Be a person...

[FreeYourself]

not a doll.

[FreeYourself]

"You think it's the dress you wear, that makes you a lady.
You gotta get that outta your mind, you must be crazy
You're just a brand new second hand, yes gal..."
- Bob Marley

[verbatim]

I dont quite get this one. Did I miss something?

[jennofay]

i *think* what the ad is trying to say (and forgive me if im stupid and am completely acting like an ass here...) but be a person rather than a doll in that you should be your self and wear the makeup/clothing/etc. (makeup in this case) that you want to and you feel comfortable in... and be unique rather than dressing/wearing makeup/acting like everyone else (like barbie...)

a while back, we were talking about how hello kittys beady eyes make "fill in name here" (sorry, i forget who it was and im too lazy to go back and look it up) paranoid. go to toys r us and walk down the barbie aisle. hundreds of females who all look the same staring at you. granted, some are molded from darker plastic than others, but still, they all look eerily similar. that makes me paranoid.

i think the ad is just trying to convince people to one) buy their products (obviously) and two) encourage individualism (by buying their products..)

[FreeYourself]

The add is actually supposed to be showing the relation between makeup and a doll and how far they are from a person. Be happy with who you are and not try to change your identity into a doll.

At least that's my interpretation. Also, I found it on a site where you'd be least likely to find a makeup add.

It's definitely an Urban Decay ad.

[jaguar]

Dolls are facinating...
Bfore mass production, dolls we personal, model of a person and though that became part of the person. The ultimate demonstration of that is the voodoo doll, an effigy fo a person that when harmed, causes real harm to the person. NOw the roles are reversed and we - are trying to be dolls, jsut look at the britney spears of this world, the same uniformity you see in dolls you see (particualry) in womens/girls clothing, we strive now for that uniformity. The puppets have lsot thier strings and now we are the ones being played, scary stuff.

[jennofay]

Originally posted by FreeYourself
The add is actually supposed to be showing the relation between makeup and a doll and how far they are from a person. Be happy with who you are and not try to change your identity into a doll.

At least that's my interpretation. Also, I found it on a site where you'd be least likely to find a makeup add.

this is an advertisement. for makeup. urban decay makeup. its saying buy our makeup rather than other peoples makeup. thats what advertising is. buy our shit, not someone elses. they are saying that anyone elses makeup will make you look like a conformist or a 'doll' ... but to instead, buy their makeup.

that is what urban decay is doing. the population who buy their products are generally younger people who do not want to look like everyone else. they are trying to find their own identity and to make themselves unique from the masses. this ad is trying to appeal to this desire. to be different. not like a 'doll.'

it would be silly for anyone to spend money on an advertisment campaign to turn people away from their product... please, dont give us your money. please. this could work, granted on an extreme angle, but generally advertisements try to sway people to buy their product rather than someone elses.

[jennofay]

Originally posted by jaguar
Dolls are facinating...
Bfore mass production, dolls we personal, model of a person and though that became part of the person. The ultimate demonstration of that is the voodoo doll, an effigy fo a person that when harmed, causes real harm to the person. NOw the roles are reversed and we - are trying to be dolls, jsut look at the britney spears of this world, the same uniformity you see in dolls you see (particualry) in womens/girls clothing, we strive now for that uniformity. The puppets have lsot thier strings and now we are the ones being played, scary stuff.

im working on an art project that has a lot to do with this. its still in the drawing stages, but it will eventually be three-d reality. its basically showing how people are all stuck in this routine of being the same and doing the same things day after day year after year.

[MaggieL]

Originally posted by jennofay


i think the ad is just trying to convince people to one) buy their products (obviously) and two) encourage individualism (by buying their products..)

Starry Sky, it would take an awful lot of "individualism" to get me to use Urban Decay....most of their products are suitable for making model railroad cars look "weathered". :-)

[jennofay]

the brand/variety of makeup you use is a personal preference.

i personally dont use their products either, mostly because 1)they are rather expensive and 2)i dont wear much makeup to begin with, but this is beside the point.

individualism: "a. Belief in the primary importance of the individual and in the virtues of self-reliance and personal independence." (dictionary.com)

their products, as i previously mentioned, are directed towards a younger (generally female...) audience. they are, for the most part, not what you would wear to a business meeting or lunch out with your boss. they do, however, encourage individualism by allowing people to express themselves through their appearance. they do encourage "personal independence.".. independence in what you look like.

i dont understand why you felt the need to emphasize the word "individualism" unless you felt that i was either misusing the word or attacking you on some personal level. i did neither.

im not sitting here trying to make people who wear more typical cosmetics feel like conformists or followers. what i am trying to say is that this particular company is trying to play upon their consumers desire to be individuals and to set themselves apart from the majority of the population. they do this to sell their products.

most of their products are suitable for making model railroad cars look "weathered". :-)

im curious, maggie, have you ever used, or even looked at their products, or are you just making a generalization of what you suspect the clients of this particular company must look like?

[MaggieL]

Originally posted by jennofay
im curious, maggie, have you ever used, or even looked at their products, or are you just making a generalization of what you suspect the clients of this particular company must look like?

Oh, I *have* looked at their products...back when "goth" was hipper than it has been lately. At the time they struck me as pretty grim and gruesome.

A visit to their website this evening (I hate Flash navigation) shows they've had to branch out a bit since then; the line of nail enamels now goes a bit beyond "Gash", "Pallor", "Uzi" and "Asphxyia", probably because styles *have* changed. But even before then, "Roach", "Smog", "Rust", "Oil Slick" and "Acid Rain" just weren't what I looked for in cosmetics...and reminded me of nothing so much as the paints sold to railroad modellers: not only "rust", but "grime" and "mud" and "aged concrete".

The corporate history on the website notes they "reinvented" themselves in May 1999, trying to tone down the gritty image they'd worked so hard to build. Nine months later they were "adopted" (I suspect that means bought out) by a French conglomerate.

Interestingly enough, the item featured on the top of their site this evening is a "honey body dust" that I recognize from the 1970s., when it was sold under the "Kama Sutra" brand to well-off hippies. They've added sparkles, and the puff is now a "vampy leopard" fake fur rather than satin, but it's recognizably the same product.

I guess what goes around comes around.

As for my image of who would use their stuff, I *know* who would use it: My 14-year old daughter would die for it. And the list of "celebrity users" starts with the Dixie Chicks and ends with Dennis Rodman. :-)

Now *that's* individualism....a word I emphasized becuase it seemed to me to be so heavily ironic in-context, (*not* as a personal attack.or anything like that). Goth as a style seemed to me to lose its cache of individualism precicely *because* it became so popular. My life has led me to plenty of genuine expression of my individualism; and the goal of the ad campaign that started this thread is to get as many people as possible to express their individualism in *exactly* the same way: by buying this company's makeup.

The Dixie Chicks *are* pretty hot, though. :-)

[That Guy]

but as with any company, I'm sure they would like their products to hit the mainstream of pop-culture. Then what?

[elSicomoro]

Truth be told, I only know of Urban Decay b/c they named a color of nail polish after Gravity Kills' second CD, Perversion.

First: change your tag right this instant!

Second: How do you know it wasn't after something else? Just curious. I personally am not intimately familiar with the Urban Decay line of appearance enhancement products, but it wouldn't surprise me if they named it before the album was out.