koganbot: (Default)
[personal profile] koganbot
Rules Of The Game #4: Britney Shows Brain

I quote [livejournal.com profile] poptasticuk, I quote Britney Spears, I mention the headshave, I use the phrase "creation myth." Comment here, there, everywhere (still don't know how consistently comments will go through on the Las Vegas Weekly site).

(Contains my answer to Jessica's question "How did you end up liking teenpop? Why don't you like what you're supposed to like?")

Apparently, LVW think "fuck" is a sacred word that cannot be spelled in full without offending the gods. Also, LVW dropped my italics, at least online, but I'll try to get them to change that.

EDIT: Here are links to all but three of my other Rules Of The Game columns (LVW's search results for "Rules of the Game"). Links for the other three (which for some reason didn't get "Rules Of The Game" in their titles), are here: #4, #5, and #8.

UPDATE: I've got all the links here now:

http://koganbot.livejournal.com/179531.html

Date: 2007-06-28 03:07 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] dubdobdee.livejournal.com
cf also what i wz getting at here -- the point i wz making is very compressed, and i never really expanded it (tho i have a SHEAF of notes and a glossy sunday supp article on king all highlightered excitingly in yellow!): anyway it wz that hipster disdain and cynciism twoards these kinds of stories is THE SAME THING as what the tabs do, saying it's ALL JUST COMMODITY NONSENSE in order not to connect to the actual human tale of what's going, using a kind of hipster pseudo-leftism to concede the tab-world view as in essence correct

the headshave signalled the moment when i noticed black foax here (ie UK) paying attention: my friend ______, and a woman behind me on the bus on her mobile (yes yes absurd to draw any conclusion from such a poll, numbers-wise -- but she has NOT been a topic of "black concern" heretofore, in my hearing)

my friend ________ (a brilliant brilliant singer, who works in the complaints dept in a london hospital) is intensely attuned to "women under pressure and how they deal", but has nothing invested in britney per se (she never mentioned her before)

the woman on the bus -- in between teasing her phonefriend for watching meerkat manor -- passingly referred to brit as a WARRIOR, which made me think of ART ENSEMBLE OF CHICAGO!

Date: 2007-06-28 03:18 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] katstevens.livejournal.com
Catch that bus more often! That woman is a star!

Date: 2007-06-28 03:56 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] dubdobdee.livejournal.com
ok yes i think this is complicated:
no you're right in the sense that when tabs tell these stories they don't out-and-out say "this is all just commodity nonsense" -- nevertheless i think there's a kind of don't-ask-don't-tell compact between the writers (who after all know they making up up, often very hurtful) and the readers (who after all -- plenty of them -- know this at some level) and are enjoying the gossip "just as a good story".. the compact basically being "no hurt no foul" as these folks hire ppl to spin us a line all the time -- as if to say, it's all unreal, it's all a game, we're allowed, don't worry

at the same time -- at least in the uk tabs -- there's a curious kneejerk hangover of aesthetic puritanism which distinguishes the wacky wildness of men-with-guitars and and the obviously-unhinged/unfit-parent wildness of women with microphones (and fit bodies) -- which defines the wild women as either and the wild men as "business as usual wacky lad rockers"
publicity-stunt-wild or actually certifiable, and then

(and tab reviewers and commentators here routinely attack the american idolisation of pop as a step into what's "wrong with everything", with titbits of frankfurt-school-style crit of the leisure industry cocooning us with controlled blandness)

(disclaimer: given that i don't read newspapers -- except occasionally on a pub table or over somone's shoulder in the bus, or a headline on a newsstand -- i'm not sure a detailed study will back me up here: but this is general impression i get)

Date: 2007-06-28 04:02 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] dubdobdee.livejournal.com
i'm not sure if para 2 ["at the same time"] confirms or undermines the point i'm making -- but para 1 and para 3 operate as a kind of pincer movement, one bigging up the irreality of actual real reality, and the other complaining about the manipulation of Reality [as the woman on the bus refeered to it, meaning eg "reality TV"]

Date: 2007-06-29 08:25 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] dubdobdee.livejournal.com
haha para ii shd actually read: "at the same time -- at least in the uk tabs -- there's a curious kneejerk hangover of aesthetic puritanism which distinguishes the wacky wildness of men-with-guitars and and the obviously-unhinged/unfit-parent wildness of women with microphones (and fit bodies) -- which defines the wild women as either publicity-stunt-wild or actually certifiable, and the wild men as "business as usual wacky lad rockers"

uk tabs patrol london clubs, but london being so super-dominant, sleb just never go to a student bar in norwich, so avoidance is harder (and yes, they're nastier)

Date: 2007-06-28 04:16 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] dickmalone.livejournal.com
Well as someone I know likes to point out, if you want to avoid the tabs, you can. They really only hang around a few restaurants in LA and clubs/bars in NY. If you don't want to be in the tabloids, go to a student bar up by Columbia, or move to San Jose or Philadelphia or something. It's pretty clearly a dance. Of course this is in the US, they're a lot more vicious in the UK, right?

Date: 2007-06-28 10:03 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] carsmilesteve.livejournal.com
yeah, if you look at the coverage of Victoria Beckham in the sun or the mirror, or Amy Winelodge, there's all sorts of badness about...

Date: 2007-06-28 04:11 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] dickmalone.livejournal.com
Yeah but I kinda like that this is the case with the hipsters, in sorta a "we are all one" sense. That's just what they need to do in order to be able to talk about it. I guess I also remember a time when it was more common to hear "who's that?" in response to celebrities, and I like that they're part of the discourse in my social group I guess. Maybe it's just that I'm not in college anymore.

Simon R taking the same position towards Paris' jailing as the NY Post (our Murdoch tab) is I think a good example of what you're talking about.

Date: 2007-06-28 03:26 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] katstevens.livejournal.com
Good reading once again, Frank!

Although I have an affection for mental female popstars, I still can't think of Britters as anything but broken-lightbulb dim. This seems to feature with a fair number of child stars now grown-up (hi dere Fergie) who are v sharp in some respects (eg business acumen) but have 0 clue about dealing with 'social' problems (ie booze-druqs-men) because of sheltered/working childhood or whatever, and suddenly being let off the leash (or sacking their manager/parent) to do what they like. This earns the popstar in question my respect for their vitality but not their intelligence.

So anyway, I'm less than convinced that this was actually Britney that produced this barb - perhaps she had the idea and got someone else to execute it for her? "Write something scathing on my website for me, Jeeves! And make sure it sounds like it was me!"

sugarshocksneakpeek!

Date: 2007-06-28 05:01 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] skyecaptain.livejournal.com
Bad Miranda vs. Good Paris

[Lambert] delivers the hilarious preemptive antidote to Paris Hilton’s forthcoming PSA with “Dry Town,” in which she stops at a quickie mart to buy a sixth of Miller and a cupholder so it won’t spill while she’s driving.

Date: 2007-06-28 04:00 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] freakytigger.livejournal.com
I think Britney is one of the stars who generally does write her own website, in that I doubt that a lot of the awful stuff that's been on it is the work of any kind of copywriter, so I'm happy to credit her the brilliant stuff too!

(Tho of course I'm being unfair in that I only look at BS' site when someone links to it going ZOMG READ THIS whether in horror or praise)

Date: 2007-06-28 04:24 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] cis.livejournal.com
I really like this column! Do you know, up until I read it I had assumed that the 'help britney name her album' button had been made up by someone like popjustice - read it, thought 'huh, pretty funny,' and moved on. As a comment made by some anon pop-culture pundit it seemed quite amusing, but basically par-for-the-course - the kind of thing your mate who's quite funny might come up with in a normal conversation. As a joke coming straight from Britney's camp, though, it's no longer obvious (we're trained to expect bland 'sincerity', handwaving, harmless toothless 'just kidding!' comic sans jokes), and somehow that makes it come across as all the more witty. And, like you say, all the more sympathetic: look, she's a real person, she's recognised the untenable position she and other young female popstars are in.

(and, really, of all the people she'd be mocking -- lindsay? not hilarity 'dignity' duff? how thick are these people?)

"why don't you like what you're supposed to like?" is a really interesting question, isn't it.

Date: 2007-06-28 05:03 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] skyecaptain.livejournal.com
F--K, I never responded to this question (adequately). Jessica, I'll write several thousand words on the subject later, promise.

Date: 2007-06-28 05:24 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] cis.livejournal.com
Where did she ask it?

Date: 2007-06-28 05:50 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] skyecaptain.livejournal.com
I have given Jessica exclusive access to the INSIDE OF MY BRAIN! (Which is locked for non-LJ-friends.)

Date: 2007-06-30 08:45 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] poptasticuk.livejournal.com
How exciting! A spare brain will come in very handy.

Date: 2007-06-28 05:06 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] umlauts.livejournal.com
I honestly don't know what I'm supposed to like.

Date: 2007-06-28 05:35 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] cis.livejournal.com
Really? I've got quite a strong sense of what people expect me to like, at the v least. And I have that sense of... as it were, what music suits my haircut (or my various different haircuts).

Date: 2007-06-28 05:52 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] umlauts.livejournal.com
I'm going on a possibly painful road trip at the end of next month, well, driving 900km somewhere and then 900km back a few days later. I didn't want to go. But they said I could pick the music.

"I'm very curious", said one of the other people going, "as to what music you actually like".

THAT, plus this idea, makes me REALLY wonder what sort of music people would expect me to like, or think I should. How one would find that out I have no idea.

Date: 2007-06-28 06:33 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] cis.livejournal.com
Whereas people tend to tell me what music I like fairly often! Either actively - 'you should listen to x, they're your kind of thing' - or more implicitly, a sort of 'so what do you think of get cape wear cape fly?', assumption that they're in the ballpark of music i care about. Apparently I... look indie, or something, I guess. (mind you as we all know if anyone's into popular music in any kind of in-depth way they must be into indie!)

Date: 2007-06-28 10:01 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] carsmilesteve.livejournal.com
it's the stripey socks ;)

[sorry frank, that's all i've got to add to the debate ;)]

Date: 2007-06-28 05:39 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] alexmacpherson.livejournal.com
I still think it's slightly mental, in that it's the sort of thing I can imagine Britney putting up when drunk...there were a few videos going around about a month ago (post-rehab, pre-poll) where she was doing these affected soliloquies to the camera, and the target there was clearly the media - she was mocking their interest in her and her problems, putting on a fake Valley girl accent, acting ditzy and so on. But the thing is, she did actually look sort of out of it too. This is the same sort of humour - very funny but hardly clear-headed. The kind of thing I'd come up with in the pub at 4am having been drinking all night, basically. Which is probably what Britney did.

Re: People like I

Date: 2007-06-28 07:03 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] skyecaptain.livejournal.com
"Do people like you accept people like her to be your lawfully wedded wife?"

"People like me do!"

(Love me do. Etc.)

(OMG I missed a pun opportunity -- opporpunity -- in my column: WALK-ROCK!!!!)

Date: 2007-06-30 08:42 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] poptasticuk.livejournal.com
Ahh, now I can say I've been in the news in Las Vegas! I was also once in Le Monde. I'm so worldly! Soon I shall rule them all.

Profile

koganbot: (Default)
Frank Kogan

March 2025

S M T W T F S
      1
2345678
9101112131415
1617 1819202122
23242526272829
3031     

Most Popular Tags

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags
Page generated Jul. 8th, 2025 05:01 pm
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios