The Superbowl and everything about it sucked...

[schild]

I love Superbowl ads, but they'll never make me buy anything. In fact, if an ad is so good that it makes me want to buy something, I generally say "Oh man, they totally deserve me buying one bottle of Sprite, that was money well spent." This is one of the many reasons ads on websites don't really bother me. I truly, badly want to meet people who are effected by advertisements they see to the point that they change buying habits. I can only assume they're terribly dimwitted.

[Trippy]

Marketing types have it so easy in the states, I never seen so many people who get upset when you mention you hate ads and marketing, or a good percentage population so receptive they actually want this shit shovelled down their throats 24/7 and flame the hell out of you when you suggest that perhaps you don't want the hard sell integrated into every aspect of your life (BF2142 for teh win)

The US is the land of conspicuous consumption and it's hard to conspicuously consume if we aren't being bombarded with advertising.

[Raging Turtle]

Pretty sad when all you can put on a plate with regards to your countries culture and tradition is some adverts. Wordsworth, Shakespeare, Beethoven, Van Gogh and Wagner must be shaking in their boots. 

Where the fuck did that come from?  That's like me saying soccer hooliganism is the pinnacle of British culture.  Fuck off.   

[Sky]

Pretty sad when all you can put on a plate with regards to your countries culture and tradition is some adverts.

C'mon, now.

[penfold]

Hey, I can personally list a whole bunch of renowned American artists, authors and composers, as well as the reasons behind Thanksgiving Day and the like, therefore I wouldnt be defending the watching of some adverts as a The Great American Tradition, and a cultural icon.

I'm pretty sure watching adverts and discussing how great they were wasnt a yearly event for the Pilgrim Fathers.

[CmdrSlack]

Hey, I can personally list a whole bunch of renowned American artists, authors and composers, as well as the reasons behind Thanksgiving Day and the like, therefore I wouldnt be defending the watching of some adverts as a The Great American Tradition, and a cultural icon.

I'm pretty sure watching adverts and discussing how great they were wasnt a yearly event for the Pilgrim Fathers.

Meh.  You're talking about a distinction between highbrow and lowbrow.  That distinction, IMO, is pretty silly anyway.  In his day, Shakespeare was like George Lucas or John Grisham or [insert popular culture person here].  His work was decidedly lowbrow, to the point of making dick and fart jokes.  It is in the years since he was alive that he has really been canonized and elevated to highbrow status in the eyes of most culture snobs.  Sure, ads aren't Twain or Georgia O'Keefe or Scott Joplin or whatever, but they're certainly art of some kind.  Heck, people (including my mom) collect old-timey ads for all manner of snake oil and products and whatnot.  The packaging on products used to kick ass.  It doesn't preclude enjoyment of other U.S. cultural achievements.  The U.S. is also built on the idea of advertising and products and "Making it" by having a good product and selling it for scads of cash.  Clever adverts may not be the pinnacle of cultural achievement, but I can see why some people would be fond of them.

[penfold]

Something your great-grandfather, grandfather, and possibly father didn't do shouldn't be defined as a tradition nor triumphed as one. That was the point I was trying to make. Judging advertising in a historical context or exploring its merits as a niche artform wasn't the reason I was flamed for saying I don't like or watch adverts (and didn't want them in games). The highbrow-lowbrow thing might have thrown it a bit, I admit.

[Paelos]

Something your great-grandfather, grandfather, and possibly father didn't do shouldn't be defined as a tradition nor triumphed as one. That was the point I was trying to make. Judging advertising in a historical context or exploring its merits as a niche artform wasn't the reason I was flamed for saying I don't like or watch adverts (and didn't want them in games). The highbrow-lowbrow thing might have thrown it a bit, I admit.

You definition of "tradition" is extremely narrow, and imo not adequate to capture the essence of what it truly represents. Traditions don't have to cross family lines, and they have to start somewhere.

[CmdrSlack]

IMO, the whole highbrow-lowbrow thing is a function of time, too.  That's why I used Shakespeare as an example.  We're a pretty young country.  For us, Friday night high school football is a tradition.  Stuff that's been happening for the last forty years?  Why not?  That's like what...close to twenty percent of the nation's existence? 

[Furiously]

Pretty sad when all you can put on a plate with regards to your countries culture and tradition is some adverts. Wordsworth, Shakespeare, Beethoven, Van Gogh and Wagner must be shaking in their boots. 

I think you mean "your country's culture."

Lets see - all of the examples you gave are European. I'm sure that Mark Twain and Hemmingway are both getting a good laugh however.

[Kenrick]

When it comes to the Super Bowl from year to year, usually I think that the commercials are much more entertaining than the game itself.  This year was an exception -- I thought it was a really good, exciting, entertaining game... but the commercials sucked balls.

  /shrug

[Murgos]

Pretty sad when all you can put on a plate with regards to your countries culture and tradition is some adverts. Wordsworth, Shakespeare, Beethoven, Van Gogh and Wagner must be shaking in their boots. 

Longfellow, Thoreau, Verne, Gershwin, Kerouac, Pollock, Warhol, Frank Lloyd Wright and etc.  You should work on that Euro-centric myopia.  Something doesn't have to be 300 years old to have affected the culture and traditions of the entire world.

[Signe]

Hemingway, Ansel Adams, Me, Henry James, Robert Maplethorpe...  We got lots!

(did you notice how I sneaked me in there so artfully?)

[Yegolev]

I met Jordan Mozer in Chicago a couple weeks ago.  I was near a Frank Lloyd Wright display, interestingly enough.

By the way, FLW is as famous as he is mostly due to his self-promotion... you might even say advertising.

[Murgos]

By the way, FLW is as famous as he is mostly due to his self-promotion... you might even say advertising.

Ever see a building described as an Open Plan?  You're probably living in one.  Sure his fame was from self promotion, his ideas are quite widely adopted though.

[Sky]

GIT'R DONE!

I don't care who you are, that's funny.

[Yegolev]

Ever see a building described as an Open Plan?  You're probably living in one.  Sure his fame was from self promotion, his ideas are quite widely adopted though.

You are correct, of course, and I probably am.  My wife, who designed our house, is a big fan of Arts and Crafts style and loves a lot of FLW's work, even though she knows he is famous mostly due to shameless self-promotion.  Sort of like Michael Graves.

[Merusk]

Ever see a building described as an Open Plan?  You're probably living in one.  Sure his fame was from self promotion, his ideas are quite widely adopted though.

You are correct, of course, and I probably am.  My wife, who designed our house, is a big fan of Arts and Crafts style and loves a lot of FLW's work, even though she knows he is famous mostly due to shameless self-promotion.  Sort of like Michael Graves.

Wright was a very, very interesting guy.  The building you were living in was his.  It didn't matter that you paid for it, owned the deed and paid the taxes on it.  That fucker was his, and if he came over to find you'd moved something out of place, he'd move it back.  You hung up a picture? It came down.  You're 6'3? Fuck you he's 5'7 and designing around that.

Graves I like simply because of his opinion on his pre-master college. (Which happens to be the same as mine.)  For the longest time he'd actually deny ever having been to DAAP.  I can't say I blame him.   It's funny to watch Ghery in the one Simpsons episode because if I expected anyone would whore himself out like that it would have been Graves.

[HaemishM]

Oh, for fuck's sake.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070206/ap_en_mu/prince_super_bowl

Have these dumb fuckers NEVER SEEN PRINCE PLAY BEFORE? For fuck's sake is right. The man practically invented the guitar as phallus imagery, and even then, so what? Prince has been known for 20 years to be a "dirty-minded" motherfucker, which is why I was surprised he was playing the Super Bowl. Honestly, if Prince's penis guitar is the worst thing you can say about the show, you need to get over it.

[Tale]

I think you mean "your country's culture."

Lets see - all of the examples you gave are European. I'm sure that Mark Twain and Hemmingway are both getting a good laugh however.

 spelling flames

mkninja23 in a comment on YouTube
You laugh at his/her grammer, and yet you can't even spell the word "grammer"...you put "grammor" and "picter" and "laughted" and "aged"...seems you BOTH need dictionaries

[Yegolev]

It's funny to watch Ghery in the one Simpsons episode because if I expected anyone would whore himself out like that it would have been Graves.

I think the Graves industrial design that was all over Target (?) a while back was pretty whorey, so yeah.  I'm not a big fan of everything looking like an egg, either, so maybe I'm biased.  Hell, I'm not attacking these guys, in that line of work you have to whore yourself to rise to that level or spend eternity drawing warehouses.  So good for them.

Hey, maybe we can start talking about Stephen Hawking now, since I'm conversing about overpromoted people in fields that I have only a cursory understanding of.  I'm shocked I have not made a huge ass out of myself by now.  Er, wait... this is the Superbowl thread.

[Murgos]

It's like an internet law or something:

It is impossible to correct another persons grammar and/or spelling on the internet without you yourself using incorrect grammar/or spelling.  Usually far more obviously than the original infraction.

[WayAbvPar]

It's like an internet law or something:

It is impossible to correct another persons grammar and/or spelling on the internet without you yourself using incorrect grammar/or spelling.  Usually far more obviously than the original infraction.

I think it is the law of conservation of stupidity