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Teens

celebrity science

Bonnie Fuller Knows A Few Things About This Palin Situation

"Having been the editor-in-chief of teen magazine YM for five years, and now as the mother of a 17-year-old girl myself, there are a few things I know." What does that sentence tell you? That's right, it's time to hear another one of former Star editor Bonnie Fuller's unique screeds comparing the Presidential race to various moments in celebrity history! Here is why Sarah Palin is just like Lynne Spears: More »

marketing

Tobacco CEO Tells "Truth" About Cigarette Ads

"The truth is that Lorillard markets its Newport brand cigarettes to adult smokers of all ethnicities," writes Lorillard CEO Martin Orlowsky to the Chicago Tribune today. "The truth is that our marketing is not disproportionately directed to African-Americans. The truth is that we do not target underage smokers. The truth is that there are twice as many Caucasian menthol cigarette smokers as there are African-American menthol cigarette smokers. I challenge those who want to prove otherwise to come forward with evidence to support their charges." Ha, well... More »

investigations

The Magazine Industry's Dirty Little Secret

The business of selling magazine subscriptions door-to-door is surprisingly shady. It consists largely of crews of young people—some under 18—recruited by (often) criminal characters who haul them around the country in vans, releasing them only to make their way through neighborhoods, using any lies necessary to tug the heartstrings of people enough to get them to buy something. Then all the kids are rounded up again, given their meager cut of the profits, and they all go do drugs. Sometimes they rape people, or drive off cliffs. The Houston Press just put out a monster investigation of the industry, and it shows a long but clear path from the offices of Conde Nast out to the wild kids hustling in the hinterlands. And there are some true horror stories: More »

advertising

JC Penney Sex-Ad Rebel: Mike Long, Right?

People still profess confusion about which ad man had his way with JC Penney's image, making an unauthorized teen sex ad and submitting it to the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival. Neither the pissed-off retailer nor its apologetic ad agency would name names, and Ad Age yesterday concluded, "Just who is responsible for creation of the ad... is a bit cloudy." But it's not, really. Is it? It's got to be Mike Long, of Epoch Films. Read why, and watch one of Long's other "fake" Penney ads, this one a bit terrifying, after the jump. More »

spin

Play The Teen Sex Ad Blame Game!

The fantastically transgressive teen sex ad yesterday from middlebrow retailer JC Penney turned out not to be sanctioned by the company, predictably. That was just too much to hope for. But the fun part now is watching the fallout—after all, can you fucking imagine how pissed the JC Penney people are right now? They are very pissed. They company sent us a statement disavowing the ad last night, and now the ad agency has just sent its own statement explaining how it had, uh, nothing to do with this salacious underage sex production. Now we're just waiting for the third party—who is likely getting screamed at very loudly right now—to take responsibility. Official statements from the two main players after the jump, and our prediction for the next one to come: More »

videuhoh

Teen Sex Ad Not Actually From JC Penney

That JC Penney commercial, which featured two teens practicing for a naked romp in the basement? The one that won a prize at the Cannes Lions Awards this weekend and spread quickly on the Web yesterday? It was an unauthorized fake, and executives at the department store are royally pissed. "It's obviously inappropriate and nothing we would ever condone," Penney's chief marketing officer told the Wall Street Journal. "We're very disappointed that our logo and brand position were used in that way." Thus began the blame game over who unleashed this mutant sorta-sex tape, one that will seem oh-so-familiar to anyone who recalls, say, the Miley Cyrus incident with Vanity Fair. More »

cultural moments

Teen Sex Gains Mainstream Approval With JC Penney Ad

Well, it's official now: teen sex is okay with middle America. This momentous shift comes in the form of a new JC Penney ad, in which the thoroughly middlebrow retailer has a few laughs about two teen luvahs learning to put their clothes on quickly enough to avoid the mom of the house walking in on them doing the nasty. Forget the whole Miley Cyrus photo uproar! Go home, abstinence-preaching Christians! If JC Penney can sell three-packs of Hanes boxers to your family using a well-placed horny teen theme, well, it's time to lay the "controversy" of teenage sexuality to rest. They like to fuck—particularly on top of JC Penney products! Watch the commercial acknowledgment of biology and profound cultural moment for mall moms, after the jump: More »

summer movie preview

Will The Wackness Be, Um, Wack?

Have you seen the trailer for that movie The Wackness? It has a supremely bizarre cast that includes Josh Peck (from the screechy, unbelievably unwatchable Nickelodeon show Drake & Josh), Ben Kingsley, and Mary-Kate Olsen (who, er, makes out with Sir Ben in the film). It's set in New York City during the heady old timey days of 1994, and follows a mumbly youngster (Peck) who deals drugs the summer before he waddles off to college. Besides the complete peculiarity of a 90's nostalgia movie existing at all, it looks like it could be fun if only for Kingsley's bizarre accent and the Olsen factor. It could also be really, really fucking annoying in that "precocious teen actors who think they're being really cool because they talk about drugs and act coy in a little indie movie" kind of way. Trailer (with a good song) after the jump. More »

trendwatch

Cell Phones Are Turning Our Youth Into Whores!

WARNING: The Associated Press would like to call your attention to the fact that your teenage son, daughter, friend, or relative is, right this very moment, in all likelihood, engaging in an explicit sex act that they are planning to distribute to the world via cell phone. It's true! In a fact-based story titled "Teen Dating '08: Nude Pix On Cell Phones," the news service urges you to "Forget about passing notes in study hall." Why? Because "some teens are now using their cell phones to flirt and send nude pictures of themselves." Nooooooo! Don't you kids know that dirty cops will be looking at those picture in no time? More »

marketing

Audience Seeks Sex, Gets Book Instead

In this competitive publishing environment, you need book promotions that are really HOT. So to hype up Charles Bock's heralded new novel about the underbelly of Las Vegas, "Beautiful Children," his PR team is using fake, barely legal porn! They set up a site with a video (SFW) of a teenage girl auditioning for her first porn shoot—then, just before she gets naked, it redirects to a site for the book! This is truly forward-thinking strategic marketing. Either that, or Charles Bock is just a big perv. [SlinkyFoxVideo.com via AgencySpy]