The mysterious street artist has inspired an Australian hotel chain to launch, what some may deem a crazy proposition.

Art Series Hotels are hiding a $15,000 Banksy in one of their Hotels for you to steal. Grab it without getting caught and it’s yours.

“The Bounty ‘No Ball Games’ is part of a series of historical note. In 2007 a group of bandits removed a section of a wall with an angle grinder because Banksy had stenciled around the ‘No Ball Games’ sign on it. The wall was later found on eBay for sale for 20,000 pounds. The lengths some people go to… Art has a history of theft and heist, one which Melbourne features in. In 1986 Picasso’s Weeping Woman was stolen from the NGV and held for ransom. It was later found in a locker at Spencer Street Station – ransom unpaid. Banksy, being Banksy has also done the reverse, and has actually snuck his work into famous galleries to hang alongside more traditional curated art. So now it’s your turn. We want to see if you can steal Banksy. We highly recommend against an angle grinder, but you will need plenty of guile and cunning. Find the art and try and steal it. If you don’t get caught it’s yours to keep. If you do get caught then back up on the wall it goes. No Ball Games will hang from 15 December. Book to stay at Art Series Hotels between 15 Dec and 15 Jan, follow us on Twitter and Facebook for hints on its whereabouts, and let the games begin.”

What a cool example of a company embracing the Barely Legal™ wave. This wave is about boundary stretching and seeing what you can get away with. The Human Truth™ is: “I like to step over the line, but only in short bursts.”™ Art Series Hotels are giving you the chance to be a cat burglar with the possibility of pulling off a big heist -but without the consequences if you get caught red handed.

However, it doesn’t belong there amongst all the serious evidence of people trying to be heard and make the world a better place.  This belongs in the Barely Legal™ wave because its a snide “joke” that’s at home in the physiological tier of Maslow’s Hierarchy.  The physiological tier involves the devolved part of us that likes titillation.  It’s about boundary stretching and taboos. I would not go so far as to say these burgers are taboo but they are stretching the line of good taste.

I have to say I’m a fan of what we call speedrepreneurs- those who rush something to the market that references a super current event or pop culture moment. This, however, just seems icky to me somehow. It reminds me of how I felt about the Halloween party at the New York law firm of Steven J. Baum (known as a ‘foreclosure mill’) where the office workers dressed up in “homeless squatter” costumes mocking people that had lost their homes.

Not Classy.

I know this “BLT Steak DC” is trying to be funny,  and even though a $58 Kobe beef, foie gras and gold leaf burger sounds like it should be classy… when you call it’s the 1% burger it’s kind of tacky in my humble opinion.  I also can’t imagine who would order a $9.99 wonderbread patty melt called the 99%…  But then again I don’t understand a lot of things they do in DC.

With this latest promotion they are targeting college campuses (surprised?):

“Plan on getting mistle-toasted this fall? The Harold & Kumar Munchies Truck will be rolling out the 12 Days of Christmas on a nationwide tour and wants to stop by YOUR school to spread some holiday cheer! Vote for your college in the participating cities below for a chance to receive a visit from The Harold & Kumar Munchies Truck – the schools with the most love may score some free munchies and killer schwag (given away on a first-come, first-served basis while supplies last, to those 18 years of age or older), including screening passes to see A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas in theaters for you and some of your fellow students!”

Barely Legal™ is the perfect home for this piece of Life Evidence™. This wave explores all things edgy and taboo. Lets face it, this decades”taboo” has evolved (or devolved?) more than last decades, and so on and so forth down through the ages. If Culturewaves was around in Victorian times, we would be posting about the latest scandalous women’s swimwear that shows a bit of leg.

So here we have it. A movie, and related marketing campaign, that embraces it’s pot smoking audience and unashamedly uses their terminology. Check out the pot-leaf laden website and play “Bong-a-long” if you so wish. Interestingly (to me being in LA), it’s looks like our rivaling colleges have exactly equal amounts of munchies!! Guess the Harold & Kumar Munchies Truck will be making two stops!

“Unleash your inner creep with the local iPhone app that covers your screen with an “alibi activity” (i.e. a fake screen) to hide the fact you’re actually snapping photos. Just upgraded, it now rocks a password-protected photo vault, automatic timer that takes photos every three seconds, and a “quick mode” that can eliminate shutter noise, not to be confused “shudder noise”, which is the weirded-out sound people make when you tell them you’ve downloaded this app.”

Look, I happen to see a lot of weird things/people when I’m out and about… that’s one of the great things about living in a kooky city like LA.  I personally love to share my adventures by snapping off some pics, but that can often be hard to do without seeming too obvious.  The last thing you want to do is draw attention to yourself and engage with said “strange situation”.  So this “stealth mode” is quite appealing to me!
The Human Truth™ of the Barely Legal™ wave is: “I like to step over the line, but only in short bursts.”™
In my opinion, that rings true for apps like this.  Some people might think snapping pics on the down low is wrong or “creepy”, but I don’t.  I guess it’s really about the circumstance you choose to use it, I see it as a little bit “over the line” but not by much.  That’s why some people are appalled by some of the products and services in the Barely Legal™ wave, and some people are titillated.  Everyone’s line is a little different.

For those of you not familiar with Afrikaan (you mean you haven’t seen District 9 or listened to Die Antwoord??), this slogan translates as “F**K OFF POLICE CAR”.

Now do you share my surprise?  At first, I thought it was even more hardcore because I thought it was implying that you can out-run the police in this car, as in “F**k the police”.   But closer inspection of the copy reads:

“Introducing the 100 strong Audi S3 Sportback flying squad. From 0 – Crime Stop in 5.5 seconds”

Apparently Audi South Africa recently negotiated a contract with the Gauteng Police Flying Squad to supply them with 100 Audi S3 Sportbacks to help with the fight against crime.

Still, cursing so blatantly in a campaign is fairly unusual.  Perhaps South Africa is a lot more tolerant of swearing -as is the case in Australia too.

Barely Legal™ is about being a bit naughty.  The Wave Essence is “Celebrating societal taboos.”  With such a high profile company like Audi testing boundaries, perhaps we’ll see a lot more of this in the future?

Ok I’m not going to get into religious debates or talk about how boundaries get pushed in the name of free speech – it’s not my job.   My job IS  about letting you know what’s going on out there and translate behavior using CultureWaves™.

Does it surprise you that this controversial New Zealand pizza chain “Hell Pizza” gets attention?  No. They have already caused worldwide media buzz with their “line crossing” ad campaigns. Seven of the pizzas are named after the seven deadly sins and the pizza boxes even have a cut-out of a coffin “for your remains.”

OK the pizza box coffins are kinda cool… but this latest offering is really poor taste – even for me!! These “Satanic buns” are especially for Easter: “for a limited time, a bit like Jesus.”

Whoa.

However, that’s just what they are going for!  Barely Legal™ is a wave that is full of boundary stretching evidence.  It’s a wave that “celebrates social taboos”.  Hell Pizza has built a brand on that very idea.  Most of us love the titillation of being a little bit “bad”, you just have to decide how much “heat” your brand/product/service can take?

The six Reddit users went through an extremely harrowing 24 hour ordeal with the NYPD for trying to access this “gallery”:

“This contemporary time capsule features 100 works of street art by artists from all over the world. There is no Guggenheim Museum for a fugitive art form whose works are sprayed and pasted on public walls in the dead of night. Instead, all of a sudden, there’s this: a renegade installation planted furtively under one of the busiest cities in the world.”

You know it’s an extreme example of Barely Legal when people can get arrested for their patronage!  Yes, wandering the bowels of New York City’s subway system is in fact illegal…in case you were wondering.

And, I guess the situation was also inflamed further because they were wearing keffiyehs around their faces because of all the dust and must have resembled “terrorists” in the darkness.  Most art gallery attendees do not experience police officers screaming: “GET THE F*CK ON THE GROUND AND DON’T MOVE, THE FIRST PERSON TO MOVE GETS THEIR F*CKING HEADS BLOWN OFF.”

But I think that was the point all along for this illicit art show.

I am writing to demand that you immediately pull your Marvel comic action figure Happy Meal promotion for preschool boys.

I am appalled that this promotion includes The Human Torch, a man on fire, and The Thing, which menacingly roars “IT’S CLOBBERIN’ TIME!” at the press of a button.

Your decision to hand little boys the horrifying spectacle of a man engulfed in flames or a menacing figure that explicitly spurs them to violence calls into question McDonald’s reputation as a family-friendly company. I urge you to end this promotion immediately.

So apparently The Fantastic Four, which is arguably the most family friendly property in comics, is horrifying and fosters violence. Never mind that fact that they promote actual family values; that guy is on fire! Obviously the CCFC can’t be bothered with troublesome things like research or facts. NO! WE MUST VALUE THESE THINGS AS THEY ARE ON THE SURFACE.

Honestly, if I was ten and some kid came at me screaming “IT’S CLOBBERIN’ TIME,” I would either be enjoying a nice game of “using your imagination” or wondering if this kid tries to bite his own ear when no one is looking. I would not, as a point of fact, consider an outdated tag line from the 1960s “menacing.”

Also fire is hot and tends to burn. Children, for the most part, know this. They also know that the Human Torch does not run around screaming in pain the whole time he is on fire because he is a superhero and not a poster boy for torture and deviance.

So please CCFC, the next time you want to make a point? Think of the children.

Yes, you read that right. I’ll let them explain because they really do have a way with copy:

“You’ve got an ex, a grudge and a valid credit card with matching billing & shipping addresses, and we’ve got crabs.  If you want a way to get back that doesn’t involve permanent damage or risk of personal injury or jail time, you now have a place to turn.”

“It’s an idea so horrible, regrettable and insulting that you could never directly endorse or request it, and we won’t ask you to. All we do is ask you for your billing and shipping addresses, and mail you out a tidy package of peculiar material with tiny, purple dots in it… those are live crabs, and they need only be sprinkled on the bedding or clothing of the one you once loved the most to ensure he/she sufferers the fullest wrath of those genital lice.”

Haha. What? I’m sorry….It’s just so dastardly. It makes you question the mindset of the person that dreamt this idea up! And, beyond that, the kind of person that actually follows through and makes a business out of it.

I’m blogging about this because I think it’s the same kind of mindset you should have when you go into an ideation session…don’t be afraid to “get crazy.”  It always easier to pull an idea back than it is to make the mundane interesting.

As Urlesque says: “Just as expected, the Internet was super excited about KFC’s newest gross-out creation: the Double Down Sandwich. Just today, brave food bloggers have checked out their local KFCs to give the sandwich a taste test”

The “Blogstorm” is so far a fairly resounding “BLECH” but maybe that’s not even the point.

Is this the “Sandwich that the Internet Built”?

The rise of Food Porn has really paved the way for this kind of over-the-top indulgence.  The success of This Is Why You Are Fat can be attributed to the  “can you believe this exists?” viral effect.  And that’s what is going on here.  I have already had several Facebook friends post links to the Double Down saying: “OMG check this out!!”

When food fits the Barely Legal™ Wave it’s usually because it’s “stepping over the line” of good taste or indulging a “taboo.”  Hardee’s has unapologetically  offered gross out options for ages. They have The Monster Thickburger and the Country Breakfast Burrito with it’s 60 grams of fat while other QSR’s have been pushing salads and light options.  Hardee’s and plenty of other chains are catering to a certain mindset: when some people choose to eat fast food, they are already committing to “being bad” so why not go all the way!!

Okay…back to the Double Down.

Slashfood has declared “We can foresee this becoming the new “hangover food” of choice.”

Twitter is ABLAZE right now:

gizmogladstone: “I’d love to see the Venn diagriam of how many people hit the KFC double down today and the sales of Pepto Bismol. How much crossover? Lots.”

henecessiteas: “Get me one too RT @CoutureKitchen: What would my followers do if I told them I was craving a Double Down from KFC?”

brentw: “so the double down was good, but when do we get the triple down? chicken, bacon, cheese, chicken, bacon, cheese, chicken FTW”

pinksugacupcake: “I want my ex to die.. I’m going to convince him to eat a double down. He will be dead before the last bite”

So there it is: The Double Down…just daring you to try it.  If the success of a product is ever measured by it’s buzz…the Colonel has come up trumps!