of stuff makes actual teenagers cringe. Have the people who made this stuff ever actually met a teenager?
But the truly weird thing was the constant harping on about meat. “Enjoy a beef wrap for lunch or spaghetti and meatballs for dinner,” the site urges. “As energy requirements increase, so should protein intake. Chow down!” There’s a section devoted to Smart Snackin’, listing delights such as “Beef on Bamboo” or “Easy Beef Chili”, those staples of the teenage diet. Want to really have some fun? Why not take this meat poll? (“What type of beef do you most like to eat with your friends?” it asks, and offers you the choice of “Steak”, “Tacos”, “Burgers”, or “Subs”.) Then you can top off the merriment by playing — and I am not making this up — a flash game devoted to grilling burgers. What the hell is going on here? I wondered.
Then I glanced at the bottom of the site and discovered the secret: This site was produced by the Cattlemen’s Beef Board and the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association.
Consider what’s going on here. This isn’t just any other harebrained, marketing site. This is a unique moment in history: The first-ever attempt to make beef hip.
I can only imagine what the pitch meeting for this thing was like.
I'm Clive Thompson, a writer on science, technology, and culture. This blog collects bits of offbeat research I'm running into, and musings thereon.
Currently, I'm a contributing writer for the New York Times Magazine and a columnist for Wired magazine. I also write for Fast Company and Wired magazine's web site, among other places. Email or AOL IM me (pomeranian99) to say hi or send in something strange!
New technique renders objects at sea “invisible” to waves of water
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At Amherst college, 1% of first-year students have landlines, 99% have Facebook accounts
North Dakota the most outgoing state, according to study of “the geography of personality”
» visit the Collision Detection archives
September 26, 2008 » 01:57 PM
From an interview with ethnobotanist and anthropologist Wade Davis:
One of the cultures you celebrate in Light at the Edge of the World is the Inuit. What do you most admire about them?
Davis: The Inuit didn’t fear the cold; they took advantage of it. During the 1950s the Canadian government forced the Inuit into settlements. A family from Arctic Bay told me this fantastic story of their grandfather who refused to go. The family, fearful for his life, took away all of his tools and all of his implements, thinking that would force him into the settlement. But instead, he just slipped out of an igloo on a cold Arctic night, pulled down his caribou and sealskin trousers, and defecated into his hand. As the feces began to freeze, he shaped it into the form of an implement. And when the blade started to take shape, he put a spray of saliva along the leading edge to sharpen it. That’s when what they call the “shit knife” took form. He used it to butcher a dog. Skinned the dog with it. Improvised a sled with the dog’s rib cage, and then, using the skin, he harnessed up an adjacent living dog. He put the shit knife in his belt and disappeared into the night.
September 25, 2008 » 11:21 AM
“Video from a camp north of Toronto in December 2005 shows a car spinning around in a nearby, snow-covered parking lot. Prosecutors characterized that as special driver training but the defense, and many outsiders, said it was nothing more than “cutting doughnuts,” a favorite winter pastime of young Canadian motorists.” - A key piece of evidence submitted in the trial of a gang of alleged young Canadian terrorists.
September 24, 2008 » 11:21 PM
“Life imitates art imitating life: just thought a gnat crawling across my monitor was part of a Flash-based ad. I clicked it.” - A Tweet from Bill Braine.
September 24, 2008 » 02:37 PM
“Funniest FB friend request ever: “Twitter friend hoping to get to second base (Facebook!) ;-).”” - A recent Tweet by Pistachio
September 24, 2008 » 12:28 PM
Chinese powdered-milk crisis creates a new market: The return of the wet nurse
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