Dear Luv Doc,
I read that this year McDonald’s is an official sponsor of SXSW. Is this a sign of the end times? Is Austin about to be consumed in a lake of fire?
– McLovinit
McLovinit, it’s pretty clear that you’re not from around here. Austin is already consumed in a lake of fire for 5 months of the year. It’s called summer. In May through September if you spend more than a few minutes outside you’re going to get wet. Sounds like a lake to me. Everyone knows the Book of Revelations is mostly allegory anyway.
What I’m saying here is that, Biblically speaking at least, we’ve already screwed the pooch. It is possible that McDonald’s might come up with something more depraved than Lady Gaga getting a technicolor shower from a bulimic vomit painter in a 60-foot tower-of-Babel vending machine replica, but I doubt it. Well, OK, maybe if Ronald McDonald were to diarrhea paint Mayor McCheese in a kiddle pool full of of french fry grease while doing a karaoke version of “Blurred Lines” … maybe.
I wouldn’t expect Mickey D’s to bring that type of sick game though. They prefer to interact with their consumers on the down low – mainly by packing their colons like sausage casings with flavorless, fiberless, processed proletariat feed. McDonald’s is so bad it actually makes Subway seem healthy and delicious, and everybody knows that Subway sandwiches all taste like the exact same piece of wet cardboard. That old adage “he who speaks loudest has the least to say” is particularly true when it comes to marketers. You can always judge a brand by the size of its activation, and McDonald’s has a really big one.
So yes, McLovinit, the Apocalypse is already upon us. We’re already afflicted by plagues of obesity, type II Diabetes, malnutrition, chronic constipation, and a deluge of misinformation. Really, the only thing we’re missing is some fire and brimstone and eventually somebody is going to hire Great White to play their unofficial day party. It’s only a matter of time. Their guarantee has to be about $150 these days.
And then, of course, there’s the Antichrist, who as I understand it is busy up in Dallas doing watercolor paintings of all the world leaders he didn’t try to assassinate. I am not going to say that the visual arts can’t be a transformative experience, but sooner or later the Angela Merkel fetish is going to wear off and ‘ol Mephistopheles is going to want to take a Mulligan on the Fertile Crescent.
So if I were you McLovinit, I would do like SXSW and milk these evil capitalist pigs for every cent they have because when the four horsemen start thundering down Sixth Street, you’re going to wish you had picked up a new pair of kicks at the Fader Fort.
This article appears in March 20 • 2015.
