A Fuzzy Memory

When I was a child, there was only one journalist I trusted, and that was Stick Stickly. We return now to the domain of the weird ass early years of Nickelodeon, back when the network was apparently in film school and obsessed with student art flicks, willing to try anything, no matter how bizarre it might seem in hindsight. Stick was the host of Nick In The Afternoon, a programming block on the network that ran summers 94-98 every weekday afternoon. While likely the most uncreative fictional character ever made, he holds a special place in my heart, and apparently many others as well. Some claim him to be boring and uninspired in design, but I think he's brilliant. I mean, who else besides children used popsicle sticks for entertainment? This is why he succeeded, because he was a visual medium they understood. I don't really remember much about Stick Stickly, I just remember Stick Stickly himself. I remember that he existed, and that he really made me happy. Much like Face, he...

    For as long as I've been alive, everyone around me has scrambled to mute the television as soon as an ad comes on. In fact, it isn't even just on television. Ads on Spotify, Youtube, advertising in general is considered a nuisance of the highest degree. So why do I have such a particularly fond feeling for it? I suppose a part of it could be nostalgia, certainly, because a lot of the ads that I recall happily are ads from when I was younger and that takes me back to a...well, I won't say a better time, but, you know what I mean. Either way, advertising to me has always been a source of comfort in one way or another. Hell, sometimes, late at night, I'll even channel surf until I discover a paid programming block and just let my television relay that back at me for the next few hours uninterrupted. There's just something safe inside of the advertising world. Something familiar in a world so teeming with blatant lies and corporatism. I just don't know what that...