Month: August 2022

Pacsun has entered the uncanny valley with the new face of their brand, a virtual model. Not content with real women and their tendency to have thoughts and minor physical flaws, Miquela, a ‘virtual influencer’, is tiny, without imperfections and eternally nineteen. The decision to hire the robot was apparently because she aligns with their “core brand values and vision,” which is understandable, when a computer’s writing your thoughts.

The same cannot be said of another AI, as Meta’s new chatbot BlenderBot 3 took only one week to become racist. The chatbot is designed to evolve its language, based on the conversations it has with users, and was only up and running for a few days before it started repeating right-wing propaganda. This is not the future Star Trek promised us.

Coca-Cola has released a new flavour that’s supposed to taste like our dreams. Coke’s Dreamworld has the “technicolour tastes and surrealism of the subconscious”. There’s no information yet as to how Coca-Cola plans to harvest the taste of our collective dreams, but we assume it’s something along the lines of pretending to eat and drink during a toddler’s imaginary tea party.

For a flavour palette a bit closer to home, Street’s Ice Cream is teaming up with Dusk to make a line of candles inspired by some childhood favourites. The new candles come in Bubble O ‘Bill, Golden Gaytime, Paddle Pop and Splice. This is Calippo erasure and we won’t stand for it.

Beyonce’s most recent album was released with a collection of futuristic, disco-inspired album art; featuring a groovy monochrome bodysuit by Brisbane designer Bethany Cordwell. The materials come from an unusual source, however, as the designer has revealed the bodysuit’s black and white scales are made from cut-up Officeworks document folders. So head to your local stationary store to steal Queen Bey’s new look: confidence and groovy disco-ball horse not included.

To advertise their new series based on A League of Their Own, Amazon has spelled out an empowering letter to female athletes using 30,000 baseballs. A nice opportunity to hit a home run for equality, and other knock-it-out-of-the-park-style metaphors.

BBDO Canada and the Indigenous arts and culture magazine Muskrat, are raising awareness of calls for justice for missing Indigenous women by going after the biggest whitewash of Native American history; Disney’s Pocahontas. The actual story is far more horrific than the Disney version, and what happened to Pocahontas—whose real name was Matoaka – still happens to Indigenous women and children today, with homicide the third-leading cause of death. The Missing Matoaka project provides an alternative commentary track for the film, to clear up the facts and point out where Disney veers into fantasy. Stick it to the mouse.

Regarding lying to viewers, Russia’s latest tourism ad is optimistic, to put it nicely… or, some might say, straight up propaganda. The controversial new ad lists the country’s positives as “cheap gas, beautiful women, no cancel culture, traditional values and vodka!” While tourism ads tend to paint a rosy picture of their destinations, it’s hard to ignore the very real presence of a fascist dictator and an ongoing war. It’s also worth noting those same ‘traditional values’ being exalted in the video led to Russia decriminalising ‘domestic violence that does not cause serious injury’ in 2017.