Why do celebrities publicly endorse certain consumer products? Usually, it's because some company gives them a staggering amount of money to do so. But not Jay-Z—he does it because he really believes in the Duracell Powermat battery-charging device:

Hey guys, diners, everybody gather 'round please: change of plans for lunch today, and every day. Chipotle is OUT. Taco Bell's new "Cantina" menu is in. Because Taco Bell now has high quality upscale foohahahaha sorry, wait, hahahaha, wait. Sorry. I really tried to keep a straight face there.

What do you think when you hear the word "Pepsi?" Chances are you think, "I guess if you're outta Coke, yeah that's fine. Do you have Diet Coke? No? Mr. Pibb? No? Forget it. Pepsi's fine." But what The Pepsi Corporation would prefer you to think is, "A kind of brown swill with amazing marketing!"

"Artisan." Remember the word "artisan?" Perfectly valid word. Described an actual type of thing. Until the ad world got ahold of it, put it on the street, and pimped it out until every last chemical food concoction assembled by robots out of petroleum byproducts was marketed as "artisan." Totally killed the word. "Bespoke?" You're next.

People with half a god damn brain in their heads not drugged to a stupor by that evil emotion "hope" have long understood that "anti-wrinkle creams" are bullshit. That, of course, has not stopped Americans from buying them by the truckload. We are a fundamentally dumb people. We must be protected from ourselves.

Katie Roiphe, a well-to-do white woman who will not shut up, has a case of mortal ennui which is relieved only by publishing cretinous trolling articles which draw sweeping pseudopsychological conclusions about womankind from a small handful of vacuous anecdotes mixed with pop culture strained through the special Katie Roiphe Psychic Sexxx Fantasyland Filter. The news today is, she is still doing that.

So our own Hamilton Nolan took time out today to explain why you should never work in advertising. He is wrong. Like, really fucking wrong. Would you like to see the list of very talented and successful creative people who have worked in the field of advertising? Here's a very small sampling:

Advertising is the industry that people who were not lucky enough to get actual "creative" jobs end up in. These people—creative people whose artistic or literary dreams did not work out, often due to economic forces far beyond their control—find themselves in a position in which they are obliged to use their creative talents for purely commercial ends. Selling soap, so to speak. This causes quite a bit of cognitive dissonance. These people therefore expend quite a bit of time and effort justifying the position they find themselves in, in life. (As do we all!) Having justified their position to themselves, they seek to bolster their justification by attracting others like themselves into their same field. The more creative artists who do advertising for a living, the more of a real, justifiable, creative career it must be. They therefore use their considerable creative talents to sell the field of advertising itself, to their peers.

Mike Daisey has been roundly and justly castigated for selling his bullshit stories about visiting the Foxconn complex in Shenzhen, China, to This American Life. But even some of his harshest critics are buying into the idea that, in some contexts—just not "journalistic ones"—it's OK to tell little lies in service of a "larger truth."

New York Magazine cover stories that purport to capture and explain some element of our current zeitgeist are not to be taken seriously. Just to be clear. Only people hermetically sealed in bubbles of Manhattan privilege would even labor under the delusion that such works of artful fiction were meant to be "believed," in a literal sense. Still—it is bothersome that they continue to be foisted upon the public. Why not just publish a collection of knock-knock jokes, instead? They'd contain more wisdom.

Uh oh, big scandal the in the world of Le Bordeaux ("wine"): influential "wine collector" Rudy Kurniawan has been arrested by real live FBI agents and charged with fraud for attempting to auction off more than 100 bottles of wine (for more than $1.3 million) about whose provenance he lied. Can you imagine? Some unsuspecting wine collectors out there thought they were buying 1929 Domaine Ponsot, but actually it was some other wine in the bottle. Outrageous.

Tomorrow is the big day when Apple announces its new "iPad 3." Or will it be called the "iPad HD?" Who gives a shit, really? Same gadget either way. Get a hobby.

Did you catch the Super Bowl game on television? Perhaps you were one of the millions of fans who shared your opinions in the largest simultaneous outpouring of tweets in history. Mmm, illusion. Bathe in it.

Every story published in the New York Times Style section that in any way purports to report on any trend occurring in the borough of Brooklyn is always complete bullshit. Hey, here's one: "In Brooklyn, Committing to a Man Bun."

Former Nixonite and coonskin cap-wearing sometime presidential candidate Pat Buchanan has always been a racist relic who appealed mostly to those caveman-like Americans anxious for a return to the Andrew Jackson era. Always. There has never been a time, during his long career as a smiley pundit, in which he was not a racist. So. Although it's kind of nice that he's been suspended by MSNBC, it's the media equivalent of giving all the homeless people in your city a one-way bus ticket just as long as the Olympics are in town.

Once again this week, the FBI has foiled an incredibly unconvincing terror plot replete with plans that fail to strike fear in the heart of any American. Sami Osmakac, a 25 year-old in Tampa, Florida, has been arrested for allegedly plotting to destroy bridges and bomb nightclubs in the name of Islam. Anyone who's been to Florida knows that destroying nightclubs in Tampa would be a great public service, to the United States of America.

Patagonia is a company that sells jackets with the subtle, socially responsible message "I am a significantly better human being than you." People who wear Patagonia jackets are successful enough to take ski vacations and purchase $250 items of clothing that resemble trash bags, but also conscientious enough to donate to attend lots of local environmental charity balls, in Aspen. And while you, the fat slob "average American," were scarfing down styrofoam-encased fast food and doing your "Cyber Monday" online shopping in a non-sustainable manner, Patagonia was doing something a little different for the crazy shopping day.

One funny thing that homegrown American sweetheart Jennifer Lopez did recently was to make this Fiat commercial about her love for the Bronx without actually leaving her platinum-coated soundstage in L.A. at any moment. As if Jennifer Lopez would be caught dead in a Fiat! Right? Anyhow, they also apparently used the huge TATS Cru "I (Heart) The Bronx" mural without permission.

So, Chelsea Clinton is joining NBC "News" to "report" on "Making a Difference." We'll pause here as you get out all of the obvious jokes. (Pause.) Great. Now, let's take a moment to contemplate just how vapid our nation's most powerful "news" networks really are.

Hip hop culture is a very deserving field of study. Rap lyrics are some of the most powerful popular poetry of the past three decades. Studying rap music in a classroom is kind of a drag compared to studying rap music, say, in a car full of weed smoke, but hey, it's not the worst thing you could do in a classroom.