Mad Avenue Blues: "Business Models Lost in Space"
Sometimes, for brief moments we hope, satire is all we have left.
Mad Avenue Blues is a satire for our times, this discontented summer, this seeming nadir of media fortunes. Set to Don McLean's "American Pie," it's brilliant, wholly watchable for its full 9:21 run. It's done by the pseudonymic "LMcDuff08," who has a YouTube page with other satires. As John Battelle has suggested, watch it several times to get all the jokes.
"Oh and there we were all in one place. Our business models lost in space."
Mainly, it focuses on the cratering of the old ad world, and on network TV. Newspapers have a nice, supporting role with such lines as:
"I asked the man who ran the Times about turning dollars into digital dimes. But he just frowned and walked away….I went down to the corner store where I'd bought the broadsheet years before. But the man just said the paper didn't pay."
So "if algorithms got you cross-eyed" and "the digital revolution has taken you for a ride," enjoy and pass along.