The Copywriter Underground

In my 23 years of pitching, I’ve never never once been tempted to bare it all (doing both myself and civilization at large a favor), but in a copywriting market ravaged by a plummeting economy and the digital era, one recently laid-off copywriter flew the nearly-full Monty in pursuit of a new job.

We’d like to definitively state that we applaud his initiative (if not his abs):

Yes - even in the crowdsourced, IP-is-dead era of instant communication, sex sells. (Though we're not sure if this will.)

MaleCopywriter.com features Lawson Clarke (a lot of Lawson Clarke), and we think it’s a bold move – or a desperate, pre-mid-life crisis cry for help.

Either way, it’s hilarious.

Found via Crindalyn (twitter), this Advertising Age article by Bob Garfield (it’s a link economy, eh) spells out the sordid details:

The website isn’t especially robust or razzle-dazzle, but it does embrace a number of genuinely inspired elements, including the URL itself — which is paradoxically generic and revealing at the same time — and a wildly stupid/funny welcome page. This consists of a paunchy and hairy Clarke himself, sprawled nude on a bearskin rug, à la Playgirl centerfold circa 1970, pursing his lips like Zoolander and fig-leafed by circa-1970 portable TV.

It, of course, is playing “The Star-Spangled Banner,” like a local TV station’s end-of-broadcast-day sign-off, circa 1970. The logo, which is really, really big, consists of girly silhouettes surrounding the words “Male Copywriter” in a go-go font, circa 1970.

Sure, creatives have long taken creative risks while hunting new clients and jobs, but forcing an exclamation point on this whole hairy, beefcake-y affair is Gaylord’s only half-joking contention that a lot of formerly well-paid copywriters could be hoisting shock sites over the next few years in pursuit of a new job:

This is maybe not the best time ever to be a copywriter. If you have a job, you will probably lose it within the next couple of years, 10 years max but very possibly before Labor Day. If you do not at present have a job, it’s time to take a long hard look at a new career in a sector of the economy not being ravaged by digital technology:

* diagnostic-imaging technician
* casual-dining assistant manager
* burglar

Please understand that when the president talks about “retraining,” he’s not talking about steel-mill workers (those guys have long since donned green scrubs and started processing MRI scans for $12.25 an hour). He’s talking about you. Act now or risk being a freelancer/barista for a long, long time.

Overstated? Probably. Wholly untrue? Not even close.

In the meantime, we salute Mr. Clarke, though we hasten to add there’s absolutely no reason for him to get up and see us out. We’ll find our own way.

Keep writing (fully clothed, thank you), Tom Chandler.