>>> The News: JAY KAY!
By staff writer Amir Blumenfeld
February 18, 2004
The breakdown (for college people)
The real news (for boring people)
Polaroid Warns Film Users Not to ‘Shake It'
LONDON (Reuters) – Outkast fans like to “shake it like a Polaroid picture,” but the instant camera maker is warning consumers that taking the advice of the hip-hop stars could ruin your snapshots.
However, other common hip-hop advice such as “flossing” and “hit them cono's in them lolo's girls” is still completely valid and vouched for by most dentists.
Outkast's number one hit “Hey Ya” includes the “shake it” line as a reference to the motion that amateur photographers use to help along the self-developing film.
Never has Outkast been so nerdy. Well, not since their 1996 single, “Ain't No Table like the Periodic Table of Elements…Nigga”—which drew mild criticism from closeout furniture stores.
But in the “answers” section on the Polaroid Web site, the company says that shaking photos, which once helped them to dry, is not necessary since the modern version of Polaroid film dries behind a clear plastic window.
To be fair to Outkast, the original lyric “shake it like you used to shake a polaroid picture before they invented that new modern version of Poloroid film that dries behind a clear plastic window” did not have the same “flair” as the final version.
The image “never touches air, so shaking or waving has no effect,” the company said on its Web site.
“Unless of course youre greeting somebody or telling them goodbye, in which case shaking and waving is quite crucial,” the company said on a completely different website.
“In fact, shaking or waving can actually damage the image. Rapid movement during development can cause portions of the film to separate prematurely, or can cause ‘blobs' in the picture.”
“Blobs.” Is that an official photographic term? Blobs? Get the fuck out of here. Just go alright, you're brand of unofficial “photography” is a fucking disgrace, I'll develop my own film through different means, THANK YOU!
A Polaroid spokesman added: “Almost everybody does it, thinking that shaking accelerates the development process, but if you shake it too vigorously you could distort the image. A casual shake typically doesn't affect it.”
The same goes for babies. In fact 3 out of 10 casually-shaken babies tested in Polaroid labs experienced accelerated reading development. Of the remaining seven, five were generally annoyed and two grew up ugly as hell.
Polaroid said its film should be laid on a flat surface and shielded from the wind, and that users should avoid bending or twisting their pictures.
Polaroid said this and Polaroid said that. Shouldn't you guys be busy doing other stuff, like say…creating a type of film that develops quicker upon shaking it? Maybe your days of blaming the black man for defaming your product are over. Just conform.
Of course, “lay it on a flat surface like a Polaroid picture,” doesn't sound nearly as cool.
Oh YOU'RE the jokester now? YOU'RE making jokes in the article now are you?! WELL, LONDON-REUTERS, YOU LEAVE THE JOKE-MAKING TO ME! JUST THE FACTS MA'AM! Fucking British, everybody's a jokester, nobody's funny…. But so it goes.