Viral Marketing Killed the Rock and Roll Star

[The Newswire]

I handed Gene Simmons his laundry once. This was more than ten years ago, so my memory is a bit murky, but, as I recall, I may have both handed him his clean laundry and picked up his dirty laundry to run back to the stadium. It was one of my last gigs as a stagehand. I was a runner. A runner is someone who will work for stagehand wages...

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[Bikerpunk]

Wow. I just read the bit about SG X-linked off the article in question.

[One Eyed Cat]

We can only continue to isolate which musicians and sewerside doodybirds are actually doing these things. My sense is: It's not that people believe or disbelieve, they have simply stopped caring what is true or not. I used to pity the daydream believers, now I can only let them be impaled by their own folly.

J

[Amelia G]

We can only continue to isolate which musicians and sewerside doodybirds are actually doing these things. My sense is: It's not that people believe or disbelieve, they have simply stopped caring what is true or not. I used to pity the daydream believers, now I can only let them be impaled by their own folly.

J

It is so frustrating to care what is true that I think you are right that this leads to a certain forced not caring and deciding not to decide. I think the necessity to decide not to decide what is true or not leads to cognitive dissonance.

[One Eyed Cat]

It is so frustrating to care what is true that I think you are right that this leads to a certain forced not caring and deciding not to decide. I think the necessity to decide not to decide what is true or not leads to cognitive dissonance.

It would have to lead to some degree of cognitive dissonance. I don't really have an answer for it. My own challenge is attempting to synthesize all the factors that create the "reality" we may be witnessing here. Even there, it has to be a secondary concern. I will admit that the current state of things leads one to concentrate of self, family, friends, and core principles. It is odd given most of us live in a state of post-material scarcity. Are they just bored? I don't know.

JT

[Morning Glory]

I thought it was drugs that killed the rock and roll star.

[Mr Karl]

gene simmons isn't a dummy, and he does seem to love his cash flow too

[ForrestBlack]

I thought it was drugs that killed the rock and roll star.

Ahhh... the good ol' days.

[KilLAtomiK]

kiss sux

[Morning Glory]

Ok, for a more intelligent reply.

I understand your gripe about the viral marketting...

But are you saying that you are opposed to these expose` articles giving up rock star secrets? (and in effect, isn't that what you are doing by pointing out the secrets of the secrets? ouch. my head hurts along this line of thinking.)

So I guess really what I am wondering is: is it better to have us ignorant and idealistically buying into the fake rock star image, or to shatter that and perhaps losing rock and roll because we would rather have integrity?

(That is assuming that the chocie does have to be made; that we can't have rock stars AND itegrity. Which I don't really beleive to be true, as I'm sure that you don't either.)

I think that we can colsole both. Of course everyone knew that everything about KISS was fake (that's why fans hated them without the makeup) but we loved the larger than life fantasy.

[Wickedanima]

Sigh. It makes me miss a genuine scandal.

[evilstonermonkey]

i like the idea of viral marketing - ads these days suck,so advertisers are being forced to think outside the box. granted, that doesnt always have a good end result, but sometimes it does. sure, paris hilton getting nekkid just before her new show starts was irritating. gene simmons making bad porn is disturbing. but year zero was fucking awesome, and i am willing to cope with another million stupid celebs trying to bang their way out of obscurity if there is just one more advertising campaign like year zero in my lifetime.

[Delilah_Moran]

Wow, I'm really on the fence about what I feel, and whether I care, about this.

I think listing my thoughts may reveal...

1) I really don't give a slag about Gene Simmons or KISS. To me, they made a big whiny noise about ripping off the undergrounds' work of the time (70's and 80's punk and goth.) The rock itself was (and is) uninspiring.

This all means I can ignore any such drama, or treat it as only a study in understanding the way the rock industry rips shit off, so I can subvert them with my own work.

2) Bad porn is bad porn. Bad porn is in even poorer taste when its a ridiculous publicity stunt, an attempt to revive some loser's career who has not even created new work worth looking at. If he wants to be a porn star, he should just DO it, and not try to revive some cult-rock-character gig, because modern culture doesn't give a FUCK about KISS Army.

3) I agree that its obviously a set up. Thank you for pointing it out, I now understand cultural tactics more.

It is a feeble tactic, and Viral Advertising is despicable, though only because modern post-industrialist to information age advertising is almost ALWAYS despicable. Never mind the tactics, there is a lack of ethics here.

I don't care about a mainstream porn star. I don't care about a tired out mainstream rocker. If they could FUCK decently, I'd give kudos, but if not... Ethically speaking, the advertisers are attempting to sell me (and others) crap product: Gene Simmons. Bad sex.

I'm supposed to be titillated by this crap, just because its supposedly contra-band? While I may be amused by stealing, if the goods are no good, then I look elsewhere or within for my entertainment.

4) I'm sorry your faith has gotten blasted here. Perhaps its time to place it in other sectors?

Rock is a tough one. I live by it, for it, but not in the way that most rock fans seem to.

I don't care what's popular, I care what SOUNDS GOOD. I don't care what sells, I care what produces sexy rock artistry, that makes me want to listen. I don't care about hype, I care if you can write a good song, lyrically, musically. I care if you can challenge yourself as a musician, performer, and human being, NOT if you have used desperate image distribution technique to make yourself be seen.

There is still a lot of good rock and roll in existence. If someone pisses you off, ditch em. Throw the CD out. Go see a band who bases their work in SOUL, in inner process, in connecting to the audience in a human fashion, not dazzling them with falsity when there is no content.

VAST was one of those for me. I loved them obsessively until I saw a concert a few years ago. They were impersonal, tired and fat. I ended up partying with them a bit afterwards, and I got to basically listen to the bassist hype himself as the greatest rocker alive (even though he was just a touring musician,) watch the lead singer act like he couldn't be bothered with anyone, and basically saw that they were just wankers with gee-tars and money, playing the popularity game.

5) Cultural Viruses.

This is a big issue in my mind. I LOVE the tactic, because it is the only real way to break thought the bullshit that the soulless corporate fuckers (advertisers, manufacturers, CEO despots,) have made of our world and media.

Lying, myth weaving, event manufacture. All of these techniques, I feel, are valid and ethical, IF the user has ethics to begin with.

Throbbing Gristle, the first industrial band, made it STANDARD to create false stories about their background, practices and work, WHILE still producing a real experience for the community it accessed a GENUINE musical/cult/magickal/artistic result: a new Music for a new angry, desperate and violent age.

They specifically maintained a genuine work ethic and created a real culture that truly connected to the crowd on every level from the base human to the high spiritual, WHILE telling the mass media of Europe and Britain at least 20 different stories of who they were, how they got started, and WHY they were up to their high madness, which was busily aggravating the conservative sectors of parliament and the Crown.

Years later, we end up with Disinformation, an occult/punk/environmentalist/goth/sex/undercultural media entity which specifically teaches its reader/users/consumers how to pick out cultural shams, lies and viruses, understand them and how they work, learn how to CREATE AND EXECUTE them, and turn around and use the stolen corporate techniques to promote subversive means and ends.

Yes kids! You too and can use illusion, deception and basic human drives to convince people to "buy" [I]real content[I], like promoting peace, love, anti-puratinism, intelligence, queer cultural content, beauty, reality, emotional maturity...

How different, really, is this extremity, in the end, of viral tactics compared with social popularity tactics in general? When we choose to reveal or not reveal parts of ourselves in social settings, we are creating a "false" image, in that it is not the WHOLE truth. Is this bad? Without lying, we have lied.

It comes down to intent. If you are just trying to make friends and treat people like humans, while protecting yourself from ridicule, you have an ethic. If you are just trying to get popular, in order to backstab people, ruin lives and convince people that you are way cooler than you actually are, then you are a fucker, never mind how you accomplished it.

The same is true of cultural virus technique: what is the END. Is it quality, worthy, ethical, any fucking good? The Gene Simmons "sex tape" (I use the term loosely here) is non of those, its pathetic. Hearing about energy drinks being sold to me at the same time is equally douchy, as I can create higher quality energy boosting medicines in my kitchen with my spice rack, stay healthier and spend less money.

The content and intent are not worth my time, so I feel good ignoring all of it, and looking elsewhere for culture.

In the end

KISS will be forgotten, and will cease to influence culture. Its already dead.

Throbbing Gristle will last for a good long time, and its influence on culture, music, cult, religion, image, sex, reality and so much more will continue for at least a century, if not more. You and I would not likely be who we are without that project, and I doubt KISS can claim that for most of us.

More people still listen to TG, and its older than KISS as well.

6) If all of this Viral Activity is to nasty to you, I suggest:

Just keep making quality, ethical and beautiful culture. KISS doesn't get my attention, YOU do, because you are doing something REAL underneath any layers of hype, promotion and myth weaving. There is a human and artistic result (the porn, the photos) that speak to my Heart as much as my Sex.

KISS is shallow crap.

If you can't deal with it, just keep staying awesome. Hey! Why not start a band yourself, and convince them to work ethically? Be the change you want to be int the world, you know?

7) Just tacking it on, because it hit me:

Marilyn Manson.

He TOTALLY uses all sorts of viral and shock technique to get attention, and THEN guides that attention toward real issues, and real artistry. Its not just to be popular and sell his shit, he uses it to lampoon, degrade and destroy culture he sees as anathemic to a healthy world, and a culture with content.

I think of him as a sort of cultural antibody or immune system. He's the harsh medicine that lets us puke the poison up, so we don't die or live feebly.

Again, in the end, after all the drama, BS, lies, smokescreens and screen played mythos, there is still a lasting artist producing lasting work of quality (even if I haven't like anything since "Golden Age Of The Grotesque.")



Blah blah blah right? Thanks for article, I LOVE digesting this stuff.

If anyone is into the cultural virus research, search for:

Genesis P. Orridge

Throbbing Gristle

Psychic TV

Disinformation (_The Interviews_, in book or DVD form are great primers.)

Cultural Viruses



Sex, Death, Love

~ Delilah Moran ~

[Bikerpunk]

Genesis P-Orridge I have never met, but he's been a HUGE influence on my life.

No I didn't decide to change my gender or anything, but his insistence that you can write your own reality made me make some extremely cool changes in my life, though they're not ones he would make.

[Delilah_Moran]

Genesis P-Orridge I have never met, but he's been a HUGE influence on my life.

No I didn't decide to change my gender or anything, but his insistence that you can write your own reality made me make some extremely cool changes in my life, though they're not ones he would make.

I don't believe he/hir/she ever intended anyone to think that he/hir/she wanted any of us to become Genesis P. Orridge clones or ripoffs.

The methodology, and the concept of manifesting your true desires was really the thing.

Rock 'n' Roll.

- DM -

[Donald Rilea]

Interesting article and take on this issue, Amelia.
I think I discussed about something kinda similar to this issue with you in another thread about four or five months back, and I brought up the concept of ignorant cynicism, a concept I saw advanced by Samir Al-Khalil(real name: Kanaan Makiya)in his 1990 historical analysis of Iraq, "Republic Of Fear".

Makiya's idea, if I recall it correctly, was that, because of the roles played by propaganda, dis-information, and rumour in ordinary Iraqis' lives, especially under Baathist rule, that a kind of uninformed, "They're All Bastards" sort of mentality had evolved amongst many Iraqis, and I think it's pretty similar, though there are different reasons and causes for it, to the kind of "There Ain't Nary A One Fit" attitude found in many Americans over the past 30-35 years, when it comes to politics.

People are understandably weary and wary of being manipulated, conned, grifted, shucked, jived, stewed, screwed and tattooed, because they have been, and are being so, practically every day, in one form or another.

Certainly, part of the trick in combating this sort of flim-flam and humbuggery is to, as Ms. Moran put it in one of her responses here, to learn as much about the propaganda techniques to which we have been and are subjected, and to analyse what goes into our eye- and ear-holes as much as we possibly can.

It also means at least trying to inform oneself as much as possible about issues and topics of interest to oneself from as wide a variety of sources as one can, and to use the noodle that's in one's noddle for more than skull-filler.

Sometimes, it also, I think, means taking a break, for as long or short as need be, from Mr. Mediasaurus and his machinating minions of mania(Sorry for the alliteration, Folks. Sometimes, it just hits me and I gotta go with it), and, whenever one can, connect or re-connect with all the people, animals, places and things to be found in the non-media world.
What goes on in the latter ain't always pretty or sweet. But, hey, at least it's front of you, live, direct and in living colour, and you can make at least slightly better informed decisions about how to deal with what you see around yourself a bit better than with some of the incredible mind-filler that much of the media, mainstream and alternative, likes to serve up.

As for Gene Simmons, KISS, Frank's Energy Drink(of whose existence I was happily ignorant a little while back, and shall never buy), and all the rest of that hugger-mugger, well, all I can say is, "Feh, ptui", and move on, preferably as quickly as possible in the opposite direction from them, from there.

Such silliness, and its perpetrators, are, in my opinion, generally best laughed at, and then ignored, as much as one possibly can.

Finally, please remember that anyone can be manipulated or suckered if the manipulators or grifters are skillful enough, even those who believe themselves, rightly or wrongly, to have sufficient knowledge and sophistication that they can't be suckered.
Folks who fall for that fallacy can end up setting themselves up for being taken, because they believe they can't be, thus blinding themselves to the possibility, if not probability, that they can be, the same as anyone else.

God knows, I've probably been taken any number of times in my life, and will probably be taken for a sap at least a couple of times more before I join the Choir Invisible.

That's kinda par for the course in a bunkum-saturated culture like this one.

The trick, or at least one of 'em, is not to fall for the same con twice.

But, that's just a matter of opinion.

[Amelia G]

I am a musical dumbass. My ******* friend Vince (who is working on an Andi Sex Gang documentary and a horror film called Dust & Death with a gothic main character) pointed out that the music in the background is actually Foreigner and not Steve Perry, as had been widely reported. Apparently Foreigner's less good songs sound kinda like Steve Perry to bloggers. I should really have checked, but it came out of the same timeline bucket and seemed plausible. Just, ya know, incorrect.