My Video

This political video is a spoof of the old Budweiser beer commercials where a number of friends call each other and just say "Whassup." The modified commerical is intended to effect the audience in several ways -- to stimulate all parts of the truine brain.

The repeated use of the word "Whassup" is intended to stimulate the reptilian brain. It triggers an involuntary reaction in the mind, and also by repetition burns the term into the memory. It is important to note that this memorization is involuntary -- you learn the phrase through the repetition. The reptilian brain recognizes the word "whassup" both from the previous uses in this commercial and the previous Budweiser commercial and involuntarily says, "this is familiar to me." The commerical takes the phrase one step further, moving from "whassup" to men crying.

While the reptilian brain only sees the pattern of the words, the limbic brain takes this one step further and associates the crying and the pictures with the emotions displayed. Thus, the limbic brain sees the unemployed person's pain, the bankrupt person's pain that leads him to attempt suicide, and the pain of the person in Iraq. The limbic brain takes the pictures, sounds and words and gets a "feeling" from the overall piece of individuals in distress.

The neocortex is able to take the same images, sounds and words and analyze them for action. For example, while the reptilian brain sees a person in a windstorm, and the limbic brain sees a person in distress, the neocortex makes an intellectual connection between the image and the circumstance of Hurricane Katrina. The neocortex goes further and sees the image as a swipe at the Bush administration and ultimately an endorsement of Barcak Obama. Similarly, the images of the soldier in Iraq, the downward spiral of the stock market, the unemployed person looking resignedly at the Classified section of the newspaper, are all interpreted by the neocortex as commentaries on the Republican administration. The neocortex takes the images in the advertisement, and processes them with other information to come up with both a complete story and a plan of action based upon that story. The reptilian sees, the limbic feels, and the neocortex analyzes. And that, is what's up.