Advertising & Cognitive Science in the Social Media Era

If you want to laugh for a few minutes, check out this piece on Wired.com about An Engineering Mind. It’s put together by former Texas Tech University student Mike Devlin (@mike_devlin), and it’s a well produced humorous interview with Todd Sierer.

Also check out the An Engioneering Mind Web site.

Tagged as: interview

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A week ago at this very moment, some very indigo dye was being prepared for my hair.

The reasons for this were both many and few, and I have written about them here.

A week later, I’ve just come back from lunch at Fuzzy’s Taco Shop, which as their door proclaims is my “new addiction.”

They know me there now.

“Hey, Blue!” the cashier exclaimed as I reached the front of the line.

“Your hair still looks awesome,” came from the kitchen.

All of this follows my 10 minute conversation with strangers while waiting in line. You may have guessed that the topic was blue hair.

This mother had just let her son get a mohawk, and he had used some temporary colors in the hair.

This blue is less temporary, however, it is fading around the edges.

Although the color is fading, the pace at which I’m meeting new people is not.

Old School

On Saturday night, we were at Murphy’s Pub, my favorite watering hole in Lubbock, celebrating the tavern’s third anniversary.

We had a great waiter, although his name now escapes me because I’m bad at names.

During a visit to the restroom, he had apparently queried my friends about my ability to take a joke. They said that I do, indeed, have a good sense of humor.

“You’re my boy, Blue!” I hear from across the bar as our new friend pays homage to the movie Old School.

What a Week

I’ve been called into classes as I walked down the hallway.

I’ve induced double takes and triple takes.

And I’ve had a good friend say he would have dyed his hair along with mine had I asked.

If there’s a teen-ager working in a business that I visit, chances are they’ll come talk to me about the hair.

“I can’t believe you have blue hair,” my wife said as I left for work today.

The Sociology of Blue

The funny thing is that I go to great lengths to avoid socially awkward situations.

But this has been a great learning adventure.

When I took Sociology 101 more than a decade ago, one of the assignments was to violate some social norm (but not law) and then chronicle your experiences.

No other college assignment — including my doctoral qualifying exams and dissertation — ever caused me so much anxiety.

I resist authority. I hate rules. But norms restrain me like iron chains.

And bright blue hair violates almost every norm. So to that extent, this has been like ethnography. I’ve learned by diving in and watching.

The Moral of the Story

And perhaps the single most valuable lesson is that there are a lot of people in the world who feel shackled by the rules of society. And they resent it.

“I wish I had the nerve to do that,” is probably the single most frequent comment that I’ve heard.

And that makes me a little sad.

You live once. Do it your way.

If you dye your hair blue, or red, or green … or if you get a mohawk or an inverse mohawk, people will stare. Some uncomfortably so.

But you’ll learn something about yourself, your society, and as I wrote last week, your friends.

And my friends and family continue to have been amazing.

And that makes me anything but blue.

Tagged as: blue

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So it’s been two months since I last wrote here. It’s been one of those years.

Exactly two months to the day since my last post, I died my hair blue. Actually, I went to the Bijou salon in Lubbock, and the stylist did an awesome job there.

It’s an interesting thing when you dye your hair blue.

It’s shocking. Especially in Lubbock. Shocking. I’ve been amazed at the number of people who simply cannot speak.

Literally. They can’t talk. They stand there with their mouths open. Literally.

Everyone stares.

I of course figured that there would be a lot of that. But in conservative Lubbock, there is a lot of that.

Walking down the street yesterday, Brandon (pictured above left) asked:

“Why is that guy staring … oh wait … it’s your hair.”

In West Texas, there is a Mexican food chain named Rosa’s Cafe. Yesterday was Taco Tuesday, and there is always a packed house on Taco Tuesday. So I went through the drive through.

The young woman wanted to tell me the total, $14.44, but she couldn’t speak.

Finally she spoke, I paid, and another young woman came running to the window, stuck her head half through it and said, “I LOVE your blue hair.”

Then despite the rush, pretty much the whole Rosa’s crew came to the window to check out my hair.

“This wouldn’t happen in Austin,” I thought.

But my friends — the true ones — have been amazing.

That’s how it has been for a day: awkward stares and lots of support.

Why I Did It

I have nothing really profound to offer here. I wanted to do it.

And I usually do what I want.

In approximately 1996, one of my college friends, Dandee, died his hair blue.

I was busy running the student newspaper, and I didn’t feel as if I could get away with anything like that.

At no point was it seriously considered. It wasn’t in the menu of options. I guess that’s the point.

It wasn’t even an option.

I didn’t think “too bad I cannot do that.” I just never came up.

So I ran the newspaper for two years, graduated, got real jobs, went to grad school, and started a faculty career.

And at no point during that span was it time to do something crazy.

Until it was.

I’m not teaching this summer. I’m advising two theses, one dissertation, a handful of independent studies, and trying to get some stuff published.

But I’m not officially responsible for more than two more months.

So I made a few jokes about blue hair.

And I probably never would have done it.

But a handful of people said, “You’d never really do that.”

And I’m not the kind of idiot who will eat worms or a box of thumb tacks if you dared me.

But I wanted to do this anyway, and this was a good time. And I like to call bluffs.

So June 9, 2009, was the day that I had my hair dyed blue. It was bleached almost white and then dyed.

And I like it. Yesterday I kinda liked it. Today I really like it.

Not because it makes me look better. Because, subjectively, I am quite sure that it does not.

But I wanted to do it — I knew it would lead to a great deal of taunting from my friends (and poor wife) — and I did it anyway.

And you learn a lot about the people in your life when you do something like dye your hair really blue. You find out who is really behind you.

And in large part, my friends are even better friends than I thought. And I knew I had some pretty amazing friends.

They’ve been amazingly supportive. Far more than I imagined.

Corny as it may be, that has warmed my heart. It made project blue worth it.

Sure, some of them may not want to have lunch with me. Because people will stare. But they have been supportive. Even though I am sure most of them secretly think it was a terrible idea.

And for that they have my profound gratitude.

Oh, and later in the day, my graduate student and friend, Brandon, got an indiustrial piercing in his ear (see picture). And he has my support.

That’s what friends do.

Tagged as: blue

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Somehow March is gone. Just gone. I’m sitting here scratching my head wondering how it’s even possible that an entire month–one of the long 31 day varieties–slipped between my fingers without me noticing.

I feel, quite literally, as if I were hit by the proverbial truck. It generally happens to me this time of year, although this time I swore I wouldn’t let it happen again.

Too many projects. Good projects every one, but an overwhelming number nonetheless. When this happens, everything seems to begin to slip away. There’s no time for working out, I fall even farther behind on grading, and life seems like a high-speed blur.

The funny thing is that I swore it wouldn’t happen this year. It was a promise that I made to myself. And then I broke the promise. And March pulled away like a Kentucky Derby horse running away from an old mule.

That makes me the mule, I suppose. An apt analogy for right now.

I got to spend Spring Break in Dallas with my family, and I even got to see a former student. It was a great getaway with the family.

The projects were great. One of the highlights of 2009 already has been my work with TTU doctoral student Bob Schaller on a book project. Unfortunately, we’ll lose Mr. Schaller soon to an assistant professor position at Stephen F. Austin State University, but I was lucky enough to learn from him along the way. If all went well, he learned a thing or two from me along the way, too. That’s when graduate education works best: when’s it a two-way street.

I also finished up — not counting the few edits I have this weekend — a research methods textbook with my former boss, Don Jugenheimer. I got to catch up with Don in March at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Advertising in Cincinnati.

Due in part to my hatred of flying, I drove 2,515 miles to Cincinnati and back. I was accompanied by TTU master’s student Brandon Nutting, who took an undergraduate course from me at Ohio State in 2006 before coming to Tech. It was a long but excellent journey. We stopped by Bloomington, Indiana, on the way home to say “hello” to old friends. We also got the good news that Brandon will be a Ph.D. student with us in the fall. 

Finally, we are in the process os submitting a major health communication grant with the United States Department of Agriculture. My part is 90% done, and I am hopeful that the project will be funded, as I genuinely believe we can help people lead healthier lives.

The lab could not be going better. We have a truly amazing group of graduate students. I just found out that lab manager and soon-to-be Xavier University assistant professor Wendy Maxian has won an outstanding graduate student award at Tech. Given that she truly is outstanding, this is well deserved.

One of my favorite colleagues and favorite people, Johnny Sparks, is joining our faculty in the fall. He’ll be here house hunting next week.

So, that’s it. Sounds like a great year. But in truth, it was a great year packed into a little more than a month.

Luckily today we’re headed to New Mexico to rest a bit with my parents and celebrate Easter and a few family birthdays.

Sorry for the Christmas-letter like blog post. Schaller sent me the link to this great post, which convinced me that an occasional existential blog post was all right.

Tagged as: arbitrary thought, family

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