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NY Times Style Magazine commits "never forgive action" · by Rafi Kam
It was first noticed by aNYthing, then Animal and Gawker picked up on the item. The most venerated newspaper in America has once again decided to use graffiti as a marketing tool. This time they have upped the ante in a major way. Instead of writing on their own private rented billboard space the NY Times magazine has decided in an effort to distinguish its graffiti ad campaign from others and to stay truer to the spirit of graf by writing on public spaces often over existing “tags” or “pieces”.
“The NY Times Style magazine isn’t a graffiti artist,” Times director of marketing Thaddeus Delanoy explained candidly. “The NY Times Style magazine is a graffiti bomber.”
“Bombing” or “crossing out” other peoples work has a long history within graffiti but to our knowledge it has never been attempted as part of a corporate marketing campaign before.
Delanoy defends the Times’s controversial decision in one word – recognition. “We can get up a lot quicker this way. It’s consistent with our overall corporate vision. You may not like us but you will have to respect us. Other papers know.”
New Yorkers questioned frozen food brand “Hungry Man” when it tagged up the Bowery and warehouse district in 2004
Community activists are in an uproar, echoing protests heard during recent “underground marketing” campaigns by Sony and others.
The new territorial attitude of “the big T” hits particularly close to home in Harlem. Residents there awoke yesterday morning and found the famous “Crack is Wack” mural in Crack is Wack Playground had been crossed over by the New York Times style magazine T.
One woman who lives in an apartment building near the park expressed her dismay, “What kind of message does this send to the children? They don’t need to know about what some white people downtown think is important or stylish, they need to know crack is wack.”
The mural, painted in 1986 by artist Keith Haring, is considered a coup for the Times’ marketing team because it is so highly recognizable and with its prime real estate right off the FDR will reach thousands of “eyeballs” a day.
Said one anonymous insider at the Times advertising agency, “the only thing better might be to do a whole train – end to end burners! Like one car might say ‘All you see is…’ and then ‘Times Style in the city’ “
The writer’s bench, 149th St and Grand Concourse
Back in the 80s, Haring (who passed away in 1990) and his good friend Jean-Michel Basquiat may have been considered outsiders by the city’s graf writing scene because of their preference for museums, legal graffiti art and alternative lifestyles. Nevertheless an emergency meeting of many of the city’s graffiti vets convened last night at the famous writer’s bench in the 149th Street Grand Concourse subway station. The topic at hand: how to avenge one of their own and protect their turf from the NY Times.
One formerly-retired writer explained, “It don’t matter man, if you’ve got like a multimedia design company or you’re the dickwad cleaning the trains. I see a lot of cell phones and ipods here tonight (chuckles). But those aren’t the guys still getting their name out. So it’s a trade-off… A lot of our lives went in very different directions you know. But whether we’re in khakis or sweats we’re still [sort of] all the same tonight. We all have to deal with this Style Magazine bullshit. No way some fag mag is gonna go all-city while I’m scraping gum off of seats ya know? This is for Keith. I mean it’s awful what they did. Just awful. And right in the middle of Crack Week for christ’s sake!”
Comments for "NY Times Style Magazine commits "never forgive action""
Somone should kill these guys. Why aren’t we in their neghborhood with crews?
— R.H.S. Aug 4, 05:09 PM
i’m ashamed to say it took me a good few paragraphs to realize this was a parody.
— jb Aug 4, 05:12 PM
I’m also ashamed to say it took me even longer to realize it was a parody than it probably took other people. Even when I got to “Crack is Wack” I was only half skeptical.
Although corporate guerrila advertising would be sweet.
— Epitome Aug 5, 12:15 AM
dammn NY Times is gettin gangsta on us. It still looks surreal and reeks of gimmickry, the graf that is
— RD Aug 5, 11:41 PM
shits NOT a parody.. im prayin the crack is wack was not peaced on BUT not even a block away from where Im workin on Bowery theres been that first truck parked outside the 6 train station… they had a stupid camera crew takin pics n shit when the dude was bombin at 5pm….. bitchasses
— chibahawk Aug 7, 05:05 PM
You’re both right… it’s a parody rooted in the news (and a little bit a parody of the news). It’s sort of a news-omedy.
— Rafi Aug 7, 05:23 PM
tell me they didn’t actually bomb over a mural though…
— Game Over Aug 7, 06:07 PM
As far as I know, only the truck part is true…
The rest (like 90% of our site) is 1 part making fun of stupid marketing decisions and 1 part ode to Style Wars.
— Rafi Aug 7, 06:11 PM
You had me going for a minute with that shit. I thought they were going to bomb the Big Pun mural next.
— DJ Flash Aug 9, 03:40 PM
I can make commodities in the commercial world of anything in hip-hop. Oh wait! Already happened. Sike ya mind.
— The Smoking Section Aug 11, 06:44 PM