No, You Can't Show Off That Temporary Tattoo: Nick Symmonds vs USATF

The vast majority of you have never heard of Nick Symmonds, and he is not okay with that. Unlike most other professional runners, he is greatly concerned with things beyond running--so much so that his company sued USA Track and Field, the national governing body for road, track, and trail races. Why did he do it? What does it have to do with critical thinking? Let me explain.

You don't think critically at this point in a race

Symmonds has always been an unusual figure in the running world. Unlike most pro runners, who starred for powerhouse programs like Oregon and Texas in college or went pro out of high school, Symmonds ran for Division 3 Willamette, putting up fast times in races that even most track fans weren't paying much attention to. He burst onto the scene by winning the 800 meters at the U.S. Olympic trials in 2008 and has since won a silver medal at the track world championships and run the third fastest 800 ever by an American--yet still he does not fit the mold.

For quite a while now, Symmonds has been locked in a battle with USATF and its primary sponsor, Nike, over his and other athletes' ability to advertise whatever companies they wish. In 2012, Symmonds auctioned off a piece of his shoulder for a temporary tattoo, and Hanson Dodge paid him $11,100 for the privilege. However, there was a problem: USATF and International Olympic Committee rules forced him to cover up the tattoo at competitions they hosted.

What's that tape on your shoulder?

Last summer, Symmonds' conflict with the powers that be came to a climax: the apparel limitations USATF placed on athletes were so strict that Symmonds refused to sign their contract and stayed home during the world championships even though he had won another USA 800 title. The consequences of that decision have not stopped him from continuing to push the boundaries of the advertising rules: he sold a piece of his shoulder to T Mobile for $21,800 and just had a lawsuit that sought to allow all companies to compete for space on athletes' bodies dismissed. 

So what does all this track stuff have to do with critical analysis of media? I think that Symmonds' efforts represent a rare instance of openness about what the purpose of advertising is. The lawsuit focused on fairness to advertisers, allowing all companies an equal shot at putting their name out there, but Symmonds makes no secret of the fact that his interest in the matter is a little different. Pro runners not named Usain Bolt don't make anywhere near as much money as basketball or baseball players, so they need advertising to keep a steady income. They are not alone in this regard; it is the openness that sets Symmonds apart.

The Persuaders discusses the quiet, somewhat uncomfortable alliance between TV and advertising; neither entity completely trusts or understands the other, and they do not want to be too open about how much advertising has crept into TV, but they need each other to stay afloat. That same dynamic now exists in magazines and all kinds of websites; in the digital age, you need sponsorships to survive, yet still sponsored content carries a negative connotation. Perhaps as time passes and product placement becomes so obvious and so omnipresent that you cannot ignore it everywhere, things will change: perhaps Nick Symmonds' advertising-positive attitude is the future.

Wet Hot American Summer, Parody, and Advertising

As I mentioned in my first blog post, I don't watch much TV. However, there is one show I am determined to finish: Wet Hot American Summer. It is only one season, and the whole thing covers one day of plot, but I tend to spend 1-2 months in between episodes, so I have a lot of time to think about (or forget) each one. After recently finishing the sixth installment, I started to think that the way the show's humor makes the viewer feel is not so different from what advertising tries to make us think, and the following text will attempt to make that make some amount of sense.

Michael Cera, the great lawyer

The show, in addition to being a prequel to a movie with the same title, is an attempt to parody every teen movie trope the writers could think of, often blatantly. We've all laughed at actors who are clearly too old to be playing teenagers, but this show takes it to the next level, having Amy Poehler play a character I completely forgot was supposed to be in high school. Legal scenes often seem contrived and unrealistic, but changing the outcome of a case based on a piece of paper that does not appear to even say anything makes it clear this time it is a joke. Although some of the things the show parodies are so obviously ridiculous that making fun of them seems unnecessary, for the most part I find the jokes funny. However, I think the writers are trying to do more than just make you laugh.

Parody relies on the viewer or reader having some knowledge of what is being made fun of, and Wet Hot American Summer is no exception. This kind of humor not only makes the viewer laugh, but says "we know that you know what we're referring to," and in this case, "we know you can see through those silly plot devices." In doing so, the show makes you feel a little smarter and more aware of the tricks the media is trying to play on you, even if it means that you are just more likely to watch someone else's show. Likewise, many companies try to advertise to people by making them feel good about themselves; messages like "you deserve better" are all over the place. Perhaps to really understand a parody, one must not only know what the parody is referring to but why its writers want to show that they expect you to get the reference.

Gatorade Makes You Part of the Dream...and the Nightmare

Gatorade has been omnipresent in the world of professional sports for quite a while. First made for the University of Florida football team in the 1960s, it was the first sports drink to hit the market and has used its head start to stay at the top ever since. Today, images of professional athletes drinking Gatorade pop up all over the place, and the company's advertising seeks to exploit that success. One recent ad series uses the concept of athletes' nightmares to put Gatorade and the viewer into the game as much as possible.

Like any minute-long ad, the one I attached above features a few different appeals, but to me the most interesting was the way it tried to satisfy the need to achieve. The beginning nightmare sequence is not a normal view of a basketball game but rather a bunch of scenes cut together so that you move with Kevin Durant as he gets to the basket. All the court sounds are magnified, and at a certain point Dwyane Wade, in this ad the defender, stares the camera in the face so that the viewer gets the experience of being stared down. All of this serves to make it so that instead of rooting for Durant, you are him; you are the one trying to win the game. However, Wade blocks Durant's shot (your shot), and your desire for glory gets crushed.

This device differentiates the commercial from typical scenes of glory, as well as setting up a storyline that allows for a more satisfying finish. We see Durant wake up from the nightmare, and when the inspirational music cues we know that it is time to get to work. The training montage, interspersed with footage of Durant drinking Gatorade so that he can continue with his quest, keeps you in the ad as well. The noises of heavy breathing, weights moving, and feet jumping up and down on the ground are loud enough that you could be there in the oddly dark, garage-like gym. The shots are all close-up so that it is clear that you are not observing from afar, but a part of the road to glory, using your Gatorade to reach some greater goal. In addition, the workout scenes do not show anyone but Durant, so that no one is as intimately connected to what he is doing than you. When the game Durant was dreaming about finally arrives, only you know what it took to get there, and so when he dunks on Wade you are as wrapped up in his success as anyone else; having participated in the whole thing from beginning to end it almost feels like you were the one on the TV all along. However, the ad takes a sharp turn as soon as it reaches the climax: as soon as the ball slams through the net Dwyane Wade wakes up in a feverish sweat. Putting aside the questions this plot twist raises about whether or not anything is real, it delivers a clear message: everyone is fighting to get to the top, and everyone needs Gatorade to get there. Having been a part of the successes and failures, you know what you must do.

As effective as this ad may be in putting you into the story, it is still severely limited by the fact that you are sitting apart from the two-dimensional display Gatorade wants you to be part of. It works to a certain extent, but in the end you are still watching someone else do things. As virtual reality technology seems to be gaining in popularity, however, I wonder if the ads of the future will actually be able to make you feel like you are fully in the story. It may not be soon, it may not become popular enough to ever be the norm--remember Google Glass?--but it would be very interesting to see what advertisers would do if they were not so limited in their ability to make the advertisement about you.

Donald Trump Defeats the Graphs

In 2012, Nate Silver, America's favorite statistician, got some attention from outside the stat-geek community by correctly predicting the results of all 50 states in the presidential election. His model, based on the polling he had identified to be most consistently accurate, was not any kind of breakthrough in the field of statistics, but people think it is pretty cool when you get 100% on things in real life. Already a well-respected, established statistician, he parlayed his success in the election guessing game previous books and articles into an ESPN supported website: FiveThirtyEight. The website applies statistics to politics, sports, and other parts of our world, and its staff writes some pretty interesting articles--check the site out if you enjoy a good graph. They don't always predict things perfectly, but generally they do a pretty good job. This election cycle, however, that pattern did not hold.

This graph is very skeptical of Donald Trump

As late as November, Silver routinely wrote about Trump's prospects with an air of dismissiveness, explaining that those who proclaimed Trump's-really-got-a-chance! ought to calm down. Any time you ascribe an opinion to people by hyphenating what they might say and putting an explanation mark at the end, you are using language to dismiss them. The punctuation manipulates the written word to evoke some person yelling out a phrase devoid of analysis, and we typically don't respect people who do that very much. He followed by delivering a glorious array of charts, one shortly after another, reminding you that he is Nate Silver, King of the Graph, and in doing so justified his previous mocking of Trump believers. They now become people who yell things that barely mean anything (what does really really mean anyway?), while he presents so much data that disagreeing is pointless. I believed it, and having Silver, who seems more objective in his arguments than anyone else, using dismissive rhetoric made it much easier to believe. The body of the article was the most persuasive part, but that little hyphenated passage at the beginning went a long way as well, illustrating the power of language.

1 is the loneliest number...

Now, of course, the election has changed, and so has Silver's word choice. His latest article, Why Republican Voters Decided On Trump, is much more about how the man came to be the de facto nominee than a concession to Silver's incorrect predictions in the past, but there is some of both elements. The structure of the beginning of the article sets the tone: the first sentence, "Donald Trump is going to win the Republican nomination," sits atop a paragraph break, with nothing but a footnote to accompany it. The shortness and bluntness of the sentence, followed by the space that is bigger than the first section of text, gives the impression that it was forced out of Silver, then followed by a long, rueful sigh. No stats or analysis; those are relegated to the bottom of the page because they would distract from the style. He then launches into a relatively brief explanation of what he thinks got Trump on top and against all odds kept him there, and I would recommend that you read it, but it is all in the context of that first paragraph (sentence). Instead of being a masterful amassing and utilizing of data, I could not help but read this article as the thoughts of a confused, distressed statistician. Once again, the content was the valuable stuff, but the way Silver placed his words at the beginning dictated the lens with which I viewed it.

I must admit, sometimes FiveThirtyEight articles are too dry for me; statistic after statistic about something I do not know much about with all kinds of restrictions on the conclusions made from the data for this reason and that--I can't always pay attention to them. However, having gone through the process of writing this blog, these articles are not just objective summaries of evidence; like just about everything else out there, they use words not just to explain things logically but to produce emotional responses in the readers. I look forward to reading what Nate Silver has to say about the general election because he is good at predicting things, but now I also look forward to trying to look for the words that set the tone for each article.

Let's Run...Or Troll?

As I may or may not have communicated in my first post on this blog, I am a major track nerd. I started running in 7th grade and my interest in the sport has grown continually ever since to the point where I probably spend more time thinking about running than any other specific subject. Other high school, college, and professional teams and runners interest me, as do the training methods used by the best runners. The site that delivers all of this boring-to-99.9%-of-people information in the highest quantity, if not always quality, is LetsRun.com. Founded by twin brothers who were college runners and coaches back in the day, it features coverage of high-level track events and countless forums, mostly distance running-related in one way or another. I have never posted on any of them, but I have read through quite a few, and found some interesting qualities.

There is a sort of ugly yet impressive egalitarianism on the forums. People can post anonymously, as many do, or register a name, so on any given thread you know who some of the people are and not others--there is usually a mix. Surprisingly, anonymity does not seem to play a major role in regulating people's behavior; plenty of anonymous users post only serious, constructive messages and plenty of registered users regularly troll and engage in personal attacks. No one is above these attacks; LetsRun users frequently mock one of the site's founders for grammatical errors in his posts and question how he possibly could have gotten into Princeton, and blast Renato Canova, coach of some of the best runners in the world and a relatively frequent LetsRun poster, for his training methods and alleged use of performance enhancing drugs among his runners. I do not know that this phenomenon is a good thing, but it is certainly unusual in the sporting world; imagine if Gregg Popovich or Pep Guardiola got into fights with basketball or soccer fans online.

There is an awesome variety in quality of the threads, sometimes within a single one; you might have a professional runner, renowned former coach, and exercise physiologist bantering back and forth about the importance of periodization in training with some random person who ran cross country in high school calling them all idiots. The good and the bad are both there a lot, and it is impossible to only see one side--you just have to look. The collective knowledge of users can be impressive at times; in one recent instance; LetsRun users figured out that Mike Rossi, who earned fifteen minutes of fame for a letter he sent to his son's school when the school would not excuse his kid to watch his dad in the Boston Marathon, had cheated in order to qualify for the race. Today, the thread discussing his previous race history and lack of photographs of him during the race is over one thousand pages long and littered with trolls, yet its posters still figured out what no one else would have bothered to investigate.

Finally, LetsRun illustrates the vast scope of the internet. It focuses on what I must painfully concede is a rather unpopular topic, yet it features thousands of posts every day. I do not know any of the people whose posts I read, and I would not want to meet many of them based on their content, but it is still kind of cool to see this mass of people all so interested in a subject that so few people I know care about. Some threads are funny, some interesting, many leave me wondering why I just wasted five minutes reading this stupid site, but the number of people it takes to create such variety is impressive in itself. LetsRun illustrates the good, bad, and the ugly of the internet, and does so in a 21st century way: displaying all kinds of facts, analysis, and nasty vitriol on a subject most people could not care less about.

Pizza, Beyonce, and the Need to Be Relatable

On one rare afternoon when I had a small enough amount of homework to engage in extended youtube-watching, my sister showed me a video that I think makes a good point about the way people on the internet try to be relatable. The video begins with a brief discussion of how annoying "relatable" people are, cut short by one such person bursting in and explaining that he was late because the desire to eat pizza and listen to Beyonce led him onto a small detour. However, when pressed for details on what song he was listening to and what kind of pizza it was, he breaks, and it turns out the story was all a lie; he was just trying to be relatable. I would recommend that you watch the whole video, but the first couple minutes that I just summarized make its point fairly clearly.

They've All Come to Look For a Community

Probably the most talked about campaign ad in this area has been Bernie Sanders' "America". The minute-long ad, released in January, features scenes of urban and rural American life, then transitions to shots of roaring crowds at Sanders' rallies. "They've All Come to Look For America" by Simon and Garfunkel plays in the background, and does not feature any talking. Aside from some text reading "A future to believe in" at the end, it does not feature any slogans; no mentions of free college, universal health care, or even feeling the Bern. Instead, like so many of the advertisements featured in "The Persuaders," it tries to give a sense of community. No one is ever alone in the ad; all but a two scenes show people together, and even those that do not feature farmers with their cows, with the animals presumably being Bernie supporters as well. At the beginning people appear engaged and happy, but it is not until they come together at the rally that they appear truly joyful. Having found their smiling candidate but perhaps more importantly each other, they beckon to others to join the movement; whatever it is must be great if it makes people feel this way.

Although I am not a Bernie supporter, I must say this ad is pretty effective. It does not make me think that Bernie Sanders would make a better president than I otherwise would, but it is not supposed to; it just makes me want to be for Bernie. Its portrayal of the Sanders campaign as a sort of bigger movement fits well with the message Sanders has been sending for months now, and being part of a movement is an appealing thing. It does an excellent job playing on his ethos; his smile and happy interactions with supporters paint a picture of a kind, caring man who will unite people with his character as much as his policies. The ad makes you want to like Bernie Sanders as a person and become part of the joyful group of people who feel the same, and those are both things that probably make you more likely to vote for him.