Friday, September 25, 2009

The Stupid - I've Had It. Damn.

O blow me down sideways Hurricane Of Conception of Reality.

I have been soooooooooooooooooooo stupid. So absolutely, unthinking, non-perceiving and non analytical. Here I've been, shaking my head, sighing and learning to let go of childhood iconic characters, lamenting the change and twist in storytelling and missing the damn bloody obvious.

The big two aren't really about storytelling anymore. At least they're as much about storytelling as television and television is basically bringing the eyes of consumers to product placements and psychological warfare that states 'you are what you buy/you are how look/you are what you own'.

So I guess the real question to ponder, if I want to ponder things, is what ads are in the floppy issues these days? What products are comics promoting? I'm going to take a guess right now that there will be obvious ads for game systems and games themselves; gore and half naked women and storytelling as a thin bridge between getting to kill lots of stuff and/or act recklessly with violence and certain other less publically desirable behaviors.

Bring the eyeballs to the product right?

And no doubt the big two sell themselves as holding the scrotums and jelly filled optical sacks of males of a certain age and race; a desired demographic. To try and change that demographic would mean having to market themselves to new advertisers - advertisers who don't hold an interest in just what comes out to hold the attention of coveted consumers, but who also have their fingers in or hold out bauble bags of money for other tie in productions beside the magazine style comic issues themselves.

If they're selling themselves as the gateway into the heads and wallets of boys and men a certain age, they can't, not in this current age, also claim to have the wallets of girls and women. It'd make them look divided and undecided and wavering on target. And what advertiser wants to risk their ad being exposed to the wrong audience and having the wrong brands there sending the wrong messages.

Huh, maybe Minx was always doomed to failure because it was putting out product as TPB and the advertisers weren't getting to stick their fingers in and scoop girl eyeballs. Hmm, maybe that made Minx an experiment from the start. Something that was always meant to be seen as an experiment and one which was started for additional hype other than the obvious.

And Warner Brothers and Disney, now both of the big two are part of the what, 4 or 5 mega media conglomerates moving the world to buy buy buy. Cross marketing is going to be further all over the place. Disney bought a marketshare of eyeballs.

I could thump myself on the forehead.

Culture fiefdoms, conquest, advertising as the matrix, heavy emphasis on gender difference in order to promote the right values of products per demographic thus hypersexualization, shallow perceptions of self/character and strict gender constructs.

I have been soooooooo stupid.

No, worse than stupid. I wonder if girl gamer, girl superhero comic reader eyeballs are sold as a kind of bonus bumper crop - free gift with purchase.

Damn.