Blogging Is Over

Tim Cavanaugh | April 22, 2005

If you still don't believe 2005 is just 1995 with suckier amenities and no prospects for getting rich, consider this: Captain Morgan, the never-popular rum mascot and graffiti artist, now has his own blog. More than a decade into this whole web thing, companies are still making ham-handed attempts to get jiggy with online fads that their consultants are no doubt spotting as "emerging trends in the 21-35 demo." It's almost as if years and years of failed attempts to translate corporate logos into exciting digital avatars had been wiped away. I'll bet Diageo North America even had to pay some late-90s-style big bucks to secure thecaptainsblog.com as its URL (in the process referencing a TV show that's almost as forgotten as the phrase "content is king"). Believe it or not, there was a time when making fun of this kind of promotional shovelware seemed like a service to capitalism, an attempt to speed creative destruction along. Now it's just sad.

Still, I was hoping the Captain might actually try and "fit in" with the kids from the blog. I've never had a very clear take on The Captain as a character—does he talk like a pirate? I'd hoped he might bring some salty phraseology to the blogging circlejerk: Aargh! Me hardies at Powerline wield a sharp cutlass at the idiotarians! Avast! The Instapundit makes the Islamofascists walk the plank, and Atrios responds!

But The Captain is too lazy even to do that. You get the same flapdoodle you'd have found back when Bob Dole was running for Prez: Stoopid made-up x-treme sports ("Surfing Detroit-style means pulling your best moves on a boogie board in an inflatable pool, surf music blasting in the background, with the crowd throwing pitchers of water on you (for the sake of realism)"); heterosexual panic ("Many's the time I've been tricked into seeing a chick flick by a macho-sounding title"); drippy drink-responsibly hadiths ("I always make sure I've got the phone number of a cab company when I head out for the evening"), and plenty of shoutouts to Captain Morgan Rum! Come to think of it, The Captain may have distilled blogging to its essence: pure self-promotion.

Sadly, The Captain already appears to have stopped updating, which may be the surest sign of progress yet: In today's free market, a bad idea gets the bum's rush faster than ever.

Comments

|4.22.05 @ 1:59PM|#

Heh. I noticed someone wrote "Support the fair tax" in his comments section on taxes.

Ever run across a decent blog with like two years of entries but practically no comments? Sad, right? And somehow Captain Morgan has hundreds of comments for almost every entry, even though he apparently doesn't even respond.

Tim Cavanaugh|4.22.05 @ 2:01PM|#

He's also ended the comments. Apparently "support the fair tax" was too incendiary an idea.

David|4.22.05 @ 2:19PM|#

phocion said:

Ever run across a decent blog with like two years of entries but practically no comments? Sad, right?

Yeah, *mine* :)

If you do venture over there, ignore the most recent post (which is, although the most recent, still hopelessly old), as it was simply my indulging in a pity party. Most unbecoming...

|4.22.05 @ 2:35PM|#

This looks like a Friday Fun link that might top those celebrity Earth Day twits, but alas, me employers don't want me to see! What means this "Access Denied" - arrgh!

In today's free market, a bad idea gets the bum's rush faster than ever.

Then why is MTV still on the air?!

|4.22.05 @ 2:42PM|#

I didn't see one comment that looked legit. They must have had a team of dorks who came up with crap like this, from a poster called "McFly":

"Thats a pretty cool contest captain, sounds something i would do. I have never entered an official bar contest, but my friends and I like to play a little game called numbers. Here's how it works: The man with the most numbers at the ends of the night wins, for milfs you get double the points."

Oooooh, gawrsh!!! Hey guys, lets see who can get the most phone numbers! We'll call our game "numbers"! And just to spice things up a little, lets say double points for milfs!!! (Question: how do you know a chick in a bar is a MILF? Does she have her kids with her?)

Double points, my ass. Double points to whoever "McFly" is if he's ever even been in a bar.

|4.22.05 @ 2:48PM|#

The saddest part is that some kind of shanghai'ed human chattel had to write the Capt's blog and all those comments too. I can imagine what it's like to go home after 8 hours of that, including the no doubt painstaking approval-from-the-higher-ups process for each and every line. The idea that the Capt should talk like a pirate was probably raised like the jolly roger and then shot down amid a flurry of confusion and hand-wringing about hurting the brand by giving the Capt too strong a personality. Some new hire probably had to explain how a pirate talks during a meeting.

|4.22.05 @ 2:49PM|#

Anyone remember Raging Cow?

|4.22.05 @ 2:56PM|#

i love this entry from March 20:

Sure, you�ve heard about the Heimlich Maneuver. But how about The Captain Maneuver

Ahhh there's that Brand association we're looking for. Drinking Cpn. Morgan's rum and Vomiting go hand in hand.

Don't imagine that sentence was approved by the Vice President for Message Development.

|4.22.05 @ 3:08PM|#

By the way, I want to thank you all for the traffic your driving to the Captain Morgan blog. When I show the boss these numbers and he spins them to the client as proof of ROI - can you say bonus? Look for Snuggles the Bear, The Pillsbury Dough Boy and Gieco Gecko to be joining the blogosphere any day now. Hot damn! I told them this was a humdinger of a big idea! Partnership here I come!

|4.22.05 @ 3:23PM|#

You can tell a chick in a bar is a MILF after she gets a couple of drinks in her and talks non-stop about her keeyidz.

Come to think of it, she'll probably do that before she starts drinking.

I had the same thoughts as Errol Flynn did, since I've actually had similar assignments in the past. Golf-polo-wearing pinheads come up with great make-work ideas that are completely unsustainable for more than a week. "You can just write a new blurb for the site every morning for an hour or so -- won't it be awesome?"

|4.22.05 @ 3:27PM|#

It looks like every comment was an entry for a little prize. McFly was just improving his odds of winning by creating so many comments. McFly is really Gary Gunnels.

|4.22.05 @ 3:35PM|#

Right there with you zeroentitlement.

Account Exec: "What do you mean you can't come up with a new entry? We told the client this idea had legs. Now go make it walk writer boy!"

Writer: "My god. Bill Hicks was right. I should kill myself. But first, I take out Leno. Where's my Uzi?"

Jim Walsh|4.22.05 @ 3:45PM|#

"In today's free market, a bad idea gets the bum's rush faster than ever."

Bullhockey.

Two words: Julia Roberts.

Two more: Shania Twain.

Three more: Conservative talk radio

What was it our friend Mr. Mencken about people underestimating the intellegence of the boobous American public?

R C Dean|4.22.05 @ 3:49PM|#

Heh heh. He said "boobuus."

|4.22.05 @ 3:50PM|#

If blogging is over, what's everyone still doing here?
GO HOME!

|4.22.05 @ 4:19PM|#

Aaarrrr! I've got a little "Captain" in me! Aaarrr! Kind of a lame blog yonder! Aaarrrr! Although now I can fantisize about one of the "Morganettes" polishing me bowsprit! Aaarrrr!

PS: As a result of visiting a chick-friend who really digs the Renaissance Festival, and having to buy a costume, which I further embellished for Halloween, I now have a vaguely piratical costume hanging in my bedroom closet, ready for action! This is one of the 50 things I wanted to accomplish before I die.

|4.22.05 @ 4:21PM|#

Can't touch the stuff. Teenage shot contest. Got somewhere into the teens before the bottle ran out. My friends had to actually dig a hole in the back yard to empty the trash can full of vomit.

Never again. Not even going to look at the web page.

|4.22.05 @ 4:29PM|#

hey, what happened? I enclosed the "GO HOME" with tracy ullman html tags. Who would have thought that the comment software would think that was an actual tag and not print it as plain text?

|4.22.05 @ 4:37PM|#

Wasn't Captain Morgan in the Hitler Youth?

|4.22.05 @ 4:44PM|#

lol Steve -

One thing I do know, Captain Kerry would have a worse blog.

Tim Cavanaugh|4.22.05 @ 4:47PM|#

That wasn't the comment software. All html reads those brackets as a tag. To make the brackets appear you have to write out the less-than and greater-then signs as, respectively, < and > ...

< >

Go here for a clearer explanation.

Now <tracyullman>GO HOME!</tracyullman>

Is that the effect you were looking for?

|4.22.05 @ 5:49PM|#

One thing I do know, Captain Kerry would have a worse blog.

I have been exceeded.

The Wine Commonsewer|4.22.05 @ 6:41PM|#

Cap'n Morgan is crappy run anyway.

|4.23.05 @ 1:45AM|#

"Is that the effect you were looking for?"

<Kay>Why yes, thank you!</Kay>

|4.23.05 @ 8:47PM|#

Since we're kinda on the subject, is there an instruction page where I can learn how to italicize and hyperlink my postings?

Tim Cavanaugh|4.24.05 @ 12:36PM|#

You know, Jim, there was a time when young men knew how to do html tags before learning to build a campfire, set up a camp loom, or even whittle a woodcraft dildo. Webmonkey is still a good and simple resource for all this stuff. They seem to be out of business, but the html cheatsheet, special characters, and other resource pages are still up, and give at-a-glance instructions for all that stuff.

|4.24.05 @ 5:46PM|#

You know, Jim, there was a time when young men knew how to do html tags before learning to build a campfire, set up a camp loom, or even whittle a woodcraft dildo.

Cackle!

I personally have found HTML Goodies to be helpful.