Bi-Weekly-ish newsletter #28 w/ The World Cup Commercials ⚽🎬, Eminem's Induction at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame 🎤, Breaking Bad 🔮, Nursery Rhymes 🚼, and 50 Cent's P3N15🍆.
Dear readers,
Welcome one and all, all and one welcome!
Herewith another edition of the bi-weekly-ish newsletter, including a collection of things good, interesting, fascinating, and odd about music, tech, culture, and even more music.
This edition features an overview of the World Cup commercials as presented by the world's three most prominent sports brands, a playlist relating to Eminem's induction into the Rock & Roll hall of fame, a Nietzschean analysis of everyone's favorite drug kingpin Walter White, something about why nursery rhymes sound so evil, and why rapper's 50 Cent's penis is at the core of a lawsuit.
Enjoy this newsletter, your Friday, and your weekend!
1. The Champions League of Advertising!
The 2022 World Cup Football campaigns
Well! The ball is rolling at the World Cup, a tournament that generated little to no excitement leading up to the first match but, ironically, is expected to draw more eyeballs (10B eyeballs / 5B people) than ever before (7B eyeballs / 3.5B people during the event in Russia 2018).
The lack of excitement during the build-up to this event obviously has to do with the host country Qatar, its endless and ongoing human rights violations, and the fact that it takes place in the Northern hemisphere fall. This became apparent in the initial absence of most World Cup-related commercials, which seemed to have aired merely after the ball started rolling at the Al Bayt stadium last Sunday.
As a person working in the communications industry, I've always been fascinated with how the three biggest sporting brands (Nike, Adidas, and Puma) communicate around events like this and look at it as a championship in itself. Let's have a look at this edition’s contestants.
Nike - Nike FC Presents the Footballverse
Nike goes big once again! The Footballverse commercial showcases an international team of scientists who, in a hidden Swiss lab, created a multiverse experiment enabling the ultimate intergenerational battle of top players.
In the commercial, we see countless legendary players of various epochs in their prime, finally, go head to head in the ultimate weird science football experiment.
Adidas - The Impossible Rondo
Where Nike enlisted superstar players from multiple generations to play with each other, Adidas has Messi play with Messi from multiple generations.
Created using deep fake A.I. technology, trained with World Cup footage from 2006, 2010, 2014, and 2018, the G.O.A.T. is pitted against himself, complete with his different haircuts, Argentina shirts, and Adidas boots from the 18 years and five tournaments he attended.
All the while, Messi's non-biological football father's assumed theme song, Opus's "Life is Life," is playing throughout.
Making off
Puma - Find your Fearless
While both Adidas' and Nike's films rely heavily on current and past football star power, Puma's ad shifts focus to a combination of sports, fashion, music, and youth culture. The idea of "fearlessness" as a means to play football and live life is told through various mini-stories of youngsters engaging in regular aspects of life.
All three excellent campaigns for a tournament hosted by an insanely corrupt organization called FIFA. As dualistic as it may seem, though, I will be watching; if you are as well and interested in getting accurate data-driven information on who'll win the next match and eventually be crowned champion (Brasil 25%), check out fivethirtyeight.com!
2. Eminem at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction
Alphabetically listing 100+ of his fave MCs & groups
Eminem, together with, amongst others, Dolly Parton, Judas Priest, and Lionel Richie, were inducted into the Rock & Roll hall of fame a few weeks ago.
During his acceptance speech, Eminem noted that he's one of a handful of rappers in the Hall of Fame. He devoted most of his speech to reading a long list of his rap heroes in alphabetical order, including everyone from DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince and Biz Markie to 2 Live Crew, Tupac Shakur, the Notorious BIG, the Roots, and the Beastie Boys. Stating that some of them have been inducted, but the vast majority are not and probably should.
DJ / Investor / Advisor / Dad, Mick Batyske took these names and curated a comprehensive playlist to go along with Eminem's iconic speech; both for those unfamiliar and those who want to take a trip down memory lane, the playlist is an excellent trip thru hip-hop history. In ABC order.
3. Breaking Bad, the Psychology of Walter White
A Nietzschean analysis of a potentially horrible person
I recently re-watched Breaking Bad!
After finally getting into the prequel series Better Call Saul, I was intrigued to find out how the two stories align, and I wasn't disappointed.
The great thing about rewatching series like Breaking Bad (or The Wire, The Sopranos, etc.) is that you tend to watch them with different eyes. I watched the Sopranos for the first time when it came out and was amazed at how efficiently yet ruthlessly Tony handled his business. During last year's Christmas-break-Sopranos-binge-watch-marathon, I found out that I now feel much more appalled by those exact same scenes and the exact same behavior.
I had something similar with Walter White. Where I first saw a man forced by his circumstances to do what he had to do to survive, I now primarily felt disgusted by a character that seems inherently evil. Walter manipulates the people around him and is arguably responsible for the death of 201 people while going as far as poisoning a child as a Machiavellian move on an ever-growing chessboard, begging the question, why do people (me included) still kind of empathize with Walter White?
The youtube explainers of Einzelgänger have a potential answer. Could it be that Walter White achieved what many others only dream of, namely, to overcome himself? Through the lens of Nietzsche's idea of the Übermensch, the video below explores the psychology of Breaking Bad character Walter White. Good Stuff!
4. Why Nursery Rhymes Are Creepy
Ever wondered why Nursery rhymes are so unbelievably creepy? No?
Well, I did, and luckily the people behind Polyphonic did as well, proven by the fact that they created the video below!
Even since Fritz Lang's 1931 thriller "M," nursery rhymes have become an integral part of Horror films and, as such, a cultural trope juxtaposing childlike innocence with adult darkness. This partly has come to be because many nursery rhymes find their origin, metaphorically referencing anything from the Black Death to a surplus of torture devices. To make matters creepier, many nursery rhymes are derived from folk tales, which often attempt to teach children to be compliant by scaring the living bejesus out of them.
For the full story, including more reasons why we have a world full of nightmare-inducing songs sung for and by children, watch the video below!
5. 50 Cent’s P3N15!
50 Cent filed a lawsuit to assure the world that he did not, in fact, get penile enhancement surgery.
In 2020, 50 Cent posed for a photo with Angela Kogan, a self-described “celebrity aesthetician” who owns a plastic surgery center and spa in Miami. Years later, that seemingly innocuous picture is at the center of a bizarre dispute involving an eggplant emoji, entertainment website The Shade Room, and a rumor that 50 Cent had a penile enhancement procedure, an allegation he’s now going to court to refute.
The Shade Room published an article about the rising popularity of penile enhancement procedures. The only person quoted was Kogan, who, The Shade Room noted, “has an extensive clientele of celebrities, including Teyana Taylor, 50 Cent, Odell Beckham, and more.” For a lead image, The Shade Room used the photo Kogan had taken with 50 Cent, split side-by-side with a picture of someone undergoing a penile enhancement procedure, obscured by an eggplant emoji.
The G-Unit boss shared some news on this matter last Sunday on Instagram, stating:
“yeah my d_ck is a BIG DEAL set for trial in july no enhancement necessary,these fools put them selves out of business. SMH,”
I will definitely keep you updated on how this develops.
Alright!
That’s it for this edition.
As always, do the right thing and remember:
It’s always darkest… before the dawn.
Marcel