Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/08/07/shingy-aols-secret-weapon-f.html
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I mean sure. Just look at him. A thousand percent.
Joking aside, I wish I had the chutzpa to pull off something like that. Get paid a 6-figure salary to watch the future take shape? I’m in. Let’s do it.
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I get it, AOL is doing that thing where something becomes so un-hip that it becomes hip again?
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I worked for AOL for a short time in 2010 due to an acquisition and got to meet him.
No idea what he did or why he did it.
I left shortly after.
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See also Faith Popcorn, and a host of others who have found a way to convince people with money to part with it through bamboozlement, obfuscatory language, and a soupçon of condescension.
ETA linky to the amazing Pepsi rebranding document: https://www.goldennumber.net/wp-content/uploads/pepsi-arnell-021109.pdf
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I know just the person to take his spot. It’s me.
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David Cross and Bob Odenkirk spoof this guy in their Netflix show. “Shangy” I had no idea until seeing this now. “Up is down, I’m a clown! Digital” https://youtu.be/KuTSAeFhdZU
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Wait, this is an actual real human person?
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He seems to be a hang over from an early web bubble. When many highly funded web companies that no longer exist were hiring artists to kind of stand around and make them look revolutionary. Sort of like how they’d buy fancy furniture, Foosball tables or art to hang on the walls for “culture”. Very much a “well we bough an artist” sort of move.
AOL, per usual did that way too late for it to make any sense. And he seems to have just stayed.
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People like this guy are amazing… I feel they must have existed in every age, somehow inserting themselves into power structures and coasting along like remoras until they’re caught. These grifters really seem to flourish in marketing departments…
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AOL is still around?
And hip? Lol Get the f outta here! Lol
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I hear Netscape is in need of a Visionary™ to sort out it’s affairs.
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That is the story every time he is mentioned. I am not really sure though.
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Not just artists but hipsters generally. Yeah, it was a thing for a while, circa late '90’s.
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Yeah, seriously. How the hell does one get a gig like that? Like seriously, what’s the process by which these people get hired?
I was part of an art group in the '90s that was basically trying to be one that got bought by a tech company. Never worked. We clearly didn’t have the right connections, or understand the process well enough…
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Which is why AOL did it around 2007.
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I can understand the Pepsi dilemma. Forever in the shadow of Coke’s superior graphic design, they are constantly searching for the elusive curves that will make them look cooler. Well, maybe not cooler than Coke, but cooler than before. And thanks to computer aided design, the firm is able to produce an infinite number of curves on paper! (See also: Toyota, Mazda, Lexus, Infiniti, Hyundai…vs Ford). Ironically, it was Pepsi’s return to their earliest wordmark that appears the most successful IMHO. Kind of glad I’m not in the design world anymore.
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the problem was that you were actually artists…
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Whatever “new path” this charlatan is seeking, I guarantee you that there will be another sucker with deep pockets at the end of it.
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That… might have worked against us.
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