{"id":72,"date":"2018-02-15T10:54:38","date_gmt":"2018-02-15T18:54:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lostboyfriend.net\/blog\/?p=72"},"modified":"2025-07-01T11:56:53","modified_gmt":"2025-07-01T18:56:53","slug":"test-culture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lostboyfriend.net\/blog\/test-culture\/","title":{"rendered":"Test Culture"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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I\u2019ve named this journal \u201cTest Culture\u201d because of an on-line campaign I was working on where every ad I was making was a \u2018test.\u2019 And I thought that was unusual.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThese are all tests? So this is a Test Campaign? A preliminary before the \u2018Real\u2019 campaign?\u201d<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I thought, \u2018this is going to be great! I\u2019m going to make a lot of money off this campaign.\u2019<\/em> It was not to be. The \u2018test ads\u2019 were the campaign. A Test Campaign<\/strong>. I never quite understood why this particular client called them tests rather than, you know, ads. They ran several of these test campaigns and each one looked like a \u2018regular\u2019 campaign.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Groan.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

At some point I realized this practice could be considered a culture. A Test Culture. A culture where nothing was definitive, a seemingly risk free way of doing things where there were no mistakes, only tests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe ran these ads and they failed. But that\u2019s ok, they were only tests.\u201d – fictional Ad Exec.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

To me, it felt like a method to protect people\u2019s self esteem. These test campaigns were the campaigns. They were tests in name only.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The more I thought about it, the more I started to wonder what this actually meant. You test things to make sure they do what you intend them to do. That\u2019s the test stage. Once they pass the tests, then you go live. You don\u2019t send the proofs out live. That\u2019s crazy thought. Nobody does that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, if you are sending the test out live, what are you doing? Are you taking unnecessary chances it\u2019ll do as intended? Are you throwing pasta at a wall, see what sticks? Are you too poor, lazy, incompetent, to run tests? Sounds risky, huh. What would a Test Culture be? Would it be a  non-definitive untested establishment willing to throw out non-definitive untested materials on the public\u2026 to see what happens?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019re all stars in the test culture?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I began to see the the phrase Test Culture as representing our culture, as our culture in the United States of America (USOA). This is the Great Experiment, right? Democracy, equal rights, freedom of speech, all that. We are a Test Culture. When I came to that \u2018Great experiment\u2019 quote, it started to make sense.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe establishment of our new Government seemed to be the last great experiment for promoting human happiness.\u201d
\u2013 George Washington<\/em><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Great Experiment, Test Culture, ppffttt, it\u2019s the same, well to me anyway. Personally, I like Test Culture better because both words have multiple definitions that move in multiple directions. Just play along, ok.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We are being tested in this culture, and currently more than ever before. If we pass this test, this test culture, I wonder, will we be ready for real culture?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve named this journal \u201cTest Culture\u201d because of an on-line campaign I was working on where every ad I was making was a \u2018test.\u2019 And I thought that was unusual. \u201cThese are all tests? So this is a Test Campaign? A preliminary before the \u2018Real\u2019 campaign?\u201d I thought, \u2018this is going to be great! I\u2019m […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":89,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[16,17],"class_list":["post-72","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cheesegrating","tag-design","tag-thought"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lostboyfriend.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lostboyfriend.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lostboyfriend.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lostboyfriend.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lostboyfriend.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/lostboyfriend.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":273,"href":"https:\/\/lostboyfriend.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72\/revisions\/273"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lostboyfriend.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/89"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lostboyfriend.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lostboyfriend.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lostboyfriend.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}