PANIC PANIC PANIC!
Wanye
September 01 2010 12:12PM
It's no secret that your ol' pal Wanye has a love on for Edmonton. Heck, we have a 1/38 scale drawing of Phase I of WEM tattooed on our back. But every now and again the City we love goes out and embarasses itself on the international stage.
Recently, Lady Gaga came to town and put on a pair of show stopping concerts. During rehersal the folks over at RX1 were swapping out letters in the Oil Country sign to make room for a spot light to be set up on the catwalk. During this time, the letter O was removed from the sign.
Gaga - sharp as an eagle but with 5x the singing chops - tweeted a picture of the sign sans O and everyone had a hearty laugh us included. We love seeing pics of the hilarious mundane. Before we were banned from twitter, we used to take pics of witty things all of the time.
Take this Nissan Maxima we were behind in traffic this morning. Hilarious right?
Heh heh. Four 20 indeed.
ANYWAYS
Gaga tweets some photo of the gaffe, we all have a laugh and are quickly distracted by weed themed vanity license plates.
Life moves on.
So you can imagine our immense surprise when we read this article over at PerezHilton.com this morning:
"A few nights ago, Lady GaGa made a bit of stir after her performance in Edmonton, Canadialand when she tweeted this photo (above) of an Oil Country sign with a HIGHlariously key letter missing - along with the message "holy mother of laughter."
However, city officials are now displeased with the pop star because they think she has soiled the city's image!
Mayor Stephen Mandel says:
"Some things are disgusting and you shouldn't have to say they're disgusting. I think it demeans them more than anything else."
And reportedly local TV stations won't air the pic!
Ha! Too bad it's plastered all over the internet for the world to see!
We personally don't see what the big deal is! What happened to the HIGHlarity of wordplay, people?!
We're sure she didn't mean for anyone to take it personally!"
PANIC ARTICLE 2
Then we wandered over to the link to the CTV website and read this alarmist gem:
"A recent tweet by Lady Gaga, which shows an offensive photo of an Oil Country sign with a key letter missing, is triggering debate over how much damage her online comments can do to Edmonton's image.
The post was made hours after the recording artist performed her second sold-out show at Rexall Place on Friday. Beyond a link to the image, Lady Gaga wrote to her 5.8 million online followers, "holy mother of laughter."
Northlands said the photograph was taken while crews were setting up for a show, at a time when one letter from a permanent sign had been removed to put a spotlight in place.
Since Lady Gaga appeared fourth on the 2010 Forbes list of 100 most Powerful and Influential celebrities in the world, one local social media consultant argues her twitter comments can have a huge impact on how the rest of the world sees Edmonton."
TOP DRAWER ANALYSIS
We sort of imagine that the meetings among the power brokers to discuss slights to the City of Edmonton look sort of like that kid freaking out in this video. Drawing attention to things like this ~ and a standing ovation of courage goes to CTV for having the balls to not show the offensive photo ~ makes the City look small minded and hickish in the eyes of many.
Do you think that Mayor Bloomberg would have issued a statement on the matter had this occured at a concert in NYC? Heck no, that guy is way too busy doing Mayoral things to comment on these trivial things.
Pictures like this don't do any damage to the City's reputation at all. Calling on a man of such importance as the Mayor to make a statement on the thing damages the City's reputation. Circling the wagons of social media consultants to weigh in on the matter damages the City's reputation.
Way to go team. We come out of this looking like Grade A winners.
Hopefully Dany Heatley doesn't read about all of this. He still might come to Edmonton right?
RIGHT?
*recrosses fingers for the 1,257,773rd time*
At least she didn't tweet a picture of the 'City of Champions' sign :(
Who the eff cares? Not the fantastic article by Wanye, but over something so trivial as "This is Oil Cuntry". So it says "Cuntry". Big deal. I would hope Mandel has better things to do than get his panties in a bunch over "Cuntry". It's not like it said "Cuntry" in RX2. It's just said "Cuntry" in RX1. I thought Mandel wanted to tear that place down anyhow?
I can't believe no one went for the obivous "fist" comment on the article about "cuntry" ... bit of a let down.
That's not how you spell c*nt tree. Weird.
I can just hear our Mayor Quimby now .... "Er, uh... From this day forward, all Lady Gaga and Disco Stu records are banned from the Quik e Marts. We uhh, don't want to err, embarrass ourselves in front of Shelbyville" The pic was kinda funny, I thought it was cool that we got a bit of international attention, but come on now,Edmonton media, get over it
I would like to nominate Wanye for Mayor. First order of business - tweeting funny pictures from around our city to create a buzz.
There is an election in the fall Mr. Wanye, you have at least ONE vote.
Way overblown. WAY.
These media types can be real counts some times. Just let it go.
I heard she might not be a LADY Gaga.
Thankfully someone doesn't take this so seriously Wayne. You are right as if the Mayor of NYC has the time to comment on these things. Mandel is a busy man too, he should just pass when asked to give quotes on things like this.
And you wouldn't want to see what I would do if someone canceled my WoW account..... I would go level 60 Battle Mage on their @ss
What, my comment got moderated? I did not type anything that was not in that picture above....
I agree. "This kind of er, um crisis takes a special kind of er, um leadership. I will make a strongly worded statement to discourage this kind of erroneous sign twitter tomfoolery in the future"
Heh heh. It did? See, we know how to run a tight ship around here.
*runs off to read the offensive comment in the secret part of the website where these comments go*
We've been put down and embarrassed by a lot higher class of skank than Lady Gaga, so, no, I don't really care.
Conversely, The Leader's confession of morning perezhilton.com browsings IS cause for concern...
That is funny stuff! Did you all hear, Taylor Hall has requested a trade because of that! Sam Gagner has broken hs new deal because of it..........funny stuff! Can't wait till actual hockey starts.
If you have a better idea on a better site to keep up with the minute-by-minute actions of one Mr. Justin Bieber I would love to hear it.
*goes back to brushing his hair like the Beebs in the mirror*
She didn't even mention Edmonton. Guaranteed 98% of her 6 million Twitter followers don't know what country, let alone city, that sign refers to.
Edmonton is in Canada though right? Do I win something??
*hopes he wins some sort of delicious cake as a prize*
That kid in the video was doing the same thing I do every time someone makes a "Horcoff suxx cuz he gets payed 7 millien dollaaarrzzz" comment...
...including the whole "stick-a-remote-control-up-your-bum-in-a-fit-of-rage" thing he does at 1:10.
As some of you know, my day job involves social media. It's actually all I focus on at work...
When I was asked to comment on this issue, I said the following:
"No. Because I'm on vacation. And this isn't news."
I was annoyed anyone bothered to write a story on it at all.
For the love of Stanley's Cup!! Will we ever be a progressive city?! Some daily headlines in the Edmonton Journal: 1)Edmonton leading the world in the development of "garbage to bio-fuel" technology 2)Old school hicks get panties in a knot about a humorous mistake.
1 Step forward, three steps back. The Edmonton dance continues...
(whoops...can I say "panties" on here without offending our elected city officials?)
@wanye
when twitters grow up to be blogs, any story cred here all mighty one..... LOL
how come no one at the pressor asked tambellini about lady gaga defacing their slogan, possibly because oiler management thought this would be a competing story to offset interest in their convicted DUI goalie going to tent city for 10 days in pink underwear.
What's next Heartland of **CKEY, when Aerosmith's cocked, locked and ready to rock tour hits RX1 this september......
@scoot the boot
Have you ever noticed that Edmonton makes the national news when it's murder, weather, or an oiler related restaurant tab.
Stay away from our murders!
-signed Abbotsford (one time murder capital of Canada)
It's all pretty much been said already; what was the City thinking? Why make yesterday's news into today's news if you didn't want people to see it?
I'll consider your nomination very carefully.
I'll consider it while I sit on my couch nude watching episodes of Antiques Roadshow all afternoon.
You all are hicks here!!!
HERE! HERE!
*loads shotgun, cracks beer*
Hey Wanye, your article reminded me of one of the funnier moments in Curb Your Enthusiasm. Hope you enjoy the clip...I sure did!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpDiZLrTHX4
Still have my vote...
*starts making campaign buttons*
Campaign nominations, a button making factory at my disposal.... this thing could get legs.
@R.A
That is a classic clip. I have never really gotten into that show, much to the chagrin of some of my buddies who love it and think I am a moron for not being a fan. Clips like that make me think they are right.
I don't get it, What is so funny? about Oil and love tissue? I always thought they went rather well together.
@R.A. Slapshotzky
Man that's good timing with that link. Love the show.
And Wanye your friends ARE right, listen to them...
Wayne you make my going crazy waiting for hockey a lot easier with the funny comments you make....you should consider doing something better with your talents though *slaps himself for showing Wayne the light
"Pictures like this don't do any damage to the City's reputation at all. Calling on a man of such importance as the Mayor to make a statement on the thing damages the City's reputation. Circling the wagons of social media consultants to weigh in on the matter damages the City's reputation."
EXACTLY! What a joke.
Well said Wanye. I thought Mayor Mandel was smarter then that. I would have laughed it off if i was him.
Funny how ol' RossCreek "reports" this on the weekend (http://oilersnation.com/2010/8/27/hater-talk-and-oooooowhee#comments) without any reply and then when Wanye "I'm Too Sexy For My Clothes" Gretz "reports" it, it draws 36... ERR 37 comments. What a joke 'Whiner-ye Gretz'... what a joke.
;-)
Seriously though, why on Earth did the Mayor & the media make this into a big deal? I'm sure half the people that saw the pic assumed it wa in Texas somewhere and the other half thought it was in Kuwait... nowhere did it say EDMONTON.
FFS people, get a fricken funny bone in yer body!
@RossCreekNation
I think the point, RC, was that when you reported it, the sane citizens of the Nation looked at it, smiled for a few seconds, and then dropped it from their minds. Exactly what should have happened. Wanye's story was less about the pic itself and more about the idiocy that is our city council who decided to make a big issue out of it. Our comments are primary directed at the stupidity that derived from the pic and not at Gaga and the pic itself.
Try to keep up, eh?
;-)