Every weekday, PR Daily associate editor Alan Pearcy highlights the day’s most compelling stories and amusing marginalia on the Web in this, #TheDailySpin.

Difficult as it may be to recall, there once was a time when people actually took photographs without vintage filters. And sometimes they weren't even to share, but instead to tuck away for later scrapbooking purposes. I might suggest a 12-step program for today’s Instagram addicts, but they’d probably just “Lo-fi” the list, add a frame, upload, tag, and voilà—“art.” CollegeHumor brought this disturbing trend to light when it combined the noise music of Nickelback and the world of filtered images to parody the “artistic” stream of terrible images captured and shared via the platform. Now if only there were a way to filter our music industry of Nickelback.

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Aside from merely laying off the Instagram filters, Photofocus offers a few expedient tips to ensure you avoid the pitfalls when photographing your next big PR events.

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Probably the biggest pitfall is not covering an event at all. As part of Time’s “Top 10 Everything of 2012” highlights, the magazine features what it contends are the most-underreported stories over the past year.

Fans of a formerly overlooked tradition in the Netherlands might have preferred their seasonal festivities remain unreported. The Dutch version of Santa’s helper, “Zwarte Piet”—translated as “Black Pete”—has come under increased criticism by a growing number of foreigners, as well as many Dutch people, who find the folklore racially insensitive. As is customary, “Zwarte Piet” helpers typically paint their faces black while wearing Afro wigs and adorning thick red lips. Two major chains of stores—Blokker and V&D— are now using images of kids with ash-smudged cheeks in their sales catalogues instead of showing old “Black Pete.”

A recent spate of criticism pertaining to the potential dangers linked to one popular brand of energy drinks won’t stop it from spreading holiday cheer this season. Despite news that commercials for 5-hour ENERGY could soon “go the way of Joe Camel,” this cheesy, over-the-top spot by the brand’s marketing team could sooner inspire an emphatic new manner of giving:



Whatever her parents planned on getting 13-year-old McKenna Pope, I hope it isn’t an Easy Bake Oven. The eighth-grader from Garfield, N.J., is petitioning the toy’s manufacturer, Hasbro, to quit marketing the kitchen set just to young girls.

Eighth-grade—that’s about the age when teen boys start wearing overly robust colognes like it’s their job, right? Well, this year’s pack of fragrance-seeking adolescents is in luck. The agency Grip Limited partnered with Pizza Hut to create a pizza-scented perfume that it’s giving out to 100 of its Facebook fans.



While the lingering smell of pizza could make the olfactory system work overtime, it might be all that lying that ultimately burns it out. According to LiveScience, our nose doesn’t grow like Pinocchio when we fib, but it does heat up.

Of course, body language—or body temperature, rather—goes beyond the physical. LinkedIn influencer Linda Coles shares why you shouldn’t ignore your digital body language.

Meanwhile, bookworms of the world won’t want to ignore Small Demon, a literary search engine that catalogues names, places, songs, products, and other categories for thousands of books.

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Is there something you think we should include in our next edition of #TheDailySpin? Tweet me @iquotesometimes with your suggestions. Thanks in advance.