This week, we check out some devilish Valentine’s Day stunts, take a deep dive into Gorpcore aesthetics and a new movement in ORT. Finally, we bring you a campaign that puts an inclusive twist on some iconic ads of the past.
The one ‘rat’ got away
For some people, Valentine’s Day is full of warm and fuzzy feelings. For others, there’s vengeance. And charity!
Fundraising is a struggle for many zoos and wildlife centres, but we’ve noticed that many have latched onto a money-raising trend best described as ‘donate to name a gross icky creature after your gross icky ex’. It’s truly a match made in heaven.
One of the longer-running campaigns is from San Antonio Zoo. For a small donation, you can name a cockroach after your ex. Your former partner will even receive a digital card featuring their namesake. Gross. And brilliant.
South Carolina’s Berkeley Animal Center is selling the opportunity to write your ex’s name on a litter box, the “Do you have a crappy ex?” fundraiser runs through February, the shelter will also post a Facebook video showcasing submissions on V-Day itself.
Our personal fav this year, however, is from HawkWatch International, a Utah-based organisation that works to protect hawks and other birds of prey. Normally, their “Raptor Ambassadors” eat unnamed prey, but for the season of love, HWI’s handlers will feed them mice and rats named after people who’ve done their past partners very wrong. The enterprise is called, brilliantly, “The One Rat Got Away”.
See more fun causes here.
She Doesn’t even Gorp Here!
If you have a finger on the fashion pulse, then you’re familiar with Normcore, have a passing familiarity with Cottagecore, and have probably at least heard of Mermaidcore.
There’s another ‘core’ emerging from Tik Tok to add to your lexicon. Gorpcore is the aesthetic that has fashionistas looking ready to climb a mountain at a moment’s notice. (Gorp is an acronym for “Good Oul’ Raisins and Peanuts” and is typically used by hikers to describe a variety of trail mixes). Brands traditionally associated with the great outdoors – think Patagonia, Northface and Columbia – have become mainstream in urban fashion, with influencers flocking to get their hands on top-of-the-range mountaineering gear.
One brand has had enough. Mountaineering clothes-maker Arc’Terx recently put out the official statement:
“Y’all don’t need high-performance equipment to take fit pics in Soho. In fact, we’re gonna be checking the hands in each retail location to make sure you actually have calluses from mountaineering.
We’re sick of so-called influencers putting the dead bird logo on their frail bodies that could not even hold up to a single night in the wilderness.”
So fuel your Gorpcore fantasy at your own peril, Arc’Terx aren’t f**king about.
High Art Gets (Photo)Dumped
The past several years of permacrisis have seen artists seek new means to exhibit, curate and express themselves, leading to a new wave of ORT created on our trusty phones! The latest trend sees vast swathes of lightly curated ‘photodumps’ filling the walls of some of the snootiest galleries.
Isolde Brielmaier created one such exhibition, which took inspiration from lockdown and in particular the idea of ‘feeling seen’. She challenged 5 subjects to use their phones to document their inner lives”- and then show it to the entire world. The photography exhibition “Inward: Reflections on Interiority”, was one of the first photodump exhibitions of its kind, and was showcased at the International Centre of Photography last year.
It’s a powerful statement that says much about how ubiquitous our pocket-held camera tech has become, as well as offering a new, high-resolution insight into our lives.
Keeping up with Copy
A selection of vintage ad campaigns have been given a modern day re-write as part of a campaign from creative agency Across the Pond to highlight the importance of LGBTQ+ inclusivity in advertising.
Working with industry advocacy group Outvertising, inclusive vocabulary has been swapped into iconic ad copy, presented in fun scribbled iterations on the classic scripts. Examples include:
‘Stylish young man person walks into a laundrette, takes his their blue jeans off and loads a machine’.
From swapping genders and including more pronouns, the campaign is thought-provoking and fun, and demonstrating not just that change is needed, but that’s it’s actually not that hard.