The basic premise is: get a bunch of (probably not sober) alpha males in a kitchen, and let them make the craziest, manliest meals they can possibly conceive of.

Apparently the idea for Epic Meal Time was created when someone filmed the shows “host” eating a Wendy’s hamburger that contained six beef patties and eighteen bacon strips to the theme song from The Terminator. They posted the footage on YouTube, where it gathered thousands of hits. From then on they decided to become the Jackass of the kitchen, where every crazy idea tops the last.

Well, it looks like it might be another attempt to translate internet popularity into TV ratings:

“NBCUniversal’s younger, male-skewing cable network has inked a deal to develop a TV version of the Web’s popular cooking show with “The Soup” producers. G4 has closed a deal to make a pilot with the team behind the hit YouTube cooking show created by Harley Morenstein and friends. The web effort, which regularly features outlandishly high-calorie dishes, has become an Internet phenomenon since its Sept. 2010 launch.”

Epic Meal Time is the epitome of the Guys and Dolls™ wave. This is the sexes at their extreme. Macho dudes and girly girls. Not many things are more macho than meals made with inconceivable amounts of meat, fast food, insane calories and Jack Daniels. The host Harley Morenstein dares you to be as manly as him. I have a feeling this macho version of Paula Deen will be a great fit for G4.

But I know HEAPS of women who would think a creche for husbands and boyfriends is a godsend.

“The “play space” comes complete with Xbox consoles, flatscreen TVs, arcade machines, a foosball table, and free hot dogs. You know — man stuff.  Unlike its kid counterpart, Mänland is not supervised, but women are required to return and collect their significant others within 30 minutes. Not to worry — a complimentary buzzer offers a friendly reminder to those who might forget.”

Retailers always have to be creative to keep people in their store for longer. The longer you are there, the more comfortable you are, the more enjoyable the shopping experience… the more likely it is that you will feel good about spending money.

IKEA has embraced the Guys & Dolls™ wave with this latest innovation. This wave is about having fun with gender stereotypes. Men being macho; women being feminine. Of course there’s exceptions to the rule (me being a case in point), but generally speaking most people can, at the very least, see the humor in these kind of things.

So next time I see a poor “manly man” sitting uncomfortably in a shoe store, holding all the bags and looking like a kidnap victim, I’ll think to myself: “I bet he wishes this Mall had a Mänland”.

You log onto their site and pick items you typically forget to buy, including shampoo and soap; razor blades; toothpaste, floss, and mouthwash; toilet paper; condoms etc.  All the kinds of things that bum a dude out when they run out.
Then before you can crack open a cold one your monthly man-essentials deliveries will begin!  Awesome doooooode!

Of course you can modify supplies and delivery dates depending on how fast or slow you go through stuff.  ‘Cause you’ll probably need to step up the condom supply when chicks see how well groomed you are…  amiright Bro? *high five*

The evidence we put into the Guys & Dolls™wave is aimed at people who unapologetically embrace the extreme characteristics of their sex.  “Give me my power tools!” “Give me my power frills”™ is the Human Truth™ because as non-gender specific as many things in society become… there will always be girly-girls and manly men.

Well now we can add these two fellas to the trend.  First is the brass knuckle meat tenderizer for when you want to show that muthaluvin’ sirloin who’s boss. Made from thick solid aluminum alloy this is one kitchen tool that’s not playin’ around.

Don’t wanna seem like a wimp when your slicing pizza?  Of course you don’t!!  Get at it with this bad boy! Pizza Boss 3000. “It’ll blast thru pepperoni, extra cheese, even those pesky anchovies. It’s built from tough engineering-grade plastics and the laser-etched stainless blade has a removable shield for easy clean-up. A great “guy gift.”

Guys and Dolls™ is about “ACUTE GENDERIZATION”. It’s seem the more permissive society becomes with crossing gender lines, the more we like to have fun with the extremes of “men being macho and women being feminine.”

During the speech, they mentioned broadening demographics from being simply a “boys console”, which has a lot of fanboys shaking in their boots that the system will fall prey to the “casualization” that Nintendo Wii lives for.

The problem I see with this is not that there’s a shortage of girl gamers, but the tools XBOX is using to recruit with have already recruited an army of girl gamers on the Nintendo Wii.  Nintendo capitalized on the rise of motion control as well as the portability and broad platform use of the Nintendo DS for the girl gamer market.

Granted, this isn’t the craziest thing that’s come out of the push for the girl gamer. Pink and purple consoles, campaigns that feature female celebrities “playing” games, and the whole line of fashion design, baby simulating and pet simulation titles have all been floating in the market.

And there’s nothing wrong with a casual gamer, in fact most people are; but to reinvent a formula you have working so well for you to tap into a market that already has been tapped with the same resource may win you over more enemies than friends.

“The special edition IXO Vino comes with a corkscrew attachment and special ‘wine-style’ wooden packaging box. The screwdriver has all the features of the standard IXO but now includes this limited edition attachment, to remove corks.”

REALLY?

Can you be that desperate for a glass of wine that you need the cork out in 3sec flat?  Maybe you’re too drunk to work a regular corkscrew- in which case you probably shouldn’t be around power tools…  Or maybe you are so lazy you can’t be bothered with all the fuss of pulling out a cork manually- if so, you should probably just hook up an IV drip because lifting a wine glass to your lips might be a struggle too.

In all seriousness though, I was really trying to work out the motivation behind this attachment.  Then it struck me.  Being the host of a party is about putting on a bit of a show and I can just see the hilarity ensuing when the IXO Vino is pulled out to refresh someone’s glass. Power tools are always “manly” and now pouring a glass of wine is too!

If they wanted these to be manly, maybe they should have picked better colors? I mean, I know the 90s are back and all but do we really need Lisa Frank color schemes on mustaches for our damn cars?

Thanks Urban Outfitters, for making this a reality- and making me weep for humanity.

So here’s the admission: I think this is one of the dumbest things I’ve ever seen. However, the same could be said for The Real Housewives, The Hills, Jersey Shore, Heidi Montag’s surgery, Bratz Dolls and Kiddie Pageants. But man, do they sell.

We all deal with a certain amount of stereotypes and lets face it they exist because there is a basis of truth most of the time. As Jerry Seinfeld says “it’s funny coz it’s true!”

So that got me thinking about the Guys & Dolls™ Wave and how it’s all about extremes.

“Give me my power tools!”  “Give me my power frills!”™  is about asserting how manly or girly you want to be, or even feel for a while. Because lets face it, the majority of us don’t want to live in this cartoonish façade of a world. Heck, apparently even Ms. Montag is having major regrets!

So generally speaking this Wave is a lot like the other Waves in the physiological category: guilty pleasures, nothing too deep and lasting, but fun.

As much as I like to portray the modern liberated woman that will never put Carlashes on my car, I will admit that there are times when I curl up with my wine, chocolate, and watch the trashiest “girliest” TV I can find.  But that’s just between you and me, okay?

A quote from Jeanne F over at Decibel Magazine sums it up better than I probably ever could, since I suppose I wear ‘boyfriend’ cut clothing on a regular basis to begin with.

“We’re all familiar with the hideous girly t-shirts (a.k.a. Look At My Tits t-shirts). Throw them in the dryer once and they shrink to Olson Twin size. There goes $25. Stick to a regular goddamn t-shirt and you won’t have that problem. Apparently, when we don’t feel like squeezing into adorable itty-bitty shirts and further compressing our tits, we’re identifying with dudes and thus require “boyfriend” attire.”

So Urban Outifitters, purveyors of everything hipster, have created a ‘new style’ of clothing (aka normal clothing) for women, and named it after men? On one level, I’m appalled. On another I’m intrigued, because it’s essentially a fashion role reversal. Guys already wear hip hugger and skinny jeans, and now girls are going to be wearing clothes normally seen as being cut for guys.

Wow.

Finally, an ad that admits the reality of what more than half the humans on the planet have to DEAL WITH monthly.  It’s a dryly, sarcastic snub at all the ridiculous imagery and messaging us ladies know as: feminine hygiene advertising.

I won’t go on and on about feminism and liberation from the mainstream notions of “unspeakable woman’s business,” because this article from Jezebel does a great job.  However, check out the rigmarole Merrie Harris, global business director at JWT (the agency which produced the ads), had to go through to get the ad made:

“After being informed that it could not use the word vagina in advertising by three broadcast networks, it shot the ad cited above with the actress instead saying “down there,” which was rejected by two of the three networks. (Both Ms. Harris and representatives from the brand declined to specify the networks.) “It’s very funny because the whole spot is about censorship,” Ms. Harris said. “The whole category has been very euphemistic, or paternalistic even, and we’re saying, enough with the euphemisms, and get over it. Tampon is not a dirty word, and neither is vagina.”

Look, I realize my personality can tend to push the boundaries of acceptability, so my radar is usually skewed to the fringe side of things. But I think we all can acknowledge that advertising that speaks directly to the human truth of who we are will always triumph.  I mean I can’t believe I’m writing a blog in 2010 about the “revolutionary” concept of saying “your period sucks!”   What other basic truths are out there that we are pussyfooting around?