Girls and Advertorials
Girls grew on us. When we started watching Lena Dunham’s HBO series a couple of years ago we found it irritating—all those self-obsessed, privileged, whiny 22-year-olds—and alarming. By the third episode we were hooked and by the fourth we were quoting it like Whit Stillman movies (“I’m not on Facebook.” “You’re so fucking classy.”). We like it because the characters can be awful and gross, make stupid choices, embarrass themselves, but manage to go on living. Also, the show is funny and sometimes moving, it messes with audience expectations by making the chubby Hannah (Lena Dunham) get naked the most, and the conventionally pretty Marnie (Allison Williams) is the most messed-up character. Yeah, let the beautiful one suffer. The breakout star of Girls is Adam Driver, who plays Adam, who started out weird and repulsive but turns out to be a man of integrity; he seems to be in every movie being made, including the next Star Wars.
Jemima Kirke, Lena Dunham and Allison Williams
In the third season, Hannah finally gets a proper job writing for GQ. Except that she’s not in the Editorial section of that literary institution but in Advertorial—the section where you get tricked into reading articles only to find that they’re ads for the sponsors. She’s making real money and getting many freebies, but there is the very real possibility that she’ll wake up years in the future and realize that she hasn’t written the things she wanted to write because she was getting paid so well writing about department stores and mineral supplements and so on. Aha! We know exactly what that’s like.
We’ve done lots of advertorials, and they pay many times what we get paid for writing the things that we love. Wait, a hundred times zero is still zero—well, we got paid enough to pay the rent and utilities, while the best stuff we’ve ever written makes bupkis. We didn’t hate what we were writing advertorials about, but we didn’t love them, either. We loved being able to pay the rent and utilities and buy cat food. Fine, we also liked flying business class to Melbourne and drinking champagne in the sponsor’s lounge and watching the Australian Open finals from the front row. It’s one of those galling compromises grown-ups have to make. Write what you need to write to pay the bills; find a way to write what you love. And don’t fool yourself about the true nature of the work.
The real question is, What isn’t an advertorial these days?
So here’s this blog’s policy on advertorials. We get invited to a lot of events, and some of our friends are publicists. We write up the event if we found it interesting; other times we find we have nothing to say so we don’t write it up. Usually we mention if we were invited by the publicist or the sponsor. If we get paid to promote a product, we’ll indicate that the post was sponsored. In case anyone’s wondering.
Answers to questions you might be asking, unless you wandered onto this site purely by accident >>>
August 27th, 2014 at 17:28
Hi. It’s very candid and humble of you to write about compromises and jobs that pay the rent.
I hope this is not an insensitive topic to bring up – – this is in light of a lengthy discussion thread I read among readers in one website about your recent hospitalization which created differing yet valid opinions. I figured you either didn’t like to talk about it or only because nobody asked. But I am taking my chancers:
a) What are your realization / learning about money (or savings or health insurance) in general after the incident?
b) What percentage of the hospital cost was shouldered by these donations?
c) While the appeal for help via FB was done with good intention by your friends, do you have any misgivings about it?
d) You mentioned you get invited to write for events. But as a policy do you also actively seek out said opportunities?
e) If you get invited to an event, receive some gifts or loot bag or some fee and yet you don’t like the product or the event, do you write about negative things about it or do you simply don’t write about it at all?
f) Did your view (about life , people, situations, etc.) changed after your near-death experience? Have you become more “mellowed”? Less patient about BS? More tolerant?
I would understand if you will not post or answer the questions. I would also understand if you will devote an entire article for it. Thanks and Regards.
August 27th, 2014 at 19:45
thomasaquino: We do not talk about money because one, what money? and two, it’s tacky.
a. None whatsoever. We still don’t worry about money. However, our friends forced us to get health insurance.
b. Our sister does the money stuff. Our understanding is that our friends, as in people we know personally, paid for most of it. We are extremely fortunate in our friends.
c. We never appealed for help via Facebook. We’re not even on Facebook. Our friend wrote to another friend to pass the hat. She asked him not to post her email on Facebook. He went ahead and posted it on Facebook. It was picked up by media outlets and written up by people we don’t know personally.
The people who are close to us know that we are horrified by the idea of being the object of pity. You will note that the media outlets we do work with did not post any mention of our being in the hospital. (Roby actually killed a story at InterAksyon. Because he knows us.) To this day we are not amused that certain “well-meaning” individuals saw fit to give updates on our condition when they were not qualified to do so (Our sister declined all media interviews).
Then donations began to arrive. It would have been churlish and stupid to refuse such generosity. So we said thank you and shut up.
d) No, we are antisocial so we only go when friends invite us.
e) People get fees to attend events?? No one’s paid us yet. We get loot bags. Just today we went to the launch of a design competition where everyone got a free gallon of paint. If we’re interested in the event, we write it up. If not, we don’t. We would trash something if it were called for, but events in general are so innocuous they don’t warrant trashing.
f) No, and these questions are fucking annoying.
August 27th, 2014 at 22:27
P.S. Do not use this as a model for your own life. It only works for us. Also, we owe much of our career to subject-verb agreement, you know what we’re saying?
August 27th, 2014 at 23:33
Please watch Broad City na rin! It’s a hoot. Oh great, I’ve just set your expectations. Simplistically put, it’s also about two girls living in New York trying to be artists and pay the bills while working jobs they detest. I can’t pitch it any other way than to say It’s A Hoot! And please watch it haha.
August 28th, 2014 at 00:49
Thank you for answering Ms. Zafra and I apologise for the annoying questions. May you continue to have good health and blessings.
August 28th, 2014 at 00:55
thomasaquino: Don’t apologize. We insult you, and you apologize. Do not be afraid. If you are afraid, show no fear.