Rules Of The Game #4: Britney Shows Brain

[koganbot]

Rules Of The Game #4: Britney Shows Brain

I quote 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

Comments

[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!

[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!"

[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.

The poll is still up (as of June 28)

[koganbot]

http://www.britneyspears.com

People like I

[koganbot]

My brother correctly notes that "This is what people like Cat and I do, what we expect from each other" should be "This is what people like Cat and me do, what we expect from each other." But that sounds weird so I'd have to overhaul the sentence, which I'm not going to do. So it stays as is.

[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.