Kinda reminds me of that Drive Shaft diaper commercials on LOST.. now THAT looked degrading.

/approves

Slankets are better

Wake me up when they make a terrycloth one. That will be the ultimate in lazy tech.

jonasborg: Slankets are better

You got your big cheese, I got my snuggy tight!

R.A.Danny: Say what you want, the "idiots" that came up with Snuggies® are laughing all the way to the bank.

True - always astonishing how successful a well constructed scam can be.

I'm still waiting for the headline "I wore my Snuggie to a football match ... and survived!"

I've openly questioned Cuomo's mental stability ever since the Blue album. Yeah, the songs weren't weird/creepy until Pinkerton but even back then he had a "I'm not sure I want him alone with my pets" vibe to him.

It would take a lot from him to elicit a genuine "WTF?" from me.

Now Weezer's biggest fan.

I was at bed bath and beyond and saw Snuggie for Dogs

I'm sorry Weezer, we will have to deduct 5 hipster points for improper use of irony.

A man wearing a tee shirt that says "Bun in the oven"? Yes, ironic.
Carefully styling your hair so that it looks messed up? Again, ironic.
Taking 20 different photos of yourself to find a Facebook shot that looks spontaneous? Um hmm.

A blanket/CD combo? Sigh, no.

Weezer hasn't been relevant since Pinkerton.

Prof. Ann Marion: I'm sorry Weezer, we will have to deduct 5 hipster points for improper use of irony.

A man wearing a tee shirt that says "Bun in the oven"? Yes, ironic.
Carefully styling your hair so that it looks messed up? Again, ironic.
Taking 20 different photos of yourself to find a Facebook shot that looks spontaneous? Um hmm.

A blanket/CD combo? Sigh, no.

So, by your count, Steve Guttenberg is a hipster?

Gene Simmons wishes he thought of it first.

Kiss Snuggie to be released in all black with Kiss costume patterns on them in 3... 2...

/I want my cut Gene.

NorCalLos: Prof. Ann Marion: I'm sorry Weezer, we will have to deduct 5 hipster points for improper use of irony.

A man wearing a tee shirt that says "Bun in the oven"? Yes, ironic.
Carefully styling your hair so that it looks messed up? Again, ironic.
Taking 20 different photos of yourself to find a Facebook shot that looks spontaneous? Um hmm.

A blanket/CD combo? Sigh, no.

So, by your count, Steve Guttenberg is a hipster?

Nah, but he does have his irony firmly in place... and maybe a little off to the right.

Can we just pretend the whole band died in a plane crash in 1997?

/plz?

No, they're really promoting with the WTF Blanket!

Prof. Ann Marion: I'm sorry Weezer, we will have to deduct 5 hipster points for improper use of irony.

A man wearing a tee shirt that says "Bun in the oven"? Yes, ironic.
Carefully styling your hair so that it looks messed up? Again, ironic.
Taking 20 different photos of yourself to find a Facebook shot that looks spontaneous? Um hmm.

A blanket/CD combo? Sigh, no.

I think you're reading it wrong.

Weezer doesn't do irony. I think that's why so many people have no idea what to make of them post-Pinkerton--because the crap they're producing sounds like it's being produced with an inordinate amount of snark, aimed toward a smarmy hipster audience.

But it is in fact just the completely sincere (and yet still profoundly farked up) product of Rivers Cuomo's bizarre and counterintuitive absolute sincerity. Rivers Cuomo is, ironically, maybe one of the most straightforward musicians in the world. When he says he likes Top-40 hits, he absolutely 100% means it. When he admits to creepy sexual predilections with underage Asian fans, he has no idea how creepy it actually is. The thing is, it's just that no one can believe this is the case, because irony is very much the dominant mode of contemporary cultural expression.

Note: none of what I've said should be taken as an endorsement of post-Pinkerton Weezer (I like about two and a half songs on Ratitude); I'm just honestly trying to grapple with the decisions Cuomo keeps making, and this theory (cribbed in part from Chuck Klosterman) is what so-far makes the most sense to me.

that's true. ever consider maybe the guy is just a farkin weirdo?

Right. The Snuggies thing is totally earnest. He genuinely believes in Snuggies.

headlessparrot: Weezer doesn't do irony.

Lots of big words in that post of yours, but you fail to explain how including a Snuggy with their album is a non-ironic, sincere act. Are you saying they think the Snuggy is so cool that they wanted all their fans to have one?

Also, doesn't Cuomo specifically admit to irony in Beverly Hills? Saying that he wants to be there in the chorus and then admitting he doesn't in the last verse?

I don't know what you think irony means, but if this is not irony, I don't know what is.

haven't care for any output they've had since pinkerton (like the vast majority of near-30 year olds I know), but this is really pretty freaking funny. I'm tempted to buy it just for the stupid snuggie.

I still miss my old weezer shirt from HS though. It had all the band members wearing elvis jumpsuits, and on the back it said brush your teeth and do your homework.

holy crap, heres the shirt.

Link (new window)

phedex: holy crap, heres the shirt.

Link (new window)

Is it as cool as you remembered?

Treygreen13: jhva3: headlessparrot: Weezer doesn't do irony.

Lots of big words in that post of yours, but you fail to explain how including a Snuggy with their album is a non-ironic, sincere act. Are you saying they think the Snuggy is so cool that they wanted all their fans to have one?

Also, doesn't Cuomo specifically admit to irony in Beverly Hills? Saying that he wants to be there in the chorus and then admitting he doesn't in the last verse?

I don't know what you think irony means, but if this is not irony, I don't know what is.

The final lyrics of Beverly Hills are that he can't go there because he just doesn't belong. He wasn't born into it, so he'll never be cool enough.

The truth is I don't stand a chance
It's something that you're born into
And I just don't belong

No I don't
I'm just a no-class beat down fool
And I will always be that way
I might as well enjoy my life
And watch the stars play

He doesn't say he doesn't want to go, just that his dream is unrealizable.

Anyway, not to go all "irony police" on a thread or anything, but nothing here is "ironic" in the traditional sense. It is probably better to drop the whole "irony" concept in the discussion, since it really doesn't apply here.

That's slicing the bologna a little thin there buddy, but a fair interpretation. Even if that last verse wasn't there, I'd still say the song drips with irony/sarcasm.

Now answer me this: how the hell is a Weezer-branded Snuggy not ironic?

How bad does your band have to suck when cross promotion with Snuggies® seems like a good idea?

Depends.

phedex: holy crap, heres the shirt.

Link (new window)

That's pretty funny.

So...has anyone else heard the album? IGN's review pretty much sums up how I feel about it. The tone of the album is not too heavy and some songs veer in the direction of synth-pop, which I thought were the only bright spots on Make Believe. Mrs. GAR, who has been a big fan since the beginning and sports a =w= tattoo on her foot, is still kinda meh on the whole album so far.

/but I liked Green and Maladroit so what do I know...

jhva3: headlessparrot: Weezer doesn't do irony.

Lots of big words in that post of yours, but you fail to explain how including a Snuggy with their album is a non-ironic, sincere act. Are you saying they think the Snuggy is so cool that they wanted all their fans to have one?

Also, doesn't Cuomo specifically admit to irony in Beverly Hills? Saying that he wants to be there in the chorus and then admitting he doesn't in the last verse?

I don't know what you think irony means, but if this is not irony, I don't know what is.

Honestly? Yeah.

If I had to guess I'd say that Rivers really does honestly love the Snuggie and think everyone should have one. An alternate explanation is he's more or less uncritically doing the KISS-branding thing because he genuinely thinks it's cool for a band to extend into all facets of merchandising, in the same way that he seems to really, really like contemporary pop music geared toward children (seriously: there are recent interviews where he talks about how much he loves some of the Disney Channel-associated tween acts. Art and commerce are obviously crazy-tied up in that addled brain of his, and he has no problem with it).

As for irony, I think you're taking a pretty limited view of what the term means. In the traditional sense, yes, you could argue that the reversal in "Beverly Hills" is ironic. But that's simple, straightforward, situational irony, and is not particularly profound. It is the kind of irony that six year olds understand. And, given the persona of Cuomo (which I think is less persona than it is a pretty accurate capture of his actual character), it's pretty abundantly clear that he doesn't belong, even if you omit that last verse--so that last verse really is just the full-circle, hyper-literal and sincere expression of feeling. In other words: the song would be far, far more ironic if that last verse was missing, because then there would be a discord between message and meaning.

Still, when I use irony I mean it in a much broader, abstract, academic and hipster-friendly sense that Treygreen13 is (perhaps rightly) deriding.

So I'll rephrase: people love to read a contrarian, secondary, discordant, snarky, we're laughing, but actually just at you, so you should join us in laughing at you and then we can all laugh together meaning into everything that Rivers Cuomo does ("He can't be serious?"). Maybe they even HOPE to be able to read it into what he does, on account of it seems inexplicable by any other metric. But they shouldn't, because Rivers is in reality a very simple, surface level artist, with minimal appreciation for the idea of secondary meaning in ANY capacity. I mean, has there ever been a Weezer song that wasn't absolutely hyper-literal (even on the good albums)? He is incapable of subterfuge. He is incapable of deception. What you see is absolutely what you get when it comes to the music of Rivers Cuomo.

I'm not particularly concerned with convincing you on the matter. I think the theory holds up well, and it was enough to make me--at least momentarily--reassess how I felt about Weezer (not for long, though, because sincere or not, their recent stuff is still pretty bad). But you're free to disagree.

Treygreen13: Because to have irony, one must have an expectation of a contrary event happening.

These two things were unrelated up to this point, and thus cannot be ironic.

If Weezer wrote a song called, "I Hate Snuggies And You Should Never Buy One" and then sold this snuggie/cd combination, it would be ironic.

You're trying too hard. The "expectation of a contrary event" in this case is that Snuggies are associated in popular culture with being uncool soccer mom textiles, not the thing you would think a cool rock star (no matter how self-effacing) would endorse. By endorsing said uncool textile he uses irony to simultaneously make fun of the uncool item, lampoon the practice of celebrity endorsements, and further his persona as a humble, self-effacing nerd.

As I read the headline, I thought "Weezer". I don't really have a horse in this race, I like some of their songs; but the whole "we're postmodern/look how clever we are for seizing on some cheezy mass-market crap" thing has kind of run its course with me.

/Scuttles back to the darkness of the basement

Treygreen13: Because to have irony, one must have an expectation of a contrary event happening.

That is an ultra-narrow definition of the word(you're thinking of dramatic irony), which explains why you don't seem to think any of this is ironic. The irony I am talking about is verbal irony also known as sarcasm. Please, if you are going to refer to yourself as the "irony police" at least use the terminology correctly.

headlessparrot: But that's simple, straightforward, situational irony, and is not particularly profound.

I make no claims as to the profundity of the irony. I am just saying that it exists.

headlessparrot: I'm not particularly concerned with convincing you on the matter.

Then why did you write a multi-paragraph response?

headlessparrot: Still, when I use irony I mean it in a much broader, abstract, academic and hipster-friendly sense that Treygreen13 is (perhaps rightly) deriding.

Treygreen13 doesn't know what he is talking about, see above.

NorCalLos: phedex: holy crap, heres the shirt.

Link (new window)

Is it as cool as you remembered?

Not really. Probably the bush '94 tour shirt would be cooler to still have.

You're referring to irony as a rhetorical device. That's not what the guy up the thread accused them of.

I remember reading an interview Rivers did with the Cleveland Scene magazine and he stated quite clearly there was no irony in the song Beverly Hills - it was straightforward and honest.

Since then, I've just come to realize he's never really been that ironic. Just a little too honest and probably just a downright weird guy.

Treygreen13: Here's some irony. I thought you weren't a self-righteous cockbag, but in reality you are.

It is funny, because I was expecting you to just be an ordinary dude, but you're actually a pretentious little cockbite.

You know what's ironic: a guy who calls himself the "irony police" calling me pretentious(you should look that one up after you look up irony). You want to talk about "irony in the traditional sense," and then when it turns out that what you mean by "in the traditional sense" is "what I learned in Junior High School English," and I called you out on it, you get going with the name calling.

If you can't handle being told you're wrong, try opining on something you know more about next time.

Treygreen13: DontBeSoDigital: I remember reading an interview Rivers did with the Cleveland Scene magazine and he stated quite clearly there was no irony in the song Beverly Hills - it was straightforward and honest.

Since then, I've just come to realize he's never really been that ironic. Just a little too honest and probably just a downright weird guy.

I suppose the irony is that we're sitting around arguing about the irony of a song that was written with no intent of irony.

/irony

I hope that was irony because it certainly doesn't fit your definition of irony.

jhva3:
Then why did you write a multi-paragraph response?

Because I think that even if you disagree, it's an interesting academic exercise to think about it. Beyond that, that you haven't been able to tell me anything that makes me fundamentally question my theory tells me there might be something to it. If you were offering some alternative, I might be more inclined to think that you aren't just being contrarian for the sake of being contrarian (which wouldn't be ironic, just dick-ish).

Plus, I (over)think in multiple paragraphs. I'm a graduate student in English (and not at all proud of the fact). It's contaminated every aspect of my life. My personal e-mail correspondences are often in excess of 1000 words. Most of my friends hate me for them. A very select few find them charming. I'll try not to send you any.