Tag Archives: creepy

Deplorable Comedy Insults Handicapped, Ice Cream People & Grease

June 21, 2011 Nalts 10 Comments

Get ready for the Lawsuits. In a horrible satire at the expense of handicapped people and ice-cream men, the comedy channel “JustForLaughsTV” created this atrocity below. In addition to stigmatizing one-handed people with “claw hands,” it defaces all ice cream people everywhere. And rips off the soundtrack from “Summer Loving” (Grease).

Parenthetically, the lawsuit by the ice cream man that appeared in my “Creepy Ice Cream Man” video was dismissed earlier this month from federal district court (see court opinion pdf). While the case was dropped because the court has no rulings on most of the plaintiff’s claims, that doesn’t rule out his successive lawsuits in other state courts, federal court, neighborhood court, the Ice Cream court, and the Supreme Court.

Fortunately my defense (based on parody/satire/free speech and the fact that “hurting someone’s feelings” is not grounds for a lawsuit) will require a simple copy/paste and is solid.

Unfortunately no lawsuit will likely help the poor ice cream man (who happened to be selling ice cream when I was inspired to satire my own fear of ice cream people) will reclaim whatever he claims the video did to him. I make that assumption that because my attempts to remedy it more gentleman-like (non-legal) methods have had no apparent effect — apologizing via phone, removing it, filing DCMA claim on unauthorized posts, apologizing in writing, apologizing in person to him and his family, offering a retraction, offering a donation to charity, offering a nuisance settlement, and apologizing again.

The ice cream man even contacted local Pa. media disparaging me, in what could be considered a calculated act of defamation. But I’m not terribly excited about filing a counter suit because, well, ice cream is too delicious to sue.

Online Video

Creepy Privacy Mailer from Verizon Wireless

August 20, 2008 Nalts 20 Comments

Verizon, the company with the worse logo since the human race started cave painting, just sent me the creepiest letter. It caught my attention because it was in an envelope that looks like it was printed on a discarded 1985 dot matrix. Inside was no letter- just a 3×5 brochure that began with “your privacy is important to us.” Later on the first page it begins a paragraph with “Verizon Wireless provides service to you.”

As much noise as we make about privacy, the reality is that we sell it short quite easily. In theory, your employer and insurance provider could know what you bought at the grocery last night. Some of us bitch loudly, but few of us take any measures about it — perhaps resigned to the fact that everything we do (even when we cry while commuting) could be available to the world.

I’m terrible about taking measures to protect myself, unlike you vocal minority that go to OCD lengths to protect your privacy (which always has me wondering what you’re hiding, by the way).

But this letter set off my Spidey Senses. And this from a guy whose “gaydar” is so bad I thought WhatTheBuck was just friendly. Why?

First, it happened to arrive after I woke up at 4 am to a prank call. So subconciously I probably already resented Verizon for constantly screwing up my “unlisted number.” Go ahead. Find it and post it to a video comment. I’ll not soon forget when I happened to be grooming “Farting in Public” comments (to spare Spencer humiliation) and found my name and address. Thank God I own a pitbull, a Green Beret and a loaded gun I keep in one of the toy bins… which one was it now?
Second, if they’d have placed it in a normal letter I’d have probably ignored it. But a little brochure with nothing else said “we’re cheaping out on this because you know damned well you don’t give a shit enough to call and opt-out.”
Third, you kinda started off the wrong way Verizon. How about announcing an updated privacy policy or not shoving me in the shoulder with “we provide a service to you, so…” Now you’re making me feel like my part of the marriage is that you get to share my calls with “parent companies, affiliates, agents and even Viacom if we feel like it.”

So I called an opted out to CPNI (Customer proprietary network information) because it just oozed of creepiness. I actually thought about doing a parody video of it, but it was so easy to opt-out that I’m sparing them the humiliation.

It’s a wonder I use Verizon despite its marketing incompetency, which ranges from a crappy logo all the way through bad viral-video campaigns and crappy privacy mailers that look like a porn leaflet but without the glossy color photos.

How about you? What’s your favorite and least favorite company? If that company was humanized, what would he/she look like? For me, Verizon would not be the “Test Guy” we call “Can You Hear Me Now” guy. He’d be a bad-breathed arrogant French guy with a cheap suit and black onyx cufflinks he bought on QVC after a night of binge drinking.

Did I just spend 15 minutes putting the Verizon guy’s face on Frank the Flasher’s body? Well there’s 15 minutes I’ll never get back.

Blogs on Video, Nalts

KevinNalts.com vs. WillVideoForFood.com: Bifurfacted Visitors

July 7, 2008 Nalts 35 Comments

There are two different people who will read this post. Help me out in dealing with this bifurcated audience, will ya?

There are those of you who may, for reasons that elude me, like my videos or my banana-shaped head and disturbing personality. Maybe you RSS this page, used to visit it from my YouTube channel banner, or check it occasionally from bookmarks. Or maybe you stumbled here because of a URL on one of my videos. You people comment sometimes but only about .05 percent of the time.
Then there are online-video industry watchers: video creators, agency employees, marketers, employees of video-sharing sites, analysts, journalists or new-media junkees. You people NEVER comment unless you’re Mike Abundo. That makes me wonder if you’re even reading, and whether I should publish/syndicate these kinda musings via better-read channels for online-video (like Advertising Age, NewTeeVee, TheDailyReel (kidding), iMediaConnections, Micropersuasion or TechCrunch and stuff). It’s not like I make a dime off this blog anyway.

Now I used to brand my videos CubeBreak.com and send them to that site I’d manage manually. Then I automated that site (which still exists) with Revver, and promptly lost all search-engine rankings because there wasn’t any fresh content as perceived by mother Google. So I forgot about the site. I later created WillVideoForFood primarily for amateurs looking to monetize their content via ad-sharing or sponsored videos, and starting using WillVideoForFood on my video slates.

Stupid move.

Why is it stupid? First, most YouTube video creators with their own websites have “fan” sites. They extend the content, blog related content, sell branded things and provide a community for their fans. That said, I’ve long rejected the idea of having a fan site because, frankly, I find it creepy and even more egotistcal than me. Plus I’m not HappySlip or Smosh if you know what I mean. But I also recognize that there are people who stop by this WillVideoForFood site to interact with me or mutual friends (probably the latter, but shut the hell up for a damned second… you’ll get your turn).

I still haven’t figured out how to make all this work, but for now here’s the model I’m currently envisioning: Kevinnalts.com is my new vanity site and I’ll probably start providing that link after the video instead of willvideoforfood.com. People who visit a URL from a video about farting or pranks aren’t likely looking for a blog about online video. They want more farts or pranks.

Willvideoforfood.com remains my website for online-video industry trends, and it reserves the right to self indulge about Nalts too (since I don’t have the energy for a friggin’ Nalts blog).

Then there’s the WillVideoForFood.com Forum (which cost about $200 to setup and takes Jan time to maintain). So you’d better darn well use it. I also got Ning crazy this weekend and set up a willvideoforfood ning and even a ning for Nalts (it’s called NaltsNing since NingofNalts isn’t possible). Nings are “off the shelf” social networks, and most of them are empty shells but some people run their entire website using a paid version of ning and you wouldn’t know it’s costing them a fraction of coding their own functionality.

I even created a YouTubeLive Ning (see above image), only to soon realize after I spent 2 hours making a banner and logo that Podcasting101 (aka Creepy Paul) already had created a YouTube Gatherings Ning with 147 members.

A first I felt really bad at creating more confusion by strating a new Ning (but was looking for somewhere to exchange information about the YouTube gathering in Philadelphia July 12 (YoTube). I’ve made it clear that YouTubeLive is not meant to replace Creepy Paul’s YouTube Gatherings. He’s WAY more into physical gatherings than I am, even though he’s super creepy (and I say that with love).

I like to promote and attend these Star-Trek like events, but can’t stand the politics and logistics (like the hot dogs but don’t need to see the factory). But now I really want to get more “members” to YouTube Live Ning just to tease Creepy Paul. So go join YouTubeLive’s Ning if you have a Ning identity- even if you don’t care about YouTube nerdy events.

And if you haven’t heard of Ning, remember you learned about it from me. I was the first guy in my school to own a Swatch and a Mac 128 so I’m totally hip on trends.

Will Video for Food

Tag Archives: creepy

Deplorable Comedy Insults Handicapped, Ice Cream People & Grease

Creepy Privacy Mailer from Verizon Wireless

KevinNalts.com vs. WillVideoForFood.com: Bifurfacted Visitors

Online-Video Marketing