Gaylords good fortune made for more mutual hand jobs between him and former employers TV3, who's resources he had used to get that far. They ran the story almost every night this past week and so often I had to wonder if there was any genuine news to report on. There was of course, but then that’s NZ for you; we care more for the antics of a cheeky wanker than we do the events of the world, where the adults live. We love that someone like Gaylord has gotten as far as he did because in some twisted way we like to think he represents NZ and that’s a cause we can get behind.
My real beef was not really with Gaylord. Yes, he's annoying and not the tiniest bit funny but deep down I hoped he would win because aside from the gratuitous follow up segments that Harae Mai John Campbell would do on him if he did, he'll be off our screens indefinitely. Man I hadn’t been that excited about a TV idiot moving on since Jason Gunn did back in the days when Thingees eye fell out on camera and gave everybody under the age of 10 nightmares for years. Gunn eventually came back and rather spookily hadn't appeared to aged at all. His jokes certainly hadn’t. All the oldies love Gunn but then they always did have a soft spot for the 'special' kid didn't they?
No what really twisted my nips about the whole Gaylord Gayford thing is that an event that is not in the slightest bit newsworthy made its way into the news. It's wasn’t even an event that is spectacular in its ingenuity. Oh wow, a competition on the Net. Big deal, at any one moment in time someone is pulling some stunt on the intraweb whether it be auctioning their 'virginity', raffling their house or selling a feijoa that looks like a Kiwi. Is it mildly amusing? Yes. Is it newsworthy? Maybe, but the Great Barrier Caretaker Hunt is right up their with Two Girls One Cup; you only want to see it the once.
Did you ever hear about the waster who walked the length of NZ a few years ago calling himself Bro Millionaire? He begged his way to an absurd amount of money on the back of being a little bit cheeky and a little bit entrepreneurial. Just like Gaylord. ZM, the radio station of choice for those that like to be told what they like, was right behind him and gave him all the free publicity he needed to make more money in a few weeks than you and I will in years of working full time. Wow, when you think of it like that its not so cheeky any more is it? When cheeky Bro Millionaire asked me for a dollar I told him to fuck off. Now that was cheeky.
See I'm always wary of advertising that makes it way into our conscious under the guise of 'news'. Why? Because as an individual I have a choice when it comes to unsolicited advertising; I don't have to watch the ads on TV, read the piles of junk mail that passes through my letterbox and I can hang the fuck up on cold callers. They’re all easy to ignore but when we start allowing subliminal advertising to infiltrate our news then we're giving up the power of choice. Let us not forget that this is how the Nazi propaganda machine worked too.
While there is no 'product' in Gaylords case, it borders on advertising. It's a competition based around a tourist attraction. Sure sounds like advertising to me. So is the story of the car company that's rolled out a new hybrid or the clothing manufacturer that has come up with some fantastic new fabric. A world first it may be, but I don't give a monkeys. If I do want to know that gem of groundbreaking news then trust me, I'll find it.
And the real proof was in the result. Gaylord didn’t win and for that I am both delighted and pissed off, for reasons listed earlier. Mind you neither did the kinky looking German girl, Mirjam, who got my vote or the sexy Australian girl, Hailey, who I cast a second vote for whilst pretending to be my wife. Hey I could only vote the once but both looked great in a bikini...
No Gaylord Gayford didn’t win but did you see that on the news? Or on Stuff? Or on Harei Mae John Campbell? No you did not. Because it wasn’t news when he was trying to win and it definitely wasn’t news when he lost.
I rest my case.
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