Apparently Wilfred Sheed, the critic with the laser-guided lexicon, doesn’t care much for the nihilistic air-kissing that constitutes so much of contemporary literature. And who can blame him? Driven to the wall by an apparently endless succession of front-brained meditations on the pointlessness of hope and endeavour, who wouldn’t reach for the television remote, press it to a temple and end the examined life?
‘One reason the human race has such a low opinion of itself is that it gets so much of its wisdom from writers,†he famously wrote. And to a degree he’s on to something: we’re all too familiar with those authors who medicate their dearth of friends — and the resulting genocidal yearnings — by claiming some God-given insight into the true nature of the world, becoming burnished malcontents pimping half-processed grief.
But how much of our alleged discontent is a result of literary gloom? Surely Sheed has overestimated the human race quite dramatically in suggesting that it gets even a smidgeon of its wisdom from writers, rather than from, say, Chappie wrappers? But then again, there are writers and there are writers. And then there are copywriters.
First off, let’s debunk the myth that copywriters are failed writers. They’re no such thing. It takes extraordinary skill and concentration to lie persuasively on demand, setting aside integrity and accuracy in the service of towering banality. After all, these are people with some sensitivity to language and its nuances. They watched Kenneth Branagh’s Hamlet and understood most of it. To take those creative abilities and dedicate them to spreading the gospel of vanilla-scented athlete’s foot treatments suggests more than a job. It’s a vocation.
Which, of course, implies fundamentalists, howling at the moon, living off scraps thrown to them by regional radio stations. Indeed, in the lyrics of a new King Pie radio ad, one is offered a fleeting glimpse of the human mind gone entirely feral. ‘I’ve been many places, seen many faces. Breakfast? I’ve got King Pie on my mind!†On their arteries, sure, if they’re having pies for breakfast, but on their minds? Indeed, as the spot ends, leaving one in sudden need of a wholesome, cleansing Big Mac, the realisation sets in that this is merely the logical conclusion of an industry entirely abandoned to bankrupt hyperbole.
Was M-Net’s marketing department actually listening when it recently punted its BEE version of Top Billing, Studio 53, hosted by Afro-optimist Alyce Chavunduka? ‘If Africa had a pulse, this would be it!†said the promo, flatlining the ‘African renaissance†in a single stroke.
But then Africa and the still-white advertising industry don’t have an easy relationship. Maybe it’s because Africa is just so, well, bloody African. Or maybe it’s because the agency executives make copywriters look like Stephen Hawking.
A recent episode of Media Focus explored the rebranding of central Sandton as Sandton Central. Sharp, hey? According to Freed Thinkers, the agency entrusted with said rebranding, the newly previously rediscovered commercial area would be a ‘proudly African hubâ€.
To underline how proudly African it would be, a design company was commissioned to produce a logo. The resulting graphic, a white man explained, was based ‘on an African pattern we found on some wooden doorsâ€. Luckily it was a fairly geometric African pattern, and not at all like the pattern carved on my local substation door, which looks like ‘Jou ma se p**sâ€. Breakfast? I’ve got jou ma se pies on my mind!
Some might consider it a form of aesthetic colonialism to go about wrenching the doors off huts in the hinterland. But the Freed Thinkers spokeswoman who appeared next clearly had a social conscience and explained that the workers of Sandton had for too long been enduring an experience ‘like that of the minersâ€, who would spend all day underground and emerge after their shift blinking and dazzled by the light. The proudly African hub would end this syndrome. Somehow.
Anyone who thinks it’s clever to compare miners with people who play PC-solitaire in air-conditioned glass towers, who enjoy two-hour lunch breaks, validated parking and only sporadic cave-ins, has a mind devoid even of early morning pies.
If advertising had a pulse, this would be it. But you need a heart to have a pulse.