No life? Buy a Wii... Apparently

Recently I read an editor's column in The Guide (a magazine produced by The Guardian) slating a recent advert for being unrealistic. I believe it was Pepsi Max, though I'm unsure. Today I saw an advert for Mario Kart on the Nintendo Wii, promoting network gaming. The protagonist was a university student, male, scraggy hair, sitting in his dormitory playing Mario Kart. A cross-cut of his family - mum, dad, sister - then dominated the screen, with the family huddled around their television at home, screaming at the male to beat his son in a race, and although the advert intends to make the game, and the possibility of network gaming on the Wii, as enjoyable and entertaining as possible, I found an obvious fault with it.

Why would a university student even consider playing Wii with his parents? Surely this goes against everything student life stands for; where is the freedom, the individuality, the independence? Student life is all about making a life for yourself, coping in the "real world" without your parents pushing you through every door. As a college leaver, and very soon a university student myself, everywhere I read nowadays regarding student life talks of studying, finance and social events. So again, I wonder, where does quality family time on the Wii fit in?
If the student was based at home, I'd have to applaud the advert in promoting the game, but the networking possibility Nintendo have finally keyed into wouldn't be applicable there. But why use a student? The message I got from the advert wasn't "Mario Kart on the Nintendo Wii will provide you with hours of fun, connecting families and friends through network gaming, ensuring ultimate satisfaction" but one more of "No life? Buy a Wii".

Don't get me wrong, I think the Wii is a fantastic idea. I myself owe one, with the equally impressive Wii Fit no doubt bolstering the product's sales immeasurably. However, the message conveyed by such an advert to their presumable target audience of students needs to be seriously changed if Nintendo want their dignity left intact, let alone sales.

Ascot - Rick Roll'd?

Today I put in an 11 hour work shift at a box at Ascot Racecourse, in celebration for the Shergar Cup - an annual competition in which Ireland, Great Britain, Europe and the Rest of the World square up to one another to ultimately claim bragging rights as the nation (or continent) that possess the skill to be announced the best at horse-racing, in which Ireland triumphed emphatically; in perspective, second place Great Britain couldn't even amass half the points scored by the Irish.

Usually at Ascot, so I'm told, a race event can last anywhere up to five days, with most events taking up the extent of a day to complete. However, the Shergar Cup only took place between 1pm and 4pm, meaning that the rest of the day could be deemed as wasted. However, what can only be described as a celebration of the 1980's, a post-event concert was staged with past icons including Bucks Fizz, Curiosity Killed the Cat, The Real Thing and Howard Jones. All in all, the music wasn't quite to my taste - without being too critical, they just couldn't sing; even our guests in the box questioned their singing ability all these years on and seriously contemplating staying for more rounds of drinks to delay going to watch the concert.

What I found most interesting were the two words on most peoples lips when the concert was mentioned - perhaps the most famous artist of the lot, Rick Astley. From our manager in our team briefing, to our box guests, to the rubbish collectors, everyone seemed to either only know of or only seem interested in Astley.
Last night I tried, and failed, to sleep early in preparation for my 4am wake up this morning, and I began thinking about the concert. Even before today, I could tell Astley was going to steal the show, this ultimately proved right as he performed last, and sang half decent to say the least. The thing I was contemplative about last night though wasn't his voice box, but his publicity. People say there's no publicity like free publicity, and in Astley's case this really, really applies.

Anyone who has access to the Internet has hopefully heard of the term "Rick Roll'd". The phrase, coined through YouTube, was created years ago now by some wise guy who, instead of sharing a video about a subject advertised by the video title, cut the video short after a few seconds to be replaced with the music video for Astley's greatest hit "Never Gonna Give You Up". 39 million hits later, masses of YouTubers are doing the same thing, presumably designed as a trap laid out, ready to be sprung on the next intrigued, naive, or innocent person who clicks on their video. Such is the craze that Astley has become a huge hit on YouTube, with youngsters not even hitting their teen years becoming aware of the artist, boosting audience awareness considerably.
No doubt at the time the first video came out, Astley must have been feeling slightly cautious about how this would affect his image, but years on he's been recorded to have said the craze is "bizzarre but hilarious" and although "he's now over the whole Rickrolling phenomenom", Astley surely didn't have the craze far from his mind in his performances, both now and in the future.