Photos 07 Mar 2010 08:50 am
Stoopid Fotos
- There’s an advertising campaign for Diesel jeans that has filled the local train station (West 4th St, a major thoroughfare) and has gotten my goat. As a matter of fact, a number of other people have brought it up to me, so I know I’m not alone.
BE STUPID – that’s the campaign.
Immediately, you have to wonder what sort of jerk came up with it.
Next to the type a bunch of models are posed in moronic poses.
I guess it’s supposed to be creative.
A guy with a smoking helmet covering his head is very attractive.
Riding the rails.
This is the one that particularly annoys me.
How many creators out there like to think of themselves as stupid.
Perhaps the “creative” character that came up with this campaign.
Living in New York, you find at least some wit in the public.
That’s Sarah Palin stuck to poster.
on 07 Mar 2010 at 9:13 am 1.steve fisher said …
Perhaps this was some faux-genius’ attempt to give new and opposite meaning to an old word, as in when ‘bad’ suddenly meant ‘good’. It obviously seeks to shock the public into taking notice, which is what advertising and selling a product is all about. What would the Enquirer do without absurd headlines? What would Howard Stern do without outrageous comments and appallingly bad taste? And I don’t mean ‘good’. My advice – don’t be stupid and let this get you down; be smart and continue to let your creative juices flow, as the one responsible for the Palin sticker.
on 07 Mar 2010 at 9:52 am 2.Gino Panino said …
Mr Sporn, I have just stumbled upon your website and I am happy to find so much animation related stuff, articles and pictures! It will take some time to read them all
But a serious question: why do you call your blog michaelspornanimation? Seriously, I first read Michael’s Porn Animation…
on 07 Mar 2010 at 10:29 am 3.sjf said …
Splog: Doesn’t response #2 lead one to suspect that the true search was for porn when your website was happily ‘stumbled upon’?
on 07 Mar 2010 at 10:31 am 4.Michael said …
Yes.
on 07 Mar 2010 at 10:48 am 5.sjf said …
Michael: Perhaps this is an omen for you to get stupid and do porn animation. There seems to be a ready audience to embrace it.
on 07 Mar 2010 at 10:57 am 6.Elliot Cowan said …
There are in fact two of these posters with bared breasts, if you’d like to continue the theme of these comments…
on 07 Mar 2010 at 12:36 pm 7.Ray K. said …
This campaign has grabbed my attention too. The ads do annoy me, but at the same moment I find it a remarkable smart and effective campaign (even if it’s not meant for me).
I see Deisel’s “Stupid” campaign as both companion and counterpoint to the excellent Gap campaign of the 90s, with beautiful photos of American legends at work and play, and headlines like, “James Dean Wore Khakis”, or “Steve McQueen Wore Khakis.” The Gap ad managed to say, “You just might be cool, and a genius, and wear khakis, because you’re smart enough to know your brilliance is about what you do, not in wearing something unconventional.” Important presumption fueling the campaign: Gap stores are everywhere, and what could be easier and cheaper than buying khakis there, and still getting to be brilliant?
The “Stupid” campaign still flatters us for being brilliant if we wear their clothes. But it talks to a different kind of vanity—the one that imagines ourselves smarter for being UNconventional. It flatters the romantic in us that would rather play the odds that we’re the important exception that can play by our own rules, rather than work hard to make it by the conventional ones. Praising being “stupid” invites more mavericks to the table (and Deisel stores) than simply praising proven success. Many more of us, especially when we’re young enough to be in Diesel demo, are able to imagine ourselves becoming a genius than being one today. It’s that reckless fantasy the “stupid” campaign trades on: and most intelligently!
on 07 Mar 2010 at 1:33 pm 8.R said …
“Living in New York, you find at least some wit in the public.”
What’s that supposed to mean? =/
on 07 Mar 2010 at 2:55 pm 9.Michael said …
If you don’t find the wit in the ads, you find it in the audience – at least, in NY.
on 07 Mar 2010 at 3:19 pm 10.daniel thomas macinnes said …
I wonder if the original idea was to incorporate Weird Al’s Dare to be Stupid? But what’s to be expected from this idiot culture? This is why I never touch the tv.
Naturally, I’m reminded of Dylan’s poem:
“Advertising signs that con/You into thinking you’re the one/That can do what’s never been done/That can win what’s never been won/Meantime life outside goes on all around you.”
on 07 Mar 2010 at 3:32 pm 11.John V. said …
At first I kept on thinking “Michael’s Porn Animation” too, but in my defense that’s probably because I was thinking of Hans Perk and so my mind automatically put the space between the S and the P.
on 07 Mar 2010 at 3:50 pm 12.Jason said …
I brought up this campaign (and my specific derision of it) in an advertising class recently, and we came to the consensus that though the ads spill ever-so-ungracefully into retarded, they do remind people that Diesel (a brand that, until now, I had not really heard from in a decade) still exists and that they might want to pay them some mind.
Still, the ads are retarded.
on 07 Mar 2010 at 4:43 pm 13.Gordon said …
The only one that is correct is “you can’t outsmart stupid”. This is very true.
Check out all those creationist Palin supporters, a cohort I would classify as stupid. If you present a reasonable argument that destroys their position, they only believe it more. This phenomenon is known as Identity Commitment in psychological circles.
on 07 Mar 2010 at 4:49 pm 14.Will said …
I have never seen these ads before, but I’m afraid some of them made me smile. I particularly like : SMART CRITICIZES, STUPID CREATES because it rings close to home for me. Critical thinking is important and valuable, but it is reflection, and not action and more of a by-product than anything else. I have spoken with several world-famous performers who were very unwilling to discuss their own process in words, for reasons I have come to understand. My own mind can get very analytical to the point of paralysis. I think any time I’ve been at my best as an artist is when all that “thinking” shut up and I was unafraid to do forge ahead well, “stupidly.” Which is not to say I was actually trying to be stupid on purpose, but I guess the whole idea here seems to be a knowing conflation of the concept of stupidity with the concept of being uninhibited. It’s not 100% accurate but I get it. Given that it’s an ad campaign in service to a consumer product, it’s really the old fashioned concept of uniform mass-consumption disguised as care-free non-conformity.
That slogan also reminds me, for some reason, of a line from Charles Bukowski:
“BEWARE OF PEOPLE WHO ARE ALWAYS READING BOOKS”
And he was no dope himself.
on 07 Mar 2010 at 6:49 pm 15.Anthony said …
The Official Be Stupid Philosophy
Like balloons, we are filled with hopes and dreams
But. Over time a single sentence creeps into our lives
Don’t be stupid.
It’s the crusher of possibility.
It’s the worlds greatest deflator.
The world is full of smart people.
Doing all kind of smart things.
That’s smart.
Well,
were with stupid.
Stupid is the relentless pursuit of a regret free life.
Smart may have the brains.
but stupid has the balls.
The smart might recognize
things for how they are.
The stupid see things for how they could be.
Smart critiques.
Stupid creates.
The fact is
if we didn’t have stupid thoughts
we’d have no interesting thoughts at all
Smart may have the plans.
but stupid has the stories.
Smart may have the authority
but stupid has one hell of a hangover
It’s not smart to take risks.
It’s stupid.
To be stupid
is to be brave
The stupid isn’t afraid to fail.
The stupid know there are worse things than failure.
like not even trying.
Smart had one good idea,
and that idea was stupid.
You can’t outsmart stupid.
So don’t even try.
Remember
only stupid can be truly
brilliant
So,
Be stupid.
Look at it in that context and it’s much less offensive than you would have people believe. Especially this part:
The stupid isn’t afraid to fail.
The stupid know there are worse things than failure.
like not even trying.
on 08 Mar 2010 at 3:21 am 16.John said …
Actually, since the genius planners of the City of New York back in the 1930s built a station called West Fourth Street and then never put an entrance on Sixth Avenue at West Fourth Street (the entrances are one block south and two blocks north), having all the “Stupid” Diesel jeans ads up there is kind of appropriate.
on 08 Mar 2010 at 6:10 pm 17.gene schiller said …
It’s a clever and creative advertising scheme. Never underestimate the power of stupid!
on 09 Mar 2010 at 6:25 pm 18.Paul Spector said …
Riding the subway back in the Eighties, one couldn’t help but see all of Keith Haring’s art — the white chalk-like design on the black matting. Now, I kick myself in my own butt, because I didn’t have the presence of mind to carry a boxcutter and grab it. I could be rich!