Wrapsters - self-censorship has never been so glorious

Maybe you did not know this fact, but prisoners in Saudi Arabia are enlisted to help censor magazines coming into the kingdom. By censor I mean coloring with a sharpie all sensitive material, especially images (you know hands and legs of women, lingerie ads and so on and so forth). So much that when Links - not sure if the agency exists any longer or not - in 2002-3 had to do an ad for men's underwear, the shot a man wearing the product and... censored the image itself with a sharpie all over. The headline? "So intimate it should be censored". I was floored when I saw it.

Cut back to today's Wrapsters ad... A censored photo like the ones instagram censors. You know "sensitive photo - this photo contains sensitive content which some people may find offensive or disturbing" (yes, it was used and over-used when anyone posted anything about Palestine). But this is the kind of ad that makes you do a double take. "Delicious content - this photo contains delicious wraps that might make people crave a tasty escape".

Once more, another case of self-censorship but one used to beat the system. Lovely! Find Wrapsters here.

If all ads have moved digital. Where are they?

Artwork by Tarek Chemaly

All right, my sample could be flawed so statistically not reliable. But, what's with all ads having "moved digital" - where may I ask are they? Normally my instagram should be an indicator: Whenever I open it, and as I scroll through stories, ads should be appearing there. Are they? Well, there Massimo Dutti (oddly I am offered the women's section of the sale, go figure!), then a couple of local shoe brands, one major discount outlet in Kaslik, and ultimately when I go and see images Rectangle Jaune seems to be on sale.

Well, truth be told either it is me and my feed or there are barely any ads to speak of digitally. Wait, maybe like all the cool kids they have migrated to Tiktok (where I am not truth be told). Seriously though, what's with everyone assuming that all ads are digital, where are those ads? I still see accounts selling their items online - outlet this and discounted brand that. We all know that this what shopping has been like since the pandemic. Sure, footfall does exist in actual stores but shopping online has been the norm for many. 

I am not saying there are no ads online in Lebanon, but there seems to be an over-projection as to how many. Perhaps the Gulf is in better shape than the Lebanese market - after all they have more disposable income (I hear that in Kuwait you have a 2-hour queue in front of Cartier - and that's the upscale jeweler in case you are confused!). But again, something seems fishy on the local scene. I guess it all goes back to how much people are willing to spend. That the crisis is ongoing in Lebanon is a fact. Say you are shopping for a turtleneck, you will most likely see items from China (if you dress Large you ask for the XXL to compensate for the size difference). Will you see ads for them? Unlikely, but there are shops online that specialize in such items (said turtleneck cost 10 USD at this point).

Once more, I feel there is a confusing element here. Maybe there is enough customers without attracting more ads. Maybe "outlet" stores have enough people dropping by without having to display their wares - I do see ads for such stores, but these are mainly in the line of "new kids outfits have dropped" (and you see a selection on hangers being displayed in a 5-7 interval). Or it could be the Shein effect - people are ordering direct from shein (but considering this requires a credit card not sure how this works - although there are sites that could order on your behalf and you "pay on delivery"). 

Maybe what am asking is - there are ads here and here. Mostly homegrown (meaning shot by the client itself) probably by some skeletal team that does everything from shooting to editing to posting to the caption to the tags and the whole shebang. So where do "agencies" fall in this? Remember, the companies that used to spend like nobody's business - banks and car agencies are no longer in the market. No one wants to hear of banks that robbed people blind and no one has enough cash for new models of cars. So the main actors of the field have pseudo-vanished.

So I am not sure where agencies stand on this particularly that online ads need no booking or price negotiating and that most companies seem to do them in-house. It all feels like a paradox.

"Why don't you...." people know how to live my life better than me.

Artwork by Tarek Chemaly

Well, there you go. Everyone knows how to live my life better than me, especially in Lebanon.

Every day I am met with questions that start with "why don't you...?" and end with anything related to my personal life, my professional life, the way I care for my elderly mother, the way I do this, that, or what not. Because obviously, those administering these questions, already figured out a better way for me to live my life, since - obviously - their own life is perfect.

Note that I usually do not intrude on people's lives. Whether they are single, married, divorced or what not - some are in unhappy marriages and I still give no direct advices unless solicited. 

I remember one specific case, I was lunching at the ad agency with a beautiful and talented art director, she mentioned by hinting several times during the meal that she wanted a family while her husband wanted to remain away in Africa for his career. Oddly when I got back to my cubicle, as I was reading my monthly horoscope a specific section said that now was the time of make-or-break should I be in a relation. Since we shared the same horoscope, I emailed her the link. Ten minutes later she was standing at the door of my office, we interlocked in sight for a few seconds but I knew she was still observing me with a smile as I pretended to get busy with my computer. The next day her office was empty. Apparently she had travelled to the US to ask for a divorce. I know what you are thinking, this is counter-intuitive to what I was saying. Actually this is not true, what happened is that she hinted several times, and I "innocently" sent her our monthly horoscope. An 8 page horoscope. She just picked up the passage that she knew I was winking at.

If I am saying this story it is because, out of nowhere a relative looks at me says "leich ma bitjeblak we7de to2dik?" (why don't you get one (woman) to serve you). I very politely told her that if I was to marry it is not for the woman to "serve" me but rather she ought to be cherished and pampered. But this is just a sample of how people as I said prior - know how I "should" conduct my life. "Why don't you go to work daily?" - again, a veiled way for people to understand what exactly I do for a living. "Why don't you replace the househelp that left?" - "why don't you do your blood tests?" - "why don't you own a car?" (I heard someone say, while literally looking at me, "the measure of a man is his car" and I understood perfectly what he was saying to and about me) - "why don't you travel to do Dubai there's plenty of work there?". Need I go on?

I remember in her wonderful book "Beirut, fragments." author Jean Said Makdessi wrote that whenever the question was "have you heard?" it was always followed by a bad news. And I myself know that whatever question starts with "why don't you" it is followed by an intrusive ignorant statement. No one realizes that, as an educated and smart man, I have taken all the options and basically decided on the best course of action accordingly. Because again, the people "advising" me have a much smarter outcome figured out and I am too idiotic to realize it.

Of course, apps like Instagram and Tiktok are making things more complicated with their armchair psychiatrists/coaches/self-help guides and so on - "the most important 5 minutes of your day are those before you sleep", "this woman explains why the truth behind the banking system", "a former salesperson explains how to make everyone agree with you". And the list goes on and on. A dumbing down of questions usually convoluted and difficult, but made palatable and easily-digestible for those with a very limited span of attention. 

On all accounts, I certainly shrug when given advice by those who don't have the data, I truly smile dismissively when someone tries to outsmart me when they have a limited scope of the image or when they are trying to replicate something that worked with them not realizing that not all lives are the same and not circumstances are identical.

So "why don't you" just meddle in your own life thank you very much.

Yes, I still "use" Twitter, and no, it means nothing.

Image tweeted by Elon Musk (source)

Ah Twitter!

Ever since Mr. Musk himself bought it for 44 Billion, it seems everyone is up in arms about it. Moderation is no longer a thing, the ethics team has been gutted with layoffs, the app will charge for blue check badges, advertisers reigning in ad spend, this, that... But- to the great chagrin of my digital consultant (hello Patrick!) - this actually implies that people have been using it the way it "ought to be" used.

Not so for me.

Let's recap - my private Facebook profile has zero friends, it's just a ghost to be able to manage my official page there, a page basically dedicated to copy-pasting links of such articles as this one. On Twitter I follow no one, so much that one time I was with my said digital consultant and a few other people and he said "tell them, tell them how you use social media" as if I was a wonder boy to be exhibited (the way I use social media is simply by typing everyone's link once in a while to see if there is anything interesting).

On Instagram, I make sure never to follow more than 50 accounts and periodically purge to remain near that number. I admit that during the pandemic I did a few "purchases" from outlet/resale stores pay-on-delivery exhibiting there for the lack of being able to go out to stores - which again is something I do not do often anyhow. Lately I have been lukewarm about the whole Instagram thingy truth be told. Somehow the whole app became boring.

No I have no Tiktok. 

Oh, whatsapp? 

Welcome to the 15 numbers including house help, taxi driver, etc.... stored on my phone. I only speak (meaning write) to a very small number of people. 

But all this has been good for my mental health mind you. I do what I do the way I do it, I do not preach anyone to do the same, at this point I realize each one of us has his own needs or wants from this digital experience. 

So yes, I still "use" Twitter, and no, it means nothing.

We no longer read, we react.

Artwork by Tarek Chemaly from the series Tanaklogia

We no longer read, we react.

I found that to be very true lately. Which is why I stopped writing comments on Instagram, something I actually enjoyed. Several times people reacted to my comments without fully understanding them, isolating them from the bigger picture of who I was, or what my blog always preached, simply for the pleasure of some self-righteous justification they feel they deserve.

Let me give this example. A certain person on Instagram contacts me privately, either with "Tarek?" or without even a message at all. Just a picture is attached. The idea would be to locate where that picture was taken. Several minutes later the answer would be "Bhamdoun, look at the photo of the elections candidate, his name is so and so, and he was a prominent politician in the area at the time", or "oh too easy, this is two streets away from AUB, the building is still there right now". Which is why I feel it is a pleasure to write public comments on his posts.

In one of my comments I used the word "nawar". A girl replied schooling me that they were an actual population of "roma" whose name was abstracted to mean certain kind of people. In return I thanked her and said that her using "roma" was incorrect as they are now rebaptized as "travellers" (for those who do not know "roma" is a newer name for gypsies). I thought the exchange ended there...

And then all hell broke lose. I had tens of people scolding me for being ignorant, racist, this, that, in the end I deleted my original comment because it was not worth it to be subjected to a trial by people completely ignorant of the facts.

Here's another story. Again, Instagram. Will not bore you with the details. But in a private exchange with someone I mentioned that Robespierre was himself a victim of the guillotine he so long operated and sent people to - as a way to tell them to tamper their enthusiasm about how they were labelling people online. Next thing I know they were tagging me and the Internal Security Forces in a public story that I was threatening them with "death". How this lead to that is still beyond me in terms of logic - if there ever was one.

But still, it was but one of the many examples of how people are taking up arms for - well, nothing. Just twisted imaginings projected onto other people. But these instinctive reactions people are having are truly perplexing. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie said it perfectly in her essay "It Is Obscene" (which I wholeheartedly invite you to read here): "People who ask you to ‘educate’ yourself (...), while not being able to intelligently defend their own ideological positions, because by ‘educate,’ they actually mean ‘parrot what I say, flatten all nuance, wish away complexity.’"

And complexity and nuance are really what are needed (see here), I read it somewhere online that if you say you like apples, does not mean you are "preaching" you hate mangoes. Chill people there is enough space and tastes for everyone to cohabitate on the internet. In a scientific book published in 1929 the author wrote (sadly did not keep the book) "peaches are the tastiest of all fruits". Can you imagine learning that as a student and realizing your prefer - heaven forbids - bananas? Thankfully, social media was not invented in 1929. Can you imagine what it would be for someone to "cancel" bananas?

Gmail has a new lovely logo.

Gmail has anew logo. And am really in love. Remember when Instagram had a new logo? Everyone basically hated it, and well, what is the point of arguing with a behemoth like Facebook (parent company to Instagram) so I thought "we will end up getting used to it". And just like Youtube changing its logo, thus on too works beautifully well... The colors, the way they interlock, and yes, the "idea" of envelope (though less visible than before). And looks also lovely on the app too!... Apparently plenty if people are whining about it. Personally I think it is lovely and on point.

How LinkedIn became a facebook/Instagram hybrid

Artwork by Tarek Chemaly from the series "Tanaklogia"

LinkedIn used to be certainly interesting. Seriously, it was worlds away from the constant bombardments of Facebook and its silly updates from "friends" and holiday greetings from "our family to yours", and far from the braggadocio of Instagram where everyone is #nofilter handsome/beautiful, dressed in their logomania attires, and living their best lives.

Just last week on LinkedIn, I saw about 15 people putting certificates of courses they just finished. I congratulate them wholeheartedly, but a closer inspection of the names of the courses and - worse - the governing bodies issuing them, leaves me cold. There were also about four copy/paste versions of the same story about the guy in shoddy surroundings who got interviewed by an HR (but he got the job, yay, because "don't judge the book by its cover"), three other identical stories about companies hiring someone with no experience but who ended up getting promoted twice (twice!), about two other people promoting conspiracy theories (one about the deep state in the US, another about Carlos Ghosn replacing Riad Salameh as governor of central bank in Lebanon). 

Oh and of course, there were half a dozen stories about people who opened a business and failed and opened another one later and succeeded. And a tone of the customary motivational quotes, and several from Brigette Hyacinth. And by the way, all those saying, "if you do not like your place, change it, you are not a tree" (original quote by Jim Rohn) let me remind you as an agriculture engineer, that changing the place of a tree requires moving its primary ecosystem with it to survive (which involves the soil it was planted in - or your previous working experience/rolodex for that matter).

Thankfully, there is a mute button. Or unfollow or whatever they call it.

But yes, it is alarming. All right, we all knew men were using the the platform to privately email women about non-business issues (and at times women posting such messages to fight back), but the amount of info on LinkedIn - serious, business-like, educational - was still abundant.

Lately though, I cannot but worry. If I wanted to see shiny happy people, I'd have gone to Facebook and Instagram.