Kansas State University recently introduced EcoKat, a special mascot to promote environmental causes -- and the fans are not thrilled. The Kansas City Star reported that, on Twitter, the #ecokat hashtag suggests considerable dislike, and that a #fakeecokat has also emerged on Twitter. Among recent tweets: "#EcoKat makes me want to leave my porch light on 24hours and drive two blocks to the gas station for a pack of gum," "EcoKat: The worst idea since the Power Towel" and from a University of Kansas fan "MY GOD. What is #kstate thinking? And you ask why you get made fun of ... #EcoKat. Please never change."Oh, how bad can it be? Aaaah!
Sorry, I was totally distracted by the cat head. But that's Willie the Wildcat, which is apparently the school's regular sports mascot, their Bucky Badger, if you will. EcoKat is the lady: "played by a K-State student who auditioned for the role... outfitted in a costume made of 90 percent repurposed materials." They say her outfit is "sustainable." But it is not sustainable! Because people will not stand for it.... or wait. Is this a trick? So bad it's good? So bad it gets people to tweet and blog about how bad it is? Kind of like the Burger King king? But the Burger King king is passé. He's ousted. Dethroned. Get with it Kansas! Creepily bad is not somehow cool. Not anymore.
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110 comments:
It needs more breast.
Needs more PVC.
How much eco-friendly product does her hair take, btw?
Bonus eco points: The costume is reusable for PussyKat, the Kansas Pride mascot. Sans stretch pants, of course.
The cat's head on the girl's belt may be a copyright or trademark infringement. That head, or something very like it, is used extensively by Washington State University to represent their "Cougar" mascot.
What about the prohibition of an established state church?
The Ecos are a state created myth religion of the goddess gaia. And its not even our state. It's a worldwide UN faith.
We don't sustain the earth...it sustains us.
...can't...type...will to...live...subsiding...in the..face...of...such...idiocy...must...control...fist...of...death...
http://www.k-state.edu/ecokat/images/ecokat-willie.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:WashingtonStateCougars.png
Well, must not be an infringement, but close. Must be KSU's accepted mascot image. Graham backs out of the room.
If we are getting to the farce stage, the mass delusions must be almost over.
(The Uncredentialed, Crypto Jew)
I’d hit it…..
Even more cow-bell ain't gonna hack it..
EcoKat needs to be carbon-sequestered.
Actually, Graham, thanks. All I ever saw in the Washington State logo was the wierd WSU. Now I see the cougar...
Makes me want to go out and water my lawn somemore. Or maybe eat from a styrofoam container and pay for it with a bad check. If you are going to be lame at least be hot and lame.
EcoPussy--She's biodegradable!
I know nothing about fake super hero costumes, but the lines cutting down her breasts just don't seem to work. It's like they want a cute chick as a super heroine, but they messed up her hair to look unhuman, and they've hidden her femininity by trying to hide her curves.
Besides, green is passe. It's so 1990's. And 1930's.
Style tips for EcoPussy--Lose the tights, keep the mask.
Can you eat EcoKat, or would that make you sick?
I'd like to repurpose that.
(The Uncredentialed, Crypto Jew)
I know nothing about fake super hero costumes, but the lines cutting down her breasts just don't seem to work. It's like they want a cute chick as a super heroine, but they messed up her hair to look unhuman, and they've hidden her femininity by trying to hide her curves
A bunch of Feminists designed the costume, and by “feminists” I mean Gloria Steinem, not Camille Paglia, rather than 15 y.o Comic Fanboi Male Nerdz, who USUALLY design Super-Heroine costumes…Oh did I say “Comic Book” I meant “Graphic Novel.”
I'm environmentalist, always have been, but I'm also always happy. I feel guilty about that.
Oh did I say “Comic Book” I meant “Graphic Novel.”
Nerd.
They're billed as "the Eco-Enforcers", which is appropriate for a gang of wanna-be thugs and bullies.
I'm a proud K-Stater, but this makes me hang my head in shame.
Thank goodness we still have our on-campus nuclear reactor!
Once they start recycling her super-tampons, I'll know they're serious.
The EcoKat is missing three pairs of teats. No wonder everyone is upset.
EcoKat is devoid of sex appeal. Bonnie Tyler hair? No skin showing? A waist bigger than the FOOTBALL PLAYER standing next to her? Only a university could create a character so subliminally unsexy.
And I'm just thinking, you know, people listen to sexy people more than, like, purple-and-silver Mennonites. Like if that football player approached me (without the cat head of course. WTF is with the cat head? Oh yeah. Mascot. Whatevs.) and was all, "Hey, you need to recycle," I'd be like, *swoon*, "Yes, sir, anything else I can do for you?" Why do you think the Jolly Green Giant was so popular? Duh: housewives saw the skimpy outfit and rippling green muscles and were all, like, "Yes, sir, my kids will eat your frozen-fresh spinach. And is there a Mrs. Giant, Mr. Giant?" And he's like, "Yes. Her name is Holly. Holly Green Giant." Of course...
Maybe they should go back threatening to explode heretics at the press of a button.
"Cool = sucks if sucks ≠ cool."
The education bubble can't pop soon enough.
That they allot money for this kind of bullshit means they are spending student's borrowed cash recklessly.
Cat head or not, Willie is hot. I hate seeing hot guys (or wildcats) chained to homely, nagging chicks, like EcoKat.
Pogo, judging from the costume, they're not spending very much money.
She looks like a Superheroine from a Saturday morning kids' show in the 80s.
Chip S. said...
Style tips for EcoPussy--Lose the tights, keep the mask.
Style tips for EcoPussy--Lose the clothes, keep the mask.
FIFY.
Well, we are talking EcoPussy, aren't we?
My niece is starting her senior year at Kansas State. I had to send the link to the story to my brother, with the subject line "Your Tuition Dollars At Work!"
And really, shouldn't Ecokat's outfit have some kind of purple cat ears? They're missing a trick there.
I don't understand the super hero costume. Since when is nagging a super power for women?
Great material to torment K State fans.
Having lived in KC and worked w/ KU and KState grads, I'm thinking whomever came up w/ this stupid idea was a KU grad working @ KState. KU is quite liberal and fashions itself the UW of the southern plains. KState is more blue collar. For you Texans, it's like Texas[liberal] v AM[conservative]. OLE Miss[fuck their sisters] v Miss. State[fuck their dogs and sisters]. Carol Herman can fill us in on USC v UCLA. I loved her description of a punt earlier today.
They made a mascot of a green harpy? Way to go, guys. I take it there aren't a lot of quality marketing classes offered at KSU.
Tell me that hair style is not coming back.
Does the mascot do any cheers?
"Go Environmentalism! Let's forget Sexism!"
Just thinking about ecokat is enough to get me ginned up enough to think the bottom-left picture of the Washington monument through the two globes of the lamp is somehow supposed to be phallic.
The picture on Drudge right now, that is.
This is UGLY on so many levels ... I can imagine the "pom-pom" gals ... just tossing their pom-poms up into the stands.
Also, this is just another example that nobody bothered to ask the players! Not even the guys in the band!
Time for all administrators to leave college campuses! More office space for everybody else. And, the seniors? Bigger digs ... before they graduate. Since te buildings are already there. And, the windows have drapes. WIN-WIN
It's Althouses fault. Mam' never repeat rumors you read in the spam.
Having your cat spayed or neutered is one of the greatest gifts you can provide your pet and family. These routine medical procedures not only help control pet overpopulation, but may also prevent medical and behavioral problems from developing. This allows your cat to lead a longer, healthier and happier life.
Michael K @ 12:58 PM ...
That's a KEEPER!
Al Gore is going to want a massage from EcoKat.
Aren't those purple gloves on the lady, something taken from a housekeeper?
And, is that her real hair?
Or are all the dames gonna be in wigs that match? Where's Revlon? Where's Clairol?
Just for balance K-State has some good ideas. Like the Classy Cats.
Shouldn't it be the "Klassy Kats" though?
Judging by her face, I'd guess she's trying to exemplify the tight-lipped rage common to these eco-lunatics.
Judging by her race, they've successfully kept Ecokat free of blacksploitation accusations.
Is big 80's hair back? How eco is hairspray and hair gel?
"Pogo, judging from the costume, they're not spending very much money."
Palladian, I'm surprised at you.
You know very well that lots of money can be spent on art, decoration, costumes, and theater without being able to tell at all.
It easily could cost $10,000, just for the consulting fees.
Yes, it's exceptionally silly and cheesy, but you can't tell me the guy with the big cat-head isn't.
Combining something fun (e.g., college athletic events) with silly and cheesy works, though. It makes something light and fun even lighter and, er, funner. Combining earnestness with silly and cheesy is also a classic recipe - it's called "parody".
Maybe that's what they're going for. Even as parody, though, the outfit isn't particularly imaginative.
Not only is Kansas State stirring up the EcoCrap, its mascot is a sullen version of a much cooler purple cat, the real "Willie the Wildcat."
@AprilApple
That cannot be real hair.
Definitely a petroleum product. If she stood near a flame, her head would explode.
When you start losing the college kids it'd time to hang it up.
Honestly I thought she was a little kid.
"So bad it gets people to tweet and blog about how bad it is? Kind of like the Burger King king?"
Hey, I liked The King!
The "enforcer" twist sure signals their intentions, doesn't it? They can't win with argument so they have to try using force instead.
Am I reading this right -- that the backlash implies that people actually have a limited tolerance for being hectored? My goodness, when did *that* happen?
Imagine how many meetings and how much time & money went into planning & designing the Ecokat- and you guys just want to tear it apart. You are all a bunch of heretics!
I say she's gone by late in the first quarter. Tell Sexual Harassment Panda I said hi.
Coming soon: the Eat-your-broccoli Kat.
I She's one of the characters from Kickass, isn't she?
"Willie the Wildcat, which is apparently the school's regular sports mascot, their Bucky Badger..."
Actually, Bucky Badger is your Willie the Wildcat. Wanted to get that fixed for you. And as someone said above, this is MUCH more of a KU (University of Kansas) thing to do. No idea what KSU is thinking here. I will, of course send this to my family in KC, many of whom graduated from KSU over the past 65 years or so and mock appropriately.
I She's one of the characters from Kickass, isn't she?
She's nowhere near that cool.
"Sustainable" definite clue that indicates no fucking idea about real environmental solutions.
MadMan:
Tell me that hair style is not coming back.
OK. That hair style is not coming back.
Honestly, when in your adult life have you seen some marketing campaign try to harness "cool" in such a heavy-handed way and not had it result in an embarrassed repudiation of the idea by the youth who are the target market?
I'll guess that the number of administrators exceeds the number of faculty members at Kansas. It's another feature of the higher education bubble bursting.
They will look back upon our time as a curiously fucked up time.
Just like we look back on the 1930s. Or the '70s.
"Yes, it's exceptionally silly and cheesy, but you can't tell me the guy with the big cat-head isn't."
No, 'cause he's really hot.
There's something really likeable about the fact that it's just a head on top of an athletic young man in football clothes. No funny feet, no furry gloves. It's just a giant cat head sitting on a hot guy.
It's kind of genius.
Just like we look back on the 1930s. Or the '70s.
That's a best case scenario, by my reckoning. It's looking more and more likely my great-grandchildren will gather around my hearth and ask me if we really had lights that turned on whenever we wanted and had "machines" that flew through the sky.
Nobody will believe me, of course, when I tell them we did, but let it fall apart.
(The Uncredentialed, Crypto Jew)
Nobody will believe me, of course, when I tell them we did, but let it fall apart
Stop yer D@mn whining, at least you’ll be living a sustainable lifestyle with a low carbon foot print, if you’re lucky, your Lord of the Manor, M’Lord AlGore will let you all have meat once or twice a month, free range vole or something. Sacrifices MUST be made to sustain Gaia.
Willie the Wildcat has mangy fur and needs braces. And he is under the control of a mean dominatrix that tells him what a stupid wildcat he is for breathing CO2.
The self image of Kansans must be very low.
Time to go buy a few big macs and not recycle the litter
I'm so offended I just want to rip her costume to shreds.
Long-term, K-State aims to cut energy usage by 15 percent over the next four years.
Then please, just turn out the lights and go home. K-State is a fourth-tier institution in the first place,contributing nearly nothing to the American intellectual and commercial scene.
The agronomy department is a laughing stock, and there's nothing any better in the entire school. I could say the same thing about KU apart from medicine, so this isn't some inter-school rivalry rant. Me? I did my undergrad at a dinky-shit little Division 3 school, so to quote Michael Vick "I don't have a dog in this fight."
Please watch your grammar, rh; the word you want is breastage.
She should be pelted with incandescent light bulbs, then forced to watch "A Clockwork Orange" propping her eyes open with toothpicks made of wood from the Brazilian Rain Forests. Just thinking aloud here.
There is a state still farther behind the timeline than WI. Haven't seen hair like that since the 80's.
Question: Will Al Gore keep the dress? Easier for him to hide the DNA that way.
Idea: Instead of CPT Planet how about KatPlanet but with a Thundercats theme. Eco, Eco, EcoKats - Hoooo!
If they were serious they'd become an online university.
Almost forgot.
Bonus: The school can justify tuition hikes and a new studies program.
If they were serious they'd become an online university.
X wins the thread.
She looks very disappointed about our wasteful ways.
The cat's head on the girl's belt may be a copyright or trademark infringement. That head, or something very like it, is used extensively by Washington State University to represent their "Cougar" mascot.
Aside from being cat-like, the Kansas State and Washington State logos share very little in common.
wv. nuchic "Ditch the nuchic".
Plainly Kansas State has too much money, and needs its funding cut.
Drastically.
Dear Higher Education: Your job is to teach your students.
Not to "promote causes" or "raise awareness" or anything like that.
Fire the lot of them.*
(*I find myself saying that here a lot lately.
They deserve it.)
She looks preachy... Cant she smile?
Tt made me to want to take my private jet and go from Washington to Dallas to preach about the carbon print of the Kansas people driving to the stadium
Observations beyond the obvious:
That mask is really weird. It's all padded. Looks like one of those sinus therapy masks. Is EcoKat allergic to Willie?
The pale part of the costume makes EcoKat look bulimic from the neck to the waist, where suddenly she has hips and ass. Is this a crude attempt at desexualizing EcoKat or a subliminal way to win pedophiles over the the environmental cause? Either way, it's vexing.
However, that strange curve on the front of the skirt looks oddly... inviting.
Are "eco-enforcers" the commissars (political officers) of environmental movement? If so, what powers do they have? Is this the K-State Stasi we're talking about here?
And by powers I mean, powers under the law, not the fact that EcoKat can inhale the carbon emissions of a large herd of cattle and repurpose them into guava flavored sexual lubricants. Which is pretty cool, I guess, but whatever.
Thank goodness she is wearing a mask. Otherwise her children and grandchildren are going to be ROFL their asses off at how doofus and gullible grandma was.
Is there a point to this costume and character?
Looks like I'm the only one interested in the resolution of the inner conflict manifested by EcoPussy's scowl and the positioning of the front of her skirt.
Chacun a son gout.
Creepily bad is not somehow cool. Not anymore.
Uh oh, somebody's beginning to regret her vote....
It's a valiant effort of make an attractive young woman appear dowdy and uninteresting. Isn't that what ecology is all about. My own attempt would be Sister Mary Ecology. Dress her in a nun's outfit of contrasting shades of fluourescent and pea vomit green. That would really broadcast the message that ecology is no fun at all.....At any rate, this uniform really solves the cameltoe problem that makes life so difficult for superheroines.
Has this been mentioned yet? Besides UW-Madison being rated one of the drunkest schools in the world, today news comes out the Madison is the 12th horniest school also.
So fathers of UW-Madison girls, you daughter is probably a drunk slut.
I cannot believe it took like 80 comments before anyone brought up Kick-Ass. This is indeed a ripoff of the character Hit-Girl from that movie. (And Hoosier Daddy et al, the character is indeed a girl)
Check out our EcoKat Throughout History contest at http://www.wittmania.com/photoshop-contest-ecokat-throughout-history/ to see funny EcoKat pictures.
They say her outfit is "sustainable." But it is not sustainable! Because people will not stand for it.... or wait. Is this a trick? So bad it's good? So bad it gets people to tweet and blog about how bad it is? Kind of like the Burger King king? But the Burger King king is passé. He's ousted. Dethroned. Get with it Kansas! Creepily bad is not somehow cool. Not anymore.
Althouse, is Carol_Herman ghostwriting for you?
"outfitted in a costume made of 90 percent re-purposed materials"
including 50% re-purposed Porpoise,
What's the Matter With Kansas?
Come on, X won the thread with
X said...
I don't understand the super hero costume. Since when is nagging a super power for women?
There's something so fitting about the angry 'tude and the mask. "You will comply!"
But she needs a weapon or some sort of power to be an enforcer. Any ideas?
Sure wish they had skipped the vinegar and gone sugar a la Catwoman. How is that imagery supposed to get through to the drunk and horny?
And I have to wonder about the audition process. The Bucky Badger auditions are pretty involved. The hardest probably being the floor full of random objects and candidate trying to do something entertaining with them...no voice allowed. Did Eco Kat contestants compete for the most convincing finger wag?
I want to know how many cans of Aqua Net it took to "sustain" that hair do
The cat's head on the girl's belt may be a copyright or trademark infringement. That head, or something very like it, is used extensively by Washington State University to represent their "Cougar" mascot.
Nah, that's the powercat, KSU's sports logo.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:KSUWildcats_logo.svg
I'm not big into sports, but I've always thought it was one of the better looking sports logos: very simple, just a few lines, but the way it's drawn gives a sense of motion or speed. From what I've read, the artwork for it was commissioned specifically by the university, so it's very likely that similar sports logos are adapted from the powercat. I was in Wyoming a few weeks ago, forgot which town, and I noticed the mascot of the local high school bore an unmistakable resemblance to it, so it's an oft copied logo.
I should also point out that the EcoKat, isn't intended to be an official sports mascot. It was just some on-campus promotion for a recycling competition the school is having.
i can say for sure that their logo is officially theirs, and that the reason you see it "copied" is b/c when high schools want to use it the university only charges them $1, pretty nice of them considering the amount of money some schools charge to use a trademarked logo.
and @Bart Hall: i think while you may be from "kansas, usa" you obivously must not know much about either of the major universities there, both have many well established programs from Architecture to Engineering to Business to Medicine, so please don't hate.
But she needs a weapon or some sort of power to be an enforcer. Any ideas?
A hemp whip.
Bart Hall, you know nothing about either university. Go away troll.
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