Many things in life benefit from a little parody, but some cultural artifacts are so extreme on their own that there’s no over-topping them. The silliest ’70s retro party you ever went to has NOTHING on the real thing, as you’ll see in this excellent little gem from 1977:
Who knew that you could do so much with terry cloth! It’s a goddamn miracle, and it’s also only the beginning — polyester and chest hair in immense quantities await you at the site 15 Minute Lunch, and I must implore you to scroll all the way down to the matching his-and-hers bathing suits. Yowza! Now THAT’S hotttttttttt. BTW, my parents got both the Penney’s and Sears catalogs throughout that glorious decade; who knows what works of art lurk in the backs of their closets.
– cpd
November 2nd, 2007
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Interesting new development in the world of social networking, with Google announcing the creation of a platform for Facebook Application-like tools that can run on more than one social networking site. The initial partners include Engage.com, Friendster, hi5, Hyves, imeem, LinkedIn, MySpace, Ning, Oracle, orkut, Plaxo, Salesforce.com, Six Apart, Tianji, Viadeo, and XING. TechCrunch goes into some detail about the implications; be sure to check out the comments thread.
When I first heard about it, I didn’t realize that MySpace was involved, as you can see in my quote on page 2 of the current Campaigns & Elections magazine Campaign Insider, where I’m a bit skeptical about the immediate political effects. Having MySpace involved could really make OpenSocial a more useful tool for U.S. political advocacy, since the site’s audience in the States is so much larger than those of all the other social networking sites besides Facebook combined.
Still, Facebook apps have yet to revolutionize online political advocacy, though Facebook groups certainly have their political uses (alas, not enough oomph to get Stephen Colbert on the ballot). As I said at the end of the C&E article, “Honestly, we don’t know how much these things matter…we haven’t gone through an election cycle [yet] in which MySpace and Facebook are going to play a major role.” My prediction: soc nets will have their place, but most campaigns will raise more money and organize more volunteers for real-world action using good, old-fashioned email.
– cpd
November 2nd, 2007
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