ALAS, poor young people. We know thee well, and yet we never truly get used to thee.
What is it about our culture that we, the allegedly mature, so conveniently forget our own youthful missteps and have such low tolerance for your wacky enthusiasms?
In my day, any self disrespecting stylish girl wore hot-pants, tube-tops, and jeans so tight she had to pleat her abdomen to squeeze into them, and boys in ankletwisting platform boots kept their shirts unbuttoned to the top of their hairless rib cages. These styles were laughable, unflattering, and made us all look trashy, just as our mothers told us, and just as your mothers tell you.
But when you're young, you want to look as distinct from frumpy grown-ups as is humanly possible, hence your decade-long craze for tattoos.
In the consumerist 2000s, some of you also feel that if you're going to invite a greasy stranger to stab ink into your skin, you might as well get something more out of it than just a case of hepatitis. When Goodyear's Dunlop tire unit offered a free set of tires to anybody who'd get its logo tattooed onto his or her body, some 98 people went under the needle, according to the Associated Press in 2007. A website called Leaseyourbody. com connects those willing to be permanent shills to advertisers who crave epidermal ink. Mind you, even five years ago, one marketing expert was observing to AP, "Once corporations use tattoos, it's clear they have lost some of their edginess." Word has yet to reach the colonies.
The practice of turning your body into a billboard is centuries old. Wikipedia points out that after advertising posters got taxed in 19th century London, men would walk around in pasteboard hats that spread the word about whatever their employer wanted them to sell. Fast forward to the start of this century, when several people in the public eye, including boxer Bernard Hopkins during a championship fight, began to sport temporary tattoos featuring advertising.
Wikipedia reports that the first person who agreed to get a permanent tattoo for advertising purposes was a 22-year-old American man, the back of whose head promoted a web-hosting service. Observing foolish commitments like that, we should probably applaud the two young Brits who've decided to rent out space on their faces to advertisers by the day - at least that move's impermanent. Ross Harper and Ed Moyse, both 22, are waking up each morning to festoon their cheeks with painted-on promos that they hope will pay off their 50,000 pounds apiece of student debt, accrued at Cambridge University.
According to links on the men's website, buymyface. com, post-graduate unemployment in the U.K. is at its highest in more than a decade, with one in five failing to find a job in 2011. So far, Harper and Moyse have advertised for Ernst and Young, Pipers Crisps and an online fundraiser called Mashbo, according to a story in The Sun newspaper.
They'll be painting their faces with logos and slogans for a solid 366 days, charging 400 pounds a day for the exposure. I smell a book deal.
If I know parents and grandparents, theirs don't approve. Naturally, readers of The Sun also chimed in with their reactions to this news.
"I think this is (a) great idea and I'll use these guys to advertise my company which is called 'Hit Me Here,'" wrote one wag.
"I bet their girlfriends are- Oh wait, that won't be a problem" wrote another.
What's the difference, I wonder, between renting out space on your body, renting out your body's sex parts, and renting out the space around your body?
How long will our culture bother making such fine discernments? Are the lines getting fuzzier and fuzzier for young people in their constant quest for novelty?
Last week, in a "betatest" that was quickly dubbed Homeless Hotspots, homeless people were paid to act as Internet jacks for more affluent Americans. The brainchild of a marketing company called BBH LABS, the project made its debut at the South by Southwest Music and Technology Conference. It featured nine homeless people from a particular Austin, Texas shelter carrying mobile Wi-Fi devices and wearing T-shirts saying "I am a 4G Hotspot." Wi-Fi addicts were able to use the air around one of these individuals for a recommended donation of $2-plus per 15 minutes.
The 4G Hotspots were given $20 daily, with additional proceeds theirs to keep.
The technology may have worked but the stunt caused a worldwide kerfuffle. It prompted other complaints, too, with one user griping "my homeless hotspot keeps wandering out of range."
Its defenders note that the 4G hotspots were not actually advertising anything, just providing a service.
Good idea? Bad idea? It's innovative, anyway - which always appeals to the young. Maybe in the future, our kids will seek careers as hotspots.
As long as they dress appropriately, is that OK?
