The real world is Janky. Jenky is a great word I picked up recently. But I have been looking at mySpace of late, and the one thing that strikes me is how much effort people go to screw up their profiles. As a designer that is horrifying and fascinating.
I think that with the growth of stealth marketing, (ads masquerading as forum posts, blogs, podcasts, graffiti, etc.) People sense 'realness' as being half assed and screwed up. No matter how much an ad agency might try to imitate the "kids" they have a requirement from their clients that the message be legible and professional. And so the inverse is, to proclaim your 'realness' you have to be so broken and screwed up, that you are practically gibberish. In a word, Janky.
As the artificial gets more perfect, and imitative, the real has to become even more 'real' just to remain so. Artficially Janky.
Interesting moral in there somewhere.
