This blog is now an adult. 18 years and ongoing!

Artwork by Tarek Chemaly

Oh heaven help us. You know one year I actually forgot my own birthday? Well, in the plethora of life, I have forgotten this blog's date of inception! January 11th 2007. This means I have been blogging and getting on people's nerves for 18 years and more. So basically, this blog is now an adult. 

I am truly trying to think what this all means. No no, not just the numbers which oddly are still here, even if as of late I am exceptionally busy, or because the source material got less and less due to the ad slump we are facing. I mean, somehow, I feel there is a shift, one which comes with age, the blog and mine's. I worry less and stress less and can't give a toss less. I feel more relaxed, a little more trusting that things will end up where they ought to end up without the histrionics from my side. 

Also, I am becoming more and more, overtly a "mentor" which I have always was, but now people (youngsters truth be told) call me so overtly. I was always generous with advice, but now they label it for what it is. Which I find a bit... tender? I am not sure if this is the word.

Of course with time, separating the personal me and the public me becomes a little difficult even if I try to do it. I still want to keep a part of me hidden and no up for public consumption. Despite the many projects I am helming at this point - even if teaching has been left off the menu due to different reasons. But who knows what the future can bring, even if no classroom dispensing knowledge and information is part of my DNA.

And this blog goes on, with all the eyeballs and numbers attached to it. Which makes me exceptionally proud as to why would anyone still be - 18 years later - interested to read my opinion and thoughts about advertising and communication at large.

But the machine never stops, there is even a new book coming out soon which I am co-authoring (hello Ali and Geoana!) to add to my growing collection of authored books, and this blog will soon have a strategic partner as well. I am not just "teasing" projects no, I am simply trying to say that the engine is still going in full gear. 

Exciting things are ahead.

Ah to be 18 and young!

OK, the blog is, I am not :)

About all these conversations you never wanted to have with me as a blogger

I know, I know. Being a blogger is a little dépassé. Old hat.

All the cool boys and girls are now on Tiktok - they were formerly on instagram before switching. A couple of days ago someone wanted to quote this blog for a study they were writing and referred to it by the acronym my "old" blog had (2007-2017) and then onwards on this link on this one (2017- Present). Combined they hold (including this post) 5207 posts and more than 2.5 million viewers combined (I know so because the numbers are there being tracked by the all-mighty Google).

And all this without being paid for one ad, while incurring the wrath of ad agencies, while not agreeing to sell my posts or my readership or what not. You know what? The results are not bad at all. Was it possible to get more reach? Of course. Was it possible for me to still be out there with a different audience a la Charles Hayek (Please check Heritage And Roots) for whom I have incredible respect (and was one of the earliest people to follow and speak with privately before he went on to stardom)?

Of course yes! But to each his own. I have told this story before but it bears repeating. I was working as a correspondent for an international magazine for a long time and I happened to be in Italy for a business trip and passed by their offices - the editor who never laid out his eyes on me and as a first comment said "but you're short!"... Before profusely apologizing.

Please note. I am short! The issue was he meant to say "for someone who writes with so must gust, you are not the tall impressive man I thought you were". I immediately placated his fears and told him I understood what he meant. 

Look, I know I am not getting my point easily. Going to my usual convoluted route. The point is? Yesterday I saw a joke by the very funny Michelle Wolf that goes "blogs are conversations no one wanted to have with you". Now did anyone (client/agency) really wanted my rather unflattering and unfiltered opinion about their ad? I suspect not. Did anyone really care to read about the dismal state of the advertising market when everyone wanted to delude themselves and the market with false hopes? I am inclined to say no.

But here's the thing - as they say in English - "you can't keep a good man down" and heaven knows everyone has tried, as in totally and completely tried. You might not want to have these conversations with me, but hey, this is why they invented monologues!

After being laughed at for so long, ignored for a longer time, hated in the combined time, guess who is still preaching in the wilderness? Short, non-impressive moi. And turns out my monologues draw audiences. 

In the immortal words of Mrs. Slocombe in Are You Being Served... "I am unanimous in that".

So perhaps I have been having a conversation with myself all along after all...

Should Jad Aoun bring his "looks like Beirut" award back?

Today as I was reading an article in The Guardian (here) a sentence popped up describing a dilapidated house "like Beirut"... and bam it all brought back to me that award that Jad Aoun (at the time known as the blogger "under rug swept") used to distribute for articles mentioning the expression "looks like Beirut" - which of course at the time was ironic considering Beirut was thriving thank-you-very-much. So "just like Beirut" was an oddity to mention since it did not resemble anything of the Beirut known at that time.

Jad, much like many of the other bloggers has gone to better pastures - in this case Canada - where he blogged intermittently - and then not blogged at all. Actually in his website, there is a section which is called "new blog" which leads to... nothing. 

Naturally, in today's Beirut, the irony might have all gone. The idea that something is "just like Beirut" which, unlike the 80s comparison (meaning war-torn and a complete chaos) has been replaced by a soulless structure, one that is not dead but barely breathing to be considered a full functioning entity. And please spare me the "you're negative" connotations - look beyond the silly pubs and see the faces of people, those almost unable to pay their generator for the scraps of electricity they are provided with, or those who try to make meals out of nothing at all, or the large fragment of the population which is now under the poverty level, or quite simply the man who seriously asked in a supermarket "can we do tabbouleh without cucumbers?" upon seeing their price.

So yes, Jad. Bring back those awards but make them about people feeling helpless, and apply them to situations where they are barely making it. Surviving, but only just.... just like Beirut.

Tarek Chemaly has a blog - and Frank Sinatra has a cold

Original notes of Gay Talese for "Frank Sinatra has a cold"

Ah... Frank Sinatra has a cold.

Yes, I know for many this is gibberish. But to many of us this is standard journalistic gold. Why? Because it is an exquisite portrait of Frank Sinatra written by Gay Talese... Without actually having access to - Frank Sinatra. Talese, and in extense the publisher of the original piece (namely Esquire), hunted a hundred of people in the orbit of Sinatra, considering Sinatra refused repeatedly to sit down for an interview.

Actually, this introduction proves my point. You see, lately I was researching a project on my own blog, and I fell into a rabbit hole so article after article, post after post, I realized that - OK, fine without having the presumption of comparing myself to Gay Talese - I usually adopt the same technique. I go in tangents, I compare points normally not-very-comparable, join dots which are usually un-joinable, and basically construct facts normally un-constructable to come up with conclusions that actually make sense after getting the reader to accompany in a maze which has a clear and logical exit door.

I once read that the late Andre Leon Talley (long-time editor of Vogue and author among other titles) would be able to know the designers' mood board upon seeing the collection. And again, not to compare myself to him, but every so often I can guess exactly the original thought process that influenced the ad, including - sigh - the ads that influenced the creatives. 

I am not even sure why these thoughts are rushing out of my head and into the screen on this day, but again, having had to read several pieces of mine lately, I realize I used this gimmick often. To roam around the topic as a better way to attack it. Funnily, when I used to teach methodology of research and thesis writing I always used to tell the students "you can't go through the door, go through the window" - meaning if you can't prove your point directly, go around it and prove it obliquely.

Hmmm, apparently doors are often shut in my face. But they often forget about the windows.

And hey, thankfully, Tarek Chemaly has a blog and not a cold - medicine is uber expensive in Lebanon as of late.

 

I am not among The Guardian list of "the world's 50 most powerful blogs" (and that's OK)

Artwork by Tarek Chemaly

So The Guardian just issued "the world's 50 most powerful blogs" list (here).

Did I miss my chance for greatness? Well, I did that - long ago. How you may ask? By not accepting to monetize my readership. When blogs where accepting paid posts left and right when blogging was in its infancy in Lebanon (and sort of worldwide), I stuck to my guns and said no clearly (mind you my gripe, which I made clear back then was not that they were accepting paid posts for brands, but rather than the posts were not declared as such leading to the paid posts in question as to be confusing to the reader).

And here we are - in 2022 - where someone who posts an image on Instagram considers themselves as being blogger. From the original pack of all of us who started blogging, only 2 "blogs" survive, the second is just a place to post press releases by brands and an Instagram account. But in terms of those who actually "wrote"/"commented" I am literally, "the last man standing".

Sure when you base your blog on saying things about companies, getting (undeclared) freebies, and all that, then you end up travelling, of course the source material is going to dry up, and as another person said on Twitter "dear bloggers, please remember news agencies still exist". And they do, meaning all those who had a google notification about "Lebanon" and parroted the news, now have vanished.

I think, oddly, this blog has always been "under the radar", I never made any effort to promote it. I think it is is one of those "if you know you know". And thankfully, enough people know. Yes, yes, I said it before several times, that whereas the blog does not cost me "money" it does cost me "time". But it is time I am ready to give out, just to be that dissenting voice who does not copy paste press releases from brands and rather stand aside and say where the flaws of the ads are - or, paradoxically, give accolades where accolades are due.

You know what? I don't want to be on The Guardian's list of the world's 50 most powerful blogs.

Seriously, but next time I am taking some silly campaign down - objectively, with no malice - that same campaign that Marlene/Zeina/Tony/Ali described on Facebook as "yiiii chou hal ebde3" (oh what creativity!) I know I have done my mission right.

To Dagny Carlsson, with respect.

Artwork by Tarek Chemaly

Dagny Carlsson has passed away.

Who? The world's oldest blogger. She was 109 years old. Started blogging at the age of 100. Her blog centered around her own life in Sweden - having been to the country myself twice, I can tell that sometimes life there can be, well, bewildering (small case in point, I was once asked "what do you think of the city center?" - "what city center?" two weeks later as the snows melted the large empty space was, indeed, a city center!).

Still, in her last post, Mrs. Carlsson said “Like a cat, I have at least nine lives, but I do not know what I should use so much of life for.” Well, perhaps my own wish is that at some point I keep blogging until there would be no one interested to read. However, the further I blog, readers keep clinging to my posts it seems.

Go figure!

And RIP Mrs. Carlsoon.

Why I haven't said anything about Palestine.

With the whole world up in arms about Palestine (no need to link anything, you can just read it anywhere), I have been totally silent about the issue. Why? You might ask. Well, for a long time I have been the proponent of the idea that tags and social media do not solve much (remember how effective #bringourgirlsback campaign was? Not much actually). You know it is easy to post on Facebook between zoom meetings or whatsapp discussions about this or that, and flood social media with sentiments: But apart from the feeling that you have cleaned your conscience and engaged in an act of slacktivism, tell me - what else did you do?

All right,  I can see your point already: You are running a blog, supposedly for the betterment of the advertising industry, so how does that differ? It differs that for 15 years I taught at master's level at universities, worked on future generations of advertisers, was very harsh when it came to ethics, tried to instill in them - not just methods of creativity - but also deep entrenched values. It also means that advertisers (and here I know how little that effect can be in real life) were less enthusiastic to copy (read that steal) other people's ideas knowing they will get caught and exposed and ridiculed (usually this is under "compare and contrast" on this blog).

Oh, and last week, mother had a health scare. The kind of health scare that in the past would lead her to a hospital stay. She was adamant she did not want to go. So the Chemaly boys worked hand in hand to stabilize the situation. And it worked. But of course me being the resident of the house, there was extra duties to perform and things to do. So all this was time consuming, and me being me, I had to remain calm and steady and ever-efficient. So honestly this was priority over an issue (i.e. Palestine) I had no control or influence on.

I do care about what is happening there, but also am trying not to be a hypocrite and just do things which are ethically pseudo-meaningless.

So, what is a blog for?

And so it transpired former president (or current president depending on whom you ask!) Donald J. Trump has a new blog. The blog in question, like mine, has no reply option. But items can be reshared on Facebook and Twitter. Oh also unlike mine "donate" and "contribute" figure widely on the page. 

At least, Trump did not play the Instagram card. Because you know, too many people say they have blogs when the blogs in question are silly pages on Instagram. Sure, they may be getting freebies left and right (or used to as this no longer applies in Lebanon!) but an Instagram page is not a blog.

Well, truth be told, there used to be a flurry of bloggers in Lebanon but most migrated (as in literally changed countries!), others have phantom pages (for paid press releases, or press releases for free as they concentrate on their Instagram - again - and youtube pages). To be honest, technically, I remain the only blogger in Lebanon.

But what for?

I once had a bank as a client and at one point I suggested that they might have a blog where all employees can pitch things to and the head of the bank (also the owner) said "el blog houwe yalli ma 3indo chi y3oulo" (a blog is for someone who has nothing to say) which reminded me of my post "c'est pas parce qu'on n'a rien a dire (qu'il faut fermer sa gueule)". Which of course, does not reply to the question, "so, what is a blog for Tarek?".

In a age where anyone does not want to read, where concentrating on two paragraphs becomes too much, where information is distorted (despite being written and communicated clearly), where narratives are misshapen - blogs are actually superfluous entities barely needed and certainly disregarded (OK, but I have to thank the large number of people who still read this one - or at least make it a point to click massively monthly on its content!). 

Well, "45" speaks of a "beacon of freedom" - good for him. Trust me on this one, I was sued twice for speaking "freely" about facts. Which is a totally annoying experience if you ask me. But still, more than anyone, I ask myself, what is a blog for? 

But as William Carlos Williams wrote in "the red wheelbarrow":

"so much depends
upon
a red wheel
barrow"

And so much depends on the lone blogger still standing. What depends exactly is a different matter.