I did the first interview with the Wall Street Journal EVER conducted from Dial House. It was for a quick blurb about the Naturist series but
I did the first interview with the Wall Street Journal EVER conducted from Dial House. It was for a quick blurb about the Naturist series but I was so excited about the bizarre context we were in, I couldn’t stop talking. When he asked me how I define “Selling Out” I kept him on the line for about an hour. I spent more on long distance during that one interview than my hosts had spent on anything in a month. After he finally got off the phone, I followed up with this email.
There was some trepidation when we (VICE) did the first DOs & DON’Ts book with Warner but I decided not to worry about it until we actually saw them censor jokes. If it ain’t broke…
Besides, when Hüsker Dü went to Warner the band made it clear they weren’t going to be shoved around and Warner said, “We don’t want to get involved. Do whatever you want.” The result was the inexplicably beautiful “Don’t Wanna Know if your are Lonely” but with way more ears than SST could have ever provided.
So, after Warner’s legal team sees the book, all they said was, “Why’d you put a black bar over this guy’s eyes?” They had me take black bars OFF people’s eyes. They said, “Look, it’s obviously satire and they’re in a public place so there’s a ‘reasonable expectation of being photographed.’ Don’t worry about it.” That’s why, when I was looking for a publisher for this new one (now called Street Boners) I went to Warner first (now Grand Central publishing).
So yeah, it’s only selling out if
1- The company does something evil like push cigarettes on kids or refuse to make Benadryl cold medicines ephedrine-proof.** I never really have to worry about stuff like that because none of those companies would ever come near anything I’d like to do.
2- The company gets involved with your content and makes you take stuff out you wanted to stay in. I’ve been dealing with this one for 15 years and the only way to know which sponsors do it is to start the project and see what they say. The second they kill a joke, it’s time to go.
*After I said this to Gee Vaucher, I asked her who she would have problems with as a sponsor and she said, “I have a lot of problems with a lot of things.” Classic. (I should mention Gee’s views are light years from mine on this subject.)
** The ephedrine-proof reference is a big, long thing I discovered while reading Methland. Apparently, making Benadryl cold medicines wherein you can’t possibly get the ephedrine out is pretty simple. Pfizer refuses to do so however because a) even a few dollars is too expensive for them and b) ending meth addiction is bad for Benadryl cold medicine sales. It feels strange reducing the author’s multi-chapter explanation for this into a few sentences but you really ought to get the book and fill in the gaps yourself. It will scalp you.
[UPDATE: To be clear. you need pseudoephedrine to make Sudafed, Actifed and Benadryl. Pfizer could easily make it impossible to get the pseudoephedrine out of Sudafed but they won't.]
Anyhizzles, here’s the article and the commercials it’s talking about.
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VICE FOUNDER STARS IN TEVA’S ONINE ADS
By Andrew LaVallee
One of the founders of Vice magazine wrote and stars in a series of online video spots for Teva that spoofs nature TV shows.
The first episode of the series, called “The Naturist,” breaks today and shows Gavin McInnes as an incompetent outdoorsman giving wilderness advice. He treats his bee stings with poison ivy. He inadvertently starts a forest fire. The animal trap he sets successfully captures…a rat.
“I just always loved watching those nature shows, and I’ve never seen them pariodied well,” he said.
Mr. McInnes pitched the idea to New York agency Decon, which also works with Teva. The sandal maker was looking for a way to promote new shoe lines to a younger audience. “This generation that’s really sub-29 is showing minimal interest in the outdoors,” said Joel Heath, global marketing director for the Deckers Outdoor-owned brand. A traditional campaign “was going to fall on deaf ears,” he said.
The first three spots will air online over the next few weeks, though Teva may extend them into next year if they perform well. Mr. Heath wouldn’t say how much the campaign cost but noted that it was a fraction of what the company would’ve spent on print ads in magazines it’s worked with in the past.
Mr. McInnes is better known as one of the co-founders of Vice, a hipster magazine famous for its scathing Dos and Don’ts section. Articles in its August issue include “International Libations: Which Country Produces the Sloppiest Drunks?” and “Something, Something, Something, Detroit: Lazy Journalists Love Pictures of Abandoned Stuff.” He’s no longer affiliated with the publication, instead working on films such as “A Million in the Morning,” about a movie-watching championship, and an upcoming documentary about a boy’s art club in Essex, England.
The company didn’t hold Mr. McInnes back and egged him on at times, he said. In one spot, where he sets a larger-than-expected fire, Teva suggested pyrotechnics for a more vivid explosion (his upstate New York home, where the videos were shot, is still recovering, he said).
“I think the truth is that lazy advertising is done,” he added. “And a lot of people are saying, ‘Let’s hook up with freaks who do videos for a living and then we’ll sort of put our stamp on it and do it together.’”
From here.
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The blogosphere had plenty to say about it all but as usual, the most thoughtless comes from the embittered PC nerds at Gawker. They’re so hurt I didn’t blow Obama, they see everything else as “ignorant” and even getting knocked the fuck out by an MMA fighter becomes “Fighting a minority.” Huh?
(photo of author)
What, is this guy in the Squirrel Nut Zippers?
[UPDATE: Oh shit, that's not the guy. This is the guy.]
What happened to reporters by the way? They used to be Lester Bangs and Legs McNeil. Now they’re just half-assed Louis Skolnicks?
Here’s an idea for one: How about everyone at that site at least try something, once? Try heroin or maybe get arrested or set up a threesome at least one time. They’re supposed to be imparting a tiny part of the New York experience to the rest of the world and they’ve all lived about as much as Stuart Little.
apparently being cool and banking off it isn’t allowed.
you really are a sellout. so is vice. vice sucks.
Anyone who isn’t a sellout is poor and unemployed.
Didn’t you ALWAYS rag on Tevas?
Raymi, no one has ever accused you of selling out, or being cool so save it.
There’s a difference between selling out and being a hypocrite.
making money is cool. tivas are ugly and suck though – they just do mang.
Why do you assholes associate shoe opinions with political beliefs? He’s not supposed to let a company sponsor his video because he doesn’t love every shoe they make? It’s a fucking shoe company not Haliburton.
dude this shit is perfect. I hope you get a million billion views and a tv show and a box set. Is that fair?
hah stuart little
What’s wrong with selling out for money? Trust me. I sell out all the time for free and it totally sucks.
go blow your mother jared i get accused of selling out daily
This kinda reminds me of Evil Dead when Ash becomes possessed at the end and he jumps out of the puddle in the woods. I tried watching that movie high by myself once and had to stop cuz it was scaring me so much. Did you use make-up to make your face look like that? Is the poison ivy real? Were you possessed?
Yeah well ne$$, I don’t see how sucking dicks down back alleys for free wouldn’t totally suck. Anyway, yeah… lot’s of meth out there at the hippy commune.
Have you seen the REAL pictures of Hamilton Nolan?? Dee-sgusting! He has lightbulb head. Big-time! It’s kind of sad.
Holy shit, that first skit was the funniest thing i have ever seen on this site. Well done! My eyes are watering!
these commercials are funny!
I don’t get the Benadryl footnote. Benadryl is an antihistimine and pseudephedrine is a decongestant/stimulant. Meth manufacturers used to buy lots of generic pseudephedrine to make speed, but that shit got locked down when it became a pain in the ass to buy 12 boxes at a time. Now it’s all made in Mehico anyway. If I was trying to score some pseudephed to make meth, the last thing I would do is buy name-brand antihistimines to start with. But then I’m not a dumbass fiend so what do I know.
It wasn’t really the Tevas, but being featured favorably by the Wall Street Journal means you’re a sell out. Join the crowd.
I love this character. You should send these to Less Stroud, he may get a kick out of them or be a dick and not.
That Gawker dude and the people commenting over there need to pull the funny bone out of their ass and take a joke.
Gavin should do ads for Flip Flops, that will be “IRONIC”
WTF keeps happening to my comments?
Yes, the bee sting vid is laugh out loud funny. Gavin you should go on the lecture circuit and teach hipsters how to make money without calling mom and dad and/or breaking out the knee pads. Please help. MY knee pads are starting to wear thin and I can’t afford a new pair. Please?
Speaking in broad superlatives and labels like “selling out” and “hipsters” provides no information. These words have become a way for us to belittle others and in doing so, to feel better about our own compromises.
Fact is, if you are involved in putting out information for the purpose of selling products, then on some level you are participating in the commercial market and thus on some level you are “selling out.”
That being said – who really gives a fuck. Why do we have to validate all of our actions with some sort of unmaintainable philosophical self righteous manifestos. The reason most of us don’t sell out is because no one has approached us with a suitable price.
The bee video LITERALLY (sup BN) made my face hurt.
@reginald bellers
step away from the mother jones before we go jungle on your ass.
I want to read the Wall Street Journal piece featuring the favorable portrayal of vegan jules.
^^^^BEST COMMENT EVER!!!!!:D
wow, that reginald bellers must’ve struck a chord, ya even deleted his messgae, wonder which cord hit the loudest note . . . I guess by supressing the comment with threats like Bush and Cheney; ah young republicans in trendy clothing, we’ll never know
There is NO EPHEDRINE in Benadryl.
scared of motherjones? a truthful insightful view on real issues, no surprise there i guess; let’s get back to fashion . . . brought to you by: Made in China where all America’s jobs go, but don’t worry that cool outfit is really cheap, don’t worry about why, just LOOK GREAT! Hey Gavin’s got a kid, i know he needs the money, but let’s get back to that other issue . . . yeah, I think THAT’s why the message got deleted, don’t worry, that’ll be between us ‘King Henry’ wink wink
it is what it is.
I found the quote
http://scienceblogs.com/mikethemadbiologist/2009/07/methland_lobbying_and_why_we_d.php
So Gavin gets a spot in the WSJ and mentions VIce to ad nauseum yet doesn’t even give this site a brief plug alongside the retarded English art school doc and that other thing? I’m gonna go ahead and call that “fishy.”
Gavin, so socks are allowed when wearing shorts out in the wild?
let’s hear more about this goin Jungle on reginald, will that be one of these hip new series too? will those be peddling something hypocritical to this Gavin fellow’s previous/current life style; i think what the folks are sayin’ is, just stick to your guns, if this is what ya always wanted buddy, be proud that you were posing as the mean guy before, and show your new true soft flower self to the world and Say out loud to the heavens, “I want my glittered bedazzled ed hardy snuggie too!” but pleae get back to the negativity and braggin about pukin so we can go “yeah bro!”
All I’m saying is that reginald’s now deleted line eerily resembled the same crap that’s being passed off in the recent issue of Mother Jones as journalism. “The Fiji water people are greedy and fly their product around in airplanes that use gas…wah!” I was forced to read that drivel while sitting on the can at the provincial hipster coffee shop today, and yeah, it makes me wanna go jungle for real on someone’s ass. And I don’t get these libs who cry because all the American jobs in shoe factories have been shipped overseas. If Tevas were made in America you’d get 1/2 the quality at double the price. Hey man, here’s an idea for all you frustrated factory workers, go spend two years at a community college and get yourself a degree in medical coding. You’ll always have a job and it will never be any worse than factory work. As a matter of fact, it will be a lot better. Why mourn the loss of a job you never would have deigned to do in the first place? America is better than every other place. We are the chosen people. Let’s just go ahead and let the marginalized “other” do our dirty work for eternity, but if we’re going to be happy about it, we really need to let go of the guilt ridden moralizing. k? k.
I say the outfit that Gavin is painfully tromping through his backyard in is perfect. There represents a capable, funny man with fuck skills and nerd sense. Damn those shoes look comfortable.
Reginald Bellers works w/ his hands, is union and is sick and tired of people sayin who wouldn’t work in a factory doing what. We don’t even have the choice of factory work anymore. Are you going to scream some enviromental BS right now about restrictions? Well guess who’s startin to ring that bell mother fucker CHINA, so they’ll be where we were in the mid eighties, only they’ll have the cleaner factories, and we; we will be slipping slowly into our fantasy that everything is alright. ALL our factories are in other countries, what jobs are left in America, is what I’m saying, hats off to cannondale, trek, redwing, hell you name one clothing company that manufactures here in America (besides American Apparel.) Liberals aren’t the only ones singin this song buddy, once exportation in an nation disappears, so goes it’s economy, what do we export? seriously enlighten me . . .
and just say somethin’ about unions killing the factories, please . . .
we export debt, weapons, and culture.
Red Green wasn’t a sellout, he turned different colored suspenders into a fashion do. His hipster nephew was a sellout, however, and laughs at all of you from his condo. Being like Red Green is keeping it real. Most cannondale and trek bicycles are made in Taiwan, you want American, get a seven or a vicious.
Reginald, I just got my Redwings re-soled. Yes, they cost almost $200 when I bought them but they’ve lasted ten years. Amazing boots.
The Naturist is funny and well done. Gavin needs to make a living so kudos to him for finding a decent way to do it.
bullshit on all y’all; Naturist WAS a stolen concept . . . bring back the fanny pack! poup is the word.
it made #2, so far, on a huff survey:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/08/28/viral-ad-battle-vol-2-pic_n_271529.html?slidenumber=2#slide_image
oh shit, right between Brad Pitt and Alice Cooper!
And if there’s anybody that needs a lot of benadryl, it’s that gentleman in the picture with all the bee stings and poison ivy all over his face. With all that going on, he looks like a meth addict. Somebody help him!
that part with the bees is fuckin hilarious
This is the best comedy skit ive seen in awhile his other shit sucks but he should stay with this oh ya and stay off drugs kids
any one seen my hat?
Seriously, we are still talking about selling out in this day and age?
1) very funny
2) great job
3) cash in, you’ve got mouths to feed
4) selling out is when you give up and work in a cube
good stuff, i hope there is more!!
uh, wow, that was a lot like second episode of Nature’s Wilderness, from a year ago; finding sustenance in places you really don’t, I’m calling copy cats/thievery, who cares about the selling out
Seriously, you think running into bees in the wilderness is an idea worth calling copy cats on? It’s a classic comedy staple.
Holy fuck some of you are retarded.
watch out rjb king henry might “go jungle on you”
haha. Oh, that’s right. The inner circle types are the only ones around here who are allowed to be assholes and cry “irony” after the fact. The fact remains: I’m not schizophrenic.
teva is the creator of the “male summer sandal,” an item that was constantly being lambasted in “do’s and don’ts.” Hahaha.
having said that, the bee sting, poison-ivy thing was fucking good.
FIRST EVER. Will there be more interviews with The Journal from dial house?
If the Wall Street Journal called me for an interview I’d tell them to go fuck themselves, and they could print that if they want.
They wouldn’t print what I have to say.
The only people who aren’t selling out are the ones pulling anti-corporate missions at Goldman Sachs at 3am…hint. hint.
We can’t continue in the fashion of everyone selling out, it’s not sustainable.
Come together, resist (at Goldman Sachs at 3am)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gKX9TWRyfs
I don’t mind when people sell out. I could never have sex with a sell-out, but they don’t bother me.
Most of you haven’t the talent to sell anything.
good shit. im jealous of the talent. i cant sell out no matter how hard i try.
So I tried the heroin for the first time this weekend because Gavin said so. I’m a little out of it. I never knew what it was kuz I live way out in the burbs way off a ways from New York City, the Big Apple. I luv your website! It is everything KOOL that I want to be. And if this is how the big boys do it in the NYC then it is good enough for me! You know what I am saying?
And the guy (my “man”) said he can get me the crack. I can’t wait! He called me friend. He even helped me put the needle in properly. I said just this once. Gavin said so. I want to really live life by risking it all. I didn’t have any money left though (is all the heroin so expensive?) and I wanted to make it a real special night. So sadly, no money/no hooker (excuse my language), But there was mom! heh heh heh. I know maybe you don’t believe me and maybe it was the “smack” talking but I figure a first time making love should really be memorable because you only live once and I can’t stay a teenager for ever!
Oh! I almost forgot! Haha! That’s funny, because I was just saying. Anyways, Gavin said breakin the law. Soooo, I won’t go into details because I don’t want to take up too much more Reply space, and I will get arrested for what happened, I promise.
So that is all for now.
Don’t sell out Gavin, We need you!
Keep it Real! and KEEP SPREADING THE NEWS!!!!!!!!!!
peesah.
y’d u guys have to banish TOO LONG? im sure he’d have just the right thing to say about this post.
i have pig aids, where can i get some Teva©s will Gavin Mcin’it have ahis own line of pig aids Teva©s, w/ pig aids, pig aids
let’s save Gavin, I think this hippy shit is way out of control, even if you think the irony factor is way of the vice charts (put some american apparel tights on, and pretend your a heroin addict girl getting laid for her photo) let’s let know TEVA know, (as a group of outdoor folks) that we don’t appreciate this homo/racist/drug addict/leftist terrorist supporting, maple tree sap masturbator, represent our pseudo hippie chinese slave labor made Hebrew name saked Hopi indian logo’d Starbucks/Whole Foods business plan based shit foot savers! www(dot)gavinmcinnesisbadforhypocriticalpseudohippyoutdoorseynaturebasedbusiness(dot)com/blog/vlog/carnage.xml.4
Selling out would have been wearing open-toed tevas.
Raymi, how can you sell out? You don’t do anything.
Hey Guys, The Naturist here. Sorry I’ve been MIA. I tried to hibernate back in September ’09 by self-prescribing anesthesia. I just woke up. Anyways, I’m back to drop some natural knowledge on you. Check out my old videos to prime your pumps…new ones are on the way.