Wednesday, September 13, 2006

Return of the twat

"Six months ago, I began writing a blog entitled bonfireofthebrands.com. I announced on the site that I was going to destroy every branded item in my possession, having concluded that I was suffering from an addiction to the status and aspirations surrounding brands. As a former editor of youth lifestyle magazines, I had caught a glimpse of the inner workings of advertising and marketing, and found some practices distasteful. Furthermore, I felt rather cheap that I had used my position to champion these brands, almost as if they were gods. So in order to cleanse this addiction and highlight some concerns surrounding advertising and consumerism, I vowed to burn all my stuff and start again, brand free."
Marketors engaged in distasteful practices?! As if! Thank God our Messiah has arrived to open our eyes, maaaaan. These attention-seeking ramblings are from Neil Boorman, former editor of Sleaze and general twat-about-Sugartown. He actually sums up what's wrong with his retarded idea fairly well himself, saving me the trouble:
"...here was another middle-class London journalist moaning on about the luxuries that many around the world cannot afford. Instead of burning these things, why not give the lot away to charity or, better still, just count my blessings and keep quiet?"
Well, quite. This guy's got previous as well. Check out Sleaze: A Warning From History which I wrote for Dot-Alt when it was still a zine. In essence: the magazine he edited espoused anti-brand rhetoric as a style thing, while carrying ads-a-plenty for all the usual brands. The man could teach Hypocrisy 101 at the time, and there's no reason to think he'd be any worse at teaching it now he's had his life-changing epiphany.

In October 2004 he stuck the boot into the light-hearted fun and games of Pillow Fight Club, lying through his teeth in The Guardian by claiming to report on an event he clearly didn't attend (I can explain how I know this, it's not massively interesting). This cynical hatchet-job-for-cash saw him express his:
"profound disappointment that the best we can do with freedom of speech and a spare afternoon is an exercise in extreme futility"
Speaking of which, he's burning all his stuff in London on Sunday. The event is followed by a 'reception', and has a number to RSVP to on its flyer. I'd suggestion turning up and barracking him, but why on earth would you want to give him the satisfaction?

8 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

i heart neil boorman.

keeping my cynical distrust of sugartown and its inhabitants alive so i don't have to.

1:55 PM  
Blogger John said...

How far does this brand thing go? Would Microsoft be a brand? Presumably we wouldn't hear from this prick again. Presumably any packaged food is out. Will he stitch his own clothes from leaves?

I hate people like this. Of course we all hate the capitalist society and its hideous constant marketing, but the dignified thing to do is not to bang on about it because you know you quite like your converse sneakers, or levi jeans etc and you don't want to expose your rampant hypocrisy.

There are plenty of places in the world where there are no corporate logos or brands. Why doesn't he fuck off there? There also isn't any food, and is bountiful HIV, but surely the priority must be seeking publicity to fuel your own hypocrisy.

Oh so interested in knowing why he wasn't there. I remember the vapid smugness of the article today.

8:51 AM  
Blogger dan hancox said...

you remember the pillow fight article? your brain is truly a remarkable thing. i remember it vividly but then i went to pillow fight club for one thing, and proceeded to spend the following week picking holes in his lies-for-old-rope short cut.

evidence of his non-presence:

*copy for short cuts is filed at 5pm the day before publication. the event began at 5.40pm the day before publication. something amiss, eh what. even if he got a later deadline from paul macinnes (short cuts ed) - which is plausible - he wouldn't have been able to gather the info he claimed to have done til about 6.30pm and then how's he going to write it up and file it in time? hmm?

*it's only circumstantial evidence, but his whole description of the event sounded a bit off - not just in his smug bullshit way, but actively unrepresentative. the number of people there, the kind of people there... he also failed to mention a couple of significant things: pillows/weapons were laid down for five minutes while the mayor of london's motorcade passed through; also there were quite a few tv crews about.

*the absolute kicker: his 'thesis', such as it is, was that the people engaged in this 'exercise in extreme futility' were 'posh layabouts'. his cast-iron proof: the event began at 4.40pm, before the end of the average working day. "see, these people really don't work" he wrote snidely. no, you fucker, *you* don't fucking work, because if you fucking had you might have fucking noticed from the front page of the fucking pillow fight club website that it ACTUALLY fucking started at 5.40pm. he couldn't even be bothered to cover his tracks properly!! needless to say if he'd turned up at 4.40pm as his article claimed he had, i don't think he would have seen much going on.

there is a word i would like to bring over from grime lingo at this juncture, if i may:

WASTEMAN

10:06 AM  
Blogger dan hancox said...

sorry i do tend to get a bit overly worked up about that. worse things happen at sea, as a result of modern hyper-capitalism (ooh the irony) etc.

10:07 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I don't understand why someone would attack material goods merely for the fact of their existence rather than focusing on the process of production, distribution and exchange, which is where items become more/less ethical.

Whats wrong with everyone owning really nice clothes that are relatively cheap to buy, produced using sustainable materials by workers paid a fair wage?

That said, can I have his porn collection?

11:58 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Has he never heard of Muji? Honestly.

9:46 PM  
Blogger Stephen Collins said...

Ha, brilliant. I love people like this. V Nathan Barley. Why do I I seem to be saying that all the time lately. Oh, cos I moved to East London,

9:39 PM  
Blogger Bernot said...

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7:17 AM  

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