Irreverence: To Hell With Yesterday?

Today is not a bastard. Today is the offspring of yesterday. Even though the face of today, when viewed through an African eye, smugly go against the body of human tradition, which could very well be the resultant effect of cross culture borne out of the explosion of globalization, notwithstanding, the point remains that, everything that makes today tick stems from yesterday. From the political, to the economical and social doldrums, they all hang on yesterday’s thread. This is even so when you consider the fact that nothing grows out of a void, just like creativity or innovation can’t come out of a vacuum. And like the saying goes, to really appreciate today and chart tomorrow, it’s imperative one profoundly understands yesterday.

Around the 7th century, the concept of Iconoclasm emerged and expanded till it reached its largest phase in Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantine). Originally, Iconoclasm, which in Greek means “Image Smashing,” is the destruction of Christian arts, religious icons and graven images by a disgruntled faction within a given religious body. This faction would have been displeased with a prevailing status quo, hence they broke-out, somewhat regrouped into rebels, and then took-out everything that stood in representation of the said status quo within the religious body.
The early breakouts in the Roman Catholic Church smacked of Iconoclasm. Today the church parades independent factions such as: American National Catholic Church, Apostolic Catholic Church, Anglican Catholic Church, amongst others.

Over the years though, the concept of Iconoclasm has expanded beyond mere religion, it now covers any form of agitations against a prevalent status quo, be it within a Social, Governmental or Corporate entity.

So you can really understand where today’s Terrorism, Guerrilla Wars, Coups, Cessations, Mules, Whistleblowing, just to mention a few, are coming from. They all comprise of Iconoclasts that are angry at a system.

Narrowing down to our Marketing Communication community, you’d see Iconoclasm play out when certain employees that are displeased with a given status quo in an agency “angrily” break out to float their own shops, often time carting away with some portfolios or resources from their last employer. Or in the case of talents, how they now prostitute agencies like never before, jumping from one agency to the other, many times within a very short period. This trend can be argued to be good. Or bad. It all depends on who wears the shoe.

The Renaissance period in Europe was a cultural movement that spanned the whole of 14th to 17th century. This movement is used to describe how Europeans purged themselves of the restrictive ideas of the Middle Age. The ideas of the Middle Age then was heavily premised on the absolute power of God, this reflected in all the artworks in that era; the monarch or the church would have enforced compliance. However, from the 14th century, Iconoclasts resurfaced, they started questioning the myopic ideas of the Middle Age. They eventually broke away from such ideology, hence the birth of the Renaissance. The Renaissance movement did not necessarily reject the idea of God; rather, it focused on humanism. With this new focus came a pristine freedom for artists, writers, philosophers and general creative thinkers to be more inquisitive about everything around them, hence the emergence of polymaths like: Leonardo Da Vinci, Michelangelo, and William Shakespeare, amongst other greats.

The same thread of Renaissance can be traced to what inspired the great Advertising era, when giants like David Ogilvy, Leo Burnett, William Bernbach, down to the champions of modern Indian Advertising, J. Walter Thompson and D.J. Keyemer, and the frontrunners of “Aesthetic Creativity,” Burmah Shell and Dunlop, all reigned supreme.

Fast-forward to today, from the innovative Hologram, to the Augmented Reality technology, the CGIs and 3D Dynamisms, and every other bleeding edge technological advancements that characterized the 21st century, all stem from the Renaissance drive of yesterday.

Even in our ad industry, we now have a new crop of proudly Nigeria creative shops that are fiercely driven by the Renaissance spirit, and are boldly breaking away from the mold with anti-traditional creative solutions that seek to fight for recognition alongside the foreign counterparts on the global stage.

In essence, the Iconoclasm and Renaissance of yesterday have greatly inspired and driven the many spectacles of today. However, worth mentioning is the “over sabi” of today. Looking at it from the societal prism, here is the portrait:

We now have those unashamedly coming out of the closets, waving placards and demanding their right to love whomever they choose to love. We now have those cross-carpeting; the transgender(s); those strangely undergoing Male-to-Female surgeries and vice versa; those inflating their bodies with silicones, or ruthlessly piercing their skins in the name of Botox injections; those unapologetically defecating on the alter of holy matrimony, or out-rightly ditching the concept of marriage to start living an eternal life of singlehood, or living with sex dolls to meet their wild fantasies, or turning pet animals to sex mates, etcetera. Regardless the region championing all these, it’s all a global phenomenon today, just like terrorism. Globalization will always bring a newer orientation.

From the agency angle…

We now have new crop of talents that disgust at the very idea of a 9 to 5. Even when they do come on board the 9 to 5 train for survival sake, they literally hate those long winding, age-long, client-agency tissue meetings! New school of talents with very short attention span, no long thing; brevity is the functional word for them. A new pool of creative(s)that don’t give a flying monkey about nomenclatures! Talents that are good, no doubt, but majority of them are proudly well spoilers. We equally now have new breed of creative shops that repulse at the very idea of rat racing to become Group of Companies. Compact; nimble, are their operative words. To them, small but mighty is cool, redundantly big is a ministry, old and sluggish.

All the above listed attributes of today are not necessarily new, and without over flogging the fact that they all stem from yesterday, the point is, they are fiercely pronounced today.
So for us in the creative community, what’s the takeout in all of these?

Irreverence.

Irreverence not only captures the Iconoclasm and Renaissance spirit of yesterday, it equally speaks in same light to the peculiarity of today.

On the surface, the word irreverence means lack of respect for things taken seriously. But drill down to its very depth, irreverence means to intelligently disrupt a status quo by constructively interrogating worn-out ideas with a view to replacing them with better ones.

According to Sir John Hegarty, in his book titled, “Hegarty On Advertising,” he said, “The function of irreverence should be to help question and, in doing so, offer a possible solution. If irreverence becomes purely anarchic it will eventually turn in on itself and destroys its own purpose.”

Even the thought-provoking speech written and delivered by Professor Pius Adesanmi, at the 5th Innovention Series in Lagos, “Iyalaya Anybody…” was heavily premised on the ideology of irreverence.
Intelligent Irreverence is the next big thing. Little wonder thought leaders across the globe are now shouting: “Don’t just hire the brightest; hire the craziest!”

The many spooky attributes of today might as well fall under the culture of disrespect, however the pristine spirit behind it, which is irreverence, if put to intelligent use, would deliver a much simpler tomorrow. And like you’d agree, our brief as a creative community is to continuously simplify tomorrow.

Irreverence is freedom. I know you know freedom fuels creativity.
Irreverence is fearlessness; audacious ability to ask even the stupidest of question. Stupidity is still a pathway to brilliant idea anyway. Irreverence is fierce curiosity, to challenge long held standards and disrupt old concepts. And if I’m not mistaken, these very ideals of Irreverence are supposed to be the very brick on which a typical creative ad agency is built, right?

So during meetings or creative review sessions, who says the MD’s take is final when his take can be argued for the good of all, or when a floor member has a better idea that could as well topple the MD’s?

Who says the Client Service Executives should forever remain errand boys and girls when they can very well sit the clients down; then beat them up to their market analyses with a view to making the clients better in the market space?

Who says presentation is solely a role for Copywriters when an Art Director could colorfully do the same, or challenge self to rise up to such occasion?

Who says traditional creative executions borne out of traditional, condescending perspectives like, “Nigerians won’t understand that! Break/dumb it down!” should continue to be; hence we go through the motions, working those boring template of Print, TV, Radio, blah-blah-blah, when in fact we could start creating true to life solutions?

According to Amir Kassaei of DDB, in his piece that stirred up the hornet’s nest: “The End Of False Recognition,” he argued the need for creative(s) to start creating social ideas that will fill social vacuums, in other words, use your brand to fight for a REAL cause and not just creating some funky print ads etc.

And in creating social ideas that will tangibly fight a REAL societal cause, who says agencies shouldn’t start employing technocrats? Or better still, workout some strategic alliance with technocrats?

Imagine creative(s) and technocrats under one roof. Imagine the revolution.

Or you’d rather argue that creative(s) are technocrats anyway?

Well, Iconoclasm and Renaissance of yesterday might have postulated the very concept of irreverence. The spooky world of today might still be grappling with the profound opportunities of irreverence; truth is, tomorrow belongs to those who can intelligently use today’s irreverence to create magic.

… I’m Just Saying.

 

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