Podcast #920: Stef insults listeners for not buying T-Shirts

Moe · Number of posts: 148 Registration date: 2007-10-25

Yeah, Stef had some good points in #923. I still think he's overdoing the "you gotta buy T-shirts!" thing but he seems more reasonable now.

Zebra Foal · Number of posts: 877 Registration date: 2007-08-16

Dylboz wrote:

I'm gonna have to give it a listen, but I just can't see a real decent justification for his behavior regarding t-shirt sales. And, the non-binding positive obligation is a direct repudiation of his entire philosophy. It strikes me that Stef needs money, and he needs recruits to get more donations, so he's relying on his cabal to advertise, market and promote the show and website (sorry, FTL Wink

) so he doesn't have to go back to work.

I haven't listened and I dread to, but i probably will, in the service of truth and justice. Wink

'
I agree with Dylboz. And I've observed that these things are *always* true re Stef:

Whenever Stef gets push-back, or whenever he appears to be going completely bonkers, he uses the adversity to make a break-through of some kind-- whether by not just imploding--as so often seems imminent--or by finding and moving to the next moral high ground; or in synthetically fastforwarding "The Conversation" to the next pause or lacuna.

Secondly, every apparent discovery or solution or therapeutic insight he arrives at (I am deeply cynical in all of this) always is even more in the service of his own aims and ambitions: the "insight" provided for the interlocutor always furthers Stef's goals primarily. This is always ego-defense and money, which are linked for him. Also, the money proves for him that he is good, topdog, happy (he often links the two in adjectival sequences), the world's most prized philosopher-king.

Thirdly, Stef will never give up, never go mad, never be wrong, always pull something out of the bad hat. He's a bit like those dreadful criminals who murder and pillage, fall from social position, if they had any, and go to jail--where they find god and are redeemed and preach to the unconverted. You think: that guy is *down*, he has *nothing* more to say or do in the public domain--and then god steps in and lifts him up and makes him Kingfisher of men.

Some people have a solid core self and a shifting, mutative surface. Stef has NO core, and a shifting, mutative surface. He will make the crappy T-shirts make the man; the crappy T-shirts will not break Stef.

Adversity stimulates Stef, it excites him, gives him energy--and ideas for going forward. Reputational death for Stef creates Stef, the Undead.

Zebra Foal · Number of posts: 877 Registration date: 2007-08-16

Dylboz wrote:

OK, look, I'm listening to Stef excoriate people for not liking his aesthetic choices with regard to the design of the apparel and the actual items themselves. It's really ironic for me, because I am a professional graphic designer, and I offered, repeatedly, to do designs for him for t-shirts, bumper stickers and book covers. He never even responded. Not a rejection, but silence. He obviously doesn't (and this is the case with so many engineers and programmers) understand or value marketing!

Dylboz wrote:

Stef, the t-shirts suck. They are not silk screened, they are iron-ons, like they came from a damned cereal box. I know, I used to make 'em. They look cheap, and they don't last, and at the prices they're being sold for I wouldn't buy even if I was still an avid listener. Plus, the link actually says "cloting" not clothing. It matters, the logo matters, the quality matters, the font matters.

So true and so funny. The T-shirts are cheesy --and what was that about no positive obligations? (Also, re "cloting"-- both Stef's write-up of xina on her Meadowvale clinic bumpf and his own write-ups (or hers) on his books (early versions) are similarly slap-dash or messed up.

This is what the logo looks like to me: a bad, unconscious rip-off of The Rolling Stones' famous tongue logo. In the fdr graphic: two eyes, 2 fangs/ canines--and a tongue stuck out, or just hanging there.

Alternatively, a poster for civic tree planting, which is what I thought it was at first.

And fdr-ers don't wanna be sandwich-board street-walkers advertising bad taste and clubby-ness? jeez, what is up with that?!

Conrad

wow, I just noticed there is an element of duck-rabbit in the logo. One way of looking at it is 3 individuals holding hands over the globe. another way of looking at it is seeing a weird smiley with drool or slime coming out of its mouth, like an excited monster (hint: the three heads of the people are eyes and nose)

quite appropriate now that I think of it...

mike barskey · Number of posts: 1399 Location: CA Registration date: 2007-09-08

I'm guessing that "duck-rabbit" refers to this illusion, and you mean that you can see different things in the FDR logo. I never noticed the retarded smiler face, but I do agree it looks like a piece of free clip-art. I think it looks cheesy. Also, since the 2 outer "people" are smaller than the center person, I tend to think of the 3 of them as a family (which is weird because there is only one "parent") - I must be wrong, though - why would Stef have his logo center on families, which he constantly tries to break up? Maybe the reason there's one "parent" is that it's him, and the "children" are FDRers. Meh - I think I'm putting too much into that logo - I think he just picked the coolest (relatively speaking) logo out of a free clip-art pack, or grabbed an example from some logo software.

Free Radical · Number of posts: 170 Registration date: 2007-09-27

Fleedomainers jumping off a cliff as an act of faith in their leader.

_________________
Links:
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Dylboz · Number of posts: 2014 Registration date: 2007-09-20

mike barskey wrote:

I think I'm putting too much into that logo - I think he just picked the coolest (relatively speaking) logo out of a free clip-art pack, or grabbed an example from some logo software.

I know it.

Conrad

sometimes a cigar is just a cigar eh?

mike barskey · Number of posts: 1399 Location: CA Registration date: 2007-09-08

Conrad wrote:

sometimes a cigar is just a cigar eh?

Yeah! I see that. It looks like a smiley face smoking 3 cigars! Smile