THE NAKED ANIMAL

Mommy, Mommy, I wanna be a human billboard!

Okay, I know I may be coming late to this phenomenon, but people are actually getting ads tattooed (some permanent, some temporary) on their bodies for cash. I don't know why I say "actually," though, since it surprises only some ativistic, prudish gene deep in side me somewhere. An outrage, I say! Have you all gone completely mad?!

But no, that voice rarely wins out in the long run. I was moved, if somewhat bemused, by this woman's story, which gets to the heart of the matter: Money is our collective problem, and we'll do anything to get enough of the stuff to live, even if it is degrading and dehumanizing. So there. As the highest-paid "living ad space" who is not a celebrity to date (the fad started in the early years of this century with a world-class boxer being paid $100,000 to wear only a temporary tattoo ad), she now has a permanent tattoo on her forehead that broadcasts the name of an online casino. Her price? A measly ten grand, but as she bluntly puts it, "To me, $10,000 is like $1 million." I'm more in the "$1 million is like $1 million" range, but I get her point. Money is hard to come by. And selling your flesh to the highest bidder is far more preferable to slaving away in some menial job while being grossly underpaid and casually oppressed by lower management dickwads. Yeah, I totally get her point. I'm interested to know if there's any fine print about how she has to respond when asked about the ad. I wonder if she has to give a pat, marketing-developed reply per contract, or if she can just say, "Go fuck off and look it up on the internet yourself."

Madison Avenue apparently sees this as an "interesting development," but not much more, populated by misanthropic philistines as it is. What I mean by that is that mainstream advertising must be offended by the in-your-face-ness (ahem) of the living ad space phenom because it involves far too much icky personal negotiation and agreement with the consumer, whom they prefer to keep at the long-arm-of-the-media's length and manipulate from afar. The puppet is far too culpable in her own string-pulling in the human ad space scenario for the taste of the tastemakers.

But for cagey companies like the afore-alluded-to online casino (I won't actually say it's name here, 'cuz I think I should be paid for that, like everyone else, tee hee), which brings the consumer in on the hideous all-encompassing joke of capitalism's ability to brand all that it touches, daredevilishly balancing lowbrow ironic humanism with state-of-the-art profit growing, it's a case of market-psychology synergy that is opening up yet another previously unpredicted niche in the ever-mutating global economy. And it comes courtesy of our sparsely-populated, but always culturally-enchanting neighbor to the north, Canada, oh Canada.

Here in California, I knew a few white trash godlings in high school back in the early 1980s who were way ahead of this trend--there was one with the Pontiac Trans-Am firebird insignia tattooed on his chest. And then there were the legions of random bikers who were willing to have the Harley insignia tattoed on their arms or (in truly mid-century macho fashion) on their calves. It's a working class tradition, really. At least now they can get paid for it.

If you think you're ready to sell your body to the man, check out this site, and this one, where you can register to be paired with advertisers who want to buy it, in the style of an online matchmaking service. Think about it: It's just like being whore, only you don't have to (get to?) have sex as part of the bargain.

Now that's progress!

Categories: news, culture, marketing, trends