Suzy Mae

Pathetic Facebook attention request

I don't often do this but everyone is doing this, so I thought I would try it so as not to be excluded.....It occurs to me, and by ME I mean everyone who has copied and pasted this word for word that for each and every one of you on my friends list, I catch myself looking at your pictures, sharing jokes and news, as well as support during good and bad times, among other generic tropes of interpersonal digital communications. To be repetitive and obvious, let me state that I am also happy to have you among my friends. We will see who will take the time to read this message until the end because it is long, attention-seeking, and poorly written. If you appreciate your friends from all over the world, i.e., no sociopaths, go ahead and copy this into your status too, even if it's just for a minute. Because sometimes we post things on Facebook with the intent of deleting them immediately. Let me guilt trip you and say I'm going to be watching to see who takes care of the friendship, just like me. Thank you all for being a part of my life. Copy and paste please, don't share or personalize. This makes it less meaningful, but I'm going to passive-aggressively imply my loneliness with the next statement: If no one reads my wall, this should be a short experiment. This is a Facebook game to see who reads and who just scrolls, because reading inane comments on Facebook is the only appropriate way to show you care about someone. So, if you read this, leave one word on how we met, even though one word is the exact opposite of a thoughtful, relationship-building conversation. Only one word, then copy this to your wall so I can leave a word for you. Please don't add your word and forget or neglect to copy because I really need this emotional blackmail pity party to go viral in order to feel better about myself by swapping transactional likes and meaningless words for actual human interaction.

Gallo versus Franco

 

Where do inane pop-culture thought pieces come from?  Deep within a well-smoked bong?  Two random sparks quarking together amongst media saturated grey matter?  Psychically received from the virgin-blood-filled smoothie cup of Harvey Levin?

 

2000's Vincent Gallo = 2010's James Franco. Let them have their fun.
— @suzy_mae August 15, 2013

 

Early on Twitter one morn, this ad-damaged brain of mine determined that the artsy/mainstream much-mocked creative exploits of Vincent Gallo and James Franco were two parallel paths trailing down separate decades.  To my delight, brainiac and fellow strategist Jason Tarantino jumped in the fray, hashtagging our parallels #GalloversusFranco.  Here's how we had fun: 

 

 

The awkwardly titled "twenty-aughts" 2000's have come and gone, and we still have seven years of this 2010's (twenty-teens?) nineties-throwback business to attend to.  But there's still an interesting and emerging tension revealed:  this simple comparison of associated concepts illustrates their grasp on the American zeitgeist.  This New Yorker article from 2012 offers an interesting insight:

 

Just as teenage rebellion flourishes in environments of safety and plenty, depression as a cultural pose works only in tandem with a private confidence that the grown-ups in charge are reliably succeeding on everyone’s behalf.   -Lisa Miller

 

Today, there's still a thick velvet rope stanchioned firmly between "real art" and "pop culture."  Both Gallo and Franco sought and seek to break through the meatheaded, surly nightclub bouncer who guards the club named "Mass Aesthetics of the American Public."  

They're mocked for their efforts, sometimes with good reason, but let them have their fun.  Terrible can be innovative.  Terrible can lead to genius.  And if you don't push beyond what exists, you'll never get anywhere new. 

Live, learn, and make bad art,

suzymae