Song, by Toad Sells Out. And Pays a Heavy, Heavy Price
Yes, I know, I should have seen it coming.
I am currently talking to iTunes and Amazon and a few others about joining their affiliate programs. It’s nothing too shocking, just lets them know when someone follows my little text links I tend to leave at the bottom of artist posts and I get a (quite embarrassingly small) royalty for anything someone following these links happens to buy. Given my hosting fees are increasing at an alarming rate, this would help a little, to be honest.
This morning however, my folly was punished. I was faced with this abomination in my inbox, from the iTunes people: “Browse our selection of artwork and choose creative that fits well with your site.” Yes, you read that correctly: “choose creative”. Fuck me, creative is an adjective you retards. Christ al-fucking-mighty, it sets my f*cking teeth on edge so it does. People like this shouldn’t even be allowed to even use the English language until they have proven beyond any doubt that they are going to do so responsibly and without fucking it mercilessly up the arse for no other reason that some sort of Nathan Barley-esque cloyingly desperate grasp for credibility.
I was going to blame Americans to begin with – after all, they replaced the perfectly serviceable ‘colleague’ with the clumsy mouthful that is ‘co-worker’ so are rightly to be treated with suspicion – but I don’t, on reflection, think that’s fair. This is the fault of marketing people. The sort of be-suited fanny that sits in a meeting trying desperately to use the sort of language that implies that they are that tiny little bit more up to date than everyone else at the table. And why do they do this? Why are they so ghoulishly determined to scrabble about like pigeons over breadcrumbs, shedding every last vestige of dignity and respectability in the process, for the slightest shard of recognition? Because there’s fucking thousands of them, and what they do contributes not a single thing to society and requires no fucking skills whatsoever, that’s why.
Instead of actual skills, these clueless fuckwits invent a new language in an offensive attempt to persuade the world that we shouldn’t just seal the doors and windows of every single advertising, PR and marketing company in the world and fill the bastarding buildings to the brim with napalm.
“Choose creative”! I will peer in at them as they burn with a look of amused satisfaction on my face and hold up that expression, printed in huge letters on a massive placard, and make them understand, through the medium of sign language, that this is why they have to suffer and die. Because they forsook God’s creation and made a parasitic abomination of themselves and Jesus just doesn’t fucking love them anymore.
Here’s a group who’ve been doing the rounds on the internet for a bit. It’s The Coathangers with Don’t Touch my Shit. The Shit in question being the English language in this case, clearly. They’re great, if a bit mad, and they cheer me right up. Shout along to this, this weekend:
The Coathangers – Don’t Touch My Shit
The Coathangers – Shut Tha Fuck Up
hype | myspace (a couple more to download here)
PS, I know it’s a bit late to warn you, but this post probably isn’t safe for work. Your IT department’s Swearometer is probably going into something resembling an epileptic fit at this point.
Congratulations on the loss of your soul and welcome to my world (I work for the US Government after all). As for “selling out,” it’s certainly preferable to “selling in,” which sometimes requires corrective surgery and a series of embarrassing explanations to co-workers (sorry, sorry, colleagues — see, Americans!) and significant others.
Well I put the links to places like Amazon and emusic on the page anyway, so I didn’t think it would be a problem to have them know that I sent someone there and give me money for doing so, but I hadn’t counted on being asked to ‘choose creative that fits best with your site’, oh no.
How about a nice logo that depicts me bludgeoning the retard who first used that word into a bloody pulp with one of his own severed limbs? That would fit nicely with my site, thanks.
Tsk tsk tsk. You’ve clearly got much to learn about optimizing the mission-critical synergies inherent in the creative’s paradigm.
Any more of that monkey business, Mister, and you’ll be barred. There’ll be none of that sort of chat around here.
Talk about something more wholesome like coke and whores, please.
Brilliant. I have already sent the link around to members of “the marketing team” to let them know their days are numbered.
Dearest Toad, building on what C&B I really do think you should push the envelope and reconsider optimizing your operations by seeking alliances with your stategic partners, which would allow you to leverage the skill sets of your respective centres of excellence and replicate best practices, thereby enhancing the overall cusomer experience and growing the bottom line on a real-time, 24/7, win-win basis.
But also, here’s a skanky dame and a kilo of blow. Just in case.
Lovely Toadest of Toads, as one of approximately nineteen people in this backward nation (if one needs further proof than the guy in the oval orifice of said backwardness, watch american telly) who is mortified by what the rest of the americans are doing to the language (creative as a noun has just replaced ‘ramp up’ as the pinnacle of fuckwittery), I just want to ask you: PLEASE continue pointing these things out! When I do it, I get called names. Things like that (creative as a noun) make me wonder if most of the people in this country learned to write from the dialog in final fantasy 7.
Oh now…you can’t really blame Americans for ruining the English language. Have you ever been to Wolverhampton, or watch East Enders for that matter? We’re all in this together, I’m afraid. Regardless, have fun with selling out, and I hope you make enough lucre to take your wife out for a swift half.
No, Liz, you’re absolutely right, blaming Americans is completely unfair. I did so initially only because I read the email in an American accent inside my head, given it came from someone in New York. I’ve worked with quite enough marketing weasels over here to correct myself immediately, in fairness.
It’s a particularly nasty brand of vapid corporatism that leads to this sort of bollocks, generally. Anywhere where people spend more time in meetings than doing things, to the extent that your ‘performance’ in meetings becomes more important than your actual performance doing what your job description calls for.
And I am not selling out in a nasty way. There will be no ads on Song, by Toad for the foreseeable future, but hosting fees are costing me a fortune, just paying for the bandwidth on downloaded mp3s. I am never going to make money doing this, I don’t think, I am just trying to limit the amount it costs me.
I suggest that you stop thinking about it as selling out, and starting thinking about it as infiltrating the matrix. Only by getting all the way inside will you be able to destroy evil Agent iTunes. Much more in line with your, what’s the word. . .idiom!
C&B – honestly, if this thread goes on much longer I am going to be fired before I even sign up. Besides, I’ve just written a post and tried to add an iTunes (ack, spit, cough) link and it worked out to be a little too complicated so I didn’t bother. Song, by Toad needs an IT department. And a fetch-me-gin department now that we’re at it. And a coke & whores department, actually.
Honestly though, if iTunes read this post and the comments I am going to be jettisoned like so many over-ripe bananas. And quite rightly so! *Snigger*
And now that I think about it, lay off my fucking idiom, you pervert!
I have sympathy re the hosting fees.
You could however, choose to sell your Edinburgh home and go and live in Dalkeith, Prestonpans or Whitburn, and use the profits instead of going all professional on us. But then again, you are a Man Utd fan, and so money-grabbing soul-less corporacy is in your genes.
I am not going all professional, dammit!
Look, just because I’ve done a pretty drawing doesn’t mean I’m trying to turn into bloody Stereogum you bunch of merciless bastards.
Ya know, I ran those for a while but it just wasn’t worth it. The clutter on the page and hassle of embedded links wasn’t worth the tiny, tiny affiliate fees. The only exception is Threadless, where an occasional sale now and then can add up to a free shirt once in a while.