Trashing the Web 2.0 Bubble

I’ve always had a lot of respect for Marc Andreessen and his accomplishments, both past and present. Since people have at best an ephemeral sense of history, everybody has now turned into a Google fanboy (Did Sergey marry? No! Say it ain’t so! Did he wear a black swimsuit on the beach, Austin Powers style? Are we uber-pathetic for giving a crap?). But Marc was around before Googmania and had a pretty big hand in kick-starting the Web boom.

Anyhoo – I recently heard that Marc was blogging and decided to check it out. In a funny and insightful post here, he trashes the idea that Silicon Valley and the consumer web is riding a bubble.

Here is a money quote in case you still aren’t convinced: “In closing, I’d be the last person to say that I never roll my eyes at the next startup that’s doing online wiki-based popularity-ranked video-podcast mobile social dating widgets for the dog and cat owner market. But a bubble? I doubt it.”

Good stuff!

Boxers, Briefs and Indians

In one’s lifetime, an intellectually curious individual must face many seemingly intractable questions. For Newton, the question dealt with an apple’s fall. For Einstein, the question dealt with the relativity of time.

Alas, while I have neither the brains nor the aptitude of the aforementioned two, I must ask a similar toughie in this post: Why do Indian people love briefs? Why do they hate boxers?

Anyone who grew up in India knows this fact – everyone wears briefs. Unlike the famous query posed of Bubba, no Indian politician was ever asked: boxers or briefs? This is mostly because the question has no meaning to Indos, but also because Indian politicians tend to be crusty old men. Look at our poor old ex-prime below; if he was posed said question, the visualization would be exceedingly barf-worthy.

India’s most trusted underwear brand is VIP Frenchie (which was later involved in a fierce battle of testicular control with America’s own Jockey. In this particular case, the French did not surrender).

In either case, our culture’s warm bear-hug of an embrace for briefs was symbolized in a seminal Frenchie commercial. It was many things to Indian people – it was radical, it was edgy, it was funny, it rooted for the underdog.

Scene One: A geeky dude sits alone and depressed on a park bench. He wears a hat not unlike those favored by old Jewish men in Palm Beach.

Scene Two: A babe and her boyfriend pull up in a motorcycle. The babe has big, big 80s hair and is yet to figure her way around a makeup kit. Boyfriend is a buff dude with a slick combover. He looks like a guy you might encounter in a gas station.

Scene Three: Nerdboy looks up into the heavens and yells: “What does he have that I don’t have?”.

Instead of the obvious answer (muscles, looks, money and social skills), the commercial cuts to Boyfriend in a dark room with no clothes on except for a VIP Frenchie. Critical detail: The brief is a patchwork, nay, a collage of multiple bright colors. The only ray of light in the room focuses on the, ahem, package, much to the distress of young boys like myself and old Indos not accustomed to nudity.

Now that’s a commercial I’d like to see during a Super Bowl.

Check out a new Frenchie video: