Normal Gets You Nowhere Page 2
At the end of last year, I was reminded of the way some members of the media like to fuck our brains out with fear when, on the day after Christmas, the entire East Coast was hit with a blizzard. I mean, blizzards happen every year on the East Coast, but for some reason this one made front-page news in all the major papers and merited around-the-clock coverage by TV networks. To watch the news, you’d have thought that it was dangerous to even leave your house if you lived anywhere north of Georgia! I happened to be down at my mom’s in Virginia, and when I walked outside and looked around, I made the decision that—despite several states’ governors having declared states of emergency, which was being eaten up by the media—I was from upstate New York, and I could handle this. I knew the Weather Channel was probably just thrilled about all the attention it was getting and blowing it way out of proportion, anyway.
I grabbed my daughter and got into my black SUV and we had a more than lovely drive, solo on the highway through several states. Sure, I went slow, but I made it to Baltimore in less than a day, driving mostly on black pavement. There, we checked into a four-star hotel and had a fabulous dinner. Meanwhile, Philly, one town over, was on near lockdown, as the Weather Channel continued to inform citizens of the dangers all around them. They bought water, firewood, and extra food. “The Eagles game will be cancelled! New York is totally shutting down!” You could practically see the local weather people wetting their pants with excitement. For them, this wasn’t about protecting the citizens—it was their big moment! Their brand was blowing up!
It all reminded me of living in L.A. in my twenties, when on several occasions I was chilling at my friend’s house on Mulholland, floating around in an inner tube in the pool with Joe Strummer from the Clash, when old acquaintances from New York would call me. “Are you okay?” they’d ask. “Have you seen the news? L.A. is on fire!” I’d say, “Really? Where?” And they would say, “Topanga!” which was eighteen miles away. Of course, the news stations would be carrying on as if the whole city was burning to the ground.
The truth is, it’s a reporter’s job to report; they have to report on news—or create it—to keep their jobs. National tragedies are not happening 24/7, but the news cycle is. As a publicist, I can tell you there’s no one more receptive than a newsperson on a slow day. It’s a gold rush: they need content! At the same time, you’d better hope Tom Cruise doesn’t rescue a civilian in distress and that no one jumps off the Empire State Building on a day you’re launching a press campaign or issuing a news statement, because you’ll be fucked. It’s the same reason you can’t launch a new fashion label on Election Day. Sometimes you just can’t compete.
Even the best news stories should just be a starting point, not the final word.
We can use them to pique our interest, but then we need to do our own research and create our own beliefs. There are too many capitalistic interests at work in the media—the media brands themselves plus the publicists and lobbyists whose job it is to influence them—to take any of it at face value. Everyone thinks news organizations exist just to inform us, but really they are distribution networks for branders, advertisers, and publicists, all of whom try to roll their ball down the lane and get a strike—that is, impact consumers. Think of the whole system like a big bowling alley, or better yet, an octopus whose tentacles are all intertwined.
As a publicist, it’s my job to work with the media to get the word out about my clients’ brands. Let me tell you how this works in the fashion world. If, for example, you’re a publicist who has just taken on a new client—a hot young designer you want to blow up—you may start by making sure he or she is sold in the “right” five stores, because you know the fashion magazines will like this, and it will help you get a strike. Then, you’ll want to “gift”—send the clothes completely free to—twenty or so really cool celebrities, editors, and stylists. Once those packages have been signed for, technically you can say that Miss Major Movie Star rocks your product.
Another useful tactic is to simply call the celebrity’s manager or agent and throw down a money offer for the celebrity to wear the brand, whether exclusively through a three-, six-, nine-, or twelve-month contract or for a specific event like the Grammys, the Golden Globes, the MTV Music Video Awards, or the Oscars. This way you don’t have to worry about celebrities dropping your brand at the last minute, because their publicist or friend from high school thought your competitor was cooler. It’s a legal deal, babes. And this kind of thing has now has become its own industry: smart fashion brands look at last year’s Oscar winners, who are sure to be this year’s presenters, and make sure to get them on the payroll early! (This year’s nominees aren’t guaranteed to end up on stage, after all.)
Publicists are not the only ones using the media to get the word out about their brands. Government does it too. When the White House “leaks” information to the press, it’s probably less a “leak” than a deliberate PR move. It’s like sex tapes. I mean, do we really think those are accidents? Even citizens know how to use the media these days. Look at the “Balloon Boy” dad in Colorado! Every PR company in the country should have had its tail between its legs after that incident, because we’re paid millions of dollars to get our clients on-air for fifteen minutes, and this country bumpkin from Colorado who wanted his own reality TV show managed to command the attention of news crews on both coasts for forty-eight hours! It’s really kind of easy. There are many ways to use and manipulate the news media to your or your brand’s advantage, whether your brand is Gucci or the Obama administration.*
Unlike many of my competitors, I refuse to be a normal publicist. By that I mean I don’t represent anyone or anything I don’t believe in and genuinely enjoy being a mouthpiece for. At least, not anymore. When I first started People’s Revolution, I had a business partner, and we never agreed on anything. I’d say Kartell; she’d say IKEA. She’d say the Grateful Dead; I’d say the Dead Kennedys. My partner screened clients by one criterion: If you have money, we’ll take it. She felt that we weren’t curators in a museum (I happened to disagree). My side of the room eventually came to include clients like the haute fashion designers Paco Rabanne and Vivienne Westwood, while she repped Hot Topic and a pornography company called the Adult Entertainment Network, a competitor to the infamous Vivid.
Back then, I was in the process of becoming bicoastal, as I represented an increasing number of New York–based fashion designers. I’d taken a small four-hundred-square-foot apartment on 47th Street between 9th and 10th Avenues, which is basically Times Square West. Every night, I’d hear pimps screaming at hookers outside my window. “What’s my fucking name, bitch!” they’d yell. I’d hear lots of sobs as girls were physically and verbally abused. I started calling the police department to complain of the prostitution problem on my block, to no avail.
One day, my business partner asked me to cover a news interview for her. It was a media announcement being made by the head of the Adult Entertainment Network, an earnings report or an announcement on its growth. The interview was to take place in Times Square. So there I was, a few blocks from my house, with a very successful pornographer, facilitating his interview with a TV camera crew. Out of the corner of my eye I saw four police officers milling about the island in the middle of Times Square. I decided on the spot to reach out to them about the nagging prostitution problem on my block.
“Ma’am, are you some kind of wacko?” the officer asked, when I explained the problem. “You’re standing in Times Square promoting pornography, and you’re going to complain to me about the hookers on your block?”
He had a point. It was totally insane that I would simultaneously promote a porn network and complain about prostitution. Ultimately, I told my partner that it was the most humiliating professional experience I’d ever had and that I not only wanted nothing to do with the Adult Entertainment Network; I wanted it banished from our agency. (Of course, she told me to go fuck myself, and our partnership didn’t last.)
Ever since t
hen, I’ve taken on clients whose work I genuinely believe in, even if I wouldn’t necessarily wear it myself. But unfortunately there are still plenty of very smart publicists and lobbyists out there whose entire job is to make you want shit that sucks or that’s going to end up hurting or bankrupting you. Take candles (yes, even candles!). Most candles are made of paraffin, which releases carcinogens when it burns, meaning it has been linked to cancer by certain studies. Most candles also release more lead into the air than is safe, according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). It’s hard to believe, but it turns out that if you really want to kill your boyfriend, you should just cook him a really nice romantic dinner and light a bunch of candles! The most amazing part is that scientists have known about this since the 1970s. It’s now forty years later! But candle companies don’t want you to know about the research that exists out there on their products; nor do they want reporters to write about it, despite the fact that safer beeswax alternatives now exist. Instead, they want to seduce you with candlelight and beautiful smells. That’s why they employ armies of publicists—to help spin the information you’re getting.
Despite the fact that real information is more readily available than ever, we’re receiving less and less of it, and we’re able to actually understand even less than that.
I’m Fur-ious, and I’m Not Fucking Around
Several years ago, I would’ve told you that you were out of your mind if you’d said I’d soon be working through the most significant recession my industry had ever seen, second only to the Great Depression. Left and right, magazines went out of business, boutique PR firms closed shop, and people went freelance or changed careers. But as the old media washed away, new ones rose in their stead. Hello, Facebook. Hello, Twitter. Both of these brands have become great assets for the public relations industry and for many people who want to find out what’s really going on in the world. Prior to Facebook and Twitter, we had to pay $1000 to a service called PR Newswire to disseminate messages we wanted to send to multiple media outlets at once. Now, thanks to my multitiered platform—television and books—my company has the ability to reach over a hundred thousand people on Twitter, for free. I don’t know about you, but I love having the ability to disseminate news straight to the people from my BlackBerry.
For example: I happen to think that, despite what industry insiders might tell you, it’s absolutely gross that fashion people are still celebrating fur. What is so sexy about the annihilation of animals for clothing? I don’t know what time period these people think we’re living in. I feel the media have mistakenly portrayed fur as glamorous, when it is actually disgusting with a capital D. In fact, I was appalled when several prominent news organizations recently touted Naomi Campbell’s hot sexy new fur campaign. Thanks to Twitter, I was able to instantly rebuff them by Tweeting that, if they think fur’s sexy, they should show pictures of the animals being clubbed to death or perhaps with electrodes in their mouths or stuck up their anuses. (These are common practices to ensure the fur will lie perfectly on a coat.) Then we’ll see how sexy it is. I was happy to know that a hundred thousand plus people read my message within minutes. And soon, hundreds of young people were even agreeing with me and re-Tweeting it.
I actually think that fur is a great lens through which to talk about commerce, publicity, fame, and the media—and how they all reinforce and rely on each other. Just like with political bills and Happy Meals (trust me, there is nothing happy about how that meal was made), the information about fur is already out there; everything relevant has been said. Take a minute out of your day to visit the website of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, PETA.org—I mean, just one minute, I beg you! View some videos of minks in their cages, suffering with open wounds and engaging in stress-induced cannibalism, or foxes with their legs stuck in traps, literally gnawing them off in terror. If you still think fur is sexy, then you should fucking take a ticket straight to hell and meet your other friends.
But denial is a dangerous drug. People have been programmed not to dig a little deeper to find out why they think something’s sexy. In the comfortably numb generation, we think that seeing something on the news makes it true and that seeing something in the pages of our favorite fashion magazine makes it glamorous. And let’s face it, fur’s publicists have been doing a brilliant job for decades, selling fur to us via Davy Crockett, Dr. Zhivago, J. Lo, and other fur-wearing celebrities. (I’m literally on the Internet as I write this, trying to find a picture of someone who actually looks sexy in fur, but to me they all look like they’re going to a screening of The Flintstones. If you want to look prehistorically ignorant, I recommend you run out and buy yourself a rabbit vest immediately.)
Often, fur trade associations befriend fashion designers when they’re still in design school. They start by providing free fur, and later they pay them to use fur. Do you think I’m joking? I’ve literally had clients show pink mink gouchos in their summer collections. I’ll ask them why they’re doing this, only to find out they’re being paid $10,000 by a fur company to use fur! (That’s right, this shit is so ugly that its manufacturers have to pay to get it on the runway!) I hate to break it to you, but if you think fur’s glamorous, it doesn’t mean you have fabulous taste; it means you’ve been programmed to be totally numb to suffering.
Not that I blame you. I remember wanting a fur coat when I was growing up in Syracuse, in the Eskimo tundra of upstate New York. It always seemed like that’s just what you wore to keep warm if you were rich and glamorous and that any good husband would eventually buy you one (of course, where I was from, even a rabbit stole was considered fancy). When I started representing fashion designers, I was given what I thought was a fabulous reversible flying fox coat by one of my clients. At the time, it was considered chic to bleach the fur and then dye the tips, so my coat was white with ombré hunter green accents. I wore it on a business trip to Sweden to visit a client; wrapped in it as I deplaned, I remember thinking how in the game I was. Never mind that Sweden is one of the most understated places on earth, and wearing a massive fur coat with ombré hunter green accents to Stockholm is like showing up in a Dior ball gown to a picnic. Despite wearing the only fur coat in the entire city, I still felt hot, not ridiculous.
I found out what’s really going on in the fur industry from Dan Mathews, now vice president of PETA, whom I met early on in my time in New York. He visited me at Cutrone & Weinberg, my first PR firm, because he wanted me to know how fur was made. I thought he was a bit outlandish. After all, my impression of charities at the time was that they were supposed to be nice. PETA was attention-seeking and aggressive; at one point the organization even occupied the corporate headquarters of Calvin Klein until Calvin himself agreed to stop making furs.
But I didn’t become antifur immediately. It took a few years for me to actually take ten minutes out of my busy day and spend some time looking into the industry. When I did, and when I saw some videos of what actually happens to these animals, I realized I could no longer get behind it. At first it was very personal; I just wouldn’t wear fur myself. But as I later took my daughter shopping in stores that were selling turquoise fur vests to tweens, I realized I had a responsibility to use my platform to speak out against it. People in fashion, even if they disagree with the use of fur, do not speak out against it as a rule. They do not reveal their true opinions. To them I say, “Let’s move on and be progressive. We don’t need fur; it’s outdated. What’s more important, your outerwear or leaving your grandchildren a planet that’s not violent and sadistic and out of harmony?”
I am not trying to be a Debbie Downer here. There is nothing wrong with owning nice things; everyone is entitled to bask in his or her good fortune, whether you’re a publicist in SoHo or a middle-class kid in Syracuse shopping at the mall. But at the same time, we can’t be drunk on faux glamour and frivolity. I am urging you to do your homework on anything you have been sold, whether a news story or a vest. We need to be able to see through the milli
ons of brands vying for our attention in order to find out what we really need to know. I’m asking you, when you see something in the news or the media that you love or sparks your interest, to follow the story further. Think of it as a diving board into a beautiful lake: you need to jump off and swim across to get to the place you truly deserve to be. Ask questions, do some research, and develop your own point of view. Determine if both the end result and the origin are in line with what you believe in, instead of just blindly trusting and following everything you read or hear or see in the pages of your favorite magazine or newspaper. And don’t be afraid if your opinion isn’t the normal one—in fact, that probably just means you’re on the right track.
I know it’s sometimes easier to kick back than to think honestly about these things. I mean, sometimes I choose unconsciousness too. When I’m really in the mood for something, I can make myself forget about what’s really happening, just like everyone else. Sometimes the want is just greater than the wince. But only when we start to dig deeper and understand the ways brands manipulate us can we make it stop. I’m not saying we’re ever going to be doing our best in all areas, but we need to try to make our actions line up with our beliefs as much as we can. In doing so, we’ll be shining a light down a long, dark hallway. Initially, these brands will try to ignore us. But if they want to stay in business, they’re going to have to buckle and change. Look at Super Size Me, a documentary film about the health implications of eating Big Macs every day. Not only was it a huge embarrassment for McDonald’s; it forced the company to start looking at changing its product offerings.
You, the almighty consumer, are the one that all these brands and their marketers, publicists, and reporters exist to sway. Everyone is trying to get your attention. They want your money and your devotion at any cost. And only you can put them out of business. Take a minute to figure out who you are in this equation and what you stand for. Then act accordingly.