It would appear that Hewlett Packard consider Jay Z to be the "CEO of Hip Hop" (I hadn't realised African-American urban musical culture mimicked the structure of corporate America quite so closely) and furthermore they claim he plays chess online.
Anyhoo, leaving aside the fact this advert owes more than a little to (read: is a blatant rip-off of) Minority Report, the budget seems to have run a little short of being able to afford actually having the aforementioned CEO appear in the thing.
Advertisers ... got to love their creativity.
btw: Our video index - thedirectory of all the chess related video clips that have appeared on the S&BCC blog - has receieved a long overdue update.
4 comments:
In the book Freakeconomics someone studied Drug Gangs and their structure almost exactly mimicked corporate America. Chess base did an article on rap influence on chess centered around Wu-Tang Clan and their song Da Mystery Of Chessboxin'. Chess has had such a nerdy image in the past (and still does although to a lesser extent now imo) that any vaguely sensible way to improve its image should be welcomed. I think the rap interest in chess is perfectly valid- some of them are genuinely interested in chess.
Andrew
Emma & I met the Wu-Tan Clan and Dialated Peoples in San Francisco last week. www.emmabentley.com
Rap is their work. Chess is there obsession. They are business people and nothing like their potrail on stage, in my opinion.
Jay-Z is a chess player and mega successful. I think chess needs roll models other than politically motivated crackpots like Kxxxxxov and some other bad press instigators - eg. Sloan v Polgar-Truong Etc. Good luck to the rappers. David Bentley
In the book Freakeconomics someone studied Drug Gangs and their structure almost exactly mimicked corporate America.
It should be said that that particular book has come under fire for its partial use of data (here for instance - unfortunately it's a user-unfriendly site so if you want to read the comments you'll have to do the main page and look up the post in the archives). Flashy and not entirely rigorous, would be one way to put it.
I think chess is always likely to have the image it has, because it suits people to believe it. Librarians will always be "dowdy" and always saying "shhh" regardless of how far it may be from reality, because it suits people to believe it.
Freakenomics is an interesting read but not a rigorous academic text imho (and that's before I knew of Justin's link).
David,
why not just write Kasparov if that's who you meant?
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