Forays into pop culture and absurd safety

I was never much of a skater, though not for a lack of trying. In the end, I think I was much more interested in the culture that it embodied (and was as far flung from my rural Texas upbringing as could be imagined) – mostly the recordings of Skatemaster Tate¹.

Still, absurd co-opting of skate culture as referenced above, and by this:

and this:

always rubbed me the wrong way. The same, I suspect, is true of you kind reader.

*****

Today, I came across UBERSELEKTOR, a new Twitter account operating under the auspices of Beck’s Beer. Uberselektor is part of an Australian campaign that leverages Twitter to post elements of internet obscura to its 84 (and, one presumes, growing) followers.

A quick sampling of recent Uberselektor posts:

• Let’s all pitch in and buy something from Michael Jackson, shall we? Diamond-encrusted gloves, perhaps? http://bit.ly/H4E1N
• This is so beautiful, and it actually works! A wooden #Vespa: http://tinyurl.com/antnnw
• Who wants to build a house of cards? 22,000 cards: http://tinyurl.com/dzp884
• RT BoingBoing: Stuff found on the London Underground http://tinyurl.com/conzeh (a branded ReTweet!)

In a sure sign that I’m aging, I find that I feel very much about Uberselektor the way I felt about Mountain Dew co-opting skate culture. It’s not that I have any real problem with either, just that the rush to be culturally-relevant seems like a real reach in both cases.

Much has been written on the ‘brands that tweet’ meme, and I’ve little to add (at the moment) to that thread. My questions in this specific case, though, are these:

1. Is the act of notating the interesting / humorous / quirky minutae of the internet ‘culturally relevant’?
2. If so, does engaging Uberselektor help to make Beck’s a culturally-relevant brand (frankly, I’ve not thought of them as particularly relevant here in the states, but then I’m not much of a beer drinker)?

I’ve no answers (yet). Would welcome yours.

1. which I still love, for what that’s worth [↩]

Related posts:

1. Liveflogging, and Sketches as the Remix
2. More Beats and Pieces
3. Participation is a Luxury Item
4. If You Can’t Tell Who the Cool Kids Are, You’re Probably Not One of Them…
5. Weekend Reading: Christgau on the Decline, Spoon Holding Steady and Kismet on the Rise