Child Abuse

Those of you following my birthday invitations will be aware that I am staring at thirty like an SBS cooking show: interesting, slightly unfamiliar and inevitable. But I know some sick sick child abuse when I see it. Watch this video.



OMG!
Amzng!
Fkn sik bra!
Or, as one of the esteemed Youtube commenters put it: "... dat is prpr sick! fck da queen m8!!!!!" (katiomou)

No, actually. It's not prpr sick. It's neither sick, dope, jiggy, mad, def, fat, phat, tight, stylin' nor "kewl". It is, as another, more astute Youtuber, Windowpenis, put it: "Blatant fake. The vidya's pretty convincing, but the description on the site tries way too hard and can't be anything other than some goatee'd viral marketing prick trying desperately to relate to the yoof of today."

Kingtag is a single page site containing the above video, two screen shots and a short textspeak proclamation:
"wnt 2 c da queen but she waznt @ her crib. dun dis 4 da $$$ check on dis 2 graf dis film tag n hit buck pal n tagged it up prpr. nunaya can tuch KT!!!! i iz getin a G 4 dis shit!!!!"
To give your index finger 3 seconds more of respite from the onset of RSI-induced arthritis later in life from mouse clicking, I'll spoil it for you by telling you that the "dis" "King Tag" refers to is the MySpace page for "One of the COOLEST films of the summer!", The Wackness.
The movie itself is nothing to speak of. Watch the preview below. Or don't add to their view count and read on.



The ingredients can be found in the front of The Great Big Book of Movies For Idiots. Turn to the "American Tweenagers" section, skim through the section on Exploiting The Insecurities Inherent in Every Childhood for Financial Gain, find the recipe for Coming of Age Story and follow the simple recipe:

1. Traditionally cool setting - New York. (Los Angeles is also acceptable). Young people need to feel that the "cool" place they are being shown is definitely that in order protect themselves from true individualism and unpredictable consumer patterns. New York has an established history of individualism and "cool" attached to it and therefore is a safe plot investment.
2. Urban (read: de-blackified black) activity - graffiti. Co-opting black culture from trends begun in black ghettos in the '60s, '70s and '80s is necessary to ensure again that your young, mostly white audience feels as though it experiencing "cool" without actually having to endure the upheavals and danger associated with the free-thinking and antiestablishment self-expression of hip-hip, graffiti, rap, breaking, skateboarding etc. To this end, black culture has been carefully re-named "urban" in order to include white teenagers and their pocket money. Use the word "urban" as often as possible.
3. Unknown young male actor carefully chosen for resemblance to current day's heartthrobs' style - Emo. Ensure that this actor is sexy without being sexual, straight and adept at urban activities (see above). Under no circumstances may he possess any identifying markers of minority groups (Central and South Americans, Asians, homosexuals, Jews, Eastern Europeans, etc). Nervous teenagers need to be reassured that they are identifying with someone who may play an outcast, but who will never truly be one.
4. Adult behaving differently to play mentor - Ben Kingsley, smoking bongs. Preferably a British actor, male, white, etc. 10% more interested in the sex-life of the main male character than would be appropriate for an unrelated older male. Have them engage in "young" and "cool" activities (drug use, above-mentioned "urban" activities, etc). Never a father-figure, always a teacher.
5. Utterly stylish young girls in leading female roles must never be allowed to star in anything ever again. - Young female audience members can see changing styles from film to film (and consume them accordingly) but without the low-fiscal-returns of static role models and identifiable actors.Young male audience members experience the vicarious thrill of watching sexually attractive females on screen without having to relate to or be challenged by these females (who they are threatened by in real life). Keeping young males from identifying with females as more than objects will result in poor fiscal returns and negative outcomes for the multi-trillion dollar Industries of Attraction and Extended Boyhood. Men interested in and committing themselves to deeper relationships with women spend less on attracting those women (from cologne to clothes to cars) and also less on items which replace the company of women (electronica, cars, collectables, etc).
6. Spray liberally with essence stolen directly from indie youth films which have done well recently - The oddball retro modern realism of films like Juno and Napoleon Dynamite will buff out the sheen of a well-designed marketing campaign and provide a filter for the consumer-driven messages.
7. Blend. Ensure that main character experiences love and second base. Screen. - Avoid controversy in the film, but ape it in the marketing, both direct and viral. Remember to use the word "urban"

There is nothing wrong with making a movie, squealing "urban" at every opportunity and completely expunging black people from the narrative so that nervous white American teenagers will spend their money on it. To paraphrase Bill Hicks, we will all be paying a higher psychic price, but the world needs shitty films too. Even just as an example of what is but should never be.
My problem is with the casual child abuse of marketing. When marketing is done well, it's like John Howard: still evil, but you can at least learn from it and how to resist it. When it's done like this, it's like a flasher. One minute you're wondering why that pale-skinned fellow is wearing a coat on a nice day like this and the next you're wishing you'd never asked.
Viral marketing has become as ubiquitous and pointless as junk mail. I first saw the above video on The Age website, for crying out loud. "Graffiti artist appears to tag Buckingham Palace". The Age video didn't work, so I hit Youtube, wondering what these young film makers were up to, genuinely hoping that it was a wind up for a film, instead of a dirty, yucky viral marketing campaign designed to expose young people to child pornography before they're old enough to recognise that their own tools of self-expression were being used against them to take their money.
I was disappointed.
The whole carton of caboodle, from the nose-blow-by-numbers movie to its inherent racism to the MySpace page to the textspeaking King Tag plugging for the graffiti competition which amounts to nothing more than free advertising for the film, stinks like a room full of people with marketing degrees whiteboarding things they've heard and read about "young people" in order to design a product which bring in the maximum bottom line.
It's ascusting.

***
GTH - River takes it away with the unbelievably astute observation about how long it takes to get a decent latte out of the machine when I'm pushing the buttons. Jolly good show.