The Naked Jumper – Pt. 5

“Mirror, mirror on the wall…”

Are you sure that’s “Me”?

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In the half-darkness of twilight we all hide our crimes and misdemeanours carefully underneath a hard shell of well-worn words; words chanted hypnotically to convince and remind everyone  and ourselves of our “goodness”, “grace”, “kindness” and “caring”. This “virtue” chant conveniently conceals the deliberate and intentional mismanagement of ourselves and is traditionally accompanied by our eternal litany of excuses for this, that and the other. Counting virtues and flaws is the preoccupation of those who like to kick up a fuss over their misbegotten mediocrity and have nothing to talk of apart from their misgivings; either of themselves or others. Few, if any, can hold a candle to this “circus of self” paraded by the “better than, worse than” crusaders and we all, to a lesser or greater degree, come under this circus tent; we love to moan, rant, whinge, bitch and complain.

There is no real reason for it but it’s kinda understandable; it’s difficult to swim against the tide of what’s “expected” of you, whatever that is, be it positive or negative. No matter how much we might like to kid ourselves with our efforts of “fitting in” the irony is that nobody really “fits in”, everybody is a peculiarity unto themselves and everybody secretly knows it too. It’s a most public secret because if everyone did “fit in”, everything was the way it was supposed to be and everything always worked out there’d be a lot of smiling but instead, you see sad eyes trapped in miserable faces.  “Fitting in” has a cost, both to ourselves and others. It breeds an insidious and vicious cycle of hidden apathy; a culture of “settling” for things we “didn’t particularly want” that we “make do with” because we “can’t” see any other option or choice. Why? Because “that’s the way things are” and “that’s the way of the world”; we never question, nevermind challenge, such assumptions. It breeds a culture of fake contentment, deep insecurity and savage bitterness. We’ll go to extremes to “fit in”, we’ll willingly carve away huge parts of ourselves and others to achieve a “good” fit.

The non-smilers come in all shapes, sizes and colours, mostly garbed in the ego-centric trappings of conceit that belies a deep personal insecurity. The majority of non-smilers, will look up from their misery and then blurt “I’m just so unlucky” and the bitter non-smilers will just completely and utterly bathe in denial

The Naked Jumper – Pt. 4

“… And you thought you were a zebra all this time?”

Unthinking the imaginable

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People have an allergy to “change” regardless of what that “change” is. Many harbour romantic notions about themselves, that they are  still flexible, adaptable, broad-minded and open to change. However, by the time adulthood has taken a grip on our lives, most of us have become frozen statues of a person that we used to be, and we have eliminated any source that might disturb the stagnant pond we stand in. We have, through obstinacy and willfulness, allowed neglect to strangle one of our biggest assets; our imaginations.

We possess an extraordinary ability to constantly reinvent and transcend ourselves; to proactively initiate change and transform our inner worlds enabling us to envisage and shape our external world. Yet, astoundingly, most of us busily ignore this superb natural gift and smear ourselves with a slime of confusion about ourselves. Instead of realising that we are a constantly changing entity, and that “change” is one of our major distinguishing characteristics, we go “if I change I won’t know who I am anymore” and “that isn’t me”. It’s as if we are a talking chameleon that’s got stuck on one colour, that’s scratching its head and muttering “… colour changes, don’t be silly. If that happened you wouldn’t know you’re a lizard any more. You’d start eating grass and thinking you’re a zebra”.

Changes in our state of being, our person or personality, people find extremely disconcerting.  If you change you’re upsetting the delicate social eco balance of your relation to others and it’s inevitable

The Naked Jumper – Pt. 3

“Dream Killers”

The Jumper Nightmare: Having cake and eating it

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When we’re children we allow ourselves to be anything we want; we cannot see any reason why we can’t be what we want. However, a bit later we find out we were just practising and what “we want to be” is supposed to happen when we grow-up. So, we all look forward to being grown-ups. However, along the way to being grown-up we learn that it’s acceptable to not be what we want, in fact, it’s often encouraged and we learn about all the impossibilities of our dreams and aspirations; making them all useless, purposeless and fanciful. Until finally we grow up and embarrassed by our “childish thoughts”, we throw away our dreams.

Instead, we have children, houses, jobs, money, holidays and cars to replace our dreams. Dreams and aspirations are considered a temporary disease of youth and set aside for the young and innocent. It’s taken for granted such “foolishness” and “naivety” will get sucked out of us by life’s little setbacks, disappointments and potholes in the road. The best that most adults can do is dream and aspire for “better” children, houses, jobs, money, holidays and cars and that’s all we can envisage for ourselves; that’s all we can “realistically” dream of.

It’s a sad state of affairs when the biggest obstacle to us having “anything in the world that we might want” are the thoughts in our heads; what is “realistic” limits our tomorrows and makes a dissatisfying bed to lie in today. However, there’s a tendency to think the reverse; if we have dreams it’ll only make us dissatisfied and disappointed with our lot. When we see others achieve spectacular things, things that we don’t even allow ourselves to dream of, we secretly despise them; deep down we mutter to ourselves that those people are no better than we are and they aren’t that special really. Actually, they are. However, it’s  only a simple thing that makes them different;

The Naked Jumper – Pt. 2

“The War on Happiness”

The Tidal waves of Jumper disaster…

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Proactive undermining and fake praise is the “Jumper” currency and standard of communication. You can spot the “Jumper” by their negativity; they are beset by the rampant social disease of comparison. Everything they express is comparative, whether indirect, implied or explicit. Nothing said is simple or stand-alone and everything marks you on a scale of comparison; against someone, something or some social standard or value. Nothing has value unless set against something or someone else.

Lost is the idea of simple appreciation for the thing itself because we enjoy it. Appreciation and enjoyment is only possible through comparison and what is being enjoyed is the comparison, not the thing itself for itself. We even rename a “comparison” and call it a “reason”; a reason to like or dislike, adore or abhor because it’s “better than”, “worse than” or “same as”.  We’ve made it nigh on impossible to be happy with ourselves; there’s always some comparison or scale of measurement out there that we won’t score well on, and we’ll be sure to find it. We will constantly and automatically measure ourselves to find ourselves wanting. Bizarrely, it is the comparison we have learnt to enjoy and the thing itself is only important because it triggers a comparison. Our enjoyment of life becomes intricately entwined and nondetachable from scoring ourselves on various scales of measurement. Comparison has become the source of all “happiness”.

To compound matters we are trained from an early age to be cautious and to save up for a “rainy day”. There’s nothing inherently wrong with being “sensible” until “sensible” becomes an extreme unto itself; we become blinkered about being “sensible”. The pre-empting and prediction of our rainy days becomes our obsession; our focus becomes skewed and our attention centred on what pains us. We think about all the bad things potentially coming our way; we plan for them and we expect them.

The Naked Jumper – Pt. 1

“Hey Sheeple, you’re in a stew”

Beware of wolves in bad jumpers…

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A “Jumper” is a sheeple who pulls the wool over their own eyes and tells you “you should” and “you ought” to do the same … plus  they’re also better than you because they have the ability to tell you that. There are lots of different varieties of Jumpers but they have one overwhelming trait in common, an internal blind spot to one thing,  themselves. They have lost the ability to define themselves and cannot tell anymore what is them and their thoughts and what is not; they have a nasty habit of internalising values that go under their “me” radar and these values end up as them. It’s not like they think or  make a choice or decision about it; they just let it happen and that is their choice/decision. Consequently, they become a blurry arbitrary amalgam which they are guaranteed to enthusiastically defend tooth and nail.

Unfortunately, we substitute a self-defined, ever-evolving sense of being, for an obstinately defended blind spot of social conformity. It seems we are hard wired to be social. However, “social” is no bad thing but it has been hijacked and deformed into a mental straitjacket that we are pseudo-oblivious to. It is very much like a hypothetical situation of being tied up in a straitjacket and someone pointing this out to us; our reaction is to insist that we both like our straitjacket and that this situation is of our own choosing. When asked about the restrictive nature of our apparel we will sing the praises of confinement and restriction as if they were virtues. If the subject is pursued we’ll make justifications that “sound” rational and logical about our restricted state, talking freely about the straitjacket; making out there is nothing amiss or disturbing about our situation. We’ll be strangely unashamed of what’s supposed to be the “elephant in the room” i.e. the straitjacket but the real “elephant” is the humiliating fact that the straitjacket confirms we are out of control i.e. likely to cause harm to ourselves and others. The real reason we are so keen on our straitjacket is that if we direct focus on the “object”  that we are actually hiding  (our inability to control ourselves) remains hidden. Thus, we  hide our discomfort and everyone else who also sports a straitjacket will be encouraged  and will do the same. What was something to be ashamed of has become a source of pride. Unfortunately the people that don’t require confinement of this kind are shunned and humiliated for their abysmal lack of “respect for themselves” because they are “unable to control themselves” (i.e. their lack of a straitjacket demonstrates this fact).

The Digital Branding Iron: The Advertization of Me! Pt. 5

Part 5: “Dr. Feelgood”

Brand New Me: Over the Rainbow

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What is the most powerful element of brand? It’s the ability to produce  “feelgood”. The gifted among us ooze it from their pores; creativity, vision and the know how to wield their power with grace and dexterity. From the very start, the moment a brand comes into existence, its purpose is to make us feel good; even the act of promising makes us feel good and that’s only the brand prelude of what’s to come.

“Feelgood” is a precious, hard to come by and supremely coveted commodity in this day and age. No matter how unbelievable or fleeting it may be, we want it. We’re not fussed as to what flavour it comes in, we just don’t care. Even when “feelgood” comes labelled as perishable, as long as it gives us relief from our crippling insecurities or the banality of modern life, we’ll suck it up without hesitation. Wherever “feelgood” resides we’ll be magnetically drawn toward it. If it resides in a person, a place, a product or an idea, we’ll take out more than our cash to have it, hold it and hope that it’s forever.

Brand faces a new challenge, the growth and evolution of a new,  multifaceted digital existence and fragmentation of a once coherent hierarchy of mass social identity. “Feelgood” will be the most likely culprit for the failure of brand creators in their pursuit of the new digital dollar. So, what are the new values of “feelgood” and where are they found?

The real place that “feelgood” resides in is the mind and heart of the brand beholder. Ultimately, brand is an idea in people’s heads but a one trick idea is a flat line for commerce. Currently brands are still  screaming churlishly for us to imitate and participate/engage in it, but these are the old ways of swimming in an ever-shrinking broadcast pond. Times are changing and brands need to radically evolve to survive and flourish in a shocking new eco-system of digital diversity. It’s in nobody’s interest to contribute to a festering cesspool of mediocrity. Brand needs to be less of a prima donna-dictator and more of a factory that produces many subtle variations  and nuances of meaning under one umbrella. It cannot afford to be dragged down by the pathetic accommodation  of obsolete social standards  and outdated ideals. Instead, it needs be inventive and find the wherewithal to stand up, stand out and be noticed.

The Digital Branding Iron: The Advertization of Me! Pt. 4

Part 4:”Mr Poogle and I”

Public Relations: A walk down the garden path

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I was alarmed when I discovered that “Mr Poogle” was making inroads into my psyche and was attempting to make the word “advertising” interchangeable and synonymous with the word “information”. I knew that inherently there’s nothing particularly wrong with “information” and that it could be biased and tainted. However, even biased and tainted information wasn’t necessarily trying to transform me into a customer; if it was, it was advertising (i.e. “the act or practice of calling public attention to one’s product, service, need, etc., esp. by paid announcements in newspapers and magazines, over radio or television, on billboards, etc.: to get more customers by advertising”).

However, Mr Poogle’s trick bothered me. Mr Poogle, the magician, was performing a sleight of word rather than a sleight of hand trick. He was doing more than simply advertising to me, he had imparted the slippery rhetoric of pubic relations. Mr Poogle was supposedly “letting me know” about advertising and I was asking myself  “what was wrong with that?”  I posed myself a story about someone suffering from hubris to figure out Mr Poogle’s game. The hubris sufferer was outrageously and offensively bragging and boasting but when questioned about their behaviour, they’d say they were “just letting you know about themselves” and that would follow with a “what’s wrong with that?”  Of course, what was wrong was their bragging was offensive. However, the “look at the birdie” temptation would be to take issue with what they were saying about themselves e.g. whether what they were saying was fact or fiction, or the  manner in which they were bragging.  The “birdie” is always adjacent to the issue but isn’t the issue. What they were doing was offensive i.e. glorifying themselves. Thus, hubristic bragging was the issue (not the “how”, “why” or the particular style of self-admiration).

The PR techniques of the hubris sufferer are almost identical in structure to some of those used by conjurers and magicians in sleight of hand tricks i.e. the focus and subject of attention being simulated, misdirected and switched. In the hubris story, the bragger 1) misdirected the focus away from the unsavoury nature of bragging by suggesting they were “just letting you know” thus  making bragging suddenly “helpful” and “wanted” , 2) switched “bragging” for the innocent action of “just letting you know about themselves”,  3) simulated innocence with “What’s wrong with that?” i.e. pretended he had done nothing wrong. Thus, the hubris sufferer’s misdemeanour of displaying excessive pride magically ceased to exist.

The Digital Branding Iron: The Advertization of Me! Pt. 3

Part 3: “Me Today, Brand Tomorrow?”

“Playtime in the Playpen”

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There is no commercial message etched on our hearts, minds or digital DNA… yet. The situations and online contexts we find ourselves in, whether we acknowledge it or not,  subtly change our digital psyche.  The interspace of digital life stretches beyond our own digital reflections of ourselves.

It is impossible to be precious about our digital “selves” in the Me-Zone; all digital property and content is open to use by all and sundry, regardless of what the law may say. Our spiel,  in videos, words, sounds and pictures, reverberates and bounces off the social media/network walls on an endless journey of communal montage and re-use. However, this “commune” activity belies the fact that we’re intimately hooked on the exchange of direct transmissions. This “tiny” addictive detail is the Achilles heal of those would-be evangelical ad-messengers; plaguing them with an “ugly appendage” that alerts us to their “interventionist” shenanigans. This  “ugly appendage” is a price tag that shouts to us “gimme your cash!” and this message has unsurprisingly fallen on deaf ears; it’s obviously not the way to win “friends” and “followers”.

Traditionally, “commerce” just talks “at” us which used to be called “engaging with your audience”. Times and mediums have changed. “Commerce” has a serious vested interest in infiltrating our social circles and “socialising” with us but it needs a “vehicle” to do so. Marshall McLuhan’s well worn motto “the medium is the message” still stands in the digital age with one significant difference in application; the message is interactive. Thus in order to harness the power of the digital age the “interactivity” of the “medium” has to be  exposed and exploited to produce the message; seemingly a concept more easily said than understood in the the commercial world of would-be ad-messengers.

What does it mean to let us be “interactive” with the message?  It means giving us a caged playpen to “interact” with and “play” in.

The Digital Branding Iron: The Advertization of Me! Pt. 2

Part 2: “The Quest for the Golden Ticket”

“Friends, Followers and sheeple, lend me your mouth…”

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Every avenue of communication is infiltrated by an annoying breed of particularly ugly  and insistent marketeers/advertisers; email with spam and social media with  Me-Zone career “personalities”. These Me-Zone attention-grabbers are the self-appointed equivalent of c-list celebrities. They loiter at every Me-Zone portal doing an oily “meet and greet” on the unsuspecting visitor to the chattering society of social media. One inadvertent, innocent click and before you know it you’re a “follower” listening to their incessant  verbiage;  the BS that’s disguised as “helpful” or “interesting” that drowns their screams of  “look at me, look at me!”.

These primping vanity cases are really just empty ad-space and their digital noise is a signpost to their “cuddly” cry for digital dollars. You’ll momentarily forget that these noisy billboards have no standards and you may as well be the lowest scum on earth. After all, they deny no one the “privilege” of listening to them; you’re only there to swell the ranks of their  “friends” and “follower” lists. These Me-Zone career “personalities” have “no choice” but to prime us and aggrandize themselves because they’re desperate. They need to “look popular”, it’s their job; a prerequisite for readying their nest for business, as they lay in wait for the corporate golden egg to splash down for  on-message capital delivery. After all, it’s just a numbers game; if they aren’t perceived to have a “big”  audience the juicy digital dollars are unlikely to follow. Eddie Bernays wouldn’t be surprised, as nothing much has changed since his time (and death) despite the world going digital. Even in the 1930’s, Bernays was busy manipulating the public and public opinion by the indirect use of third parties and third party “authorities” to deliver the spun message. The only thing that needs to settle down is who is going to be that “third party”; every marketeer, ad/pr agency/consultancy, geek, groupie and conceited human being is seemingly trying to win that golden ticket.

Me-Zone: The Hive-Mind of Digital Community

What am “I”?

Becoming “Me” in the Me-Zone-

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“Me” is on the mind of the “online” everyone. What does it mean to be “me” in the “Me-Zone”; the emergent “cloud-space” of TwitterFeed, MyFace and Youoogle etc? Maybe we’ll StumbleUpon it and Digg it? Maybe not. The Me-Zone quest is founded on our phenomenal ability to get outside ourselves and point at ourselves;  all we do is ask “Is that me? Is this me?” The age of mass comparison breeds a congenital dissatisfaction; a lack of “feel-good” about ourselves from birth; no one can be all things to themselves. Thus, we have “community”.

“I” have become the universal singular collective that everybody knows, wants to talk to but doesn’t understand. I am the new digitally social “me” and my “Me-Zone” desperately needs borders; hive mind “click-fit” identity needs to be defined, owned and signified. Why? Because we need it to function. It is “me” and I need it to shop, talk about shopping and then put down  hard earned cash and talk about what I’ve bought, so others can purchase too… but, of course, most of all I need it to “share” myself generously with the “huggy-world” community of everyone else. It is my passport into the “Me-Zone” of communal consciousness.

I am vicariously, through a fragmented digital “me”, being distributed, stored and accessed by others via servers across the world.  Each facet of “me” is expressed through mashup widgets that pipe “me” in to the Me-Zone; the more widgets connect me, the more the Me-Zone knows “me”.  The digital “me” is shared around, and

The Digital Branding Iron: The Advertization of Me! Pt. 1

Part 1: “Youoogle, MyFace & Me”

A Minor Prelude

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Have we fallen in love with the sound of our own “twittering”? Is digital communication becoming a way to avoid meaningful communication? Are we evolving into networked communities of narcissists; oozing self-promotion, self-publicity, reeking of advertising greenbacks and consumed with a zombie-hunger for celebrity. Are we witnessing the rise of the “vacuous online charlatan” ramming their self-interest down our throats with a brat-arrogance that screams for gratitude?

Who are these people that invade our space with the stench of their rotting conceit; the latest eau de parfum by Youoogle. Oops.. it’s us. It’s the “us” that wants to get on, who is dying to be a paid mouth piece or face of Greenbacks Inc. Okay, we’re prostituting our body parts in a less traditional way, but have we “rented” or “sold” out? How far do you go sticking your butt in the air before the logo is on your ass; permanantly branded (like an animal) and belonging to the company (that does no evil)?

But… what’s wrong with that?

Everybody’s got to make a living.. yeh, of course, but, surely, we don’t all need to be in advertising, pr and marketing. Are we becoming the networked communities of social advertisers to each other? Are we projectile vomiting at each other every time we speak because each word of value is laced with an ad/pr/marketing message? It seems the two are becoming one, we will “communi-advercate”, avidly read “advert-newsments”, get a university “edu-dorsement” , enjoy streaming “advertainment” and intimately “public-relate”? Will all our communication be accompanied by a “para-text” of advertising/pr? Are we moving from “pop culture” to a pr-primed “ad culture”.  It’s a fun idea to run with but more likely it’s just a phase we’re all going through; advertising is unlikely to evolve in quite such a blantantly entertaining fashion; the ad/pr/marketing savvy boys and girls aren’t that daft… but they’re not necessarily genii either..

The question is “how smart are we and what do we want?”… collectively.

“Being a Hero”: The Lost American Dream?

The Scent of “America”

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Dmojo’s periodic take on the cultural themes, mood and psyche of “America” as seen through Hollywood movies and sci-fi/horror tv serials.

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Superheroes are worshipped around the world in the temples of cinema and at the alters of our flat screen tvs. Our digitised comic book gods are created in our own image, viciously infected with our neurotic and paranoid prayers and their foibles are super-sized by superhero powers.

The world adores the comic book “superhero” and its an enduring symbol of true red-blooded America that goes hand in hand with burgers, fries and baseball. If we were to pose the light-hearted question “if America was a superhero, what kind of superhero would it be?” We’d have our answer… a superhero like all of “us”, with the same problems, but worse… perhaps a super-clumsy, socially inept, drunken bum (i.e. “Hancock”) or one desperately in need of a shrink; to work out how life, the world and their parents screwed them up (i.e. “Heroes”, “Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles” and “Supernatural”). Despite the Oprah-style psycho-doublespeak swirling around in their heads, they nevertheless resolutely muddle through to save the world “by the skin of their teeth”. Superhero life is getting really tough as everybody knows something’s gone very wrong but exactly what is illusive and unfathomable; superhero victories over evil are complex half won battles and the war is bent on continuing in the next episode or sequel; buying us

TouchMe.MyGizmo

Pocket gizmos seem to be getting to a stage where they might actually be worth my while, but are they? Is their beauty only hardware deep, i.e. do they have the software smarts to really be my pocket slave?

Salivating at the thought of a pocket gizmo that might actually do what I want it to… I “reach out and touch” the new generation of multi-tasking, always connected wifi-web-phone-cam toys. I marvel at these truly gorgeous objects of digital desire… knowing all it takes is a smarter, better, faster model from the geek toy-makers at Santa’s secret phone factory and my fickle heart will flutter anew.

For now though, I can enjoy my love affair with these new and very sexy rivals to the iPhone, secretly hoping the iPhone will be assassinated… (although it has a user interface to die for… it’s sooo uncool). These new gizmos (namely the Nokia N97 and the HTC Touch HD phones) come with 3.5/3.8 inch touch screen, web-cam on the front, 5mp cam on the back, mini/micro-USB port, 3.5mm headphone jack, micro-SD (max 16gb), but other than that they don’t vary hugely in terms of hardware (the HTC has a slightly bigger screen but the N97 is wide-screen format, has 32gb on-board memory, a slide-out qwerty keyboard, cam flash and the 3.5mm jack doubles for TV out) and they both have GPS sat-nav capability.

My heart’s desire was that my magical pocket gizmo would function as a phone, digital concept/sketch book, mini-tv, and all round webby communicator; handy when waiting around for someone in a cafe or public place, or when I’m on the move

The Digital Erosion of Being You

As we enter the world of digital visibility we are opening ourselves up to always-on connectivity to those we love and care about by choice and free will. However, along the way, we give the same connectivity, information and privilege to a whole host of people we don’t know. Those that are the conduit to connectivity are pimping us to the highest bidders and not only do we get cheated of our cut in the deal; we even don’t know we’re being trafficked. Thus, we are up for sale to anyone who pays for access, we are simultaneously the ones being sold and sold to – we are the army of double-whammy “online losers” dressed up and encouraged to compete with each other to be the “latest, most popular, friend-rich, socially cool, connected” and stark-naked mini-emperors of “MyFace Youoogle” fiefdoms. We are so busily engaged in this futile competition that no one notices as we all turn into chumps, like the eBay bidders that pay extortionate prices because they are so fixated on being “winners”. Anyone and everyone can be crowned; any age, any gender, any and every preference and mishap is accommodated in this emperor club as long as you are proud of prostituting your digital identity.

In pursuit of their holy grail big business and the brand/advertising industry race to define and combine our “Digital Personalities” and “Digital Identities” into advertising (or “sucker”) profiles that are so accurate that advertising becomes an almost 100% indication and assurance of sales. Our seemingly fragmented engagement with various “services/utilities” is being sucked up and

Digital Losers Anonymous?

Recently this question was rattling around in my head, “Do social networks (the likes of “MyFace” & “Youoogle”) and other so-called online communities legitmise, promote and celebrate losers, socially rewarding them with a new found desirability and popularity?”

This issue had arisen numerous times fuelled by my own experiences with online communities and also chats with friends where we kept stumbling on the curious and repeated “exaultation of losers “.

Quite some time ago now, Michael Wesch’s YouTube video “An anthropological introduction to YouTube” landed up infront of my eyeballs; it is a perfect example of the celebration of the lowest common denominator. Although very palatable and entertaining, what is hidden in plain sight and woven into the “happy, happy, freedom and flowers, huggy-world” is YouTube propaganda. Mr Wesch’s observations and findings maybe amusing and of passing interest but are hardly earth shattering revelations about humankind and thus, my reaction was “So what? That’s hardly news”.

However, left to ruminate I started to find the underlying sentiment somewhat unsettling. Why on earth are we supposed to celebrate and glorify “monkey see, monkey do” behaviour and be proud of ourselves for that? Or suddenly think we are so “special” because we may sometimes do and feel the same things as other humans beings on the planet? Mr Wesch’s YouTube advertising campaign screams “WOW, we’re/you’re so AMAZING!!!” but only if you can shove yourself in front of a webcam to be part of the YouTube “community”…