About Nothing
Sep. 18th, 2008 01:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
missroseroseThere's been a bit of consternation around the blogosphere about Microsoft's most recent commercials featuring Jerry Seinfeld and Bill Gates. Detractors have been labeling them the "Ads About Nothing", for reasons which should be fairly obvious. But if you've not seen them yet, give it a look. Go on. I'll wait.
...
...Yeah, that's what I said too. (And the folks at Penny Arcade, too, apparently.) Pretty much everyone's reaction has been varying shades of "Huh?", with a few folks even becoming angry about the lack of any sort of communication or even point to these ads.
This all got me to thinking a bit. I'm sure everyone reading this remembers the glorious 1990s, when the American economy was strong, the middle-class was relatively healthy and prosperous, we weren't at war with anybody, housing prices were reasonable, our reputation with other countries was positive, and the most urgent thing on your average American's mind was whether Britney Spears was, in fact, a virgin.
The uglier side of that, of course, was the way that sense of security and prosperity left so many people feeling at loose ends. For its 90s Pop Culture Edition, Trivial Pursuit used the tagline "A Game of Trivia for the Most Trivial of Decades", which isn't an inaccurate description. Sure, there was still the middle-class American life script to follow (go to college, get a job, start a family, save money, invest, get rich enough to retire comfortably), but that script is relatively hollow as a goal in and of itself. And the lack of any sort of cultural urgency, combined with the inherent American stunted emotional/relational development, left a lot of people feeling adrift - even those who were successful by all outward measurements. This is, I think, why American Beauty knocked everyone's socks off when it came out in 1999: it was such a perfectly-presented and -encapsulated paean to the ambivalence of mainstream American culture of the time, simultaneously critical and weirdly nostalgic, the perfect swansong for the decade.
On the flip side of the entertainment coin, of course, was Seinfeld - the much-lauded "show about nothing". Trivial Pursuit may well have coined their subtitle from this show alone - neurotic, egocentric sitcom characters living trivial lives filled with trivial activities. If American Beauty's cultural purpose was to get audiences to look closer at their lives, Seinfeld's was to reassure them that everything was perfectly okay - look at these characters! They coast through life, never actually changing or learning anything, certainly never examining themselves or their motivations, but things work out just fine for them. Chances are your life is at least marginally more important than theirs, so you're doing just fine!
Fast-forward to the tail end of the next decade, when the American zeitgeist is significantly different. We're mired in a war with no apparent reason or ending, our economy is in the toilet, Wall Street is melting down before our eyes, everyone's worrying about layoffs or mergers or what have you, housing prices are still stratospheric (yet crashing enough to cause great hardship to those who've struggled to buy in the past few years), and the concept of the American middle-class in general is on life support. Most folk are worried about more concrete issues than a vague sense of emptiness in their lives.
So it comes as no surprise that transplanting the Seinfeld formula of brainless banter to a current-day setting has flopped so spectacularly. In the 90s, it was all good; today, it just comes off as smarmy. Bill Gates and Jerry Seinfeld may have time to hang around Shoe Circus and talk about leather and eat churros, but the rest of us are trying to get shit done - so why waste our time? If you're trying to sell us something, get to the point. Just standing around trying to look cool isn't impressing anyone. Even Apple, the epitome of "cool" in the geek world, actually communicates something with their funny ads.
In a way, I almost feel bad for them. Much like your parents, Microsoft has always been a couple of steps behind the curve when it comes to coolness (an image that Apple's ads famously exploit). It makes sense, therefore, for them try and find a way to look more hip. Problem is, much like your parents, they've gone about it in a completely outdated and awkward way. So perhaps we can take it as a good sign on their part that the Seinfeld ads are getting the boot in favor of a new series taking direct aim at the now-ubiquitous "'I'm a Mac,' 'And I'm a PC'" spots. At least it indicates they're listening, which is most definitely a step forward.
...
...Yeah, that's what I said too. (And the folks at Penny Arcade, too, apparently.) Pretty much everyone's reaction has been varying shades of "Huh?", with a few folks even becoming angry about the lack of any sort of communication or even point to these ads.
This all got me to thinking a bit. I'm sure everyone reading this remembers the glorious 1990s, when the American economy was strong, the middle-class was relatively healthy and prosperous, we weren't at war with anybody, housing prices were reasonable, our reputation with other countries was positive, and the most urgent thing on your average American's mind was whether Britney Spears was, in fact, a virgin.
The uglier side of that, of course, was the way that sense of security and prosperity left so many people feeling at loose ends. For its 90s Pop Culture Edition, Trivial Pursuit used the tagline "A Game of Trivia for the Most Trivial of Decades", which isn't an inaccurate description. Sure, there was still the middle-class American life script to follow (go to college, get a job, start a family, save money, invest, get rich enough to retire comfortably), but that script is relatively hollow as a goal in and of itself. And the lack of any sort of cultural urgency, combined with the inherent American stunted emotional/relational development, left a lot of people feeling adrift - even those who were successful by all outward measurements. This is, I think, why American Beauty knocked everyone's socks off when it came out in 1999: it was such a perfectly-presented and -encapsulated paean to the ambivalence of mainstream American culture of the time, simultaneously critical and weirdly nostalgic, the perfect swansong for the decade.
On the flip side of the entertainment coin, of course, was Seinfeld - the much-lauded "show about nothing". Trivial Pursuit may well have coined their subtitle from this show alone - neurotic, egocentric sitcom characters living trivial lives filled with trivial activities. If American Beauty's cultural purpose was to get audiences to look closer at their lives, Seinfeld's was to reassure them that everything was perfectly okay - look at these characters! They coast through life, never actually changing or learning anything, certainly never examining themselves or their motivations, but things work out just fine for them. Chances are your life is at least marginally more important than theirs, so you're doing just fine!
Fast-forward to the tail end of the next decade, when the American zeitgeist is significantly different. We're mired in a war with no apparent reason or ending, our economy is in the toilet, Wall Street is melting down before our eyes, everyone's worrying about layoffs or mergers or what have you, housing prices are still stratospheric (yet crashing enough to cause great hardship to those who've struggled to buy in the past few years), and the concept of the American middle-class in general is on life support. Most folk are worried about more concrete issues than a vague sense of emptiness in their lives.
So it comes as no surprise that transplanting the Seinfeld formula of brainless banter to a current-day setting has flopped so spectacularly. In the 90s, it was all good; today, it just comes off as smarmy. Bill Gates and Jerry Seinfeld may have time to hang around Shoe Circus and talk about leather and eat churros, but the rest of us are trying to get shit done - so why waste our time? If you're trying to sell us something, get to the point. Just standing around trying to look cool isn't impressing anyone. Even Apple, the epitome of "cool" in the geek world, actually communicates something with their funny ads.
In a way, I almost feel bad for them. Much like your parents, Microsoft has always been a couple of steps behind the curve when it comes to coolness (an image that Apple's ads famously exploit). It makes sense, therefore, for them try and find a way to look more hip. Problem is, much like your parents, they've gone about it in a completely outdated and awkward way. So perhaps we can take it as a good sign on their part that the Seinfeld ads are getting the boot in favor of a new series taking direct aim at the now-ubiquitous "'I'm a Mac,' 'And I'm a PC'" spots. At least it indicates they're listening, which is most definitely a step forward.
