ISO: the portable Die Antwoord

November 12, 2014 9:33 AM

My extremely recent and woefully belated introduction to Die Antwoord has been accompanied by a need to be viscerally and directly reminded of them at all times. Normally this would be a job for a record played on repeat or a poster or something, but everything about DA -- music, art, videos, their corporeal selves -- is NSFW, and I'm cubicle-bound ~50 hours/week. Can you help me find a talisman to represent these guys that's either completely SFW or small enough to be easily concealed/carried on my person?

I've always drawn a great deal of strength from talismans and other tiny physical objects that can obliquely represent larger conceptual truths, and I already have a bunch of little things I do and carry with me every day for something that's akin to luck but is more like inspiration. I use tattoos for a similar purpose, and I'd be totally happy to do that right now, but I am currently lacking both the funding required to have a weird little Ninja quip indelibly inked on me by a professional tattoo artist and the psychological fortitude required to keep it zef and do it myself.

Usually I'd be scouring the internet interweb for something or other, but I don't even really know what I'm looking for. Etsy and Google have not offered very much of interest as yet, but I'm struggling to find the right search terms. A logo-only postcard would be OK for cube decoration, but having something more tangible and portable would be much better because then I can keep it in my pocket.

A small piece of jewelry would work, undergarments would work, or maybe some kind of trinket? Are there Ninja and Yo-Landi Dunny toys anywhere? Something like that would probably be OK; my co-workers already think know I'm weird. I've spent the last week or so going over DA's entire creative corpus with a fine-toothed comb, so if it's an object or visual representation that evokes a very specific lyrical or cultural reference of theirs, I'd be all about it (with the exclusion of, like, a fish paste jar... *shivers*).

If DA have official merchandise that might fit the bill, I'm all ears -- they're very, very new to me, so I'm not sure what kind of non-musical offerings they tend to traffic in. I'm just looking for something I can either see or hold that will instantly remind me of these specific strange and wonderful humans who have so completely devoted their minds, hearts, bodies, and lives to their art.

Thanks as always for your assistance, and thanks in advance for not making fun of me for being so behind the times that I'd never even heard of "Enter the Ninja" until over 24 million people had already watched it.

posted by divined by radio to Media & Arts (11 answers total)

Could you take a Barbie (or other small) doll head and give it a Yo-Landi haircut? Then mount it/put it on a keychain?
posted by MonkeyToes at 10:09 AM on November 12, 2014 [5 favorites]

Ninja wears some nice american flag boxers in this "trailer" for "I Fink U Freeky". You could wear something like that and no-one need ever know.

Maybe a screensaver composed of your favorite images?
posted by doctor tough love at 10:12 AM on November 12, 2014

They use white rats as recurring imagery in their videos….can you get a toy white rat? Or maybe some anti- Lady Ga Ga paraphernalia as homage to DA?
posted by lettuce dance at 10:35 AM on November 12, 2014

Maybe something inspired by a favorite lyric? One of mine is "Zef like a young Hugh Hef", and I've always fancied the portrait of Mr. Hefner as a young man with the pipe.
posted by Miss Bitchy Pants at 10:43 AM on November 12, 2014

Or what about decorating with those cartoonish drawings that are everywhere in DA's vids? Some examples: the faces seen on Yolandi's cropped shirt and the bubbly stick figures in the background at 2:19 in the "I Fink U Freeky" video or on the dancers in the "Ugly Boys" video.
posted by lettuce dance at 10:54 AM on November 12, 2014

you mention that you've been basically mainlining them (i did the same when i first found them!) but also that you're new to them - have you dug into any of the pre-die antwoord projects like maxnormal tv? my first thought is that you can make yourself a little dassie felt plush and keep it on your desk or carry it in your bag or whatnot. as an aside, my favorite of the max normal stuff is total fuck up where watkins/waddy/ninja seemingly tells us his plan for die antwoord.
posted by nadawi at 11:18 AM on November 12, 2014 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: I love these ideas so much, thank you! I'm probably going to do/make all of these things and more. A little toy white rat and a dassie are the perfect speed for cubicle decoration -- I already have a small menagerie of toys and animal photos, so they won't even look out of place. They can just sit there and silently remind me of these amazing people in a totally SFW way.

you mention that you've been basically mainlining them (i did the same when i first found them!) but also that you're new to them - have you dug into any of the pre-die antwoord projects like maxnormal tv?

SO MUCH YES. I'm like 75% done with an absolutely massive FPP about Watkin Tudor Jones that will include audio (and, if applicable, video) streaming or download links for every single song he recorded and released from 1995 to 2008. I've been staying up into the wee hours just to dig in a little more. All of his projects have left this magical trail of breadcrumbs that leads back to the very beginning. I only heard DA for the very first time eight days ago, I've been missing out!
posted by divined by radio at 11:45 AM on November 12, 2014 [5 favorites]

1. print out a poster of "The Way of the Dassie", either as a screen cap or just on plain white in MS Word and hang it in your cubicle.

2. Reproduce the school badge that Yo-Landi wears in "Cookie Thumper".
posted by Poppa Bear at 12:04 PM on November 12, 2014

Get another tattoo!
posted by Fister Roboto at 12:18 PM on November 12, 2014

Nutella. Sammy. Repeat.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 1:11 PM on November 12, 2014

When I was mainlining Death Grips I had a lyrical phrase stamped into a simple silver band. I found the vendor on Etsy-it cost around $30. The width is so narrow that even if I chose NSFW lyrics, I'm practically the only one who could read them.
posted by mustachio at 6:01 PM on November 12, 2014