If You're a Fast Food Executive You Better Eat a Burger on Video, Now!

It all started innocently enough. McDonald’s CEO and chairman, Chris Kempczinski, was in a promotional video discussing the latest offering from the chain. Called the, "Big Arch," he took tiny bites and otherwise didn't seem that into the burger. It was awkward and kind of funny, with McDonald's itself poking fun at the incident. Fast Food is a vicious business, however, and the other companies smelled blood in the water.

Yesterday, March 4th, Burger King's official TikTok posted a slightly older video of the CEO taking a massive bite out of the Whopper before grinning and remarking with a sauce-covered face all he needed now was napkin. Shots fired. Oh, and you know Wendy's had a plan too as its, "US president, Pete Suerken, shared a [new] video online of himself eating a burger from his fast food chain. But in his video, not only does he take a big bite, he apparently eats the entire burger. He then tops it off with a fry dipped into a milkshake." As of today, A&W is getting into the trend with their advertising character, "Allen, the A&W Guy," wearing an outfit suspiciously like Kempczinski's on Instagram and enjoying their signature Teen Burger before concluding with an invite for, "Chris," to join him for lunch sometime. It is admittedly hilarious, but how did this become a thing?

I suppose, considering the current state of our Nation and the World, sometimes you just need something fun to happen that you can discuss with people. While this is a bit embarrassing for McDonald's, even them getting clowned on keeps the company in people's minds while allowing other companies to get some attention too. It's relatively good-natured and low-stakes joking around, and that is a refreshing change of pace from our current reality. Hell, I've seen people remark how they'll try the Big Arch burger just to see why it got so much press, so mission accomplished for McDonald's? We all get to tell some jokes and watch as random executives from fast food chains eat some burgers, it's nice and chill!

I, myself, can't eat burgers that contain beef due to my allergy. I love a good Bison burger (cooked on a separate grill) or even a veggie burger with real bacon on it--although restaurants do get confused by such an order. Seeing all this talk about food from various companies gives me a hankering for them, so in the end, everyone wins, even McDonald's, as the butt of the joke. Welcome to the Burger Wars. Unlike other current ones, this is thankfully all just in good fun.

I Tried That, "Dubai Chocolate," the Internet Keeps Talking About

The internet/TikTok will sometimes focus on random stuff. The color of a dress or whether 100 men could beat a gorilla in a fight becomes a huge discussion. Lately, "Dubai Chocolate," has been going viral. There are various brands of chocolate that count as Dubai Chocolate, but the basic idea is that it is chocolate with a filling made of kadayif and pistachio. I did not try the original version, but I bought a version sold at the Nuts and Candy store I like visiting. I enjoyed it.

One thing should be made clear: If you hate pistachios, you will in no way, shape, or form like Dubai Chocolate, regardless of the brand. If you enjoy Pisactho, however, it is pretty yummy. The chocolate (which can vary in quality by brand) generally complements the nutiness well. If you're buying the pricey Dubai Chocolate (some expensive iterations are out there) then you may enjoy Dubai Chocolate even more, but my generic version was pretty good too. Basically, if you enjoy the flavor of pisacho, you'll enjoy the pricey or cheap varieties of Dubai Chocolate/knock-off brands. Hell, you can find some at Costco now. I'd eat it again.

Flashback Friday: "Video Killed the Radio Star," Serves as a Good Metaphor for Much of Popular Culture

I randomly will think of the song, "Video Killed the Radio Star," on occasion. This isn't a, "Music Monday," post because while I think of the song it is quite old and I'm going to talk more about what it represents as a metaphor. It is a great song by The Buggles, however, and there is a fantastic cover of it by The Presidents of the United States of America (the band, not literal Presidents). It was one of the first songs to get a music video, interestingly enough, being the first ever music video aired on MTV. Seriously, at 12:01 AM on August 1st, 1981, it appeared as MTV launched with music television (I will spare you a joke about how MTV dropped music videos long ago, as everyone tells those). The song is arguably about how the rise of television/video has made the traditional radio celebrity obsolete. It is fitting that such a song kicked off MTV and even though the idea of, "Video," is outdated, it still stands as a metaphor.

Video killed the radio star. Internet killed video star. Social Media apps killed the Internet celebrity. It keeps moving along with the new generation latching onto something popular that the older generations decry as rotting their brains. "Stop listening to that radio and do something productive! Stop watching that television/VCR! Get off the internet websites or chatroom! Stay away from Youtube or Facebook! Quit using TikTok! It keeps moving along with many thinking their old way was better and this new technology is wretched and destroying the good old ways. How dare you youth watch T.V. and wreck your eyes! Get off that internet with all the dangerous strangers! You kids with your mini-video TikTok celebrities don't recognize how better it was when we had long YouTube videos that required us to pay attention for more than 10 to 60-second bursts! Video keeps killing the radio star with, 'Video," and, "Radio Star," constantly evolving.

I'll admit even though I try to stay informed on popular culture I don't always, "Get it," anymore. Back when I was a teen we liked to actually play video-games and would only look at an internet video of a game if we needed to figure out how to get past a difficult segment (or maybe re-watch a cool moment/cinema scene). The idea to me of watching someone streaming themselves playing a game for hours upon hours simply does not appeal to me. A guy or gal chatting with everyone as they play a video-game sounds fun for the person playing who gets to talk with everybody tuning in, but I have zero desire to be one of those people who observe them playing--I'd rather play the game, myself! Someone reading my thoughts on this probably is rolling their eyes right now and saying, "Okay, Grandpa, you clearly don't get it," and that is my point! I'm the old fogey in this case. There is hope, however.

Many of the old ways do manage to stay around and evolve. Radio is still here and we all enjoy it. Folks listen to radio shows in the morning and when driving. There are apps to stream radio too, and podcasts are like a modern talk radio on the internet that people adore. We don't gather around the big old radio in our living room, but it still has found a way to be important and present in the modern-day. We don't rent VHS tapes or DVDs as much but we stream movies and shows quite a lot. Even books have found ways to incorporate technology from e-readers to people discussing and promoting books on things like social media (BookTok and such). Video killed many of the radio stars, but it didn't kill them all.

The song goes, "Video killed the radio star," and it serves as a fantastic metaphor for much of popular culture. Many new things come and trample the old ways that either disappear or evolve. This isn't a good thing or a bad thing, it is just the way it simply is. The older folks look back with a yearning as they remember how things once were and the younger people think it outdated (or maybe appreciate it as nostalgic in the manner teens getting into VHS tapes these days or vinyl has made a mini-resurgence in the formats). Video killed the radio star, but it didn't completely wipe them out, in other words. I do wonder if the Buggles realized how potent a concept they had all those decades ago and I thank them for it.

...And TikTok is Already Back (For Now)

Well, that was an interesting total of 14 or so hours. TikTok is back online and indicates due to working out a deal with incoming President Donald Trump they'll be around for at least a bit longer and hope to stay active. Right now the app can't be downloaded on an Apple or Google device, however, so we are in murky legal waters until Trump officially takes office tomorrow and (one assumes) makes an executive order I continue to find it weird Trump is being painted as TikTok's potential knight in shining armor as he was one of the first to go after it, but this is a weird world we live in. I'm sure there will be more as this all develops.

TikTok is Offline in America, For Now

TikTok is not dead so much as it is currently in a holding pattern. It went offline last night shortly before a ban went into effect. Attempts were made to appeal to the Supreme Court and Biden's officials, but a law had passed and was upheld, so TikTok went dark. This all relates to how a Chinese company, Bytedance, owns TikTok and the United States only wants American companies like Facebook able to theoretically spy on U.S. citizens--I'm being sarcastic, but it is a bit true. I mean, out of all the things our government could be worried about and trying to fix, they go after TikTok, really?

Incoming President Donald Trump (returning to the office after Biden's one term) has indicated that he may give TikTok a reprieve so it can cut some kind of business deal that pleases the American government. It is odd Trump is being painted as TikTok's new savior as he was the one who started all this, "Let's ban TikTok," noise back when he was Prez the first time. However, TikTok is currently unavailable in America and it remains to be seen exactly what the future holds for the app.

I Would Not Have Predicted Check Fraud as a TikTok Trend

When you deposit a check it has to clear, but a certain small amount is (generally) immediately available to withdraw. In the olden days, this meant scammers would write bad checks that, “Bounced,” while at a business to get some cashback and could leave someone who took those checks in a bad place when the bank wanted its money back. I guess some young folks don’t understand how checking works because there have been TikTok videos of people writing checks with wild sums of money, depositing those checks at a Chase Bank ATM, and immediately taking out a bunch of, “Free money,” as these ATMs oddly didn’t limit how much cash you could have right away from a check. Oh, you sweet naive children, that’s textbook check fraud. 

There is no such thing as free money—well, unless you’re already a rich corporation and get bailed out by a Government due to being, “Too big to fail,” even if you did commit some form of fraud. That said, your average Agnus, Agatha, Jermaine, or Jack isn’t going to get much sympathy for giving themselves a negative account balance due to writing checks to themselves or friends. Are these TikTok videos meant more as satire of how stupid people can behave as opposed to being a legitimate, “Hack,” however? Consider we once had an internet trend where people broke their bones running up stacks of milk crates and you have your depressing answer.

Considering Everything Our Government Could Focus On, It Worked to Ban TikTok?

We've got Ukraine and Russia in a war. Israel and Hamas are fighting as other nations hint at entering the conflict (such as Iran) to the point World War III seems possible. The rights of anyone with a Uterus are constantly being threatened with abortion being made illegal by politicians who want to ignore the will of the people who tell them to keep it legal. LGBTQ+ individuals are under constant legal and sometimes physical assaults. The Supreme Court is a joke. I could go on with what our Government could work on fixing, but instead, it seems to look at everything and go, "You know what? Let's try and ban a social media app!"

Facebook/Meta, YouTube/Google, and the rest all invade our privacy, but they're American companies so apparently that's okay. However, if a company has some Chinese-related ownership like TikTok, suddenly that's a problem. Elon Musk has American citizenship now so he can do whatever he likes with Twitter/X, but for some reason, we really care about privacy only when it comes to TikTok, according to our two-faced politicians--on both sides of the political aisle! Republicans who espouse a free market for some reason don't think that applies to TikTok and Democrats are looking for an easy win on something after looking like a joke these past number of years. Democrats are professionals at snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, to alter a common saying. I mean, Joe Biden has been President and is going to run again against a man he handily beat who is currently in a criminal trial, yet Trump polls better? Us Liberals are not enthused with Democrats even if the alternative is fascism so we support them, but don't think I blindly love anyone with a, "D," next to their name in Congress either.

That puts us into the here-and-now where Congress has passed a law stating if TikTok's Chinese-related ownership doesn't sell to another company it could end up banned in America. Biden signed the law and I just shook my head at these out-of-touch politicians saying, "Seriously?" This is an easy win for Democrats to make Republicans look like old fogies who hate technology by taking a stand for younger voters (tons of folks who are 18 to mid-20s and even older people use TikTok, it isn't all kids) who could very well not care about any other issues but vote for Biden if he said, "Nah, Conservatives, TikTok is a-okay with me." Democrats love to screw up any chance they get to look good, though, so here we are. TikTok has about 9 months to make sure there is no Chinese-adjacent ownership or is banned. I'm all for privacy, but Zuckerberg gets to spy on us as much as he wants because he's an American, I guess. Hypocrisy and corruption reign, which in a way is the most American thing about all of this.

I Will Say it Again: Most Old VHS Tapes Are Of Little Financial Value

I am a fan of collecting, "Old," media. I have vinyl records, cassette tapes, and VHS tapes. Some VHS tapes out there could be considered valuable and hard to find--mostly obscure horror titles. However, many clickbait articles falsely claimed worthless Disney, "Black Diamond," VHS tapes were worth thousands despite being easy to find at their shops for pennies on the dollar. I covered this in 2019 and it holds true today, VHS tapes are great fun but often of little-to-no monetary value. Now I see so-called, "Influencers," on Tiktok spreading B.S. rumors about VHS tapes and I can conclude this really is a neverending cycle. 

The aforementioned TikTok concerns a rare-ish VHS version of, "Cars," which does have value--it does! That said, a number of supposed sales for absurd money seem to be fake, and you could only get the, "Cars," VHS via a mail-order Disney club thing. The odds are you have a 99.9% chance of finding all the worthless tapes at a thrift shop and a .01% chance of finding, "Cars," on VHS as it was indeed quite rare. Don't think all those random tapes have a cash value, even if you get them graded in the same way other collectibles are getting graded. Seeing as I've graded my comics I can't really dismiss VHS grading without sounding hypocritical. Still, I'll grade a comic to preserve it and understand doing it with some very rare VHS tapes, but why folks are grading cheap mass-market VHS tapes escapes me. Enjoy your tapes, people, and accept most of them lack monetary value but are still worthwhile in terms of being entertaining. It actually is a lot like comic-books considering how many of those are relegated to dollar bins in the same manner as tapes, now that I think about it. Funny how that works, isn't it?

Twitter in April 2023 Has Become Pure Chaos

Remember when news involving Twitter was more about what people said on Twitter than the site itself? Yeah, those days weren't exactly good (Donald Trump's Presidential tweets were horrific) but at least were different than now when news involving Twitter is simply about Twitter. This all began when a man who is so rich in money but apparently so poor in getting the attention he craves--Elon Musk--took over the site. As soon as Musk assumed control, the entity we know as Twitter started imploding. Things have only gotten worse in the months since.

Musk introduced the idea that unless you pay him money you'll lose your blue checkmark. If you didn't have a blue checkmark, you can pay to get one. Blue checkmarks were never some kind of special status symbol beyond helping people who were known for something or the other to be able to prove the account was the person claimed and not some kind of impersonator. With the ability for anybody to pay $8 and get a blue check, it has already resulted in mayhem, especially as the celebs/politicians/organizations that had blue checkmarks refuse to pay. At this point, having a blue checkmark is now more embarrassing than it is proof of anything. Nicole Carpenter of Polygon has called it, "Twitter's de-verification debacle." I think that's honestly a little too kind. This is a status-mark shitshow, and boy is it getting messy. 

Musk, presumably plotting his next horrible idea.

Stephen King was a loud opponent of the blue checkmark costing money and randomly kept his for free as a backhanded, "Gift," from Musk. He's made it clear he doesn't need it and would rather the money go to a charity that helps Ukraine or such. Plenty of folks are now viewing a blue checkmark that's been paid for more as a sign someone is status-seeking than that they are actually a notable person. I've made it clear I will never give Twitter any of my money because they already get all our sweet, sweet data. Plenty of other social media sites are pleased to give us fun features in exchange for our privacy, and if those sites ain't charging me, why does Musk need a single cent? Twitter is imploding, TikTok is being targeted by Congress for various reasons, Facebook/Instagram had to settle a huge lawsuit for misusing data, and at this point, it seems more off-kilter social media networks like Fetlife are the least problematic. Who knew a site for people who want to make posts about behaving in a, "Naughty," manner would use data the least inappropriately?

Whether he's calling spaceships that blow up within minutes of launch a success or bragging about how much better he's making Twitter while it also finds itself falling apart, Elon Musk is clearly a man on a mission. What that mission is and why exactly it involves making so many people mock him in a hilarious manner is a mystery. Godspeed to him as he tries to get that $8 from folks, though.

"Toxic," and, "Pony," Actually Make for a Good Mash-Up

The idea of taking two (or more) songs and literally smashing them together had been around forever--just look at the KLF. Known as, "Mash-ups," they increased in popularity and used to be all the rage some years ago. Then they faded away a bit even if they still existed, they just got less hype. Against all odds there is a mash-up of, "Toxic," and, "Pony," which is quite catchy and getting a bunch of attention now thanks to apps such as TikTok. It's called, "Toxic Pony," and it is a banger. Altego created it and I tip my hat to them for such a great blend of a jam:

Mash-ups are fun when they work (and atrocious when they fail). I'm glad that, "Toxic Pony," is so fun and catchy. I dig it. Perhaps mash-ups will continue to catch on again, I'd enjoy that.

Influencers/Bloggers/etc. Always Need to Sign a Contract When Promoting a Product

If you have a blog (like me) or are a social media influencer (I'm not, but I know some people who are), you probably get solicited to promote a product or service sometimes. I've never been paid to promote a product, but if I were I'd obviously disclose it (I have signed contracts for my writing though, in case you wondered). One reason requests to promote a product or service have never gone anywhere is I am tentatively offered money but there is no contract or anything. Plus, usually whatever I'm asked to promote doesn't even make sense with my blog so why bother? For real though, if you don't sign an actual contract that you should probably have a lawyer check out too, you really shouldn't be cutting deals to talk about a product on your Instagram/Tiktok/blog/so forth. 

This article by Tanya Chen (and this one that the first link references also by Chen) tell the story of influencers struggling to get paid by Ooh! Companion, which is, "...an Australian-based sex toy company that was founded just a year ago, and much of its visibility and success has been thanks to its Instagram marketing." Basically, they sold influencers a line about female empowerment and shame-free sex toys, agreed to work together via DMs and handshake agreements instead of signing on a dotted line, and then it took months and threats of going public about being shortchanged for any influencers to get paid. Ooh! Companion wanted the clout of influencers recommending their toys without actually paying to get the promotion, and they surely aren't the only company to try that kind of trick.

As the tide turned against them they made their Instagram page private.

If you're going to publically promote a product and lend your fame/readership/whatever to an item you damn well better be sure you're going to get paid; the way to assure that is to have an ironclad contract that protects you if anything goes wrong and you have to sue. Now then, I would like to take this time to promote a new brand that reached out to me and promised a platter of lukewarm chicken wings would be mailed to my address if I talked them up--"Dog Whiskey." It's like regular whiskey, but for your dog so they can get drunk and throw up too! "Dog Whiskey: It'll Send Rover Right Over!"

The Whatnot App is Quite Interesting

I always like examining new social media or item-selling apps. Some start strong and then fade away--remember Ello? Others have been around and are pretty popular still--folks love Twitch and now are allowed to be good-looking on it too if they can't help appearing sexy. TikTok is a juggernaut in the social media space as well and I need to try and make more little videos for it. Well, now there is a newer streaming platform called Whatnot, and it is pretty snazzy. I would describe Whatnot as if Facebook Live or another live-streaming app had a baby with eBay. It is earlier in its existence to you have to apply and be approved to stream, but anyone can tune in to shows. If you've got payment information entered you can take part in auctions or, "Buy it now," items. 

The app right now has a heavy focus on collectibles such as Funko Pops, Pokemon cards, sports cards, and a smaller (but enjoyable) comic-book presence. Sellers are rated like on eBay and I've bought some cheaper comics that have arrived in the condition promised. With auctions, people sometimes seem to have a tendency to overbid, so something you'd hope to get cheap goes for a lot more--that's great for sellers but bad for you if you're after a collectible for a cheaper price! I've still been able to get some neat things for stellar prices by tuning into the right steam at the time--I got a first printing set of some issues from, "The Department of Truth," for well below the current trending price for those issues.

As someone who enjoys selling stuff on various sites, I would love to be able to stream on Whatnot and have in fact applied to be a streamer. In the meantime, I will continue to enjoy watching streams as many of the people doing shows are pretty cool and fun to watch even if you aren't buying anything. Should you be into collectibles or just like checking out new social media apps, I'd recommend giving Whatnot a viewing on the smart device of your choice.

So...I'm on TikTok

TikTok is an app that astounded and confused me. It was like Vine and Twitter had a baby, and it was really loud and prone to obnoxious memes. I have a social media presence on Twitter and Facebook as well as a minimal Instagram presence, but a friend recommended I do TikTok to possibly expand my reader/viewerbase. It struck me as a decent idea as, "The young folk," seem to really like TikTok. I, therefore, made an account and have been doing some videos, many comic-related. My TikTok handle is @thenewestrant and you can find me at this link. I encourage you to check my TikTok out if you happen to have one and enjoy my hopefully-not-too-cringey videos.