One Man’s Mission

Hello People, Meg here. What you are about to witness is amazing—astonishing even. A Super Duper Superfan of CuteOverload.com has come forward to give you, the C.O. audience, a gift. A gift of Chick Icons! Here’s the story in his own words. Alan—the stage is yours.
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One day, my co-worker pointed me at cuteoverload.com and I knew, oh, I knew that we had reached a point of stabilization in society.  The Rules of Cute really resonated and I made the conscious choice to change my iChat icon to the cuteoverload icon. The next day, it made sense to dress it up a little bit… it was a cold day in San Francisco and I’m sure the little chickie must have been freezing as well.  So Chickie got a black shirt and suddenly, Meg Frost, the legend herself, pinged me on iChat. It was like meeting Mickey Mouse at Disneyland. 

Admittedly, the black t-shirt was awfully cute. But in our brief virtual conversation, I suggested I might try another variation, say, "Pete Doherty." Meg, to my surprise, said, ‘who’s that?’ and alas, within seconds, she sent me a brilliant picture of a finely cracked-out Pete and within minutes, I dropped my next meeting and cranked out (so to speak) the first large-scale Pete Duckerty in Keynote 3 (must plug my product).

And much to my surprise, Duckerty became the rage across campus and my buddy list was littered with cracked out Duckerty’s.  And when demand exceeds supply, what is a genteel marketer to do?

The rules of cute can only take you so far.  Finding the second cute target was no easy task. Was this cute icon thing going to be the next big thing or was it going to be another "Home Alone 2." Stressed, I took to the pub where upon my friend Yvette consoled me. She has been a life-long Johnny Depp fan and when was he cuter than in Pirates of the Carribean, riffing off the not-so-cute Keith Richards?  And John Sparrow made his way through buddy lists across campus.

Riding on the "Empire Strikes Back" of icons, I chit-chatted and hob-nobbed with cute wonks, quite certain that fraternity is a spontaneous formation that keeps society ticking, as gears in a clock. And realizing that I had gone from my independent and quite punk attitude to now a significant part of the cute underground, I relished back to the days of old, and since few would understand a Matthew Barney duck, I found #3, Brad Pitt, in Fight Club, Before Angelina Jolie, etc., etc., when it seemed the American colony was young enough to be shocked by a few boys brooking noses and such. Ah, "Return of the Jedi."

The pressure was on, and I was flown to meet the illustrious Karl Lagerfeld. And in his presence, and the presence of his court, I was reminded of Versailles and elegance and, well, all things cute. So late, late night, after a New York-styled evening, I cleared off the cigarettes and alcohol and and sat down to draw Kaiser duck… belt buckle and all.

Sulking back to San Francisco after seeing the brightest points of cuteness 2006, I couldn’t help but feel a tad goth, if you will. A friend asked, ‘when you go to a goth party, what do you take?’ I responded, ‘Nothing. I have darkness in my heart.’ And to that, I tried to trace my goth instinct back through Bauhaus, Joy Division… But that couldn’t be it. There was more. And amidst that dark joy that is that last moment of sunset, I remembered the Muppets’ episode starring Alice Cooper, where cute met dark cute. The granddaddy of goth.

Having given up any more cute tendencies, I swore off the ducks for a while (it must have been 3 days even). And it was Oscar season. Given my ADD, I don’t see a lot of movies, but the brokeback phenomenon was clearly all around. And what could be cuter than that?

But Heath was looking a little lonely, so #2 was born. Peace at last.  On to other things.  Really.

What could be cuter than a duck singing Robot Rock?

Having forbidden myself access to the cute_overload.key file, I avoided iChat where friends egged me on to ‘just do one more.’  Like Elvis should have done, I refused. But cuteness was everywhere. There’s something so cute about brooding. And something so cute about sitting in a darkened apartment, glistening at Gotham, wondering where it all went wrong. We need defenders for the cute. We need Batduck!

It took nearly three months in cute icon stupor to realize I had a problem. The edge. The happenstance. The unbearable lightness of being! The more pressure, the more cute karma. And in the vigilance, and in the strife, and in the keeping it all together, Alex! I could have done wonders with a little more adult supervision. Look at me now!

Safely back, I saw cuteness in everything. And a renewed hope, that I was well past ‘Jar Jar’ and the "Phantom Menace," I was on the green run of cuteness. Here’s an idea, here’s another. What could be cuter than shameless self promotion?  Cute pushing cute!

Then the boys complained.

The first time I went to Tokyo, I surmised three points of culture.  London, her majesty’s center.  New York, that bitter little colony, palely reflecting her majesty’s witty burbs. And now Tokyo, closing the loop, recycling and repurposing western culture – better than it originally started.  And in the same way that Japan overtook the world economic production of cars, computers and gadgets, in the malls, in the streets, in the subways, in the mangas, in the parks, in the kiosks – cute!  They know cute better that we do (or did, now that Meg brought the torch back to the colonies). And it hit me late one night, that this cute icon exercise, needed an ending to take it back to where it began. The essence of cute.

With the discipline of a mathematician, I embarked on a treacherous adventure, not knowing when it would start, not knowing when it would end. The red pill? The rabbit hole? The mobius strip of icons, recursion set its course. #14. Is there anything left to do? Little plastic purses, hair clips, and radios?

Obey! Yay!

The revolution will be cute!

Sincerely,
"@", or hello_ace@mac.com

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I told you it was amazing! Stheriously; to use an icon, simply right-click on it to save to your desktop. Then, follow the instructions with your particular chat program to use.

THANK YOU, Alan!