Raoul's China Saloon (V5.0) Beta
The Bar Room => The BS-Wrestling Pit => Topic started by: Calach Pfeffer on March 22, 2013, 11:47:18 PM
-
Ultimately, a very cool app, and yet...
WORST WHITE MAN EVAJH!
http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XNTI2NjExNDg4.html
-
You know why I am old? I'll tell you why I am old! I have no idea what this is (much like the guy who is talking about it) but I still instinctively disapprove of it and think that the way the word "exists" is used in this advert is a symptom of some terrible social decline of some kind.
-
IF this is the pinnacle of human endeavour today to produce a Pizza ap then it makes me sad.
-
IF this is the pinnacle of human endeavour today to produce a Pizza ap then it makes me sad.
Thomas DeQuincey wrote something once which, with a little amendment, fits this situation quite well I think:
It contributes much to these feelings [of dread and awe], that South-Eastern Asia is, and has been for thousands of years, the part of the earth most swarming with human life, the great officina gentium. Man is a weed in those regions. The vast empires, also, into which the enormous population of Asia has always been cast, give a further sublimity to the feelings associated with all Oriental names or images. In China Japan, over and above what it has in common with the rest of Southern Asia, I am terrified by the modes of life, by the manners, by the barrier of utter abhorrence placed between myself and them, by counter-sympathies deeper than I can analyse. I could sooner live with lunatics, with vermin, with crocodiles or snakes. All this, and much more than I can say, the reader must enter into, before he can comprehend the unimaginable horror which these dreams of Oriental imagery and mythological tortures impressed upon me.
The antidote to this is literature.
Yes. Literature.
(There's no emoticon to express gently rocking backwards forwards to escape the terrible futureshock of cyberpunk Asia, but if there was one, that would be here now).
-
the dude is Dominos Japan prez.
Hatsune Miku is, as he says, vocaloid. She's kinda old skool now but she's was the breakout singing-voice synth program that got the scene going. The scene is mostly Japanese, based around Nico Nico Douga, a members only site where people make stuff--music, art, videos--which they post to share. Once shared, they get coopted and themes and image trends start. One big thing is making music, having a vocaloid sing, then adding video, sometimes computer generated, sometimes real people. (From which scene did Danceroid emerge, I luvs them.)
The existence of this large social media sharing community has marketers loosing their shit. Miku is everywhere in Japan and almost nowhere in English-speaking countries. This ad, and a bunch of dumb spots for Toyota, are attempts to cashing in, but they HAVE NO IDEA!
When Japanese co-opt western culture, you get stuff like Crazy Night (http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XNTI4MDMzMzc2.html). When Dominos co-opt Japanese you get freakish white men touching Mikus.
-
I want an app that can fax me a pizza. ababababab
Oh wait, it's Dominoes, so it won't taste any better than paper anyway. bibibibibi
-
Plus, it's iphone.
Wouldn't see this on Android.
-
Anyone watch 'Archer'? This is totally Krieger's anime hologram 'wife' (who gets tired of him!)
-
The reason his tie is so bad is because the animated doll is wearing one of the same colour.
This settles it. If there is a shooting war over the Diaoyu Islands I am going to enlist in the Chinese navy.
-
THE ANIMATED DOLL IS NOT WEARING THE SAME AS HIM HE IS WEARING THE SAME AS HER!
The Miku Blue precedes this ad by about five years.
GAH!
-
THE ANIMATED DOLL IS NOT WEARING THE SAME AS HIM HE IS WEARING THE SAME AS HER!
Quite. He is the President of an international company and he consented sport a shiny powder blue tie against a white shirt and dark navy blazer because a cartoon character was wearing something similar.
The world doesn't make sense to me anymore.
I am like the 60 year old janitor at the back of a Frank Zappa concert.
I am accustomed to wandering through my surroundings in a fug of incomprehension but this is truly strange: a man with a bag of live ducks on a train; public defecation; swarms of old people walking backwards through parks at 5AM; goats grazing on the campus of my university. All normal. A cartoon doll-thing in a tiny skirt which comes with your pizza? I simply do not understand.
-
I really like a lot of Japanese culture, even some of the kawaii stuff. When you actually find out about how deep the rabbit hole goes it's pretty scary though.
A really popular computer 'game' in Japan is an anime style woman like that who you have as a girlfriend rather than having a real one...loons
-
To be fair, sorta--or at least hip--I suspect not even Dominos Japan are that dumb. They made the ad not bad but exploitable. People are already slicing it up and making new shorts, adding different music, change of focus, screwing with the words. The simple backgrounds, the badly scripted blurbs, even the awkward poses before camera... all exploitable and thus all able transmit the basic message along other remixes. Plus actually, he name checks a bunch of Japanese dudes who're probably actual people known on sites and are busy being recognised. None of those guys were shown lamely. Only the white dude is dumb.
But I love miku more than I love pizza.
/conflicted
-
A really popular computer 'game' in Japan is an anime style woman like that who you have as a girlfriend rather than having a real one...loons
Meanwhile, in Japan:
(http://www.freeimagehosting.net/t/6bgp5.jpg) (http://www.freeimagehosting.net/6bgp5)
-
Unfortunate revelation: hi, I'm Scott.
-
Pizza and show for the otaku.
-
Hatsune Miku is mainstream. Otaku is when you know there are other vocaloids.
-
This is all new to me...these things do 'live' concerts, and people actually go to see them...thousands of people...WTF...vocaloids doesn't real guise...guise?
-
You may recognise Miku as the star of such memes as Nyanyanyanyanyanyanya! before it became Nyan Cat
http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMjQ4NDg1MjUy.html
There featuring also Len and Rin (cosplayed).
-
Hatsune Miku is mainstream. Otaku is when you know there are other vocaloids.
I asked a student today and she told me that there are more than 1000 vocaloid stars
-
Yup.
Well, technically (*puts on blue tie*), Vocaloid is a software and vocaloids are personality avatars for that software. There are or have been about 45 vocaloids in and around three generations of program. Vocaloid 2 is when the craze, centered around the personality avatar Hatsune Miku, a 16-year-old girl with permanent headphones and blue hair, went huge. Since then there's been a handful of other really famous avatars (and the associated variations in program sound) too. Composers, both amateur and professional, seem to buy into the avatars, often keeping somewhat true to the character in the works they create. And of these composers, indeed there are thousands considered stars.
They are, as the saying goes, big in Japan.
-
In the past couple of days I have watched online thousands of people worship a singing hologram, and also listened to a news report about how ultra-realistic sex-bots are just around the corner (both Japan-based, of course!). Can't help but feel that the end of the human race as we know it is nigh!
http://vimeo.com/12915013
-
Speaking of high art...
First there was a fan fiction. It starred Miku and six other of the runner up famous vocaloids, and it was a ghost story. Miku is lost in a forest and comes upon a broken down house. The house is part of a strange village and inside are strange people, the other vocaloids. The village is a twilight zone were the same day repeats endlessly. Miku decides to kill everyone! Of course she does. She uses the stuck clock hand as a dagger and gets to slaughtering.
Now, that's interesting enough. But then it was rendered into song, like a musical number, with all the starring vocaloids singing their parts in the story. Then a still picture video was made. Then a dance sequence was developed for people to act out while the music played. Then an MMD was made of the dance.
【MMD】Bad ∞ End ∞ Night (http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XNTE1MzQ4ODM2.html)
Then the sequel was written. It recaps the first story but takes a turn. A page is missing from the script of the repeating story and it seems to be Miku's fault. A crazed villager slaughters everyone trying to escape. This time instead of (well, as well as) an MMD, Danceroid made a video.
【DANCEROID】Crazy ∞ nighT (http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XNTI3OTMwMTc2.html)
Then the final story in the trilogy was written. The first two stories are recapped but this time Miku realizes something different must happen. Instead of killing everyone she goes down to the basement... where the coffins are! She finds the missing page and runs and runs to bring it to the villagers...
【ふふっひ】Twilight ∞ nighT 【メイト♡】 (http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XNTI5MDg5OTU2.html)
YMMV but this all is as far as I know just a bunch of people online doing art.
And advertising pizza.
There's porn too, but when isn't there?
-
Despite their endless economic trouble Japan still stays at the forefront of technology and art so it is still tempting to see things happening in their society and worry that this is the future for the rest of the developed world, but you always have to remember that it is Japan and they are mad.
-
Lol, true. And English-language vocaloid sounds crap, so we needn't worry just yet.
-
The last story of the Black Mirror series entitled "Where's Waldo" deals with this THere you have an animated Blue Bear that runs in a local by- election in the UK and threatens to take over due to its immense popularity.
Hints of things to come..
-
Speaking of Black Mirror:
The series has become popular and been well-received in China, becoming one of the most discussed series in early 2012.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Mirror_(TV_series)
-
Actually introduced a student to it yesterday and he didn't seem to get the ramifications-I mean he said he thought the first episode was "funny" so I explained the subtext a bit and I discovered that he really had not got the whole cultural/social critique side of it.
He is a bright boy graduating this year and off to postgrad in OZ. Students here really have a hard time UNDERSTANDING Western stuff. and intuiting what is really going on.
-
He is a bright boy graduating this year and off to postgrad in OZ. Students here really have a hard time UNDERSTANDING Western stuff. and intuiting what is really going on.
We all should keep this in mind as wee are trying to figure out what's going on here.
-
He is a bright boy graduating this year and off to postgrad in OZ. Students here really have a hard time UNDERSTANDING Western stuff. and intuiting what is really going on.
As a matter of curiosity, to which City in Oz will he be going? Is there any special cultural preparation for the young folk going to other Countries? I was in a lift yesterday and I made some comment to one of the Asian passengers. His response indicated to me that I may as well have been talking to a Martian. No wonder a lot of these folk can't assimilate if no one explains things to them. I also had to explain to an Asian lady (yesterday) that she had to wait her turn to be attended to by a gaming machine attendant. This woman has been here for years. The attendant thanked me and told me that this woman is always rude and expecting immediate attention. The look on her face told me that she didn't like what I told her, but she backed off. bfbfbfbfbf
-
Uhh, who is the commercial for? Presumably the Japanese, so why is he explaining who Hatsune Miku is and what a vocaloid is, when they are hugely famous?
-
Is there another way to make the connection to pizza? The Miku image exists everywhere, and the personality construct is formally owned by Crypton media, but the continuity and development of that personality is effectively owned by all those people who've been using the tool for the last five years. That is, they will act to distort any imagery and direction made up for some advertising campaign. So you put a dork in a pink tie and have him explain the context like he's talking to children. Then the otakus inside the company take over. The real media campaign is whatever the Dominos otakus do as members of the vocaloid community (with their pizza business interests present as nearly invisible strands in the background). The dork in the pink tie is still needed though. Someone has to go public and drag in the wider audience. If the Dominos otakus where to start advertising directly in-community, they'd lose cred.
The dork in the tie isn't really explaining who Hatsune Miku is. He's explaining that Dominos is part of the Miku community now and therefore that Miku lovers can eat pizza like it's food.
#madeuptheories
-
I wonder also if they didn't use the dude in the suit to make it clear to everyone that they are into kyoooooot pop miku only. That'd be a bit weird. But, this being Japanese, there are some pretty
weird cool Miku adaptions out there. Calne Ca (http://deino3330.deviantart.com/art/MMD-Calne-Ca-ver1-1-216218767) for one. (She sings Bacterial Contamination (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJfV7un_iNk).) And a bunch of metal or pop-metal stuff under names like Hagane Miku. (For eg Corpse Attack (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSNseLn2uow).)
I dunno. Maybe they didn't think it that far ahead. I *think* their real deal is what they do after the ad (or what they've been building up in community currency on which the ad is like a pimple). Imma claim something like this is the way advertisers will work in the future, post-mass marketing. It'd work in China too I think. (or it already does only it's just used on nationalism at the moment.)
#yourmom
-
Virtual girl - looks cute, but you can't ever really touch her.
Cardboard pizza - looks real, but contains no actual flavor or nutrients. Would probably be better if you couldn't really touch it.
I guess I can sort of see the connection now.
-
Daiben (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CtYA_99Q4_o)
-
So I watched the first episode of Black Mirror.
NOT WHAT I WAS EXPECTING
-
Yeah that's kind of why I was surprised it was "big in China"...did they really show that on Chinese TV? If so, how did they translate the "...f**k a pig live on national television..." line? I can see how it could be fairly powerful anti-Western propaganda though...
-
Miku Miku Sparta (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4CEwfEAP-o)
-
MMD 1st MOMI Cup (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XizL9CO8jPY)
Worlds collide.
-
Miku vs McD (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LygKnJGIx_c)
Conflicted.