it has taken over. taken over social lives. taken over the web. and definitely taken over advertising.
Mark Zuckerberg has borne what is essentially a social documentary, containing details and images of our daily movements. where once a spontaneous snap could be tucked away and kept as a welcome reminder of a moment in our lives, it now acts as a potentially friendship ruining, relationship ending, employment terminating and reputation destroying piece of evidence. the flash of a camera is now immediately greeted with panic... 'don't tag me in that'. facebook terminology has even inserted itself into our vernacular; like, dislike, poke, detag... it hardly induces eloquence.
this online phenomenon does however have its obvious and real benefits. having spent a few months traveling in recent years i came to the realisation that without facebook communication, my family and friends wouldn't have had any real idea what i was up to; where i was going, where i had been. people we met along the way would just be past memories, email addresses on pieces of paper that would never be contacted.
it has become the perfect medium for direct advertising allowing specific targeting, apps, discussions, viral, and interaction. The visuals have even become iconic enough to use in offline advertising, as fantastically demonstrated in the above press campaign.
the inspiration behind this exhibition of ironic vagaries of the English language was, ironically, a person's struggle with the vagaries of the English language - that person being the author's Italian mother. full of grammatical peculiarities and contradictions, this book questions everything from pronunciation to spelling, all through cleverly manipulated typography.
