The Fifth Assessment of the Human Condition In Its Entirety

Attention Whoring, Copywriting, and Twitter Poetry

U r a Vibe Bro <3

Since this image began to make its rounds on social media, I’ve been unable to read a book in a public place without thinking of it and becoming mildly self-conscious. We all know the kind of behavior that’s being made fun of here. It’s the same as reading lengthy novels on the bus, painting on a canvas at a sunny park with your shirt off, or playing acoustic guitars at parties. Attention Whores, succinctly. 

That’s not to say that there aren’t times when someone is so invested in their book that they just can’t wait until they get off the train to pick up after that last cliffhanger, or times when the sun is shining so nicely on the hill that it’d be a crime to stay indoors to read instead of setting up a little picnic for yourself, but I think the tendency is to often assume that people are doing these things with the ulterior motive of attention-seeking. And with this tendency, judgment follows.

And it is easy to make fun of the guy pulling out a paperback novel from the pocket of his jeans at a dive bar, periodically peeking over each shoulder to see if anyone’s going to ask what he’s reading, but don’t you kinda get it too? It’s corny, but isn’t the point of going out to a place like a bar to seek attention? Don’t tell me it’s just for the alcohol or to see your friends, you’d lock yourself up in your apartment with your drinking buddies and a bottle if that were the case.

Are we not still human? Our DNA is coded to seek connection, to want people to come up and ask us questions about ourselves and the things we are doing. Where along the line of human evolution has the shackle of shame overpowered the primal instinct to socialize? What’s so wrong with hoping that a kindred spirit strikes up a conversation about your shared literary preferences?

Instead of being the edgelord taking pictures of people in public to make fun of them online, embrace whatever behavior you may consider Cringe and be free. Make yourself look nice and go to an expensive restaurant alone, get up and sing at the karaoke bar, fashion yourself a reading nook on your fire escape and sit there with your shirt off, to hell with the twitter naysayers. 

There is a point at which it does become excessive, and I’m not here to say exactly when that is, but I think people are too critical of some light attention-whoring. You’re never going to get anywhere by standing against the wall forever. The squeaky wheel gets the grease, and the guy who’s playing guitar at the party is probably going to talk to more girls than the guy who’s standing in the kitchen looking at his phone. No matter how janky his renditions of Hotel California or Say It Ain’t So may be, the caveman brain within all of us can’t deny the urge to gather in groups and chant in unison. So, why fight it? You can always find a comfortable cohort of haters to sit on the outskirts and throw rocks, but joining the tribe is more fun. 

I’m saying this as someone who’s always looked down his nose at the dive bar bookworms, but I’m trying to change my ways. Maybe it’s only for selfish reasons, so I can stop being plagued by this meme whenever I read a book in public, fearing the irrational fear that anybody else around me is even familiar with this image and is associating it with me. But, I do believe that it’d do everyone some good to indulge the harmless attention seekers instead of haranguing them. On behalf of everyone who does secretly yearn for someone to finally ask what they’re reading, please, please indulge us. 

The Death of Good Copywriting

Ever since I was a young boy, whenever somebody would ask me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I would always beam up at them and say that I wanted to be a Copywriter. 

That’s not true. But, it might have been if I grew up a few decades earlier, when there were paragraphs of witty, handcrafted copy on every advertisement that a child would’ve been exposed to, instead of the most minimalistic and corporate language that pervades billboards and magazines today.

It feels like the formula that this generation of marketers has cooked up is to rely much more heavily on the visual instead of the textual to convince the consumer to drink Coke instead of Pepsi or to celebrate Toyotathon instead of Happy Honda Days, in contrast to the persuasive paragraphs of the past that cause many to collect vintage magazines or assemble Pinterest boards in their honor. This makes sense, as advertising in general has shifted away from primarily focusing on print ads and toward commercials, but a certain charm has been lost in the transition. 

Porsche used to do a great job with their print advertisements. The ones I’m thinking of consisted mainly of a photograph of the car, a headline, and a short paragraph speaking directly to the reader. Instead of advertising new technical improvements on this specific model or limited-time offers, they leaned into the status and prestige of their brand in an ironic yet truthful way.

Headlines like “Honestly now, did you spend your youth dreaming about someday owning a Nissan or a Mitsubishi?” and “Its 171 mph top speed may be irrelevant, but it certainly is inspiring, isn’t it?” communicate that they know the real reasons that somebody would buy a Porsche, they’re in on the joke too. An advertisement that reaffirms the root of your desire for the product is more effective at persuasion than an advertisement that simply boasts new flashy features. 

Even for products less sexy than a sports car, copywriters would describe mundane purchases in ways that convince you that the ownership of your new nylon shirt or flannel bedspread made you akin to royalty.

A 1963 advertisement for a rug by Callaway Mills reads: “This is the Camino Real — the rug with a sophisticated Spanish motif that conquers all. A subtle grill pattern in beige, gold and cactus greens on an antique ivory background. It’s one of the bold new 100 per cent wool area rugs in Callaway’s American Explorations Collection… to accent the ideas of the daring woman.”

By accentuating and sensationalizing details like sophisticated motifs and antique backgrounds, efficient copywriters can convince you that an area rug is a must-have for any daring woman. 

If we have to live in a world where advertisements are shoved down our throats every time we want to sit at a bus stop, drive on a highway, read a magazine, or watch television, at least make the advertisements cool. Bring back that second-person point-of-view writing, where the product is speaking directly to me in dulcet tones, chronicling the life of luxury and class that will surely follow the purchase of my new Seiko Chronograph wristwatch.

Especially in San Francisco, I see so many advertisements that cater to people in the tech industry, offering to expedite or simplify or optimize your SEO or API or whatever other three-letter acronym that says nothing to me about my life. These are indecipherable to me, which means they’re at least innocent, compared to the billboards I’ve seen proudly advising companies to not hire humans and instead hire their new AI model instead. Bring back the jokes, bring back the innuendoes, bring back advertisements that may or may not give me the conviction to purchase something but at least give me a chuckle or a smirk. 

The exception to this trend is Mark Sabino, an artist who is revitalizing the Porsche Persuasion of yesteryear. The same formula of communicative, second-person point-of-view headlines and copywriting combined with clever visuals is very reminiscent of an advertisement you might find in an old copy of The New Yorker or Life Magazine. One of my favorites is an advertisement for his rings. It consists solely of a close-up of someone’s hand, unbejeweled but with intense tan lines from three distinctly shaped rings and the bold text “You won’t want to take it off.”

The visual storytelling and the concise, to-the-point copy is much more effective than a plain old product shot of one of the rings and details about the stone and its quality. 

Hopefully, as this generation begins to read, or at least purchase more magazines again, the universe will be tricked into thinking that it’s 1963 again and all of the sleeper cell agents who surely run these advertising agencies will be activated and return to that gloriously charming 1963 formula again. But I am not holding out hope, so I will continue to refrain from applying to copywriting jobs in hopes of not having to rely on coming up with snarky taglines for soulless AI companies to put food on my plate. 

Book Recommendation: Autumn in the Pain House

By John Doe

John Doe is one of the best gifts twitter has ever given me. A faceless and nameless poet, his writing feels like a hybrid between diary entries, drunk phone calls, tweets, bargains with God, and poetry. I’ve always felt like a rube for never being entranced by the Keats and Yeats of the past, and the popular poetry of my generation doesn’t cut it either, but This book speaks to me. I’m simultaneously laughing and Longing when I read lines likes “Ass or tits? Bro her empathy.”

Until this book’s recent release, the only place to get a fix of John Doe was on his twitter page (@pain___house), as far as I’m aware. In addition to a timeline full of tweets that could seamlessly fit into any of his writing, the poems themself are just screenshots from the Notes app, always with a title and a byline and an image found on twitter. I have many of these screenshotted into my own camera roll. Not to narc on myself and my own hangups, but John Doe’s writing is so profoundly relatable. I think this book is psyoping me into missing my ex-girlfriend. He is correct, Ex Boyfriend should be a fucking slur. It’s hard to read the way John Doe writes about lost lovers and not remember those same feelings. When I retreat into my own Mind Palace, the scenery within looks a hell of a lot like what’s in these poems. 

In a True and Just world, this book would become the new On The Road for this generation of hopeless young men. There isn’t a man aged 18-25 who cannot relate to the lines “it’s just that Hinge girls are demonic / and u were supposed to be my shawty for life.” Especially if you are a hopelessly and forsakenly romantic young fellow who also likes putting words together in particular orders like myself, it’s incredibly easy to project yourself into these poems. Maybe if I read this book enough times I will become him.

That might take a while, as I was only able to read for about 20 minutes before being overwhelmed by emotion and having to close the book and lie down in the sun. If you’re still hung up on anything related to your ex-girlfriend, your parents, your relationship with alcohol, substances, violence, or literature, this book will read like a shotgun slug to the face. Tread carefully. Or, dive in headfirst, end up getting wasted and call your ex.

Something I want to emphasize is how truly Funny some of these lines are, despite the general subject matter being generally harrowing. I have the utmost respect for John Doe for saving some of these lines for a poem and not just tweeting them out instead, where I’m sure they would do numbers. I don’t want to just spend this paragraph using quotes as a crutch to make it look like I’ve written more than I actually have, so you will have to trust me and seek out his poems yourself.

Read this Book. Read John Doe. It’s Good for you. It’s Bad for you. The Only Way Out Is Through.