This book: Record Collecting for Girls.

"Doing Things Humans Do Because They Enjoy Them...But For GIRLS!"

"Our songs are from Venus, your songs are from Mars. We love glitter and ponies and unicorns and you love loud noises!"

*elaborate eyeroll*

I'm totally going to read this shit whilst drinking a Tab energy drink.

Mayhaps you can pick it up at URBAN OUTFITTERS

This book sounds like it's everything I hate about girls.

She recently left MTV after spending 8 years as a music programmer

Red Flag!!

Mtv had a music programmer in the last 8 years?

Easiest job in the worlds!!1!

What if your crush has these albums in their collections?

hahah, QFT

I wouldn't focus my hatred at girls, so much as I would focus it at the assumption made by the author and I assume the publisher that the only way a girl would be able to create a record collection that included anything other than top 40 would be by means of a special handbook.

I know plenty of awesome girls/women (kit, you are one of them!) who are extremely well-informed about music and have excellent taste.

fuck anyone who thinks a girl needs to know about music from a handbook so that she can "impress boys" (because god knows that's the only reason to do anything ever amirite).

You impress me, Kate!

Thank you, you are one of the awesome ones too!

I absolutely agree with you, and really that's what I was getting at - I hate girls/women who live their lives based on or according to what they think will attract and impress men. They never even give themselves a chance to find out about anything outside the box they've placed themselves in, and that both angers and saddens me.

The whole premise of the book is just so phoney. Yes, guys who are into music like girls who are into music, but you're never going to impress a guy (or girl) with any kind of real music knowledge if you're using crib notes from some chick who worked at MTV.

Also I may be a snob, but I reject the idea that everyone has an 'inner music nerd' waiting to be unleashed. That's like saying everyone has an inner math nerd, or inner grammar nazi. A lot of people just don't have the interest level or brain capacity to be a nerd in any context.

Everything seems to be sold to women this way. They get "their own" products. You can't sell anything to a woman without taking away some form of confidence; at least, the sort of confidence that helps women attract men. Because sadly, that's still what being a woman is about.

this works both ways.

Not nearly as common.

I don't know if you guys watch Mad Men, but there's that episode in season four where Peggy was working with the other copywriters, trying to come up with a campaign for Ponds cold cream, and Peggy tried to convince the others that women buy and use those products for the purpose of feeling beautiful, using beauty products because they enjoyed using them, and one of the other copywriters (a man) said that women bought them to attract men in order to get married. Then when they did the sit-in meeting with a bunch of the secretaries in the office, the conversation ended up with half of them crying because they were single and lonely and miserable.

That scene just bothered me, how true it was.

this is kinda/sorta related: http://jezebel.com/#!5794531/the-evolution-of-april-oneil

playing on insecurities is a despicable yet highly effective marketing strategy. this definitely happens more to women than men because fashion and self-care products are more geared towards them, but of course, but there's a reason why this type of advertising is so prevalent.

it's universal and potent.

in order for a consumer to buy a product, a corporation needs to market it in such a way as to generate a need that their product can fill. they prey on insecurities, be it lifestyle, personal, or economic.

coke does this, for instance. they market their product along with the idea of a better life that feed on the insecurity of one's current lifestyle shortcomings. they provide the illusion that a consumer can attain the same life as what the models have in their commercials if they buy coke. that's how they hook people in because it's enticing, then you stay because you like the taste of the soda or you drop it if you don't.

we obviously know that drinking soda can't lead to a glamorous life but that's how it's marketed so we associate a better life or good feelings with coke because of their campaigns.

that's minor compared to what's being marketed to women, absolutely. most beauty products prey on women's insecurities as you guys pointed out here and that can lead to a ton of body image issues not just on impressionable children's minds but also on adults who share the same insecurities as everybody else.

on the other side of the fence, we have companies like axe who tend to market their products to men as though they are guaranteed to turn into pussy magnets because, as unfortunate as it is, men respond to the basic stimulus of sex (and by extension, power) more than women do.

anyway, marketing is really fascinating. i mentioned it before that it's the most manipulative use of psychology outside of political propaganda.

:D

now that's a book I would read.

ok i love that.

Actually it might be a good thing I can't get that music in my head down on music sheets since I wouldn't really have a wide range of musical influences.

I'm just gonna stick to my shitty abstract art haha

haha! Yeah, that's exactly what I meant, people are passionate about some things and not others. It's human nature.

I don't think abstract art is shitty, btw.

I love abstract art I just think mine is shitty haha but that's just the curse of an "artist" (which I hate calling myself), we're rarely satisfied with what we create.

But yeah I guess I'm not passionate about music. I have a lot of friends who are and sometimes it gets to the point where it's annoying because they think they know more than the other person or they want to argue what music is better when they are really comparing apples to oranges. Music is one of those topics like politics or religion, you just don't talk about it, not around my friends at least.