Fucking Awesome, the brand.

Here is the origin of using the word, "fucking," the right way for a brand.

vs. 

Korean street brand Leata's "FUCKING SUMMER" hit it big in 2013... I never understood the appeal...

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Fucking Awesome is so unknown (ish) yet so famous for being unknown (ish) that they have FAKE MERCHANDISE selling on the internet. How did they do it?

1. Jason Dill is one of the two founders and he loves pissing people off and doing lots of drugs while being super good at skating.
2. The brand's been around for so long that bursts of notoriety happened over spans of time so that Fucking Awesome was forgotten (ish) and then remembered again (ish). If this is hard to understand, then think direct opposite of what Kim & Kanye does--constant spamming.
3. The Jason Dill follower base connects to the skate world follower base connects to streetstyle brands connects to it's about time that Fucking Awesome hit the main limelight. But then again, FA isn't supposed to be a street style brand:

Wouldn't you define FA as streetwear, though? 
No, I think of it as an idea company. I only make something when I feel like it's right, or if I have the right materials. I don't use the internet. I find everything I put out by hand and sometimes I don't find enough material, or I make stuff and then I just don't like it. Also, Fucking Awesome isn't seasonal. It's just there when it's there and I don't make much of it. I constantly shoot myself in the foot from a business standpoint actually because I make it for sale but at the same time I don't want you to have it. It's a bit of a personality disorder company.  

Direct quote source: Vice interview 

4. Nobody at FA actually gives a fuck. The following are few examples...

• They printed t-shirts with dictators on em: 

• They exploited John Nozum by having their website just be... uhh him playing the piano. This was apparently super cool and okay to do so because when they found the video of Nozum playing the piano on YouTube, only 5 people had seen it. It's a nice idea until you realize that maybe Nozum is crazy (check out his website and see what kind of a strange world this guy lives in!!) and maybe FA just wanted to fuck around with crazy shit. 
• They didn't really have an online store that sold stuff until recently. They seriously only had Nozum playing that piano: 

5. Selfish people create self-serving products that the selfish society likes to engulf. This last point is thoroughly subjective. What I mean by selfish here is the "no-fuck-giving" attitude; FA doesn't give a shit what is being said about them or the "impact" of their designs and acts. What is really interesting is that the consumers like these FA products and they buy them enough for them to sell out! Note the "BACK ORDERED" status of the "Coke Dad" and "Chloe" decks. FA is the perfect getaway from the trendy and branded streetwear culture we have going on at the moment.

I sound like I hate them, but that is not so. I find their identity intriguing and easy to ill-talk on. If I didn't like this brand, I'd have more of a hateful tone... I mean how can you hate a brand that has done nothing in terms of promotions and marketing to become one of the most coveted branded items ever?! Dill, though he is still a little too throttle-y for my liking, seems to always supply the world with entertaining and visually satisfactory designs and products. FA has done good collaborations with larger skate brands (Vans, Etnies) and are true punks in the industry that they belong in. Their shirts are priced around 30 bucks US and sweaters around 60; they can't get any cheaper than that! Now go to other street brands sites and see what they charge for a goddamn tee, pfft, A LOT. And I'm sure you'd rather get your hands on these shirts that are only printed in small numbers and doesn't have the logo screaming everywhere. Plus, Chloe Sevigny's adolescent face is involved. So yeah, FA is fucking awesome. 

Can somebody tell me HOW this page garnered almost 900 likes without doing anything with it? 

Hi Chloooooeeeeee, rrrrruvvvvv yewwwwwwww

If you're keen on knowing more about the brand.. watch the following video interview! Dill will now start to uncontrollably stammer yet make complete sense of what Fucking Awesome is all about.

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See ya later!

@rachelchungg

Only Lovers Left Alive

Another film post, as I have been graced with almost unlimited number of hours this summer for me to further enhance movie knowledge--which I deem to be a fundamental necessity. But this movie happened kind of some weeks ago when this movie was still screening over at Tinseltown.

Jim Jarmusch is and will always have a spot in my heart as he brought Coffee and Cigarettes into this world. Just like music, if I were given the choice, I prefer movies to move along with certain slow yet sentimental pace; an exceptional example of the slow style I mean would be Sofia Coppola's. Jim Jarmusch has his own version of this charm that is sensationally infused with careful music selection. The sounds are delivered as if to tell that they were never misplaced, and in some scenes, the songs are probing the viewer to find out the purpose of its disposition. The opening is grand in Only Lovers Let Alive. Slowly encircling from a dramatic bird's eye view (a viewpoint Jarmusch is quite fond of) and spinning to the music while zooming into the characters' faces, the viewer is then automatically falling into the movie's groove from the start. Sucked into the actors' performances, the environment, the atmosphere, and the detailed decor of each room Swinton and Hiddleston is residing in, there really isn't a better opening to a succulent yet twisted romantic film to this.

Official Trailer:

• Comical as if to let the viewers know that yes, vampires are a thing of our fantasies, the characters poke fun at their own, cursed existence. 
• Lovely to let the viewers know how awful modern romance is and how beautiful and idealized it can be even for vampires.
• Ingenious to add horror to the ongoing drama for a splash of satirical tone.

Hiddleston is a depressed musician (obviously alive for centuries yet still younger than Swinton) who lives in Detroit (befitting setting, no?). Swinton, the ever-so-classy woman plays the minimalistic and well-read vampire who goes from Tangier (I Wiki-ed this and found out that Tangier is a major city in Northern Morocco) to become reunited with her husband, Hiddleston (the third? fourth? mind you, she has been alive even before like everything). Mia Wasikowska adds in a flair of youth and horrific (yet comical) acts of vampirical violence as Swinton's younger sister. "You drank Ian!" says Adam (Hiddleston), upon finding Ian (his human "zombie" friend) dead, because of course, Wasikowska drank him, not killed, hahahahhahahahhahha.

What really baffles the viewer at the end is how deeply connected you can get with the three characters despite them being centuries-old vampires! The love drama that they have is still the same and the troubling teenage younger sister who tests their true love is super reasonable. #DailyLife!!!! The storyline is superbly intact with a beautiful balance of emotional screenplay, moody soundtracks, dimly lit cinematography, and the entertaining drama to lead the story to its end.

But you know, ultimately, my excessive gushing throughout the movie boils down to two incredibly beautiful actors showcasing their talents while being two extraterrestrial beings:

Catch it yourself and feel the slow rush of drinking shots of fine blood.

Also..............
Come to the world wide web's best visual garbage dump: I am Purpose on Tumblr

TV versus Movies

You know those people that just doesn't get ANY TV references? Hell, they probably don't even know the names of the characters from Seinfeld. They don't even know when "primetime" for TV is. And you are a natural TV whiz. You've grown up with it on 24/7 in your household and has sat through a whole variety of shows with your family, relatives, friends, and by yourself. TV noise, shows, characters, series development, producers... Well, they feel like they are your family.

Unfortunately, in 2014, I've been meeting more and more of the latter. Consequently, I'm the first kind. The biggest TV noob. I go dead silent when TVspeak starts, because I don't even want to try to follow! I can't! I've watched two seasons of Girls, two seasons of The O.C., and.......... I think that's it.  So this summer, I decided to watch the famous ones and get on with the mainstream program (i.e. Breaking Bad, Portlandia, Suits, Madmen, True Detective, Game of Thrones, and House of Cards, et cetera).

• I finished True Detective and felt like TV actually holds something for me! I felt very motivated. 
• I finished three seasons of Suits and felt like I was on top of the world. 
• I then crept along Breaking Bad... I'm somewhere in the middle of season three... 

And I just couldn't continue on. I moved on to documentaries and blockbusters (Lone Survivor!!) In the end, I'm a movies person. The time spent finding the TV shows, loading up Netflix, and watching season after season doesn't justify the satisfaction. It is not like the TV shows are not as good as the movies; it is more about the story development pace and the time that is to be invested for a full package of good time. Below are my highlights of what I felt during my brief trip into the TV-world:

1. The intro to True Detective is one of the prettiest reels I've encountered. Perfectly capturing the series' feel, atmosphere, and detail into the aesthetics, it is better than Dexter's captivating opening. While the song selections ooze throughout the entire series, there is a forced juxtaposition in combining the heavily modern & edited opening with the raw footage of the series. The opening reel video on YouTue has disabled embedding.. so please click the link below!
>> http://youtu.be/FxXRkqXfhYM

2. Forget the men in Suits. The women in Suits are even better. When Rachel, the most common name, gets to be hottified once again and all of a sudden I have a surge of happiness being one of the world's 50 million Rachel's--ficitonal or not.




But if the screen time has taught me anything, it's the sports channel. Oh man. I watch everything now except baseball and golf. To have FIFA around ain't helping with the getting-outside-home-and-learn-skateboarding program.


"I am super cute but I'm actually a giant." 

"I look like I'm 14 so I'm super cute but I'm actually older." 

SWOOOOOOOOOOON.

Follow i am purpose on TUMBLR

Viewer discretion is advised.

Marketing Tidbit ft. Lindsay Lohan

Source: lindsaylohan.com

I mean, if you know me, you know that I still do love Lindsay Lohan. She will forever be in my heart for her work in The Parent Trap, Freaky Friday, and of course, Mean Girls. I blame at least half of her train-wreck-ness to her awful parents; the mom, her "manager" partied side-by-side with her for most of Lindsay's binge days! Her dad is infamous for his abusive lifestyle and low ways of blackmailing Lindsay for her money. I still believe in her... And I will be supporting her when she makes a real comeback (like, please, no more reality TV...). And this is why this presentation I found on SlideShare is just so damn touching--and quite hilarious.

This brilliant and laughable digital strategy proposal written by Kristian Henschel and Julian Cole, starts off with "From Disney Princess to nightclub brawling, playboy revealing, celebrity train-wreck, Welcome to Brand Lindsay Lohan." It's just like a real presentation. They are re-branding Lindsay Lohan. The flow goes from....

a) Business Problem:

b) Goal:

...Then straight to the Strategy Insight (secondary research worth putting into slides for they compliment the understanding of the strategy proposed later on in the presentation). Here, they focus on societal movements, most specifically, the YOLO movement. Then they present the overarching strategical idea of making LiLo from the "posterchild of YOLO phenomenon" into the "ALTERNATIVE to YOLO". LOL!!!!! Why is this slide deck turning so serious?!?! At this point, I'm half gaffaughing (like snort-laughing) and pressing next slide button furiously.

The creators continue on to present their various tactics, detailed processes, and even KPI's. W3rd. Okay, so that's enough rambling.

I thought this was mildly entertaining enough to post. Hope y'all have a good day and I'm now going to brew coffee for mom (#EverydayActivities, #ISpendTooMuchTimeAtHome, #AmIWastingMyYouth, #Loser). Time to play Loser by Beck as coffee brewing background music. :'(


>> Check out the full LiLo "case study" here: A Digital Strategy for Lindsay Lohan