It has come to pass that Pete Wentz (the frontman of Fall Out Boy) has married Ashlee Simpson. You know, the one who did the infamous jig after BOO SHE FAILED onstage. It was parodied in Family Guy and everything.
As much as Simpson’s dancing skills are worth, the marriage is clearly a one-sided commitment. After all, Wentz is clearly the more talented singer in the relationship. If he’s been lipsyncing, at least he hasn’t been caught yet – which is more than Ashlee can say.
As much as I know many teenage girls want into Pete’s undoubtedly slanty-haired pants, he hands down misunderstands the purpose of a title. His ridiculous attitude is best described by a track on Fall Out Boy’s first truly commercially successful disc: “I Slept with Someone in Fall Out Boy and All I Got Was This Stupid Song Written About Me”. Arrogant, snarky and scrolls when you load it on an iPod! Now that’s edgy.
It’s not really appropriate to hate on someone for executing on the capitalist approach, though. Wentz is obviously either very aware of market conditions, or has up to date industry insider advice that lets him rake in millions of dollars. Like DeAndre Way, the “four P marketing mix” is completely satisfied. Woohoo! Now I’ll get traffic from angry fangirls AND communications students!
Product: Simplistic, catchy pop-punk/emo lyrics.
Place: Whereever you can crack open LimeWire and poorly mangle the name of the band. Is it “fallout boy”? Is it “fall out boys”? Is it “that song with the long title, and omg i think it had dance dance in it”? All of the above queries will function equally well.
Price: Ranges from free to “I bought a concert ticket. And a plane ticket to Phoenix because they recorded an album there!”
Promotion: Actually waves his wang on the Internet and gets away with it. Yes, seriously.
Unfortunately from the capitalist businessman perspective, Wentz has made a critical error in marrying Tapdancing Simpson: he’s now no longer ‘available’ for the mass of slashfiction writing girls in the crowd (oh god it burns, don’t actually click it. There are PAGES of Google results for this kind of stuff. My search history is forever tainted.)
Not that I expect it will impact his bottom line, but it dates him as an old man and limits his future potential for album sales. Hah, Pete! You’re soon to be 29! Your kids are going to be all kinds of screwed up!
With a wife, Pete will be less able to continue his oft-mentioned bisexual exploits. After all, if he only kind of wishes that he was gay then the only thing holding him up is that he’s “not a real big fan of penises.” After all, “anything above the waist is fair game.” Might it just be clever marketing strategy and image construction? Here’s a hint: kissing your fellow male bandmates on stage is pretty gay, whether you admit it or not. Why dance around the label when it applies? (I follow the Homer Simpson school of tolerance and acceptance: I like my beer cold, my TV loud and my homosexuals fa-laming. Wentz’s use of “guyliner” meets the last criteria perfectly.)
A constant debate on Wikipedia about Fall Out Boy’s style of music relates to whether it’s ’emo’ or not. (You can find the same debates on any “post-hardcore” band talk page, but I digress.) Another application of cluebat is necessary: when one tries to kill themselves by purposely overdosing on Ativan in a Best Buy parking lot, that’s pretty emo. While it isn’t as dramatic as a wrist-slitting, the Simple Plan “God Must Hate Me” quotient drastically increases when one:
- has their mother take them to the hospital before the drugs have a chance to start acting up,
- listens to a ridiculously depressing song, Jeff Buckley’s cover of Hallelujah beforehand, and
- writes about the experience in two separate songs on one’s next album – an example:
I’m sitting out dances on the wall
Trying to forget everything that isn’t you
I’m not going home alone
Cause I don’t do too well on my ownGag. Comparable to My Chemical Romance.
In conclusion:
Next time, on the !grammys: I avoid admitting that I can hit 100% on the vocals to pre-popularity track “Dead on Arrival” in Rock Band after a few beers, or a large glass of rum. Also, Simple Plan may or may not get called out, but since God already hates them I don’t really need to do much. Given that one of my latest comments was left by someone with the alias love.pete.wentz… I’m expecting an interesting response here.
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