love according to Stephen Colbert

i love this so much.


Ask a Grown Man: Stephen Colbert from Rookie on Vimeo.

i especially love the part (~7:38) when Stephen starts trying to define love in terms of what it looks like:

"they want to hear your stories. they care how you feel. they want to make your day better. they want to listen to your problems. they reach out to you.

everybody wants to be loved, to have people pay attention to them. but if someone goes to the effort to call you, reach out to you, write you, to come up to you at a party, come over to talk to you, smile when they see you, ask you your problems, those are good signs they like you... if your happiness is more important than their happiness... one nice definition of love, i think, is that another person's happiness is more important than your own. and an early sign of that is that they want to make your day better."

Black Friday is a disturbing reflection on our society, yes, but have you seen the Justin Bieber fragrance ads?

i hope all of you had a wonderful Thanksgiving (and for those who don't celebrate, i hope you had a peaceful Day of Mourning). i am personally extremely thankful for my family and friends and my physical health and well-being and clarity of mind. i'm especially grateful for the latter, as the day of giving thanks quickly gives way to the day of rabidly consuming everything in our paths.

Black Friday, truth be told, scares me shitless. never do i have less understanding or compassion for humanity than when i think of hoards of people trampling and ambushing each other in the malls for the sake of bargains and/or sport. it really is terrifying.

when people decide to camp out in a public square or park in the name of democracy, choose to care for each other, educate one another, engage in dialog, and live cooperatively, it is deemed a "health and/or safety hazard" and immediately pepper-sprayed or dismantled or demonized. but, when people choose to forgo family dinner to camp out in front of big box superstores the night before things go on mega sale, it's understandable? that makes no sense to me whatsoever.

on to other salient points: have any of you seen the Justin Bieber fragrance ads? i saw one for the first time a few months ago, when i was shopping for sweaters at the mall. 

what i simultaneously love and am repulsed by, is the oh-so transparent marketing scheme. the fragrance, obviously marketed to young teenage/tween-age girls of Bieber Nation, is being sold by the eponymous little pop tart Justin Bieber, who will make mega, un-godly bucks this holiday season peddling and inflicting this sugary sweet hormone juice on our unsuspecting populace.

what i love/hate about it is that there's no smidgen of pretense: Justin Bieber and his handlers/marketing machine know where the money is. of course they're not going to bother making a fragrance or aftershave for mini-dudes. the mondo money is with the itty-bitty ladies. so, of course, when i saw this ad for the first time at the mall, my initial thought was "hm, how weird, Justin Bieber made a fragrance for girls?" but of course he did!

and not only will it sell, it will sell like hot cakes (hot cakes with Justin Bieber's face on them, that then want to fuck you! those kinds of hot cakes!) because this is the precise thought process that goes into buying a bottle of Bieber's lady scent (so hilariously packaged in a bright pink blossoming flower):

it is not, as it would be with other celebrities who have fragrances (see: Britney, Gwen Stefani, J.Lo) "i want to smell like Bieber."

it is, "this is what i want to smell like if i want to be fucked by Bieber."*

and that is why i feel particularly depressed on this eve of Black Friday.


*additional thoughts: does the perfume actually smell like Bieber? does the perfume ostensibly attract Bieber to its wearer because he likes the smell of himself? or because it's the smell of money?