Other Bad Tackorama

Introduction

This is a list of things that want to be without taste and fun but smack of desperation. Or simply they have the stench of corporate planning all over them. Or they are not courageous enough and still have some measure of taste associated with them. These things are bad. By pretending to take you to a free place but not actually taking you there, these things are cheats, liars, frauds, cheap in every sense.

iPhone Applications

In the iPhone we have a fantastic blend of engineering, computing and innovation, brought together in a device that's a phone, music player, photo display, video player, diary, calendar, memo machine, small office even, all in one gagdet. That's just skimming the surface, this phone is what you want it to be. What's gone wrong is the avalanche of tat that amateur and professional software writers have made for this thing.

There are apps that turn your iPhone into a torchlight (what!?). Apps that claim to provide better office facilities but actually don't. Apps that are low on features and high on shameless plugs for other things. Apps that crash a lot. And I mean a lot. Apple aren't to blame for this, not really. It's a fun gagdet and people have got carried away with themselves, but that does not absolve those same people of the bad tackorama inflicted on the world. Get an iPhone but steer clear of the App Store.

The London Olympic Logo, 2007-2012

 

The logo with the ribbon was in widespread use to promote the Olympic bid prior to 2007. It was on a lot of web sites and reports and moderately pleasant to look at. Then an insidious process took over, controlled by middle-class, over-educated, ass-covering committee wankers who took an easy design brief and quietly manipulated a design company to spawn that logo on the right.

The official logo says nothing about the host city or host nation; it does not hint at the nature of the event; and it's plain ugly. And it's on this page because it's a fraud, glaring at you in hard-edged magenta and shocking cyan in desperation to be unique, avant garde, down wiv da kids, stylish (pick your own press release positive adjective to go in here, they all do not apply). It did not surprise me that the un-artistic could balls up such an easy design brief, but the fact they could actually hold a straight face did set me back, I mean, does that much front require blind faith or prime-minister level malice?

Adobe CS3 logos, 2007

Unofficial minutes of a meeting at Adobe, where discussion of new logos occurred...

Marketing Twit: (to design crew) I find your design concepts confusing.
Design Crew: They are the next step from feathers and petals.
Marketing Twit: But they are too abstract...I've been playing in Microsoft Word and Powerpoint and have come up with this. (shows idea to design crew)

Design Crew: (struck dumb)
Marketing Twit: They are simple and spell out the product!
Design Crew: Brilliant! Genius!

I thought Adobe had begun to disappear up its own arse with the second CS, when the Photoshop eye had long gone, along with Venus in Illustrator, both replaced with naff flowers, feathers, wispy things that are meant to make you feel a set way (analogous logos are so twentieth century!). The CS3 logos confirms this auto-digestion(?) and it's tempting to guess that CS4 logos will all be Spinal-Tap-like i.e. one solid colour for every product! (update Sept 2008: Adobe have pissed away too much money on really bad demo art for CS4 and have kept the same logos)

Look at them. They are awful. No, they are fucking awful. They are not design in any sense of the word, merely the product of a lazy, English-speaking, creatively-frustrated mind. Crap, crap, crap.

Guilty Pleasures, 2005

This was a music CD that was supposed to contain all those songs you really like but do not want to admit playing. Sounds like a Tackorama product doesn't it? A closer look at the tracklist and actually this CD is what some suit thinks is an embarassing playlist. It is in fact the sludge of a middle aged mind, writing a list for (roughly) the 25 to 35 age group.

This CD is the end result of naff marketing, bad corporate enterprise and where middle-of-the-road music acts could end up if this idea takes off. The music is samey and whams disparate songs together in a cruel way (cruel to the listener, or cruel to the artist?).

The irony is that Guilty Pleasures is at polar opposites with the ethos of Tackorama precisely because you could tell people you have this CD in your collection! It's very accessibility makes it immediately boring.

Crass Product 4 U

I have a stark theory.

Every society finds a way to mop up its defective members.

Internet blogging soaks up the self-absorbed. The deranged are granted driving licences to expediate their departure, who in turn are supported by a driving industry intent on propelling us at 200mph towards the shops. The unemployable (but sane) are allowed to work, and indeed flourish, in public sector jobs. The same people are often found in human resources departments.

These are prima facia examples of course. But, where is the societal mechanism for mopping up those individuals who are driven, stupid, and permanently hold the dangerous thought that they are creative (in any sense of that word)? Clearly they are kept away from any power base. So where are they?

The answer: These people are the ones who have created the companies ending in 4 U names. Phones 4U, Prints 4U, Lawyers 4U, Insurance 4U. These are a few of the examples of this crass trend. You can amuse yourself wondering how low this will go: Condoms 4U, Doctors 4U, Fillings 4U, Prison 4U, Graveyard 4U. Horrid comfortable euphanisms that infantilse us. Come to think of it, that is not so funny.

What's wrong with the 4U suffix, after all, private business etc free market etc? Well because it purports to be up front, honest, sincere and yet comes from a will to make money. The love of money is the root of all evil. Charity 4U or the such would garner some respect (technically it would be Charity 4 Them but you get the idea). Instead of being at the opposite end of slick the defective creatives just miss it, exposing their dishonest greed beneath a mask of crassness.

Web Logs

Once upon a time there were diaries. Into these small books were written the private thoughts, page after page of dried brain juice. Then some tit coded a way to create a diary online, quickly and easily, and offer it to the plebs. In the process I'm sure he/them would say they re-invented the diary (urrgh, please) and made it democratic, not only missing the point that diaries are private but not stopping to consider what would happen if you let anyone who thought they could write, try and do so.

Web logs are unequivacly dull. Nothing particularly wrong with that but it's the allusion of interest that's mis-leading, that's why they are bad tackorama. They have no reflective qualities, no scope beyond the self, or the moment. They contain endless detail about the crappiest of subjects such as took dog walking, baby did big shit in nappy, new computer arrived, I emailed Mr X about TV programme, got drunk last night, and so on. All web logs are timestamped, archived, searchable, as if you really want to look back to see what other days baby Oliver did a big shit in his nappy and when that event was recorded. Did it include a picture? What comments were made? Who gives a flying fuck?

Web logs are also done solely for the logger (not writer, pur-lease) to construct for themselves an aura of expertise, wisdom, cleverness or humour, with the added benefit of being attention seeking devices. Web logs lack the basic honesty of a diary but pretend to be honest. Daily entires are commonly a couple of stuccato lines of cretinous sophistry, with an awareness of only a few hours of reality, twenty four at most. Web loggers, Marcus Aurelius you are not (stop logging, look him up).