Lord Mayor is brat? | Trev desecrates a Rundle Mall icon | A stinging trade mark search
This week, InSider keeps up with the Lord Mayor’s social calendar and asks questions about Trev’s latest stunt, erecting himself on the city’s oldest fountain.
Lord Mayor celebrates Brat Summer
Last Saturday, Lord Mayor Jane Lomax-Smith joined about 25,000 punters at Laneway music festival in Bonython Park and said she was “undoubtedly the oldest person there”.
InSider knows the Lord Mayor is a Laneway fan, after last year when she was “astounded” they secured UK hip-hop artist Stormzy to headline.
We’re pleased to report the indie music festival still has her heart (and ours, as one of the few touring festivals that is going ahead in 2025).
She told councillors at their meeting on Tuesday it was “an extraordinary event”.
“I did speak but I have to say no one was there to hear me speak, they all wanted to see Charli XCX.”
“You’re looking blankly at me,” she said to the room of councillors whose median age is well…older than the Zillenials of Charli’s demo.
“It has a cult following and it’s important that our events in the city are not just for the older demographic in terms of the Festival or even the Fringe, but this is audience development and it was really an extraordinary event, I recommend it to you next year.”
Now, InSider has said before – after Liberal leader Vincent Tarzia’s try-hard brat-coded Spotify wrapped – that no parliamentarian is brat. However, we’ll concede that J-Lo is as 365 Party Girl as a mayor could be.
It’s worse than we could’ve ever imagined
Last week, InSider revealed the RAA’s latest dastardly plan to force their ungodly mascot Trev the Bee down the throats of Adelaide’s populace.
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InSider was personally invited to see their latest Trev-themed activation in Rundle Mall.
Called Trev-i Fountain, the Rundle Mall Fountain will today be given a Trev theme and filled with 3000 bearded rubber ducks (corresponding with prizes).
Naturally, we could not resist the allure of such an invitation. While we loathe the existence of the chimeric spawn of Satan, InSider has definitely developed some sort of sick trauma bond with the bearded bee. We feel deeply responsible for his enduring infamy and every time we spot him in the wild we feel personally victimised.
In any case, InSider sent our very best in-house photographer to Rundle Mall this morning to see what the marketing team had concocted. What we saw was worse than we could’ve ever imagined.
Dear god…
Atop the fountain sits Trev, seemingly cast in the same materials as the fountain itself, blissfully meditating. He cares not for the venom we type in his name each week. He’s happy, at peace, one with the world.
Staring at his gold little shoes that perfectly match the fountain, InSider feels a twinge of jealousy; to be that happy, that content, that relaxed…and with such fresh kicks to boot.
InSider does take some joy in the fact that he looks somewhat dead in that blue/grey colour – corpselike and ascending to heaven (hopefully hell). Maybe he’s reached the end of his life…he’s finally dead and will no longer torment us.
But that’s wishful thinking of course. Trev will haunt InSider until the end of time, our soul connection forever welded as one.
But then…inside the base of the fountain…Trev’s latest form. He has stayed true to his chimeric nature and become one with a rubber duck. Yes, Trev is now a rubber duck-bee-man.
This is what hell looks like, in case you were wondering.
So, there’s only one thing we can do to fight back against Trev’s latest marketing stunt: journalism.
A couple of weeks ago, InDaily kicked up some dirt about a for lease sign that obstructed a famous mural on Rundle Street.
“Adelaide artists and concerned business owners object to a for lease sign covering a part of the 27-year-old Frome Street mural Alien from E-Street Saturn,” wrote InDaily.
It turned out that a development application was required to deface that particular work of art because it was located on a state heritage-listed building.
The sign was eventually taken down, thanks to some good old-fashioned journalism by our friends at InDaily.
So, what’s the difference here? Trev is perched atop a glorious piece of Adelaide’s history so that our friends at the RAA can treat their members. Is this another example of urban vandalism?
A bit of background: the fountain dates back to 1887 and was manufactured by Handyside and Co. Ltd. It was originally one of a pair located outside the Exhibition Building on North Terrace and is believed to have been one of the first fountains ever erected in Adelaide.
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After being restored in 1995 the fountain was moved to its present location outside Adelaide Arcade. It was again redeveloped in 2013/14 with its new base formed to match the Mall’s renovation.
As we can see here, the fountain is a piece of history!
To get to the bottom of things, we asked the City Council a few questions: Did RAA get the City’s approval to deface the fountain with Trev, did the City receive a payment from RAA, and does a change like this require a development application?
The fountain isn’t heritage-listed so it doesn’t (but it should!).
InSider was put in touch with the Rundle Mall team, who were responsible for the Trev-i fountain and were told by a spokesperson they “have been buzzing with excitement to host Trev and his RAA friends in a match of two iconic South Australian brands today”.
“Like bees to a honeypot, it’s only natural Trev’s made a bee-line for the Mall,” the Rundle Mall spokesperson said.
“After all, why go to Rome when Rundle Mall’s fountain is the bee’s knees?”
We can think of a few reasons.
In any case, the Trev-i Fountain is up for one day and one day only. Go get your selfie with Trev. We won’t judge. He’s here for a good time, not a long time.
Some more Trev…
Dear InSider readers, this week you get not just one Trev rant, but two.
Thanks to an anonymous tip, InSider was alerted to some potential shady operations going on in the world of our dear frenemy Trevor.
The email’s subject line: ‘What came first, Trev or the human bee?’.
Consider us intrigued! First of all, it makes us wonder – is Trev a bee or a ‘human bee’ or a bee with human characteristics? It doesn’t matter of course, as there’s only one way to describe him: Disgusting.
The email continues by pointing out that Queensland-based solar business nectr has a bee mascot.
Our anonymous friend did a quick IP Australia trade mark search revealing nectr’s brand was registered in 2019. The trade mark does not mention anything about a human bee though.
Here’s NECTR’s mascot for comparison. It is not as scary as Trev. Just a dude dressed as a bee:
Not as scary as Trev, still scary though.
We went to nectr’s Instagram page to find the first appearance of the human bee (which doesn’t have a name as far as we can tell!).
A very quick scroll (the company isn’t very active on socials) shows us the human bee was first introduced on 9 March 2022. A full two years before Trev was born!
So there we have it. The human bee came first.
InSider is not suggesting that the RAA copied nectr (our lawyers asked us to write this).
Do you have a tip for InSider? Email us. We’ll keep you anonymous. We promise.
