The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
b-side
Thursday, March 28 2019 — 3B
CHELSEA LAUREN / WIREIMAGE
Despite their legality (or lack
thereof), fake IDs are ubiquitous
across
college
campuses.
Responsible RAs warn against
the commodity, citing the harsh
consequences of owning one: “Up
to one-year of incarceration, a fine
of $2000, or both,” according to
the Barone Defense Firm. Posters
line the walls of freshman dorms
informing students that selling a
fake ID is a punishable felony that
could lead to $10,000 in fines or
up to 5 years of jail time, or both.
And yet, the fake ID market still
persists.
Fake IDs are an art form born
out of necessity, and their muse?
Senator Frank R. Lautenberg
from New Jersey. In an act meant
to combat drunk driving in the
United States in 1984, Lautenberg
raised the drinking age from 18 to
21. The Prohibition Era showed
us laws that take away a person’s
access to alcohol won’t necessarily
deter
them
from
getting
it
anyways, so it makes sense that
Lautenberg’s bill only served to
create the fake ID market. There
are genuine concerns regarding
this rise in false identification,
but underage college students just
trying to have a good time maybe
shouldn’t have been this country’s
first priority.
The art of creating a fake
ID is an elusive one — as the
popularity of the false ID grew,
so did state precautions. IDs may
have everything from a fun bear
outline when a light is shined
on it to a fun “tricolor image of a
bridge on the front that appears
and disappears when viewed from
different from different angles.”
These characteristics are meant
to make an ID harder to copy, and
they do, but some see these simply
as obstacles to overcome on their
way to a night on the town.
With the rise of the internet, it’s
not surprising that most students
get their IDs from an online
retailer. These sites, though, tend
to rely on a business-minded
student that act as middle-men,
campus ID ambassadors if you
will. These students are the key
to the market — they gather the
customers, their details and, just
like a true artist, aren’t always
proud of their final product.
In an email interview with The
Daily, one anonymous student
discussed the difficulties of getting
an ID photo just right: “a white
background ... no shadow showing
behind the person.” Forget being
able to take high quality Instagram
photos or LinkedIn headshots, the
value of a photographer lies in
their ability to make a subject look
fresh out of the DMV. Personally,
this student “was not proud of the
way (their fake ID) turned out, just
because (they) feel that the picture
was taken too far away.”
Just because the photo has strict
guidelines doesn’t mean artists
lose all semblance of creativity.
This same student mentioned the
fun behind being from a different
state or being able to make “your
new address to be a mansion or
even a local McDonald’s.” Imagine
that — for all Schlissel does to
fight the drinking culture at the
University, someone could have
picked his address to deceive a
bouncer or a clerk at the local
liquor store. Inspiration can come
from anywhere, too. Some people
skip the “different state” thing
altogether and go international,
toting Irish or Chinese IDs that
go unquestioned. But our source
stressed that the only way to truly
test your ID’s legitimacy (other
than risk getting caught at a bar)
“is to hold it side-by-side with a
real ID from that state.”
That begs the question, though:
Is a real (expired) ID of someone
who looks like you better than
a fake ID of you? The answer
depends on your preferences. Just
like some people prefer a Rococo
era painting to that of a darker
Renaissance piece, some like the
comfort of knowing their ID is
real rather than carrying around
something totally fake. According
to our source, one detail to keep in
mind is the fact that “if the ID has
another person’s name on it, but a
picture of you, it is identity fraud”
— a legal line that most people
aren’t trying to cross when they
make their fake ID.
Just like the stone or clay
matters in sculpture, materials
matter in the art of making
fake IDs. Most state IDs use
some kind of PVC plastic or a
“synthetic paper material” called
Teslin. Teslin is useful in its
tear resistance and waterproof
qualities. That said, it also a
very easily accessible material,
making it an ideal material for
most fake IDs. One problem a
counterfeiter may run into with
Teslin, though, is the legibility
of the inkjet printing, a simple
problem that can be detrimental
if not properly handled. Even still,
some state IDs are made out of
polycarbonate and will break in
half upon enduring the infamous
“bend test.” Our source even said
others may even go so far as to
steal a DMV ID machine, taking
out some of the fun of figuring out
what exactly goes into making an
ID, but producing a high-quality
ID nonetheless.
Aside from ordering a fake ID,
there are numerous places where
someone could learn how to
make an ID themselves. One site,
King of Fakes, offers a tutorial on
how to DIY a fake ID — all you
need is a printer, some photoshop
skills and a template to follow for
the ID. It seems simple, but like
most DIY projects, it’s probably
best left to the professionals. And
despite improved technology, like
3D printing, our source isn’t any
more optimistic about the future
of the DIY ID. To them, new
technology “can’t make fake IDs
more believable, because your ID
is either real or fake.”
While it may seem a daunting
task to make your own ID, no one
ever became a renowned artist
by being scared. The art of the
fake ID is an untapped source of
inspiration. If Billy McFarland
was able to copy his debit card
magnetic strip onto a piece of steel,
successfully making your own fake
ID is probably not too crazy of a
dream — just an illegal one.
ARTIST
PROFILE
IN
EMMA CHANG
Senior Arts Editor
It’s
surprisingly
difficult
to go back and re-establish a
perspective of animation and
children’s
entertainment
pre-
Pixar.
In his great TED Talk, Pixar
animator Andrew Stanton (the
second animator the company
ever hired) talks about the
expectations of the princess-
meets-prince adventure they had
to fight against when pitching
their first film. Stanton’s team
rejected the pre-destined love,
sing-along
formula
that
had
propelled “The Little Mermaid”
and “Aladdin” to the top when
they began work on “Toy Story,”
approaching the film with their
own set of criteria: No songs, no “I
want” moments, no happy village
and no love story.
“Toy Story” has become a
watershed work both technically
and for the genre as a whole. The
film changed the way studios
thought about what could be
made, marketed and sold to the
youngest slice of the box-office
pie (and the parents dragged
along with it). The massive
success Pixar enjoyed post “Toy
Story” paved the way for a new
type of film to emerge — the Pixar
imitator. Ignoring the other actual
successful animation studios that
have followed in Pixar’s wake
(the Dreamworkses of the world),
it’s much more fun to look at the
other end of the spectrum, to
shine a light on the crust scraped
up from the bottom of the barrel.
The picture for this article
includes the box-art for a horrible
knockoff of Pixar’s “Up,” almost
unbelievably called, “What’s Up:
Balloon to the Rescue!” Ignoring
the terrible attempt to fit the
only recognizable word — Up
— into their title, “What’s Up”
represents a class of films that
exist basically only to confuse
or deceive people into watching
them. The companies behind
these monstrosities prey on all the
poor-old, aloof-and-unassuming
grandparents
looking
for
birthday gifts in the Walmart
bargain bin — as far as they know,
they’re supporting the animation
studio that has owned the Oscar
category for the past two decades.
Within this class of terrible
knockoffs, sometimes the movie
on the disk isn’t even the same
as the one on the packaging. It’s
stupidly common for one of these
knockoffs to ship a disk that isn’t
at all related to the one on the
cover. In a (pretty great) video
by the YouTube channel “I Hate
Everything” titled “The (NOT
DISNEY) Collection,” the host
revealed that two of the knockoffs
he bought off Amazon, one called
“Braver” and the other “Tangled
Up,” were just rips of basic cable
TV programming from the ’90s.
The movie that was supposed
to be “Braver” turned out to be
a cartoon made-for-TV-movie
about a Christmas princess. And
even if you dodge the predatory-
ass bullet of a complete scam, like
those named above, there’s a very
non-zero chance that the DVD
you just purchased is a renamed,
reskinned
and
reimported
foreign language animated film
given a new, Pixar-ish title. See
“Ratatoing.”
The actual movie content
in each of these punishment
packages is just god-awful, but it’s
also kind of fun. For a buck a piece,
you can own dozens of awful,
good-for-nothing knockoffs that
probably aren’t even bad enough
to finish. But I get why people
are so morbidly-curious to try
these out. Names like “Chop-Kick
Panda” and “A Cars Life” sound
like
terrible,
groan-inducing
jokes, so the fact that they’re
“real” movies just begs you to give
them a watch.
It’s interesting to see how the
movie-internet rallies around this
sort of cinema dredge. There’s a
whole host of YouTube channels,
blogs and podcasts dedicated to
covering the worst of the worst
of the worst when it comes to
movies. Something is enticing
about
watching
gruesome,
catastrophic failures. Watching
a bad movie that means well is
often times much more painful
than
watching
an
alleyway
dumpster fire of a movie with
no redeeming qualities. This is
probably similar to that deep
psychological thing where we
can’t not watch tragedies unfold.
It’s a fight or flight thing —
adrenaline pumping, we have to
keep watching to make sure the
bad movie doesn’t kill us.
It’s not unlikely that it’s us
who are keeping these movies in
circulation, not the video aisle
grandpas. While we laugh at the
mismatched mouth movements
of the overdub, the production
companies laugh their way to
the bank. (I mean, it must cost
like, a day and a half of work to
crank one of these out, right?)
But, you know, whatever. Keep
‘em coming. They’re grating
and grossly exploitative, but
I don’t know if I have a better
recommendation if you just want
to sit and laugh with some friends.
One or two tip-toes into cinema
masochism never hurt.
What is ‘Ratatoing’? The
scary world of Pixar rips
STEPHEN SATARINO
Daily Film Editor
VIDEO BRINQUEDO
B-SIDE: FILM
Summer 2018 reignited a
seven-year-old beef between
Pusha T and Drake, one that
never has nor will be merciful
to Drake. “The Story of Adidon”
is the obvious apex to this
chapter, with the revelation of
Drake’s decision to unveil his
son’s existence only to promote
his Adidas line coming as a
low move. The publication and
media attention understandably
proved to overshadow other
revelations of Drake’s sleazy
character. But throughout the
whole saga, Pusha T echoes the
same information that set the
rap community on fire in 2015:
Drake makes extensive use of
ghost writers. Perhaps it’s just
not all that shocking anymore —
we’ve all heard that joke about
“The Weeknd writing half of
Drake’s best album.” But it was
a different story when Meek
Mill first spilled the beans on
Twitter four years ago.
This isn’t to say that Drake
is the only person with a ghost
writer. Some of the biggest
artists in the industry, from
Frank Ocean, to rap legend Jay-
Z, got their start ghostwriting
for other artists. The market’s
full of them. But it only ever
seems to be called out when a
rapper — not a pop artist, not
a country singer, not a rock
star — is faking it. Why all the
intense scrutiny?
The thing with rap is it’s
nothing
without
its
flows.
Whereas the lyrical content of a
pop song or country ballad can
be overlooked for its production
and musical stylings, rap’s all
about the message it conveys.
The production is important,
certainly, but it follows the cues
of the words and story of the
rapper. Unlike other song lyrics,
those of a rap song are generally
more
meticulously
composed
into
bars
with a lot of wit and
creative
conventions
tying them together.
It’s more about being
smart than it is making
people dance.
Take these lyrics by
Pusha T for example
(you
know,
while
we’re
on
the
topic
of ghost writing and
Drake): “The game’s
fucked up / N***a’s
beats is bangin’, n***a,
ya hooks did it / The
lyric
pennin’
equal
the Trumps winnin’
/ The bigger question
is how the Russians
did it / It was written
like Nas, but it came
from
Quentin.”
The
lyrics are deft, chock
full
of
imagery,
rhymes,
metaphors
and wordplay. Yet it’s
still captivating and
memorable,
despite
lacking
the
same
catchy quotables you’d
expect from a different
genre’s chorus. There’s
more at stake when
you cheat in the rap
game; you claim more than
you’re capable of.
That
being
said,
more
importantly,
the
lyrics
tell
a story. Rap prides itself on
the element of “realness,” the
capacity to speak to specific
experiences
and
people
in
extensive detail. Rap, more
than any other genre, also faces
unfair critique and judgement
before it’s even listened to,
many music listeners are quick
to excuse it as meaningless
by virtue of their superficial
understanding of it — they can’t
fathom rap beyond the “gangsta
rap” trope.
And perhaps that’s why the
urge to protect the genre is
such a pivotal part of the rap
community. It comes from a
history where a large majority
of the people who listened to it
and took it seriously were the
people who experienced the
stories it told. Because
rap started with the
Black
community,
the
majority
white,
middle-class American
crowd did not consider
it
a
serious
music
genre.
The
genre
is often reduced to
harmful and negative
stereotypes
of
drug
dealing, philandering
and bravado without
much consideration for
how these topics might
fit into a song with
much deeper meaning
to it. This considered,
faking
your
art
is
blasphemous
not
only
because
you’re
lying,
but
because
you
steal
someone
else’s experience and
personality by doing
so. You de-legitimize
a genre that demands
it be taken seriously
despite the critique of
a judgemental, racist
world.
Kendrick
Lamar
puts
it
simply:
“I
called myself the best
rapper. I cannot call
myself the best rapper
if I have a ghostwriter.” In a
rap game where the true test
comes in honing your skills
and not falling victim to the
expectations of other people,
legitimacy is what gets you
respect.
Cleansing unoriginal sin:
Ghostwriting in hip-hop
Rap prides itself on the
element of “realness,” the
capacity to speak to specific
experiences and people in
extensive detail. Rap, more
than any other genre, also
faces unfair critique and
judgment before it’s even
listened to, and many music
listeners are quick to excuse
it as meaningless
DIANA YASSIN
Daily Arts Writer
B-SIDE: MUSIC
ALEXIS RANKIN / DAILY