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Artificial Traffic Reports (thing)
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by
Jurph
Fri Feb 02 2001 at 1:41:09
All right, now I don't
hate
malls. I occasionally dislike the fact that I can drive four hours away, be in
another city
, and walk into a store whose
floor plan
is identical to the store of the same name in the mall which is next to my house. But that's a totally different node.
What bothers me is when I'm in one of these stores with no
windows
and no
city
-identity and no way to identify where I am in relation to the
millions
of other people out there, and I realize that they're marketing a pure
lie
at me (not to me--right
at
me) and I can't do a thing about it.
No, it's not even
marketing
that bugs me, because
MTV
has
cauterize
d and numbed the
chunk of my brain
that can be appalled at marketing and snap-flash
advertising
. It's... well, I can't figure out what it is that bugs me about it. It's kind of
ineffable
--but
eff
it!--here's what it is that pissed me off so much:
I was in NY&CO, carrying my
girlfriend
's bags of
Victoria's Secret
stuff (
no comment
), and I notice that the radio station hasn't played any commercials yet. Now, it was playing
shite
. I mean
utter crap
. Let me try, just once more, to express my total lack of musical respect for any of the
mass-produced, putrid noise
that was dripping like diarrhea from the speakers. But--
no commercials!
This intrigued me, so I actually started paying attention to the
patter
between songs, the little fluffy bits that you otherwise ignore. And that, my friends, was my big mistake.
The first thing I noticed was this: it was a Saturday, at noon-ish, and there was a traffic report on. It wasn't from
Baltimore
, the city I was currently in. It could have been
Washington D.C.
, because they mentioned a "
rush hour
" jam on the
George Washington Bridge
. But neither Baltimore nor D.C. has a
Lincoln Tunnel
.
New York
? My interest was piqued--could they be pumping a New York radio station to this store, pseudo-live? What station--in
New York City
,
the juiciest, drippingest-with-people-to-advertise-at market in the East
--could be playing for more than a half hour with no commercials? I listened further, and the call letters came on, announced by a perky-sounding female DJ, who traded giggles with a hunky-sounding male:
W N Y C ... O
Five. Letters.
Not four. For those of you not familiar with American radio stations, three notes:
They suck, except the
NPR
stations.
They can only have four call letters.
WNYC
is the name of one of the best
NPR
stations in
New York City
that was taken
off the air
temporarily when its transmitter on the World Trade Center was destroyed on
September 11, 2001
. It has never, and will never, play bad pseudo dance-pop.
This mall propaganda was totally out of fucking compliance with FCC regulations
. Which was when I realized I'd been marketed at, and I'd bought it
hook, line, and sinker
.
This radio station, between big, raw, meaty chunks of
elephant dung
trying to pass for music, was pouring into my brain "the real sound of New York City! WNYCO!" But they had realistic-sounding traffic reports! They had...
DJ
s? Maybe not. The more I thought about it, the more of a sham the whole thing appeared to be. I pictured a studio in
Los Angeles
with a bubbly
starlet
wannabe and a washed-up soap commercial guy recording these little snippets of pseudo-genuine banter... it's like those bits of
flair
in
Office Space
, or the way every
Wendy's
hamburger is shaped the same, but looks vaguely unique because of its erratically shaped edges!
I don't know why, but it really pissed me off that this store was trying to mentally relocate me, my ego, and my wallet (not to mention my girlfriend) to New York, to make me believe that I was in New York, shopping for the clothes "they" (or "you", if you're from there) shop for, that I was listening to "their" (or "your") music (or "
shite
"). To increase my girlfriend's desire to purchase a
trampy
piece of
rayon
made half a world away from New York, they were beaming the idea into her brain that she was in New York City, and was therefore sexy/rich/sophisticated/gullible enough to deserve wearing this clothing. This fantasy disturbs me, because I happen to think my girlfriend is quite all-of-the-above-except-gullible enough. She can wear whatever she wants (or
nothing at all
) without having some fake radio station in a mall artificially inflating her self-worth. I'd like to think we all have that right.
The Infamous Bell Tower Prank of 1996
Gay dudes dig big brawny guys
trendy corporate nonsense
I do not like the radio man.
What if the world were flat?
Cauterize
Big Dig
Britney Spears
Victoria's Secret
The infamous "Radio Radio" incident
media converter
multi-level marketing scam
hyperlinked media
Pants are optional
sleeper hit
frontal lobe
George Washington Bridge
Shredding
Why was Cthulhu blue?
Puff Daddy
Los Angeles, California
Windows
Baltimore Beltway
get some