Slashdot Mirror
No Logo: Taking Aim At The Brand Bullies
The Scenario
At first glance, No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies may seem like the same-old rant against Nike. Upon reading the introduction, I realized that this was something more powerful and more interesting. The author picks apart the nature of these brand bullies to give us a better understanding of their mentality, what they hope to achieve and what exactly they're doing to accomplish all their goals. Obviously, some names will come up quite often (such as Nike, Disney, The Gap, Wal-Mart, Starbucks and Microsoft, just to name a few). However, she doesn't just stop at "Nike is bad because of the sweatshop labor practices" - she analyzes the company's marketing strategies, its sponsorship deals, its "charity" work and its influence in the classroom. Klein takes a look at each scenario from many different angles and backs up each of her observations with a multitude of examples and real world experiences.
The book is divided into four sections: 'No Space,' 'No Choice,' 'No Jobs' and 'No Logo.' 'No Space' is about the cluttering of our public spaces with ads; 'No Choice' describes different tactics used by big-name brands to drive independent retailers out of business; 'No Jobs' takes aim at sweatshop labour but with the corporations' "Brand, not products!" mentality in mind (it also includes details of Klein's trip to an Export Processing Zone just south of Manila); finally, 'No Logo' documents the global movement against branding and many of the organizations and people behind the revolt. It is also noted that while globalization is considered by many to be Pure Evil (tm), it has allowed this movement against multinational corporations to spread across the globe much more quickly and efficiently.
What's Bad?To be honest, there is very little that I didn't like about this book. However, there was one little thing that I did notice, but it was not detrimental to my reading enjoyment.
Although my opinion is obviously biased, I was disappointed that there was no mention of Free Software or some other not-for-profit projects that benefit everyone. I find that many of the corporate ties within the Free Software community are very much along the lines of Klein's notion of an ideal balance between corporations and communities. It should be noted, however, that the most recent example in the book is dated June 1999, so it's possible that the word "Linux" hadn't reached Klein's ears by that time (except for some of the IPO hype).
When Klein starts talking about rebellious movements across North America, Europe and beyond, I was hoping for something like Free Software. In other words, I wanted to read about some sort of alternative that is being offered by these anti-brand revolutionaries. What I found were Adbusters that go around defacing billboards and ravers that take over downtown streets for day-long parties. I'm not disputing the message that these movements began with; they both are tools that are being used to reclaim some of the public space. In the end, though, that's all they are: tools. They can be easily used for the wrong reasons by the wrong people. Fortunately, Klein is quick to point this out and doesn't shy away from pointing out both good and bad aspects of each.
What's Good?Klein's fluid writing style really shines throughout this book and her arguments are sharp and well targeted. The result is a a text that holds together extremely well. Even when Klein seems to be going off on a tangent, she is really just taking a different perspective on the issue of branding. Dividing the book into four sections also allows for great reading, because both author and reader can focus on a specific issue in each part. This encapsulation is almost flawless; Klein manages to tackle each individual chapter with different arguments without ever losing sight of her primary goal.
Another impressive aspect of this book is the sheer number of examples that Klein discusses. Each chapter is packed with examples that support her claims, with each one being examined quite thoroughly. The amount of research that went into this book is nothing short of phenomenal (although there is no shortage of corporate horror stories these days). Klein's interviews with workers in the Cavite export processing zone vividly illustrate the difference between what we see in stores and what happens behind the scenes. None of this is news to us: we have all read about Nike's sweatshop labour practices. However, this book digs further to attempt to uncover the true motivations behind these practices and how they are still possible despite the public's disapproval.
I found that each section contained one exceptional chapter. In 'No Space,' "The Branding of Learning" (chapter 4) is simply wonderful, especially for people still in school (like myself). You'll read about grade school kids making Nike sneakers as "an educational experience" and a 19-year-old student being suspended for wearing a Pepsi shirt on "Coke Day." In 'No Choice,' "Corporate Censorship" (chapter 8) should be of interest to most Slashdot readers. Much of this probably won't be as shocking to you, but it's really pleasant to read it from somone on "the outside" that truly gets it. In "No Jobs," "The Discarded Factory" (chapter 9) offers the same old shocking facts about sweatshop labour with a fresh perspective which only makes the situation seem worse. The whole "No Logo" section is wonderful, with the exceptions stated above in "What's Bad?"
So What's In It For Me?If you have been paying close attention to the big brands and some of their dubious business practices, much of the examples won't be news to you. Some of the events that are described have already been covered by investigative TV reports such as 20/20 and Dateline as well as many major magazines. However, I still think you would enjoy the points that Klein raises and how she ties everything together into a well thought-out package.
If you are like me and you're not as familiar with these events, this book is a must read. It will guide you through some of the events surrounding Nike, Disney, The Gap and other multinationals throughout the past decade and let you know where we stand today. Students should especially like "No Space," especially with the commercialisation on campus and in the classroom.
For more information, I suggest that you take a look at the following Web sites:
- nologo.org: The official site with lots of links to organizations mentioned in the book.
- http://www.nikebiz.com/labor/nologo_let.shtml: Nike's response to No Logo (dated March 8th 2000)
- No Space - New Branded World
- No Space - The Brand Expands: How the Logo Grabbed Center Stage
- No Space - Alt.Everything: The Youth Market and the Marketing of Cool
- No Space - The Branding of Learning: Ads in Schools and Universities
- No Space - Patiarchy Gets Funky: The Triumph of Identity Marketing
- No Choice - Brand Bombing: Franchises in the Age of the Superbrand
- No Choice - Mergers and Synergy: The Creation of Commercial Utopias
- No Choice - Corporate Censorship: Barricading the Branded Village
- No Jobs - The Discarded Factory: Degraded Production in the Age of the Superbrand
- No Jobs - Threats and Temps: From Working for Nothing to "Free Agent Nation"
- No Jobs - Breeding Disloyalty: What Goes Around, Comes Around
- No Logo - Culture Jamming: Ads Under Attack
- No Logo - Reclaim the Streets
- No Logo - Bad Moon Rising: The New Anticoporate Activism
- No Logo - The Brand Boomerang: The Tactics of Brand-Based Campaigns
- No Logo - A Tale of Three Logos: The Swoosh, the Shell and the Arches
- No Logo - Local Foreign Policy: Students and Communities Join the Fray
- No Logo - Beyond the Brand: The Limits of Brand-Based Politics
- Conclusion - Consumerism Versus Citizenship: The Fight for Global Commons
Purchase this book at Fatbrain.
That's why I've never (and I mean never) bought a t-shirt that had a logo on it. I buy plain t-shirts (the ones that are exactly the same as the expensive ones, except for not having logos and, well, not being expensive). I do indeed own several shirts that have logos, but they were given to me free, as promotions, at my last job.
I don't get angry at Tommy Hillfinger and Nike for selling hyperexpensive t-shirts...I mock them and regard people using the logos on their clothes to assert social status (and the people this works on) as pathetic.
Old navy is a subsidiary of the gap, if I recall correctly.
Lowmag.net
In sight of me there are:
7 Sprite logos (cans)
1 7 up logo (can)
2 brainbench (certificates)
2 fujitsu (ledger and water bottle)
1 Chick-fil-a cup
1 fedex box
1 ericsson mini volleyball
1 microsoft koosh yo yo
1 tadpole sparc laptop
14 sun microsystems logos
(2 monitors, 3 keyboards, 2 mice, 2 ultras,
2 copies of solaris 8, 1 solaris 7,
1 external tape drive and 1 external cd drive)
Strange how microsoft managed to get their logo
even into my little intel-free world.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Status - Tokens of status are an integral part of society, every culture has them. A natural "pecking-order" come from status symbols. Because the status afforded by certain brands is immediately apparent, the pecking-order can still be maintained by visual (or some other sensory) cues as it has for every species of every animal that exists in a social paradigm. As any animal behaviorist will tell you status = offspring. Now, who doesn't want more sex? (Those who believe there is no nature in the nature v. nurture argument, can argue this point with me. All others must cede this argument)
Utility - The difference between us and (virtually all) animals is that we find utility in our environment. Those of us who find our status in computers (ie, I run Linux on a Pentium XXII 3000THz with 44 exabytes, etc.-- knowing that we have no real use for so much power except to drive games) will purchase other things for utility. Choosing where you wish to show your status (bank account, portfolio, BMW, Open Source Movement, community activism, Gap jeans, etc.), the others will be, more or less, be sought in terms of utility. Further, we believe that our cause (or statement of status) is just and right. Otherwise, why would we do it? Therefore, everything else is not as good. (otherwise we would be showing our status there)
Necessity - somethings are subjective in this category (ie email, car, house, phone, radio) whereas others are objective (food, water, air, exercise). These things we purchase what works--not what works best. This is not to say some people do not show status here. It just means that people like me who excercise poorly, have a two-bit radio, and drink soda Do not do so for utility, but out of necessity. I eat for utility--sometimes for status (ie Duck at Thanksgiving, swordfish steak, Chocolate Charlotte) since I enjoy cooking.
Enjoyment - Going to movies, renting movies, listening to music, watching TV, playing ball, etc.
The purpose of advertisement is to:
Point out the necessity of the object (I gotta have the product)
Point out the utility of the object (I gotta have this particular product because it is the best of its knid)
Point out the status of the object (I gotta have this product because look at all the half naked women) (Even women's ads feeature half naked or attractive women)
Point out how much fun the object is (Self explanatory)
The problem exists in "puffery." This is a legal term meaning that hyperbole can be used in advertisement and pitching. No puffery can exist in legal offers.
Unfortunately, people on this website tend to be more educated (in at least computers, et al.). That means we tend to have a more logical thought process (as opposed to imaginative). Further, posters here tend to be more motivated. More motivation equals more research and, perhaps, a conscious. So we research more, apply logic more and are not easily duped by puffery. We, as slashdotters, are an extreme minority (
Before I sign a new-car contract I specifically ensure that the following clause is added: "This contract will be considered null and void with no monetary loss to purchaser if dealer defaces car by affixing their dealer logo to vehicle in any form."
They grumble a lot about it being their company policy, but no salesman will risk losing a commission over something so petty if you stick to your guns.
It is my observation that in the United States of America, it is the brand name that becomes the dominant product, and too often the product in question is inferior. Other countries do not follow this boneheadness.
So why does the book No Logo have a logo on it's cover?
Seems to say "I don't want logos cluttering up my world, but by the way, here's mine to put in you bookshelf."
Quite right, and a good point I missed.
-Ben
Yeah, I loved the Nike swoosh footprint on the moon. Oh God, Nike again! Their brand recognition has really been /.ed today.
Put the blame on meme
No, truly expensive and fasionable clothing has something perhaps better - wearers who will tell the name of the manufacturer to those who so much as look at the outfit.
"Hi, new suit?"
"Yeah, it's," and then that subtle emphasis, "Armani/Gucci/Whatever."
[insert ad here]
Now is this post an advertisement, or what?
Just turn off the TV. Have friends over and talk, play games, build relationships, etc. You can escape brand.
If you choose to live in a heavily populated area just look around and see power lines and directional signs cluttering up just as much space as brand. We ignore them all and have trained ourselves to know which signs are important given our current context. I'll bet that most of us do the same with brand icons.
From left to right, in my field of vision right now.
AST, Intel Inside, Windows, Dell, iPlanet(banner), Eveready (Cat9), IBM, O'Reilly
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for those who wish to directly improve wages and working conditions for some third world workers ASAP, focusing on a rich high profile company is the right thing to do.
I was under the impression that people were upset that they have children working 14 hour days and that's what really pissed people off. I could be wrong.
numb
i completely agree. i used to work in a department store and was able to buy designer clothes cheaper than normal (i used to hide them in my stockroom until they went on clearance). now that i'm a web developer, i can afford to buy the clothes at regular price, and continue to do so. why? not because of the names, but because the clothes are extremely comfortable. you're not just paying for a name. claiborne, nautica, hilfiger, etc., are made of really good fabric, don't shrink, last an incredibly long time, and put up with an inordinately large amount of shit (figurative shit, not literal). except gap jeans. these damn things wear out in six months.
Founder, Americans Allied Against Alliteration
Actually, that's exactly what I had meant by "They're being made an example of." I think you did an excellent job of explaining why that's not necessarily a bad thing. Still, when you pursue a strategy like that, I think you have an moral obligation to make it clear that you're picking a target to focus on, and that the real enemy is the larger problem, not the target that's been singled out.
Two other points:
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
It's all wrapped up in the heavily-marketed concept of pseudo-individualism that so many people -- especially USians, it seems -- suck up. Gotta be yourself ... as long as there's enough other people shelling out cash to be themselves in the same way.
[smirk] The revolution will not be marketed.
Ah yes. And we should ask ourself why we so passively submit to their identification schemes. Why should I wear their logo. Should my identity be overlaid with theirs? Sounds to me like it runs counter to slashdotism.
-|- God is serious about ending suffering on this planet. Are you? -|-
...between a kid wearing Nike gear and a techie wearing, say, Sun Microsystems shirts? Or a /. hat? I'd say we geeks are among the worst -- how many of us clamor for vendor stuff whenever possible? What about all the freebies at tradeshows?
"You can never have too many elephants on your team."
So, if all you can do to make your product to stand over a competitor's cheap one is to stick a logo on it, you are quite bad at your business, aren't you?
"Look and feel suits" anyone?
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Men with no respect for life must never be allowed to control the ultimate instruments of death.
GW Bu
I was reading a magazine article recently about an artist who took pictures of various streets and cities then colored over all the advertising content in the picture with orange. It made for some very interesting images, hardly any space in America is free of some sort of advertising. It's so common that we almost don't even see it anymore.
I really wish I could remember the artist or article I saw that in. If somebody knows what I'm talking about I would really appreciate any pointers to that stuff, it was very interesting.
I think it's great that my company has given me at least 4 shirts with the company logo proudly on it. That means I don't have to buy shirts for myself. now only if there were company-branded jeans, slacks, socks, boxers and shoes available. I wouldn't have to buy clothes anymore!
Getting free company-branded clothes is like NetZero. You don't have to pay for it, but you have to put up with their ads.
No, being a Tommy billboard says to the world, "I am just another mall-fashion-wearing clone, just like you!"
Truly expensive (and fashionable) clothing has no logos.
Of course, this will go against the teaching of *every* marketdroid in existence....
Others have illustrated in previous posts the fact that people pay for clothing with a free advertisement (i.e. they pay for clothing with logos on it). Now we might believe that these articles of clothing should be provided at a reduced cost, however, please consider this (I'll use Nike in this example):
1. Companies such as Nike have invested millions (maybe billions?) over many years in advertising in print, television, billboards and more.
2. The money used in (1) has actually subsidized real benefits to the population at large: low cost magazine subscriptions, free broadcast television, and additional revenue for towns and municipalities. Of course I'm sure many of you question the idea that these are "real benefits" so we'll get into that later.
3. An individaul who purchases clothing with a Nike logo on it (for the same price as an item without a logo) provides an additional benefit to Nike (in the form of market exposure) above and beyond the profit margin realized in the sale.
4. Most importantly, this individual has likely received a high amount of exposure to the Nike logo (due to forces mentioned in (1)). This person has realized more of the "real benefits" mentioned in (2) than an individual who does not purchase clothing with a Nike logo on it.
The real world does not match this example on an individual basis, but aggregately this is what it's all about.
If you watch a lot of broadcast TV (and Nike ads) and don't purchase any Nike stuff you can always thank the guy that has a Nike logo tattoed on his forehead for subsidizing your free TV shows.
Then again if you question the term "real benefits" mentioned above you can tell him to fsck the hell off.
No, that's because providing free advertising in a TV show lessens the value of the commerical time that FOX-TV sells. It's the same reason why (mostly) hip-hop videos on MTV have blurred-out logos on clothing - companies would LOVE people to see top-rated musicians wearing their clothes on national TV 20 times a day, but MTV (reasonably enough) wants to be paid for advertising on its network.
I made the conscious decision a couple of years ago to refuse to pay anybody for the privilege of renting out the surface area of my body as advertising space. No Logo would have been a good slogan to put on my aparrel to make this statement clear. But that would be just another brand wouldn't it?
to continue to bounce pencils off the Marketing guy's head when he walks by my office.
Seriously though you have to wonder how many superior products have been bankrupted by the Brand/Logo-centric attitude that's so pervasive.
But in answer to the question.. I'm wearing a Slackware T-shirt right now so I guess I'm as guilty as the rest. *shrug*
But does A&F pay the rapper to make a song about him liking girls that wear A&F?
That's what I want to know!
Refrag
I have a website. It's about Macs.
Although my opinion is obviously biased, I was disappointed that there was no mention of Free Software or some other not-for-profit projects that benefit everyone. I find that many of the corporate ties within the Free Software community are very much along the lines of Klein's notion of an ideal balance between corporations and communities. It should be noted, however, that the most recent example in the book is dated June 1999, so it's possible that the word "Linux" hadn't reached Klein's ears by that time (except for some of the IPO hype).
I see open source as less of a fight against corporatism, although many people support open source for many different reasons. Instead, I see open source as a grass-roots replacement for the lost concept of the public domain. Since copyrights have been overwhelmingly extended (95 years), and since as of 1978 all work is considered copyrighted, there is now simply no chance that any person will live long enough to freely build and expand on any non-open source software written within their lifetime without permission, which is typically not granted.
The lack of a public domain is felt acutely in the software field. This was discussed in the "Systems Research is Dead?" thread. New research has always been based on the idea that you can build on old research. Otherwise, you spend all of your time reinventing the wheel, and never get to do anything original. This "old research" used to be the public domain, and still is for patents, which have a reasonable duration.
Basing new research on the shoulders of Linux or BSD is functionally similar to developing new public domain works based on previous public domain works. The GPL and BSD license work as incentives for "the promotion of science and useful arts", just as the copyright laws are supposed to.
As corporations lobby for more and more restrictive copyright laws for their own benefit, it is worth noticing that the issue is not one sided. Many people are looking for, and embracing an alternative to restrictive, proprietary intellectual property law, and the success of open source is in that it is successfully providing, using existing copyright law, a functional replacement for the lost Public Domain.
- John
The Internet has interpreted the DMCA as damage and is routing around it
Mock 'CK' T-shirt
Mock 'Subway' T-shirt
Mock 'Starbucks' T-shirt
I modded the Troll Investigation and I got
It is disheartening to me that kids of such a young age are (in a way) being programmed to associate something FUN (watching Big Bird or Arthur) with the SPONSORSHIP of a large corporation.
I don't understand what is scary about this. Should kids just thing the TV fairy produces TV shows, or that they just appear out of the aether? Or should they realize everybody has to pay for something?
DrLunch.com The site that tells you what's for lunch!
Oh I don't know: theres got be something ok about a company that wants you urinate on its logo.
. And we can kid ourselves that we are too sophisticated or cynical to be manipulated by the aspirational aspect - but we do it every time we make a purchasing decision.
Speak for yourself...who are you to say what goes into my mental processes?
DrLunch.com The site that tells you what's for lunch!
I Am Not Poor
o thing.html
http://www.theonion.com/onion3604/name_brand_cl
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
"ew, logos are bad!"
/., the penguin, wilbur, copyleft, the various daemons, mozilla, etc, etc gone too, right?
oh gack.
you'll want
some people make pretty doodles, other people buy them and try to associate them with whatever their thing is, and a slew of other people like being able to associate that design with that thing.
a logo is no more evil then a name - except of course that they have to be sent as attachments.
logos can be cute, just like any other type of art. now what some evil bastards that use logos do with them and what they've attached to that logo is a whole other kettle of fish.
US Citizen living abroad? Register to vote!
TANSTAAFL. None of the "free" things that you mentioned are free.
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As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Ah yes, an excellent book about fly fishing, but we were disappointed the book didn't mention the open-source movement's clearly positive effect on the size of catches.
The revolution will NOT be televised.
Perhaps we should distinguish between symbols and logos. If I wear the United States flag on my shirt, am I wearing a "logo"? Probably not. A flag is a symbol of a nation, but calling it a "logo" sounds wrong. But patriotic types will still wear stars-and-stripes patterned clothes as evidence of their patriotism.
Any symbol can be used as "a shorthand for what the wearer/user wants others to think of them". But not all symbols are logos. Is the source code of DeCSS a logo? No, but if it appears on someone's shirt it tells you something about what the wearer wants you to think of them. The Red Hat "Shadowman" is a logo, but I'm not so sure that Tux is, and certainly any old stuffed pengiun is not. But if that stuffed penguin is sitting on top of my monitor at work, it's a symbol, and it's meaningful, without being a logo.
Be careful when bashing logos. Don't trash symbolism in general just because some companies try to market themselves as a brand and use their symbols to represent that brand.
Well, I like to take the promo shirts and simply write "sucks" on it myself, using acrylic paint.
Works very nicely.
Java is the blue pill
Choose the red pill
Cool! And since it runs Windows, I can walk around wearing the Blue Screen of Death(TM), at least until UCITA passes in my state.
That's not sad. If people are so stupid they can't set their priorities properly, whose fault is that?
DrLunch.com The site that tells you what's for lunch!
Though I agree with your thoughts on branded clothing being overly expensive. $100 for a tee shirt with some guy's name all over it, fugetaboutit
Marxism is the opiate of dumbasses
At our school, coke day was every friday, the rest of the week we bummed out and had to smoke crack or crank (meth)
I don't think any of us would care if someone came in with a pepsi shirt on.
"`Ford, you're turning into a penguin. Stop it.'" -THHGTTG
I've read some of the comments made and many seem to say, "Well, you end up wearing some corporation's name, so what can you do?" Well, I'm not an absolutist in any way, but one decision I made a few years ago (after spending far too much money on adolescent band t-shirts) was to stop wearing logos. Believe it or not, you can still shop at the Gap, or discount superstore, or whatever company your preference for style/value/price/quality dictates without sporting their corporate advertising. I have no clothes with logos. Like any other lifestyle decision (vegetarianism, whatever) you limit your choices because of your beliefs. I don't need people to notice me because of a word on my shirt. I just wanted to point out that like those other lifestyle choices, it is possible to live without being a walking billboard.
Every pair of "high profile" brand name shoes I've ever owned lasted me less than a year. I started looking around in smaller shops, skate shops and the like, and found "no-name" brands like Simple, Globe and Circa have served me far better, lasting a good two years per pair. The branding is way less ubiquitous on the shoe itself.
Only paid 80 bucks Canadian for the shoes too, as opposed to the 120 I spend on my last pair of Nike's (about 5 or 6 years ago, when the Cdn dollar was worth something).
And as a PS, talk to any skate-boarder that you know, someone who's been doing it for a while. Almost everyone I talk to says that Airwalks (shoe brand) have gone to shit ever since they got bought and started being manufactured by Nike.
A brand name might be associated with quality, but a lot of time it's an excuse for a company to package crap at an elevated price.
Everyone wears A&F so I must wear A&F to be more like everyone. Again this is because A&F makes it extremely convenient to say "I like A&F" while there is no easy way to say "I don't give a poop about A&F" or "I abhor A&F".
The only bad advertising is none at all.
When you see a disparaging remark, you read "A&F sucks because they're cheap trendy commercial pigs."
After five minutes, all the typical Amreican can remember is "A&F sucks." They're not sure why, but it really does.
After ten? All they remember is "A&F." After all, it must be a pretty cool place if they keep thinking about it.
. . . and the advertising has done it's job, even if that's not what the wearer may have intended. Better advertising through short-term memory.
--
Rob Carlson
Heh. Yes, my favorite kind: somebody else's currency. :)
Seriously, if you are capable of ignoring advertisement (and most of us are these days), then what Tiger Woods wears on his hat is completely irrelevent to you.
Logo advertising and "branding" ads, from the Mickey Mouse shadow to last year's Gap ads featuring Luscious Jackson, are not made to sell us their stuff. Pepsi and Coke are two of the biggest advertisers out there, but their ads don't ever get anybody to switch colas... people still drink the one they like. The real reason for these ads is to raise stock value. If a company seems to be omnipresent, investors get a warm, fuzzy feeling about buying shares in them.
Nike is fully aware that you will not buy their shoes just to "be like Mike". A few suckers, maybe, but not most of us. Most people buy athletic gear based on things like comfort, fit, durability, and looks. "Can I work out in these and not get blisters?" is the question that matters.
However, the myth of unwashed masses spending their lunch money on Air Jordans serves Nike very, very well. It creates the impression that they have a product that everybody is salavating for, which raises their market value.
The irony is that pundits who rant about Nike paying Jordan big bucks to rip people off serves Nike's purpose, too. Wall Street types see these rants and say, "wow! Nike is selling $2.50 sneakers to every ghetto kid in America for $175 a pop and getting away with it because everybody loves Michael Jordan... I gotta get in on that action!"
Any actual sales generated by a branding campaign are just icing on the cake.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
And this is one of my big complaints with open source. Companies can no longer compete on their technical merits, because everyone else can copy your code, so why bother improving the code? There's basically two strategies that work well when selling open source software:
- Make pretty boxes, and advertise like crazy. Inlcluding bumper stickers in the box is a good way to get lots of free advertising. Good PR is essential, you want to become known as the defacto brand. If you're successful, the people looking for "quality" will buy from you, despite the fact that you ship virtually the same software as all of your competitors. (aka, the Red Hat strategy)
- Sell as much software as cheap as possible. PR is less important (just don't do anything stupid). The cheapskates and people "in the know" but without a good network connection and/or CD burner will buy from you. (aka, the Cheapbytes strategy)
Note that neither of these strategies requires that the distributors actually produce any code. Code production is done at a loss, because your competitors get to use the code you produce. The only real reason to produce code for these companies is PR. Of course, that really only applies if you're using strategy number 1.I'm a designer and a 'brand guy', and from what I've experienced, all this branding is just a natural human impulse taken to the nth degree.
People don't want to have to re-evaluate every aspect of everything they acquire every time they need it. If 'Frank Smith' earned a reputation for making excellent tools, naturally people would look for tools with his signature on them, knowing they were of quality. Fast-forward to today, where people know that IBM big iron is rock-solid. Or Nordstrom shirts have excellent stitching, flattering cut and last forever... brand still signifies something.
It starts getting sticky when people's natural competitiveness comes out, and brand=quality=status=personal worth. (I am wearing DKNY = I am cool = I will be loved.) THAT's why the brand gurus have us... just typical human ego, frailty, and all the other vices that have existed since the beginning of mankind. So, for us to transcend brand means literally an evolution of the perception of self and value. Not an easy task, and not something that riots or legislation can solve alone.
I have faith we'll eventually get it, though... sicko events like drawing and quartering was once commonplace everywhere, and now it's actually rare. Who knows, in a few hundred years brand will be meaningless.
akaSnowman
First this article promoting languages like Python, Visual Basic, Alice, for kids, and now this!
Why is Slashdot against Seymour Papert's language Logo?
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Men with no respect for life must never be allowed to control the ultimate instruments of death.
GW Bu
By Thomas Frank University of Chicago Press, 287 pages
Thank you! That was it excactly.
It's astounding how many people think that the "casual Friday" trend of the 90's was the result of workers refusing to wear ties and suit-coats every day, instead of clothes companies trying to sell more Dockers(tm).
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
That doesn't say much good about the person who just dumped thousands of dollars on a product from a dealership. :)
And then there is the class, in which I belong, which wears only jeans and witty and/or cheezy t-shirts which are bought exclusively online.
(writting while wearing my "geek." shirt...)
My wardrobe is too small...I still have a list of shirts from shinymonkey, copyleft and thinkgeek to purchase yet.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
Interesting nonsense about defacing billboard: "They can be easily used for the wrong reasons by the wrong people. Fortunately, Klein is quick to point this out and doesn't shy away from pointing out both good and bad aspects of each." Deface Nike billboard -- good Deface RedHat billboard -- bad F------ hypocrite
What I really hate is the cheap shirts, that people are willing to spend $$$ on, just because they have a logo or brand name on them. Tommy Hilfiger is the worst of them. Some American Eagle products fall under this catagory too (I buy some of their products, but the ones that I like, which is NOT the ones that are just t-shirts with a logo on them)
Eh...
about $60 dollars.
"`Ford, you're turning into a penguin. Stop it.'" -THHGTTG
They are if the cost means nothing to you.
"The words of the prophets are written on the Slashdot walls."
(nt)
I was just out getting lunch today at the local Penn Station where there are pictures of satisfied customers pasted above the grill. One photo caught my eye of two younger guys proudly displaying their Tommy Hilfigger and Nike shirts.
Not knowing of the subject material in this this story, I wondered if brand names people seem to wear as status symbols was anything like the coats-of-arms on shields and armor in the "good'ol-days". My mind quickly moved on to wondering if people would actually do battle to defend their brand. Would they simply be defending their brand as some people follow sports teams, or would the brand followers attach ideals to their brands and simply fly the brand as their flag? What if...
Then my food was ready.
Banana Republic is also under Gap's ownership.
Refrag
I have a website. It's about Macs.
Dockers just happened to have the right comfort quotient in a brand that you could count on for quality, repeatability of sizing, and wide availability. Advertising had little or nothing to do with (at least) my reasons for purchasing Dockers.
The IPCC has purposely engineered a massive scientific fraud.
If you thought you were cool because you were no brands, in this Salon piece "Consumed by consumption" you will learn that you are just telling "I am so rich that I don't have to buy class with brands"
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Men with no respect for life must never be allowed to control the ultimate instruments of death.
GW Bu
You can laugh about marketrdroids and how stupid it is that people wear Tommy H. T-shirts, but in general marketing *works*. There are thousands of really good bands out there who sell a couple of CDs every time they play at a local club or coffee house. In general, nobody seeks out these bands. People buy CDs from Moby and whoever else is on the end rack at Borders. Yeah, Moby is good, rock on and all that, but much of the success comes from going through a corporation and having a team of marketdroids come up with ad campaigns for Rolling Stone. If he were an independent who refused to go through major labels, he would be another local hero and not a worldwide phenomenon (examples of people who tried to eschew corporate record labels: Dave Alvin, Sarah Hickman).
If you want to rail against marketing, then you have to avoid mainstream movies and music, and not just Windows, because it's the same sort of thing. Someone is choosing what you have access to and you're buying it. A typical Slashdot attitude is "Oooh, look how underground I am because I like The Simpsons and X-Files and read Neal Stephenson." That's exactly the same as wearing Tommy T-shirts, but for geeks.
Actually, they might not know to put the plate on themselves. Last week, I took my car in for its 15,000 mile service and there was a woman with her license plates in her hand. She had set an appointment to get them put on. Nothing else. That makes your statement even more sad.
LetterJ
The Glass is Too Big: My Take on Things
What is really obnoxious is when the dealerships place decals with their logo on the cars they sell. You can remove the license plate holder and the advertisement on the front, but you it's hard to take off a decal without scratching the paint.
I wonder, is there a solvent that will remove these things safely? Another option would be to create little magnets that say "sucks!" or "will rip you off!" and place one below the logo.
Nothing stops a certain other project from trivializing the horrors of another particular Death-Camp regime.
I am talking, of course, about the red star logo for the Mozilla project.
Read your history. The Nazi death camps can't put a dent in Stalins little resthomes for the dissenters. The thing is, Stalin stayed in power long enough that the camera crews never made it into his particular death-camps.
Coward! You're supposed to use the 200mph, aluminum tape bumper stickers on the Souther Baptist minister. Besides, more often than not, he'd rather be caught romancing a rattlesnake than be caught driving a Lexus; he'd probably drive a Lincoln
Marxism is the opiate of dumbasses
I see these now on very scraggly individuals -- homeless and people in grunt jobs. One of the reasons to stay away from "branded" clothes is that anyone can wear them...so the associations with the brand aren't always positive.
Paul Fussel wrote a great little book named Class. In it, he pointed out that people in the lower-middle to middle social class tends to wear larger logos, including things that say where they went on vacation...as if they wanted everyone to know that they had actually gone on vacation.
Upper classes tend not to wear any logo-ed clothes since they had custom made clothes or had no need to promote themselves with such gaudyness.
(Fussel does point out that class has little to do with wealth, though there are trends!)
A firewall can not protect you from yourself. Turn off what you do not need. Do not use the firewall to do your work.
I am surpised there marketing department didn't get all over and nasty with that sisuation
"Cut off you testicales, drink some cough syrup tell you past out, dilluate yourself into thing God comes in the form of a space ship and then kill yourself with 12 other people. Some say this is crazy, nike says... "
Just Do It
"Nike, supporter of the mentally instable since 1945"
"`Ford, you're turning into a penguin. Stop it.'" -THHGTTG
Just thought I'd point out that, IIRC, GAP and Old Navy are actually the same company. :)
LetterJ
The Glass is Too Big: My Take on Things
I'm Spanish, and we do buy Levi's jeans with small defects for a cheaper price. Almost everyone buys no- brand clothing at flea markets, also...
But what I had heard was of people flying to NY to buy Levi's at lower prices (?)
BTW, now I'm wearing a Benetton T- shirt with no logo visible, some apocryphal- brand jeans and artesanally- made leather boots. I rather tend to despise billboarding and most of my clothes have no legend whatsoever.
--Hikari
--Hikari
"Long distance information/ Disconnect me if you can/ On Detonation Boulevard..."
Indeed there is.
The clever reader will have noted that I mentioned Fussell's schema had 12 classes, and I discussed the four lower classes, three middle classes and the four upper classes.
The remaining class, "class X", of people who prefer to consider themselves outside the class system. The bohemians, if you will. These people who elect to wear clothing which gives neutral, mixed, or ambiguous class signs.
Wearing such t-shirts might be indicitive of that.
However, by Fussell's paradigm, the fact that you managed to work mention of the three brands of T-shirt you value into a conversation of how you don't wear clothing with brands strongly suggests you possess that class insecurity common of people in the middle class. :)
----------------------------------------------
-*- Any technology indistinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced -*-
Specifically, they mentioned the Volkswagon Beetle as one of the products behind introducing the "hippie" philosophy to the zeitgeist. Record companies and other medea corporations provided a lot of the drive as well. We can hear echo's of it in Apple Computer's "for the rest of us" and "think different" ads, and in products like Fruitopia, Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream, and CD's from Geffin Records.
Gather any 10 "anti-corporate" Unix geeks at random, and 8 of them will be wearing Doc Martins. Rage Against The Machine fans pay through the nose for "Free Leonard Peltier" T-shirts. The rise of body piercing has created whole now markets for selling jewelry. Homeopathy and "alternative medicine" rakes in millions by getting people to trust their herbalist more than their family doctor.
The thesis of the book boiled down to the fact that there really is no revolution, but it is being marketed anyway.
Counterculture, as it exists today, was invented to sell us stuff.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
Hehe... well, i'll agree with you - there is no way in hell i'd pay $120.00 for a pair of shoes, unless they were something really amazing. That's why i've owned a wide variety of brands, and I never pay full price (can you say sale/end-of-line? ;^) As a matter of fact, I'm wearing non-brand name hiking boots right now, which are great.
Actually, I've paid over $200 for a pair of shoes. OTOH, they were good leather european walking shoes, with the kind of support I needed for my lame leg, and a repair and recondition warranty. I paid $100 for high tops for the support and the fact that they had velcro and didn't need to be tied (they're finally dying four years later). It used to be I bought my shoes at a department store, discount house, or the drugstore, on sale and cheap. Now if I try that I injure myself because I can't walk in the cheap ones. Being a gimp gets expensive.
However, brand tags are ugly. I tend to cut them off if I can. Abstract logos on clothes arent so bad - I can fix them up with embroidery thread.
use Sig::Witty;
Example: As of right now im wearing a t that says GIVE BLOOD, PLAY RUGBY in huge letters on the back, on the front (in little letters) it says Rugby Imports. Did i buy it because it said rugby imports? No! I bought it because i like rugby! Would i consider buying more stuff from rugby imports? Sure, they make good t-shirts.
For those of you in college, i think you understand me when I say, "It doesn't really matter! Just give me the free t-shirt!" That's really how it goes.
Okay, now do I go out and buy Abercrombie and Fitch, or Gucci, or even polo? No. Why? Because i could care less what the logo says and if it is that much more expensive to wear, then i won't, and I am betting most of you don't wear it either. But I bet most
What is the geek motif? Comfortability I say. That means t-shirt, jeans, sneakers. Not complicated, and definitely not the most stylish, but cheap and cozy. T-shirt can have nothing, can have everything, but I bet you couldn't tell me what labels you are wearing right now without checking.
Which brings me right back to the beginning of my argument, which simply was, "I [insert we if you want] don't care." We might care about the honest, hard working indeginous people of wherever when we are challenged think about it, but most of the time are label's our Intel, Microsoft, GNU, Linus (fish -- which i have), etc. And we have every right to support and dis those, because they apply to us. So feel free to show a company your support, just have a valid reason why, not just "because it costs more", because on slashdot, everything is FREE!
Thank you for reading my stream of conscious
Lemure, wtf! Don't you mean Lemur?
Personally, my objection is to being coerced into wearing what consitutes an advertisement, especially if I also have to pay a premium price for the garment. Anything bigger than a Levi's hip pocket tag renders an item of cloting undesireable for me. Usually, I could care less what others are wearing, and I think it has actually become a statement to wear clothes that don't display any brandname or logo.
For the record, I do intentionally wear logos or trademarks of things I genuinely endorse, such as the EFF, User Friendly, or my own employer. But it's an honest choice, not a compliance with whatever fashion trend is mandated by my peers.
But then there's the issue of being inundated with advertisements. I don't always empathize with this one, but I understand it well. Some people feel that it cheapens any experience to see a brand name, logo, or sponsor's slogan displayed too prominently in connection with the event. (Although in some events, like auto racing and soap operas, it has a long tradition.) Being constantly subjected to people wearing unignorable brand names ("Hilfiger" comes to mind) is just another chip out of their lives' integrity.
I can see the fnords!
Go ahead. Mark me down for flamebait.
Although my opinion is obviously biased, I was disappointed that there was no mention
of Free Software or some other not-for-profit projects that benefit everyone. I find that
many of the corporate ties within the Free Software community are very much along the
lines of Klein's notion of an ideal balance between corporations and communities.
I'm surprised that no one else has seen fit to mention the continual insistence of RMS to 'brand'
Linux derivatives as 'GNU/Linux'. Even the opensource/freesoftware community is not immune.
--Ruhk
--
404 Error:
Solution?
"In the world I see, you will wear leather clothes that will last you your whole life."
-Tyler Durden, Fight Club.
Actually, Old Navy is a subsidiary of the Gap.
* And remember, it's spelled N-e-t-s-c-a-p-e, but it's pronounced "Mozilla."
I want to make little "leg" decals, and stick them on those fish bumper decals...
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Do ya feel happy-go-lucky, punk?
My trash can has a "Designed for Microsoft Windows 98" logo sticker on it. I don't really see what harm this form of advertising can cause.
When it comes to clothing, today's popular "designers" have gone the safe route. Rather than create a signature style (like say the "Chanel Suit" -- you just knew it was Chanel by looking at it), bums like Tommy Pullmyfinger are altering creativity into marketability. He's not a clothing designer, he's a LOGO DESIGNER.
Tommy Whofscker could design distinctive clothes, but he'd have no protection from cheap knock-offs. "you just knew it was Chanel by looking at it" really dosn't help in court or convincing Customs to impound that boatload of similar-looking clothing. But a logo is more distinctive than a style and logo violations are much easier to enforce. Ergo, logos.
Anomalous: inconsistent with or deviating from what is usual, normal, or expected
Anomalous: deviating from what is usual, normal, or expected
Canard: a false or unfounded repor
That's not the point, though. Many Americans are not moral relativists on this issue. They say companies should be held up to an American standard, not the standard of the country being discussed. For example, China has what amounts to slave labor. That's legal there. American companies which take advantage of it are not going to get good press, even though it's legal, and is probably required if they are to be competitive in that market.
Logic ... merely enables one to be wrong with authority. -- Doctor Who
I buy Gap clothes (including t-shirts) because they feel good, are of good quality, and it's easy. (I shop at Gap.com, my local Gap at a strip, or my local Gap Outlet at a mall) I buy Gap t-shirts in particular because they feel really nice. I recently got a lot of their t-shirts because they are $9.99. They have the faded-local-sports-team look to them and feel great. I don't recall even those having a Gap logo anywhere other than the tag inside the collar.
So, my point is, I don't get where you say Gap t-shirts have the logo emblazened on them. Maybe a few do, but most do not.
I try to buy clothes without logos on them as much as possible, my only exceptions are the Old Navy stuff I bought back in college because it was cheap, my tennis shoes, and one Gap hat.
Refrag
I have a website. It's about Macs.
Actually, there was a very good book a couple years ago (I wish I could remember the title) about how all this "individualism" and "anti-corporatism" was the direct and intended result of corporate campaigns of the 50's and 60's.
You're probably thinking of
"The Conquest of Cool: Business Culture, Counterculture, and the Rise of Hip Consumerism"
By Thomas Frank University of Chicago Press, 287 pages
The review is at Salon.
George
Naked women.......mmmmmm :-)
I'm sold, now what are you selling?
Lemure, wtf! Don't you mean Lemur?
There was a great photo in the spring issue of Adbusters (but unfortunately they don't have the photo online.) It was a shot of a typical suburban mini-mall intersection, with all of the text and logos airbrushed out, so that all that remained was the shapes of the signs. It was very eerie: it looked almost normal, but something was just not quite right... it took a while of looking at it to realize what was going on.
Ads are so much a part of our world now that when they're gone, it feels like something's gone wrong. Creepy...
When you see a billboard with the silhouette of camel on billboard, do you think of Python ?
I've seen some solvent at those home warehouse stores (home despot, etc) that claims that it'll get rid of any sticker, label, etc, without harming the paint. Haven't tried it much myself, but I've got to get some hardware a bit later anyways, I may pick some up to debrand some of my private property that I haven't "personalized" with my oil paints yet.
Marxism is the opiate of dumbasses
"...my objection is to being coerced into wearing what consitutes an advertisement, especially if I also have to pay a premium price..."
"Coerced"? "have to"? These words must not mean what I think they mean.
No one is forcing you to wear Tommy. In fact, you note this yourself when you say you don't wear branded clothing. So what are these words supposed to mean? This argument is beginning to sound a lot like the "there's too nudity/violence/crap on TV". So don't watch.
--
Wanna hook MAPI clients to your Tru64/AIX/Linux server?
Linux MAPI Server!
http://www.openone.com/software/MailOne/
(Exchange Migration HOWTO coming soon)
My point was this, though. Often brand names become popular because of the commitment to quality of the producer. I would never buy $200 Tommy jeans just because of the brand, but on the other hand, I paid extra to get a Sony Sports Discman as opposed to some no-name (and thus cheaper in both senses of the word) player, simply because I know I'm buying quality. Same deal when I buy brand-name shoes. If the brand burns me, then I never buy from them again. Isn't the free market economy loverly? =^)
My parents tell me of days in the 70's where the Canadian dollar was worth more then the American. Hard to imagine. =^)
-legolas
i've looked at love from both sides now. from win and lose, and still somehow...
Heh. I remember that. Funny. :)
Incidentally: the Adidas company took its name from the name of its founder, Adi Dassler, and not after the whole sex thing. Adi's brother Rudolf also went on to form his own shoe company, but rather than use his own name, he decided to name the company after an animal.
I don't see why anyone with a branded T-Shirt etc. should expect free advertising.
I can't understand why people actully pay for the right to advertise branded items.
Really, I just don't get it.
Of course, I also think that I should get a commission everytime someone sells my personal information for mailing lists etc.
Is it just me or what?
I meant to say that those t-shirts were on sale for $9.99.
/. had editing capabilities.
Damn, I wish
Refrag
I have a website. It's about Macs.
The whole concept of paying money to a corportion to advertise for them has seemed rediculous to me for years (I'm 24, must be getting old, losing it). I was in town with some people when someone with "tommy hilfinger" written all over the back of their jacket walked in front of us - I wasn't the only one who smiled at their expense. This Tommy Hilfinger thing has only recently arrived in New Zealand - who is this guy? Is Tommy fictional? A sports star? Some suited gimp who laughs all the way to the bank or what?
Anyway, in hindsight, learning to fully trust my own sense of style has been surprisingly empowering*. I don't have any labels on my jeans mainly because quick-unpicks are fun and addictive, but also because having a brown square sewn on the back of black jeans looks silly (sillier if you don't wear a belt to cover it). If you trust your sense of what looks good (as opposed to what brand is in fashion etc) it liberates you from all of this, however I should warn you that it may make you pretentious - you may start looking down on the plebs who pay money to wear branded clothes.
While scoffing at the people who wear their insecurities on the outside may be bad for your personality, it could grow to be a blow against the brand bullies. I however wont be leading that blow
And now to offend the slashdotters, I think the coffee club is similar - people go out of their way to brand themselves as coffee drinkers, little things like animated steaming coffee mug icons for an hourglass, mugs with images proclaiming coffee club membership. You've probably never noticed how much effort coffee drinkers put into being recognised but you might now (I like coffee, but the club...)
* I really hate that word, I'm sorry to use it but I couldn't think of a closer word. It's normally so meaningless - for most people it seems that all you to have to do to become empowered is to say "I am empowered" or "I feel empowered", and magically you are.
Well...
I have lots of computer tools (screwdrivers, meters, logic probes, cable testers etc), but they are unsuitable for the task of attaching a license plate. They are simply not as durable or large as automotive tools.
In other words, it may be easier to call your dealer rather than hunt for a #3 philips capable of being used for automotive work.
I had to replace sound system in my car, so I had to spend roughly $30 on necessary tools. I could just pay an installer and enjoy a book, but I wanted to do it myself for fun. This position is not typical, and if I didn't have a need to use those tools daily, I'd pull up to any service station and borrowed the screwdriver.
The woman likely didn't want to trouble herself with finding the tools and to spend any of her time on this. Besides, if you recall, those screws require significant dexterity and manual force.
This is why the service industry exists, to provide people who don't have the experience, knolwedge, tools, or time the necessary service.
--
Leonid S. Knyshov
Leonid S. Knyshov
Find me on Quora
Pepsi and Coke are two of the biggest advertisers out there, but their ads don't ever get anybody to switch colas... people still drink the one they like. The real reason for these ads is to raise stock value. If a company seems to be omnipresent, investors get a warm, fuzzy feeling about buying shares in them.
So you're saying that when people buy soda for less than a dollar a can, they act as rational consumers, but when they buy stock -- and does this include professional money managers? -- they base that decision on warm, fuzzy feelings? Do you have any evidence for this suprising view?
The general public typically isn't smart enough to make complex assumptions like "Gee, that Nike billboard covered with spraypaint must mean that someone is protesting the advertising saturation practices of Nike." No, instead they think "Gee that Nike billboard is covered with spraypaint. That must mean some evil gang members crawled up there in a drug frenzy and marked their territory." The ordinary populace is, as I keep reminding everyone, the dumbest people you'll ever meet. They don't make logical leaps in their thought processes, but instead try to reform the world in a shape that they're comfortable with. Never understimate the stupidity of the average human being.
The harmful part of this anti-advertising violence is that corporations, once provoked by such activities, will make attempts to bring the perpetrators to justice for the willful destruction of private property, a crime that is unquestionable in the courts. Anti-abortion protesters aren't allowed to spraypaint nasty messages on the automobiles owned by gynaecologists who perform abortions, and by the same account it's equally illegal to spraypaint billboards. There's no question of free speech rights here. And remember that corporations are absolutely ruthless when it comes to prosecuting someone -- they'll pull out their army of bloodthirsty, slavering lawyers to beat you into a pulp and twist the judge's arms until they sentence you with the maximum possible sentence and award punitive damages to the corporation plus legal fees and your indentured servitude for five years in their shoe factory in Malaysia.
Violence is, as usual, not the answer. It is nothing but a poor, victimizing form of instant gratification. I'm not going to offer anything as satisfying as violence, however; there is little more satisfying than pillaging an enemy village and raping its women, taking its children as slaves.
Instead, I offer a more peaceful form of activism. When you see a friend wearing a billboard on their head or chest or the like, mention it to them. Ask them why they feel the need to pay money to advertise for a company that makes much more money than they'll ever see. Ask them why they feel that they need to identify with a corporation that has never given a fid for their best interests, indeed is only interested in the latest profit figures. Convince them that they should do the same for their friends, and actively avoid wearing brand names themselves, even if it means buying a new wardrobe of advertising-free clothing. If enough people actually begin communicating like this the idea of having big corporate brands pasted across your chest will begin to seem ridiculous (it always has to me).
Obstructionist tactics work well too. When your local city government reviews an application for construction of a billboard, show up at the open hearing if there is one and argue the case against. If there isn't an open hearing, protest against the government for not holding open hearings on billboard construction. When you see yet another billboard that you don't like, give the corporation's local representative (if there is one) a call and complain that the billboard is ugly and lacks taste. Come up with other irritating complaints to waste their time and money. Write letters to the local paper about how the billboards you see are annoying or disgusting. Above all, find some way to waste the corporation's time and money on frivolous complaints about their billboards -- this hits them where it really hurts them, in their profit margin.
Thankfully, the billboard problem has never reared its ugly head in Alaska. This state has laws specifically targeting billboards. The people who live here enjoy the beautiful scenery of this state and do not wish to be confronted with ugly billboards every time they turn around. In fact, the construction and renting/leasing of billboards is illegal, and signage built on private property has to conform with certain regulations on size and placement. All of this is to prevent the construction of billboards. Places like California are probably too far gone to consider enacting laws such as these, and the community there is probably too complacent to worry about advertising saturation, but perhaps other states with less advanced cases of saturation can look into enacting laws modeled on those of Alaska's. I can't describe how refreshing it is to return home to a billboard-free land after having spent time in the advertising saturated lands of America.
Let me first say that I agree with you, but I get the impression that the book is more of a rant on the ills of the big bad corporations and their marketing machines.
The root problem is that everybody feels the need to belong to a group. The clothes we wear, the cars we drive, even the operating system we use makes us a a part of a group whether we want to be or not. This isn't a problem until we begin to believe that belonging to the group is more important to us then our own individuality. When kids think they need to kill for a pair of sneakers or when executives think they need to keep their mouths shut about poor labor practices just to maintain or establish their place in a group, thats when we have a problem. I think Ms. Klein is on to a serious problem in society, but from what I gather she's got a scapegoat and nothing more.
This isn't meant to disagree with you in anyway. In fact, I think we are largely in agreement here. Its just easier to reply than to start a whole new thread.
"The words of the prophets are written on the Slashdot walls."
Saturday Night Live did a fake commercial with real video of the bodies of the Heaven's Gate people, closeups of their Nikes, and the tag:
Reeboks. Worn by normal Christian people.
Or something like that.
At the venerable University of Toronto, where she used to irritate the hell out of me by asking ignorant and offtopic questions in my Shakespeare class and wrote/edited for the school paper, The Varsity, which was only a little less liberal than Pravda.
How the hell she got a publishing deal is beyond me. It hardly seems like an original topic, this one's been hashed around for years.
I will go back to gnashing my teeth now.....
bun-fhuinneog agam!
but, it's just shades of gray.
And the moderation? please, moderation has become a joke. Slashdot moderation is overrun by thinly educated hotheads. Here's a proposed change to the moderation system: moderation can only go up, not down, and let the scores climb as high as they want to. "Flamebait" and "Troll" should be eliminated because they've become meaningless. I don't moderate any more 'cuz I suspect the system is rigged anyway.
To become a big brand is the goal of all the small brands competing. This is the American Dream, and is quickly becoming a worldwide dream as well. Nothing wrong with that.
Of course, power corrupts, yadda yadda yadda see microsoft, etc... Businesses do need people to keep an eye on their practices and keep them in check, otherwise they will quite happily run roughshod over each other and everyone else to maintain their position: Power is not a means. It is an end.
Having said that, I don't think we will ever be free of large brands, nor should we want to be. Large brands can afford to put money into risky things like development and research. Smaller corporations have all they can do to produce and survive. Brands need to be managed, and perhaps replaced from time to time with newer, more "friendly" brands, who will then need to be watched as they corrupt over time.
Its easy to be "good" when you don't have the power to be "evil".
Of course I use Microsoft. Setting up a stable unix network is no challenge
Nike became a target when the $$$ involved in Jordan's endorsement contract was leaked, and they have been a favorite pin-cushion of the anti-corporatist set ever since.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
Actually, in No Jobs, Klein takes us south of Manilla to an Export Processing Zone to see what the horrible conditions are there. If you have only heard of the protest but are unfamiliar with the practices, read this book. It does go into sweatshop labour, with interviews with the workers, descriptions of the "behind enemy lines" reporting and the fully armed factory guards.
It then goes on to show that Nike does in fact have a "Code of Conduct" that is supposed to prove that slave labor isn't possible. However, there are two problems with this:
1) It is only available in English and to North Americans. All of the factory workers that Klein interviewed had never heard of such a document stating that they actually rights.
2) It is no a legally binding document. Nike can make as many "Codes of Conduct" as they like and they won't have to follow through.
Klein discussed that later in the book, where she claims the next battle will be fought. Will Nike be allowed to police itself or will worldwide organizations impose laws that force Nike factories to be inspected by third parties?
And it's not all anti-Nike. There are stories of Gap factory workers urinating in plastic bags beneth their tables for fear of getting beaten for asking to go to the bathroom. There are also similar stories for Disney, Tommy Hilfiger, Esprit, Apple, IBM and countless others.
Pick up the book at your local library and skim through it and you'll see exactly what I'm talking about in this review.
The reviewer,
Warren A. Layton
It's Richard Stallman's brand for his growing hoard of software -- all licensed so that he has control of what happens to it and can use it as a weapon against commercial programmers' livelihoods. It should be as deplored in our space as any other brand or logo.
Probably.
I know that clothing manufacturers pay rapper to wear their clothing, so why not pay them to write about their clothing as well? There is evidence that this type of product placement goes on in other medias like late night talk shows, so it's not so far fetched. One of my old hobbies used to be seeing which products Dave Letterman would mention in his monologue. Remember, even bad jokes are good jokes for advertisers.
One thing to keep in mind is that a lot of senior citizens and even baby boomers aren't as aware of blatant advertisement as Gen-X folk. It always cracked me up to hear my grandfather claim that the golfers wore a certain name brand because they actually like that product. Of course sometimes this is the case, but usually money talks more.
Obseration 2:The typical slashdotter response to the question of "How do musicians make money in a Napstered world?" is "Let them eat merchandising!" -- that is, they should earn money by selling t-shirts, bumperstickers, CDs, etc. But now wearing a "Grateful Dead" T-shirt has become a sign of submission to the corporate overlords, so that's out. Ah, hypocrisy, thy name is slashdotter.
While I appreciate the the rants against displaying logos, it's interesting to think about how "logos" -- corporate or religious -- help us form our own identities.
Let's face it: Christianity itself is one of the more icon-centric "corporations" around. (I say "corporation" because I don't know how else to describe it. It's a religion, yes, -- and one, of course, with deep, deep, spiritual roots -- but its grasp on the human psyche and consciousness is as powerful and pervasive as Microsoft, IBM, or Sun. My own last foray into a 'Christian' church two weeks ago [for a baptism] struck me in the same way a visit to any corporate headquarters might strike me: the faithful must go all out -- pull out all the stops -- to make sure the unfamiliar [folks like myself] are persuaded that theirs is a culture to hold high above all others. This is itself is interesting -- the corporatizing culture of contemporary religion -- but that's another argument for another Slashdot story. Perhaps our own eager college freshman, 5-paragraph, essayist and cultural critic, JonKatz, might care to pick it up?)
Anyway, the logo. The icon. Logos and Christianity. Logos and corporations. The important thing (IMHO) to keep in mind about logos is their iconographic power to assist in molding our own private selves.
We slap on that little RedHat decal or the Debian bumpersticker because not only do we endorse the product itself, but we are also attempting to carve out (what seems to be) a much more difficult "space" in our consciousnesses: we're attempting not only to promote the product for others, but we're either affirming for the first time or reaffirming what that product *means* within ourselves.
It's a unique act of self-identification -- and subsequent self-awareness, perhaps -- that we undertake in order to (a) define ourselves and (b) define our own unique place in the world around us.
What's dangerous, of course, is that just as the logos we choose have the power to define our conscious selves, the logos we don't choose (probably) have that same power to inform our unconscious selves. (Assuming, for the moment, that choice is a conscious act.)
It's for this reason that a religion like Christianity is so driven by the image: an image (placed properly or improperly) has remarkable formative powers. I make no judgments on this one way or the other -- the power of icon-driven religions -- but only mean to identify this instance as a means to support my ideas of the power of the logo.
But I also acknowledge the important of logos -- of the image -- and how it affirms and directs and constructs our own identities. As much as we're driven by words and speech, we're also driven by the image. It's interesting (to me, at least) to think how inseperable the image is from the word and even speech itself.
Modernity (post-modernity) has managed to conflict the written word, the spoken word, and the image into one 'thing.' (That thing is maybe "culture"? I don't know).
Yeah maybe, it's the new coat-of-arms for our culture. And if that's true -- if the image over the thousands of years that it has remained a potent force is really inseperable from other 'acts of consciousness' -- speech, writing -- then think of its *political* implications. If you're a good little Marxist and perhaps believe (like Frerick Jameson) that culture is inseperable from the "political unsconscious" that informs every conscious act -- especially artistic acts like writing a novel, writing a screenplay, or coding an application -- the logo informs a large part of this unconscious.
It has a remarkable power to *define* -- define ourselves, our choices, and the world around us.
That's pretty damn wicked.
I honestly don't understand it. Probably most clothing/shoe companies rely on cheap overseas labor (along with cars, industrial equipment and just about everthing else). Has Nike done something particularly bad that everyone hates them for it, or are they just being made an example of (or are they just getting smeared for no reason)?
To quote the review: None of this is news to us: we have all read about Nike's sweatshop labour practices.
I haven't. I've read about people protesting their labor practices, but I've never seen anything describing the results of an (impartial) check of Nike's factories, the conditions found there, and how they compare to other companies working in the same country.
> - Colnago
Now that's a brand name that I wouldn't mind wearing. I'm a Cannondale girl at the moment though...
Molly.
The only thing i don't understand, is what does "this space to let." mean? I was thinking it meant "this space for rent.", but I got confused. As for the slogan, I think "The eyes never lie." is the best one out of those. Wow that is damn cool, a lot better than the stuff on adbusters
MacSlash: News for Mac Geeks
I believe that everyone has a right to simple identification, and in a world where words become depreciated in favor of images and quick ideas, a logo, and all the enforcement that it takes to maintain said logo are very important. Three years ago I had developed a recognizable logo, which exemplified the maximal synergy of our product, and filled all those who viewed it with warm fuzzy feelings. I was proud of the logo, and its acceptance into the corporate world, which is something I generally have a problem doing. My logo was loved, and I felt loved. People even bought me flowers. I like flowers.
Then, about a year after the logo had been released into the world, a viscious band of copyright infringement pirates had kidnapped the logo, and they were holding it for ransom. The past two years have been saturated with struggle and combat over the right to maintain our logo. Much blood was shed, and the weeping of the wives of the fallen can still be heard at night on the moors. Particularly over Mr. Winters.
Jeremy Winters worked in the Corporate Standards division. He was the first to take a liking to the logo. He was the one who got it into the corporate policies manuals, and on all the company stationary. Which, when you think about it, is pretty odd, given that paper moves around alot and is NEVER stationary, even when you're trying to write on it.
Anyway, after the logo had been stolen, Mr. Winters went undercover with a L337 squad of 11 hand picked executives. They infiltrated the pirates' desert compound in an effort to recover the logo. The fighting was long and hard, and the pirates knew they had to flee. They packed the logo up in a tanker truck, and took off over the desert. By that point our lawyers had secured a small posse to aid in the pursuit. The armies exchanged blows on the road, battling until finally the tanker was overtaken. But alas, the tanker was filled with sand, and the real logo had escaped unnoticed. Mr. Winters hit the side of the tanker with his fist out of frustration, and it collapsed on him, killing him quite painfully.
All this trouble over a single elevated middle finger.
You could also find places such as Hot Topic that sell brand parodies. My favorite I've seen so far is "Pimpercrombie & Bitch." When we had a guest from Japan staying with us, I took him around and just happened to find a t-shirt that said "Fuck Sony" in Japanese. He loved it and bought some for his friends too.
I wish I could remember the entire thing though, Hobbes made a couple of funny comments.
-syrinx
(just read my email address in reverse)
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.
also these very same people are likely to be heavily influenced by ads for Air Jordans, especially given that they aren't yet immune to ads (not sure that anyone ever is, noticed myself being tempted by products that have just had a big ad campaign - tho i did live without tv for about 10 years so maybe not inured yet.
the thing is that nike to sell a lot, which they shouldn't if people were making rational common sense based decisions as their quality/price ratio . . .
reckon that most internet companies advertising is aimed at investors though, cos hey, it doesn't matter have many customers/sales they have, they're still not going to make money.
~ppppppppö
Direct quote from Nike's website: Finally, in several developing countries, labor laws allow companies to pay workers a minimum wage with a combination of cash and non-cash benefits. Nike however, requires a full cash minimum wage.
Farther down the page: People around the world working in Nike factories are paid a fair wage, which often combines cash with allowances for meals, housing, transportation, health care and even cash bonuses. Nike sets the cash wage for entry level workers using the standards set by local governments or trade unions in each country.
A fair wage they say? Does that mean they get all of the minimum wage in cash, plus bonuses? Notice they never quote any actual figures on the pages, just use generalizations and percentages. Refuting possibly ambiguous claims (I haven't read the book yet) with their own ambiguous claims doesn't do much to clarify the issue. They don't practice full disclosure and wonder why people give them a hard time. -djneko
`/\/\
(^.^)
(")(")
not quite an analog pussy, just a cat that plays with vinyl
Stop counting when you reach a hundred. It won't take long.
This is all fscked up, AFAIC. People are paying companies large sums of money (ever bought a Tommy t-shirt?) for the "privilege" of advertising for them. Shouldn't it be the other way around?
Sounds like an interesting book. I'll have to pick it up tonight.
A friend of mine played half-life so much he forgot that the "radioactive" warning symbol was a real symbol (that for some reason looks like a reel of magnetic tape...? ) and thought it was a "half-life" logo. We were walking around someplace, I forget where, a hospital or something, and there was one of these radioactive signs, and he says to me, "that's weird, I guess somebody really likes Half-Life." I thought he was just making a joke, but he really forgot what it meant until I reminded him.
I can imagine a Darwin award, "Idiot perishes from radiation exposure while searching for Half-Life tournament"
Bang the head that doesn't bang!
Interesting. There is a very important thesis in the book Class by Paul Fussell which pertains here.
He presents a paradigm of American society in which there are 12 social classes, which are as much cultures as economic brackets. One of the many things he discusses is the idea of "legible clothing", that is to say, clothing with words printed on it. Displaying the brand names on your clothing is a way of asserting which social class you belong to, or wish to belong to.
In the four lower classes, "impressive" brands are largely inaccessible because of cost. However, when a member of the lower classes can afford clothing of such a brand, s/he gravitates towards clothing which flaunts its brand, in as big, bold letters and icons as it possibly can; this communicates to other members of the same class "I am more wealthy than you".
The upper four classes prefer clothing with either no brands apparent or extremely subtle branding. Wearing prominent logos is vulgar. Also, this turns the identification of the brand into a test of the viewer's class: it allows the wearer to test whether they are dealing with someone familiar enough with, say, Versace gowns as to be able to tell one when they see one.
It is the middle three classes who consume "designer" and "branded" clothing the most. They can afford it, and they are often insecure about their class status: there is nothing worse for someone in the middle classes than to be mistaken for someone in the lower classes. Wearing designer jeans, e.g., back in the 1980s, was a way for middle class school girls especially to differentiate themselves from their lower class classmates.
For an absolutely fascinating (IMHO) look at this, check out this Salon article "Consumed by Consumption".
At any point, the reason I mention this is two-fold (beyond the obvious one that it might amuse you, gentle readers).
First, if you've ever aspired to either climb the class lader or merely become better at your Sherlock Holmes-style disguises, this provides a very nifty little heuristic. Only one part of many, but a vital part.
Second, brand watching -- wrt people's clothing -- doesn't merely tell you the penetration of corporatism into private life. It also is an at-a-glance rough measure of the class demographics in a social environment. Analysts and pundits are always saying things like "the middle class is disappearing" etc. Well, go collect your own qualitative data. See for yourself what the class distrubution is like in your area.
----------------------------------------------
-*- Any technology indistinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced -*-
How many companies can you identify by their logo alone (omit word logos, like 'Microsoft' and 'IBM'). How many "open-source" software companies can you identify by their logo alone? How many "open-source" web sites? How many games?
The 'no logo' idea is a noble one, but one which will ultimately fail. It's not just marketing, but recognition. Man has been doing it for as long as we've been painting animals on our shields so that other armies will know who we are. Self-identification is one of the key pieces of human nature and what we now call 'logos' are simply another manifestation of our nature.
How about McDonald's in Scotland. They found a restaurant using the McDonald's name, and sued for breach of trademark. Lack of research, bucko. Turns out the restaurant was owned by Clan McDonald, had been in business for over 100 years, and had previous claim to the name. Result... Golden Arches ain't in the advertising game in Scotland, because they can't use the name. Rough justice is better than no justice at all?
Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one-- Albert Einstein
A Durex Is Disposable After S..
~ppppppppö
You could always pull the old johnny rotten trick of writing "I Hate" atop his Pink Floyd t-shirt. Surely there's some parallels btw. No Logo and punk's agenda of stripping the meaning from symbols?
Somebody please, tell this machine I'm not a machine.
Although it's great to see so much discussion about logos and walking billboards, my understading of the review is that advertisement is merely a fraction of the subject of this book.
This book is also about some of the questionable practices of some of these large corporations, and their motivations behind it. Many companies go as far as ignoring the basic human rights of their workers which we take for granted. I look forward to reading a book that makes me think of what we are really supporting when we buy a product.
Perhaps logos are here to stay, but child slavery should have been abolished long ago!
Jan
http://www.fadetoblack.com//int erviews/mikecameron/
--Hikari
--Hikari
"Long distance information/ Disconnect me if you can/ On Detonation Boulevard..."
Too much of the current radical mentality is oriented towards nihilism and violence: even professedly nonviolent radicals speak (or shriek) of "smashing" or "destroying" (rather than "reforming") the regime of which they disapprove. Because of the intensity of their utopian vision, they can see little or nothing in the current state of the world that is worth preserving. From such a view, peaceful and productive reform may seem pointless or even reactionary: a refusal to act "by any means necessary".
(I consider myself an anticorporatist only in that I object to government granting special privileges to corporations, and to the use of these privileges to evade responsibility for human rights violations and the like. I enthusiastically support free trade and investment ("capitalism", falsely so-called), on the grounds, discussed by von Mises, that socialist command economy cannot work. I consider corporate favoritism by government to be a form, not of free trade, but of socialism, as it represents government entanglement in the economy. "Corporatism" was originally the name of the form of command economy favored by the Italian Fascists: the control of the economy by government, for the ostensible benefit of the people, through the conjoinment of government and corporate management.)
Free software has been a significant force for progress and reform in the world. It has been essential to the creation of the Internet, which has dramatically increased the ability of individuals to publish their views to a global audience -- a privilege formerly reserved for the Hearsts and Turners of the world. Free software, in the form of email, netnews, and the Web, has enabled people to criticize governments and corporations, to call for reform, and to organize. Free software has also helped keep proprietary-software makers more honest, by giving users an alternative.
However, free software doesn't break anything. Linus, Alan, Theo, Bruce, Eric, Richard, Larry, Guido, Ian, and company are not found smashing store windows to destroy copies of Windows 2000, nor are they found spray-painting Microsoft billboards. Yet when they do get noticed by radical publications such as Salon, they are discussed in terms of the damage their work may do to Microsoft, not in terms of the productivity it engenders.
Smashing stuff isn't really radical. People have been smashing stuff they don't like since the cave days. Giving people new ways to speak, to work, and to live -- that's radical.
Every hardware and software manufacturer gives them out lke candy. It's the same thing. You get that free T-Shirt from your server or switch vendor. When you wear it you become a wlaking bill board.
I have plenty of vendor T-Shirts. I have never worn any of them. I use them for cleaning rags.
I can't for the life of me remember the name of the movie, or even much of the plot, but it centered around Coke and Pepsi, some guy in ( Australia? NZ? ) anyway.. the only thing I recall was a line about one of the workers wearing a Pepsi T-shirt in the corporate office and he worked for Coke. The lead actor commented on it, and the response was.." So? They probably have a guy over there wearing one of our shirts..."
Anyway. All I ever wear is 501's ( like the fit ) and some random t-shirt. Most have no logo, the ones that do are all freebies from tradeshows or Compaq ( I will wear their shirts but I draw the line at using their products.. ) or else it's a
FOUR STAR MARY t-shirt. I have no problem wearing their logo. I like their music and want them to succeed.
..does wearing Doc Martens make me a corporate whore if you can't see the label?
3C
Atlas Shrugged is my favorite book and I beleive that logos and commercialism is good. Think of all of the free services that have been made possible through advertising. There is TV, and on the internet you can get phone calls, internet access, money, etc
Did I offend your delicate sensibilities, or are you simply confused because you did not see the parent message?
Shouldn't it by irst-fay ost-pay?
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
Personally, I don't consider anything that consists of standard clothing with a logo on it to be designer clothing. The term 'designer' implies, to me, that somebody there's an element of design involved beyond 'embroider a logo there, and use green stitching on the top button'. Designer clothing, to me, on the casual side is stuff in the way of A|X or Diesel or what not, that you can identify without a huge logo on it. As for nicer designer clothing, I think most people who have to wear suits can quickly spot the difference between a today's man suit and a Hugo Boss or a Canali. I personally don't understand how two things came about, first of all I don't understand the urge to wear designer clothing just for it's own sake. Who wears those giant logos? They're always the cheapest things made by that designer anyway, so it's not advertising that you have enough money to wear Calvin Klein or something. They say 'I want to wear designer clothing, but all I can afford is this overpriced low-end item that offers neither additional style, nor quality'.
----------------------------
If you live in a average-to-large sized city, there will be a bunch of printers who'll hapilly make you this shirt if you bring them a cd/disk of camera ready art. Cost is almost always under $20 a unit. Wish I could say as much for the branded shirts!
Let's see, I'm wearing a (non-T) shirt and jeans from Old Navy. Neither have visible logos, despite Old Navy's propensity for such things.
My computer? It's a generic Intel box. No logos whatsoever. (Although, there is a place to stick one if I had one to stick there.)
In the USA today, it may not be possible to live logo free. Even if I could, I don't know that I'd want to. Logos aren't all bad. But my point is that there are logoless options out there.
The most prominent logo in my cubicle is the
little grey 'Dell' at the bottom of my monitor.
My clothes and shoes are all logoless. The only
things with identifying Logos are my Printer, Monitor, and the box of Jax cartridgeson my desk.
Oh well...
Guess I'm not getting my daily recommended amount of marketing, who should I call to step up my advertising dosage?
Kintanon
Check out JoshJitsu.info for Brazilian Ji
----
Also a sci-fi short story by Asimov, "Buy Jupiter".
i *will* buy clothes from gap, etc as long as they don't have labels on them. why would i want to pay to advertise for them? i don't see a point in paying to advertise, we are paying them for the clothes so we can advertise.
there are some things that i will advertise for, such as biking companies, underground bands, and videogames/anime. that is my choice, and i would support those things in some way or another, so i might as well help them out by buying a cool looking t-shirt. gap and old navy can make their money by making quality, good looking clothes with no silly logos plastered everywhere.
'Mullethead. A hairstyle that's a way of life'
however, that the most recent example in the book is dated June 1999, so it's possible that the word "Linux" hadn't reached Klein's ears by that time
However, it is possible that Klein doesn't care about operating systems. Most people I know certainly do not.
and the point being is that you're not flaunting those logos for stauts.
Most of the T-shirts that I own are from concerts, and serve as souveneirs of the show as well as show my support for the band. Same as if you wore a Dell shirt or O'Reilly shirt: you enjoy and support the product.
I believe the main thrust of the book is the equating of wearing the Logo with a certain status. A girl I used to work with said her cousin in Hong Kong was always pointing out her Gucci (and other name )clothes and accessories and saying "Look! Brand name!" Obviously, she and her friends thought that it was very important to them to show their status by wearing a certain manufacturer's clothing.
As was said before, people get jumped/robbed for wearing or not wearing certain brands of clothing. That's just retarded.
Pope
Freedom is Slavery! Ignorance is Strength! Monopolies offer Choice!
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
Maybe even Rob, Jeff, and the others will read this book and stop doing Pepsi promos on Geeks in Space. Pepsi sucks! ;-)
Seriously, brand names define a great part of our modern western society, just like (say) religion has in the past. Is this a good thing? I dunno... but it is there.
I mean, seriously... how many people will defend Linux over FreeBSD, even though, essentially, they are the same thing? (Especially since some of them haven't even tried FreeBSD, or Plan 9, or BeOS, etc. etc... they are just addicted to the image)
Just my $0.02 CDN. I like Linux.
-legolas
i've looked at love from both sides now. from win and lose, and still somehow...
Right when I was about to buy all this stylish merchandise, too. :-)
When I view the link in netscape it reloads all the time... Over and over again, without me pushing the button.
Funny effect, but not very practical. Anyone else have the same problem?
--
"I'm surfin the dead zone
In the twilight, unknown"
I have increasingly been upset at companies and, as a direct result, been against advertising. Stop and think of how cool this world would be without the billboards & public in-your-face advertising. I want 100% truth in advertising.
The larger a company gets, the more it pollutes our environment with ads & wastes the money we give them that could be put to so many better uses (charity, product improvement, etc.). Ads manipulate people and try to pressure people into things they don't need so they feel that they 'belong' in society. Artificial idols to worship (no, I'm not religious, I'm agnostic!).
Gotta get back to work...
I just bought a Jetta. Luckily the dealer didn't punch holes in the front bumper so they could put a big plate with their name on it up there (I live in NC), then I would have had to remove it and fill in the holes. They also didn't put their name on the back of the car as many other places do, I would have had them remove that before buying the car. They did put a rubber license plate holder on with their name on it. Once I get my real license plate, I plan to remove that crap too.
I always wondered if people got a couple hundred dollars off for having those stupid front plates with the dealers name on it...
There are a good number of Volkswagen enthusiasts that go badgeless, but like the classy badges that Volkswagen puts on their cars (one VW on the front, one on the back and the engine indicator on the back instead of the trim level indicator), so mine are staying. You can bet if they were gold, they'd be off already!
Refrag
I have a website. It's about Macs.
Anyways, I'd definately consider purchasing a few packs of these stickers, mostly for guerilla tactics agianst walls, etc of the local shopping centers, where you can occasionally find people taking up 4 parking spots. C'mon, vend 'em out, or lemme know where to get the stickers so I can print out a few score.
Marxism is the opiate of dumbasses
...With warning labels like 'Intel Inside'.
So how do we educate everyone else then? A book like this is useful, and it might sell a few hundred thousand copies, but in a world of 6 billion people the numbers are a drop in the preverbial ocean. We need a new tack, that can reach orders of magnitude more people, anyone with ideas, post away.
Any sufficiently advanced man is indistinguishable from God
More capable at what? Getting you to the grocery store? Getting to work? My mazda gets me around reliably, cheaply, and comfortably. Plust it's paid for! I have often though that somebody in my income bracket ought to be driving a BMW or Audi or whatever but I simply can't justify getting into debt when all I do is run around town. The speed limit is 75 (on most days I am lucky if I do 50).
The only reason to buy an expensive car or an SUV is for sexual display. No practical reason at all. I am already married and have no need to impress the chicks or the neighbors.
War is necrophilia.
But at the same time, they can say that you're too stupid to spend your money on things that are actually SUPERIOR. $40,000+ cars, for instance, are generally more capable than $20,000 ones (unless they're SUVs, in which case you'd usually be better off buying an all-wheel-drive wagon).
I've read Atlas' Shrugged, and I also read the article. We must realize that we are living in a society defined completely by material things. That is, our day to day life is molded by what we do, see, wear and eat. Ayn Rand was right, the coat-of-arms of today ARE these symbols. We are divided by symbols and their meaning. Looks at designers, religious symbols, gang symbols - all are means of defining who you are and who/what you choose to associate yourself with. Many of us associate ourselves with geek culture. Caffeine, hardware/software related tshirts - and other symbols that we use to define ourselves by. Just as many of the coat-of-arms represented common ideologies and themes, this holds true today. We use the unrelenting capitalism of our society to define ourselves by. We take these symbols from Mass Culture and adopt them into yourselves - Pop Culture. This semiotical discussion was brough to you by K.Moss, B. Gates, Linus. T and the big H. Anyone interested, John Fiske wrote a great article on semiotics, Pop Culture and Mass Culture and about all this iconography stuff. Try to find a copy online. It's worth the read. CM
..Eschew Obfuscation..
I was thinking about this yesterday...
I stopped by the bike shop because I had a question about my motorcycle (I am a newbie and the service manual is on order...so till I get it I have to go ask)
While I was waiting for one of the guys to finish what he was doing I stopped in the bathroom. On the toilet was a sticker by the company that cleans the toilet for them....it had a company logo and on the bottom:
"A publicly traded company"...isn't that nice...
Logos logos everywhere...even on the can.
Incidently...the only clothing with logos I buy are the logos of non-profit orgs whose causes I support. (unless it happends to be a shirt with a funny picture or something that just happens to have a logo on it...but I wear them for the funny picture...not the logo)
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
Hairdryer: heat and peal.
Refrag
I have a website. It's about Macs.
I've wanted to be able to remove the logos from various things I own, but it's not easy to do so. For example, I would like to remove all brand insignias from my car. (At least my dealer didn't add more junk to the car.) I don't feel any need to advertise for Chrysler (the car isn't that great).
I just received a corporate memo barring this book from our offices. Good thing we told Amazon.com they couldn't track the books we buy... I think I'm going to have to cover this book with one of the extra copies of Catcher in the Rye I have over in the corner. Grin. -S
Scott Ruttencutter
We Apprentice Developers and Designers
What is The Matrix... Control... its a marketroid generated dream world to keep you under control, to turn a human being into this *holds up flashy PowerPoint presentation of demographics in one hand and billboard in the other*
Many a true word said in jest, since 1969
(BTW does anyone remember the phenomenon of putting "since XXXX" on everything, I think that was early 90s?)
Any sufficiently advanced man is indistinguishable from God
I saw the author of this book, Naomi Klein, on CSPAN a month or two ago. She was promoting this book at (I think) Harvard. Her presentation was great, and she covered the most important topics from the book, describing them with inspiring conviction. What she was talking about probably would have been a rant if it were being said by any other person, but Klein made it coherent and very good. Also, I must say, Naomi Klein is a very attractive woman.
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Stupid people suck.
It would be if the quote was "Microsoft sucks."
Here I sit in my Linux.com t-shirt, Polo hat, Fruit Of TheLoom underwear, using my Microsoft keyboard, Kensington mouse, staring at my CTX monitor, and I realize, THANK GOD I am immune to this!!!
"Don't try to confuse the issue with half truths and gorilla dust."
Bill McNeal (Phil Hartman)
Hmmm, I wonder if the segfault.org logo on my shirt counts....
Personally I've always found it a strange coincidence that very soon after The Gap started pushing vests Old Navy started pushing them too... at least until I found out that Gap owns Old Navy. We should face up to a more serious fact though, which is that if the working conditions in the clothing industry in general were "fair" few of us could afford clothes. I doubt that this would affect the wealthy so much as the poor. I can afford $100 for a shirt or a pair of pants, but lots of people can't.
Actually, that's a little off. Objectivism isn't about doubting
everything. In fact, she slams pretty hard into anyone who thinks that
knowledge and reason are impossible. It would be more like "don't
believe what other's say. Use your own mind and reason to reach
conclusions about reality." And Nazism, well that's rooted in evil,
plain and simple.
A hair dryer and fingernails will get that off, along with pinstripes.
Error 503:
"drink sprite!"
some famous guy convincing me that i shouldn't buy a soda from a liar.
Tommy Hilfiger jeans RULE. I love every pair of 'em that I own. In fact, I can't wait to get home from work and rip off my lousy Dockers® for a pair of Tommies... well, it might be too hot to wear any pants when I get home, but you get the idea...
--
--
fat lenny's gonna lick your brain today.
>The only reason to buy an expensive car or an SUV is for sexual display. No practical reason at all.
>I am already married and have no need to impress the chicks or the neighbors.
The only reason? A bit over simplistic, don't you think?
I have a Lotus Elise (since it doesn't exist in the US - two seater, open top, 0-60mph in 5.0
sec, very small, no electronic windows, no air cond., no carpet, ). It's not hugely expensive, but alot more than the average car. I've spent more than 1/2 of the purchase price again on
improvements (the standard model is 0-60 in 6.1 sec).
I bought this car AFTER being married for 2 years. So, it's not to pick up chicks (difficult in a 2
seater with your wife in the passanger seat).
I've just bought a house in an expensive area, most of my neighbours have nice cars, even a few
porsche 911's (which are 2-3 the price of my car). So, while my car won't impress my neighbours. If I
wanted to impress them, I should have bought the new 911 turbo (which I can afford, although I'd
need a loan).
Ok, why did I buy it?
I enjoy driving it. Even though I don't get to work any faster than my previous car (a nissan), I
have alot more fun doing it.
Tomorrow, I'm taking it to a racing track in the north of France. I won't be racing, just driving
around it with other Lotus owners (as fast as I'm capable of going, though). The car has already
cost me US$40,000, and I'll probably send another US$10,000 on it changing the breaks and
suspension setup (and maybe a new gearbox).
Of course, even worse for your theory, no-one will ever know that my upgrades have doubled the cost
of the car - it just looks the same as the unmodified version. If I really wanted to show
off, I could have spend the same amount of money an bought a Merc CLK or a Porsche 911.
"The best part? I became an ordained minister while not wearing pants." -- CleverNickName
Well, it should either be GnuveauxRiches, or GnuveauRiche. Good pun, theau.
Put the blame on meme
No that was The Fountainhead. Atlas Shrugged is a much better book. Ayn Rand worked on the same effective story in several books and finally peaked at AS.
/. story.
But the quote in the story has nothing to do with the topic of the story. It's saying that the power, influence and whatnot that used to be embodied in the nobility and royal classes is to be seen now in the businesses and the people who run them. But I guess it sounds like an intellectual comment, so of course it's going to make it into a
So, has anyone that thinks it's all part of the natural order of things for us to be wearing billboards around so we can get dates considered the logical next step? My brother got a tattoo of the MGM lion on his shoulder by mistake, and all the babes think he's "dramatic, enthralling, and has dependable box office draw." I'm going to get a big GAP tattoo on the nape of my neck, and "Starbuck's" across my upper lip in kind of diffused lettering so it looks like a cappucino foam mustache... Think of all the people out there who by rights should have the Ben & Jerry's logo tattooed accross thier ass. Wow, I started out sarcastic, but this is starting to sound cool.
I've been thinking along similar lines, and having a go at expressing it visually - like the ads in question do. Take a look at my first attempt here - I'd love some feedback as I'm unsure about the caption - I've had so many other ideas for the text (and I'd like to hear other people's suggestions too.)
(You can safely skip the rest of this message if you ignored the link)
The image also works for several different themes, depending on caption, which makes things harder.
Is the current caption better than say, something along the lines of:
"Is there anything else left to sell?"
"Are yours a different colour?"
"No Limits. Because I'm Worth It."
"J&J Marketing Innovations - We can put your message everywhere."
"The eyes never lie."
"It's only skin deep, right?"
Is there a more succinct phrasing of one of the above that would work better?
http://www.trolled.homestead.com/
thank you.
sig.
Christ whats happened to Slashdot? This is a long "review" of a book that doesn't describe a single arguement made in the book. Yeah its great you love the book, BUT TELL ME SOMETHING ABOUT IT. What is the problem with logos? You give no indication whatsoever, execept for a reference to exactly what you say the book goes beyond - Nike sweatshops. Slashdot next time you post a review can you check to make sure it includes some content?
Abstract Dynamics
This reminds me of the original This Modern World. Unfortunately, Tom Tomorrow hasn't put his old zines up on the web yet, just his current comics, but it has been reprinted (in "The Wrath of Sparky" IIRC).
---
Zardoz has spoken!
Oper on the Nightstar
Logos are more than just branding and taking up space. I know that in running shoes Brooks (tm) will fit me better than Addidas (tm) because of the last they use in construction. Just as I know that Arizona Jeans (tm) will fit me better than Levis (tm) because of the cut. If all products were indistinguishable, logos wouldn't mean squat, and they wouldn't be used. But the logo does represent the company and its products in a real way and, accordingly, conveys meaningful information. Lousey products make a logo a joke. A logo only has a chance of infecting the mind of the public if it represents a product or service that people want. Microsoft did not succeed because of its logo and name branding but because it was essential to a product that set the market standard and so became the market standard itself. No amount of advertising and logo placement could have accomplished what being picked as the operating system of the IBM PC(tm) did. (Abetted by some predatory business practices.)
I closing, I gotta ask: is NOLOGO a logo?
Logos are not simply about branding. They are aspirational, they are a shorthand for what the wearer/user wants others to think of them, and what they would like to think of themselves. If I buy Nike, it's because I want to feel sporty and a bit rebellious because I like their guerilla marketing tactics. If I buy Prada, it's because I want to feel fashionable and to be admired by people who recognise the brand. If somebody doesn't recognise it, then by definition I don't care about impressing them. It makes me feel like an insider. If I use linux instead of M*crosoft, it may be because it's a superior operating system - or it may be because I want to be in with you guys. And you can bet that I'll be buying a tux t-shirt over at Think Geek and will wear that logo with pride. But guess what - Andover get the money! Not Linus or the other open sourcerers! It's not just the simple spread of the brand that marketing spends all that money on, it's building the image to go with it. And we can kid ourselves that we are too sophisticated or cynical to be manipulated by the aspirational aspect - but we do it every time we make a purchasing decision.
Put the blame on meme
Of course, the company may be endangering its reputation this way... who knows where I'll go after work? :)
Go to more trade shows. You get lot's of branded clothing there for free.
Most of the southern baptist ministers around here (that I see) actually drive Buicks. They can't afford a Lincoln.
Refrag
I have a website. It's about Macs.
The last time I actively sought to wear a BRAND-NAME was in junior high school: those Powell-Peralta Bones T-shirts were just too cool then. But after the end of that phase (never was a very good skater anyways) I've never really fathomed why someone would pay for the opportunity to advertise for a corp yer not getting any benefit from...anyway its called being an individual and not trying to associate your 'self' or personality with a brand's mystique (for lack of a better term). I do, however think its OK to wear the old or altered brands from the past..thats funny and nostalgic..(if you go into those little wanna-be head shops at malls these days you can find some funny shit like Destro-of G.I. Joe fame T's...and other stuff) anyways, just get functional stuff that you like..dont worry about the brand. Hell, half that shit is identical anyways..two jackets made in the same factory that are identical in every way. One goes to Old Navy and gets priced $17.99. The other goes to Abercrombie & Fitch and is $37.99! stitched labels vary a lot in price i guess!
I managed inner city Foot Locker stores for many years... kids didn't come in and buy overpriced merchandise to make themselves more attractive to the opposite sex. They bought into an "identity" created for them by savvy marketers and businessmen. Brainwashing. Control. I would argue that brand-worship is not necessarily a conscious decision. Making yourself more attractive to the other gender in order to propogate your genetic inheritants is only a superficial part of the game. That's what Madison Ave wants you to think. That is not the source of the issue.
You're still paying for it, just not directly. Every BigMac, t-shirt, and computer game has as part of it's price the advertising budget. You pay for the advertisements, which in turn pays for the "free" content.
I'd rather just pay directly and get exactly what I want, instead of using someone else's idea of what I want.
http://metalab.unc.edu/Dave/Dr-Fun/df200006/df2000 0607.jpg
Refrag
I have a website. It's about Macs.
# of times a friend has done so: 0
Please, try to think of a better insult than "faggot." Piece of shit is slightly better, but not much.
############### Folks, there's nothing to see here, only an
anonymous coward, to afraid to loose a little
Karma and admit who he really is. He's probably
just upset cause of the repeated beatings he
receives at the hands of ruthless 6-year-olds.
If you continued driving the nissan and socked away the 40K that you could have retired several years earlier then otherwise.
Food for thought.
War is necrophilia.
The theory about designer brands as sexual display does not, if I understood codemonkey_uk correctly, attempt to explain the specific car-purchasing strategy of each individual slashdotter, so it's not really _that_ interesting how fast your car can do zero to sixty(unless for some reason you would like us to know). Instead it introduces the possibility that there might be some relatedness between the peacock male strategy; "look at my fancy tail, I can afford it, ain't I somebody?", and the human strategy "look at my fancy shirt, I can afford it, ain't I somebody?". The theory is a simplyfied one, and is of course not meant to provide a nice and easy 'the whole truth and nothing but the truth' explanation to this phenomenon. It can thus easily be used in addition to other explanations like psychological mechanisms prompting people to do so and so (purchasing identity/self esteem etc). Also, it is not all about sex, it's about achieving some sort of rank with the people you encounter and the people you associate with.
When it comes to the depth of this explanation, I wonder at why you say that a psycological explanation is deeper than a biological explanation. Wouldn't you say that behavior imposed on us by our instincts and hormones is deeper rooted in our brains than behavior imposed on us by society?
-thomax
>The theory about designer brands as sexual display does not, if I understood codemonkey_uk
>correctly, attempt to explain the specific car-purchasing strategy of each individual
>slashdotter, so it's not really _that_ in
My point is that these were broad sweeping statements. I showed that it does not hold true
for at least one case, therefore, it does not hold true for all cases, thus, it is a simplification
of a complex issue.
It seemed more to be a theory to fit personal and cultural bias, rather than an accepted theory
backed up by independent research.
For exmaple, I could say that all people who drink bottled water do so to impress people and say
"Look at me, I can afford this."
Sound reasonable? But what about people who don't have access to clean drinking water? What about places where the local water supply has many chemicals or metals dissolved in it?
>interesting how fast your car can do zero to sixty(unless for some reason you would like us to know).
Yes, I wanted you to know to help illustrate my point, to help show that there are *other* reasons
than the one so strongly stated. You see, even by looking, you would have never have know, that was
the point. Unless I told everyone I met, my sexual display / social rank display wouldn't be increased.
>When it comes to the depth of this explanation, I wonder at why you say that a psycological explanation is
>deeper than a biological explanation. Wouldn't you say that behavior imposed on us by our instincts and
>hormones is deeper rooted in our brains than behavior imposed on us by society?
Interesting point. It maybe, it may not be. It's a very complex issue. I'm sure for every point you bring up supporting one side, I could bring up a counter point for the other - regardless of which
side you pick.
What does it actually prove? Nothing, really, does it?
(Anyway, I would say that the biological motive for our behaviour was initially the strongest
drive, and is being replaced since the last century as food and shelter has become more
available.)
"The best part? I became an ordained minister while not wearing pants." -- CleverNickName
Take a look at this: Video Clothes: 'Brand' New Idea . I might as well post it here, where it's relevant, if i submit it, it's going to get declined anyway.
I see you've bought into the silly idea that "advertising-supported = free". It's not free, it's just paid for with a different currency. If that's the way you prefer to pay, knock yourself out, but you should at least have some idea of the price you're paying.
Along with a FreeBSD one, and some Grateful Dead ones.
I dug them, they were great.
Though I imagine I didn't do the Open Source movement any good, anyone seeing a 13 year old rusted out Ford Escort burning more oil than the retreating Iraqi army, covered with Linux and Dead stickers would probably think I was a commie or something.
But the Escort was sold for $20 to a junkyard, and now I need stickers for my rusted out, 12 year old Subaru.
Or consider the advertising that is on PBS (public television). Although it is cloaked in the concept of "sponsorships", the idea that you have to watch a Baby Gap or a Kellogg's or a Pfizer (antibiotics, in this case) commercial before a show designed for preschoolers is appalling.
It is disheartening to me that kids of such a young age are (in a way) being programmed to associate something FUN (watching Big Bird or Arthur) with the SPONSORSHIP of a large corporation.
This is another view of the world.
True, but I was equating "marketdroids" with "brand-name sluts". Those who buy Gap jeans because they have that Gap logo on them, not because they look better/fit better/perform better, etc. Does that make sense?
I think this is a bit of a stretch. Linux was pretty much under the radar outside of tech circles until the first of the year. Prior to Redhat's IPO I don't think I saw much in the press other than in computer related web sites and periodicals. I think we have a tendency to apply our own filters to the rest of the world. I remember Linux getting more and more positive press last year, but not in the media that reaches the rest of the world.
Other than that it sounds like a good read.
carlos
--
As a matter of fact, I am a lawyer. But I play an actor on TV.
First of all, thanks for the review. I actually picked the last book I read based on the book reviews here and I was really pleased. Thanks for the service.
I just wanted to say that I'm actually a fan of branding. It allows us critique and praise products and services by name. It allows us to evaluate and share our evaluations with others very easily. If I walk around wearing a Pop Tarts shirt, I can make a statement about my satisfaction with Pop Tarts, and, indirectly, Kellogs. Here's the catch, though. Kellogs will happily make Pop Tarts shirts for me to buy and wear to help promote the product. But who is going to make the other shirt? Who is going to sell the "Pop Tarts Suck" shirt for those dissatisfied with the product? Kellogs won't. Random T-shirt manufacturers won't because the market is significantly smaller than the "Yankees Suck" crowd. Maybe Quaker will make them for us while pushing their breakfast bars?
Currently, brands have a tendency to perpetuate themselves a little too easily. Obviously Abercrombie & Fitch couldn't have gotten every teen in America to wear a billboard without having made something decent in the first place. But now that they have hit a certain saturation point, the brand will keep itself alive. Everyone wears A&F so I must wear A&F to be more like everyone. Again this is because A&F makes it extremely convenient to say "I like A&F" while there is no easy way to say "I don't give a poop about A&F" or "I abhor A&F".
Maybe technology will find a way for us to easily add logos and crossed out logos to our clothing. Then we will be able to really see the power of the brand to increase ownership and responsibilty of a product. Wear your brands with pride, but try and make your criticism public as well.
Peace. Sway
Peace. Sway
- They're drawing attention away from their labor which exists in China, etc. No amount of "we also use labor in more humanitarian countries" will change that. Simarly, Microsoft draws attention away from its wrongdoings by pointing at it's "benifit" to the market.
- Nike claims that they swallow the higher costs of not using child labor, operating in Tiwan and South Korea, etc. Now let's say that those higher costs come from facilities that make, say a genrous 40% of Nike's items, and that the average is 10% higher cost (their number). The other 60% is performed with cheap Chineese/Pakastani/etc. labor. Their costs only raised 4% then, thus diluting the affect of the higher cost of operating in those facilities.
The affect is that Nike is pulling the wool over our eyes with cheap marketing tactics reminiscent of Microsoft. Their argumens hold no ground except in marketing value, and appeasing the people gullable enough to support any big corporation in the first place.Visit
Actually, after seeing one too many of those cute little hondas (the ones with all the branding, neuspeed etc. of their own) parked diagonally taking up two spots in my apartment, I came up with a marketing idea of my own.
A Pack of 5 high adhesive stickers that say "LEARN TO PARK ASSHOLE" on them. Include a warning that these are only for use on your own car, they *will* remove paint etc... I wonder if anyone would buy those?
http://www.adbusters.org
Incredibly cool anti-advertising magazine
tc004
Here's my Microsoft Parody, where's yours?
Are you sure it is really that easy?
;-)
:-)
I'll give you a practical example, I wanted a non-standard all-black shirt for clubbing. Simple black, glossy, perhaps leather-like.
Most places had logo'ed stuff, and they were about $10-20 less than what I wound up paying.
Yes, for my purposes a logo would spoil the image, so I looked at many places to find something suitable. $60 for a shirt, not bad, right?
My jacket has a huge logo on the back, but no one except select community knows the Pearl Izumi logo. It is what actually made me buy it in the first place, as piece of art, not a logo.
Oh, and if you want to find non-branded jeans that are your fit or swimwear, my prayers are with you.
--
Leonid S. Knyshov
Leonid S. Knyshov
Find me on Quora
This article reminds me of this little cartoon about this very same subject. It's quite hilarious, poignant, and certainly takes less time to watch than reading that whole book the reviewer was talking about.
Free Hans!
I don't really understand, maybe I'm plain stupid, what's wrong, people?
It seems that it's getting more people hate the large corporations' marketing strategies and their business practices. However, is the "right" or "wrong" so clear on these matters?
Brands, advertisement, marketing, etc.. can't be eliminated as long as it's costful for people getting to know some products. There's reason people buy the products being promoted. People are not stupid forever, if the goods are not up to their satisfaction, they won't buy again. Some may think it's unfair to small companies which produce better products. However, it's always unfair to small companies, since large companies can always devote more resources to develop products that are superior than any small companies' (they just didn't).
Unless some clever social activists can find a costless way to let people know about the best products, marketing from big corps is always there.
The arguments against sweat shops are also problematic: workers' welfare may not be improved without sweat shops, they may simply get unemployed and starved. The existence of sweat shops is not just because the employers are crude, but also the lack of "good" alternative employers out there to hire them. I'm not saying eliminating sweat shops is bad, or big companies should make products from sweat shops. The best way to deal with sweat shops problem, is to establish firms that treat workers well in those developing countries. If treating workers well can improve productivities, it can be more cost effective than those sweat shops.
Just sit in front of the desk and write a book bashing does not solve the real problem.
A sig is redundant.
Well, a company has a reasonable expectation that they should make some money from their products, so "free" is stretching it a little. But it's ridiculous that logo-bearing clothes cost MORE than non-logo bearing clothes. What's the real difference between a Tommy Hilfiger T-shirt or a Gap t-shirt and a 3-pack of white Hanes t-shirts for ten bucks?
When I see kids waving their Nokia phones with the Nike swoosh as the operator logo (in icelandic, scroll down for picture), and think they are soo cool and then think that some poor kid has spent minutes drawing the logo, I feel a bit depressed. Now, I dislike Nike, and wouldn't be cought dead wearing clothes with their logo on. (Or any garments producer logo) but on the other hand I wear my Linux/BeOS/FreeBSD t-shirts proudly. Does that make me a hypocryte? I think not. I have a Toyota t-shirt which I only wear at home when no-one sees :)
It's a sad, sad world we live in...and I need my coffie
J.
think about it... how much do you pay for cable... for your radio... why do we have to pay for domain names and bandwidth... there is no such thing as a free lunch
"we demand rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty!" --Douglas Adams, The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy
>that there really is no revolution,
>but it is being marketed anyway.
Do you mean really _is_ a revolution?
If so, I am reminded of "All Tomorrow's Parties" (William Gibson). There is a nice speech -- I don't have it front of me, and I can't remember the character's name -- about how there are now no true countercultures, thanks to the relentless marketing. They simply become mainstream too soon to develop into anything fully-fledged.
I think it's true. The hippy movement is a good example of a genuine counter culture. The rave movement is another one, but the progress from true underground to "techno-lite" and f*ckin' Moby in however many ads has been very quick. Too quick, because -- as Gibson pointed out -- these things are picked up and relentlessly exploited for marketing purposes before they've had a chance to mature.
FWIW, I just went and ordered a copy of No Logo. Looks like it's right up my alley. So _there's_ a triumph of marketing! Also, be sure and check out:
http://www.adbusters.org/
da grib.
maybe
Am I the only one here that finds this article painted with a sad irony that the author quotes Fransico D'Anconio of Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged then goes on a tirade about "the public good" and general rant about "global capitalism".
Coke day? What sort of screwed up educational establishment is it that has a Coke day? Not that they'd need one. Certainly when I was at University, Coke was one of the primary food groups, and was positioned right next to the munchie machine to provide handy 24 hour supplies of all your snacking needs :-) But seriously, Coke day? Something's very wrong with that...
"The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike." -- Delos B. McKown
As far as I remember, that was Adidas sometime around 1973..
All Day I Dream About S..
-bob
PEPSI
ISd3d
Restrictions are prohibited. Be well, get better.
I might have to check this book out. The most interesting thing about it, is that I NEVER wear clothing that has any kind of labeling or branding on it unless I specifically WANT to advertise for that label, which basically means the only shirts I wear that have a label of any kind on it are concert rock t-shirts. You'll never catch me wearing an Old Navy shirt or anything like that. I still dress nice, I still look good, but I'm not going to advertise for other people unless they start paying me.
People who live in glass houses...
What EXACTLY is the objection to, for instance, people wearing brand names?
The cliqueishness? Because Slashdot has got that in spades. In fact, EVERY community has this property.
The customer exploitation? They make Nike seem cool so you want the stuff and then charging you up the wazoo? But surely the problem here is not Nike, but the purchaser, yes? We're not talking about a monopoly situation: there is more than one show manufacturer.
The ubiquity of advertisements? I can understand this objection, but writing a book or even starting a boycott against a company is pointless. Advertising works. More advertising (than you competitors) works better. Therefore companies are in an arms race to each do more advertising than everyone else.
But I might also note that "corporate pigs" are not the only offenders in these regards. For instance, next time you are outside count the number of "DARE to keep kids off drugs" bumper stickers, t-shirts, painted minivans, etc you see. Many non-profit organizations (or even non-organizations) do the same thing.
--
Wanna hook MAPI clients to your Tru64/AIX/Linux server?
Linux MAPI Server!
http://www.openone.com/software/MailOne/
(Exchange Migration HOWTO coming soon)
Growing up in the era of Calvin Klein and Jordache on jeans -- which, being the son of Depression/WWII-era parents, I equated mainly with work clothes for crissakes -- I used to shake my head at how people seemed proud to provide free advertising space on their butts.
It's only gotten worse with this Nike swoop all over every damn thing. I don't even buy stuff that features a logo prominently displayed, although my material-girl Yuppie/preppie wife and her similarly-minded mom keep thinking my chest needs to proclam "Old Navy."
"How many light bulbs does it take to change a person?" --BMcC-->
And if it weren't for the Spanish Inquisition, then certain Monty Python sketches wouldn't be as funny either. You may be in jest, but some people seriously think this way.
"If one is really a superior person, the fact is likely to leak out without too much assistance" -- John Andrew Holmes
This is so weak. There is a basic tenet in psychology called the need to affiliate. People want to "herd" (hurd? :) so they want to be part of the crowd and if that is the tommy or Nike crowd so be it.
This is the same as the peacocks tail, and is the product of sexual selection. The thoery goes, a male with a big tail must be tougher than an apparently equal male with a smaller tail, because life is more difficalt if you have a large tail, therfore to have survived with this handicap you must be a healthy mate.
Now look around you. Do cheap brands make such a big deal of their logos? No. That because they don't carry the prestege of the expensive brands. The (sub conciose) thinking behing it is "Damnit, if I'm paying Prada prices, I want people to know it."
Ironicly the proliferation of a brand reduces its value. Campri Ski anyone? (Or was that a UK thing?)
Thad
Thad
this is a test of the emergency invalid key system thanks.
sig.
>Everyone wears A&F so I must wear A&F to be more >like everyone. Again this is because A&F makes it >extremely convenient to say "I like A&F" while >there is no easy way to say "I don't give a poop >about A&F" or "I abhor A&F". Au contraire my friend! I picked up a shirt a while that says "Abercommie" and has a hammer and sickle on it. I always get mad props when I wear it. I'm not exactly a communist, but that shirt was just damn funny.
"h3y 1c3 kr34m!! 4r3 j00 3r33+!?" "y3z crackd, 4nD n0w 3y3 w1lL h4xx0r j00r m0u+h! h0h0h!!0"
Okay,
honestly I never understood it why somebody would pay an awful lot of money just to run around in a T-Shirt or Jacket with the company logo all over the back.
I agree with others: IF I do advertising. I AM the one who should get paid, and I shouldn't pay more the bigger the logo gets.
I try to avoid everything that sports big fat logos. I don't have a problem with a small sticker or logo on the Shirt or the manufacturers name on the car / motorcycle or computer. But at the moment where the Logo is almost bigger then the product I buy it goes too far.
If you want to e-mail me, use my PGP Key.
So I picked up Star Wars: Jar Jar Triumphant at Wal Mart the other day, and it's a pretty good read, except I couldn't help thinking: wouldn't Free Software have helped defeat the Empire before it even got started? I mean, the Force is nice and all, but seriously, where has this author been?
I dont advertise for anyone unless they're willing to pay me. Hence, if I am given the choice between something with a brand name on it and without, I tend to pick the thing without.
Now if they want to pay me for it...I'll consider it...
Tommy Hilfiger can blow me...
-- Jeff
Why are there brands and logos in the first place?
Because, anyone can make a T-shirt, but only Tommy Hilfiger can put his brand on his product.
Quality products stand out as 'quality', but someone somewhere can come up with a way to make a competing product a little more cheaply - and with nothing to differentiate products - except price, economies of scale can put otherwise good companies out of business - we've seen this before.
Brand marketting is running rampant, and it has gone too far. Once a company can produce a crappy product, slap their brand on it, and have that fact guarantee sales, it's gone too far. But who is to blame for this state of affairs if not the sheeple who buy something based on brand alone?
Brands have been used to assure the customer of quality. A graphical symbol, or an identifiable trademark name was always a brand (in cattle farming terms). It was the signature of a company - a company that had built a reputation in the market, on the quality of it's product.
If L.L.Bean is known for it's quality clothing, then you can be sure that an item of clothing with an L.L.Bean logo will stand up to abuse, so you're willing to buy it and even pay a little extra.
Things have gotten out of hand though. Brands with no reputation for quality, or excellent service, are dilluting the market, confusing ignorant customers - Consumer Reports is probably one of the best means to combat this, as are industry awards and trade publications (though once you accept advertising, your credibility goes out the window).
The major thing that is wrong with branding is that once a company earns a reputation, they feel they can fly on the virtues of the brand alone, and let the quiality of the product slide. A discerning customer will get burned once or twice, and then jump ship, and commit to a competitor. But an uninformed customer, with more dollars than sense, will feed the brand beastie, and encourage further cost-cutting (sweat-shops, low quality, short product life).
This is a huge issue that includes production costing by region, economies of scale which play into shipping and manufacturing siting, planned obsolescence... Too big for this forum, really.
The point is, there is nothing wrong with brands. They identify a company. They speak for the companys reputation and reputability, and the quality of the product and the business practices behind the product. In our personal/consumer dealings with companies, we've all had certain experiances with different companies and brands.
If we associate the brand with our experience, and there is repeatability in that experience, then brands are a good thing.
We just need to remember to keep our experience of the brand SEPARATE from the propaganda that the brand spews out into the media about itself. 'Truth in adverising' is an oxymoron - no one would say a bad thing about themselves in a million dollar Super-Bowl advert. But once we've been burned by a Nike product, or choose to take exception to their treatment of their employees (even though this keeps their stuff cheaper than it would otherwise be) than this is what the brand stands for in our minds, and this is it's reputation.
Cavet Emptor, as always.
-- What you do today will cost you a day of your life.
It seems there is a point here: most people who work at the biggest advertisers, like McDonald's, Nike, the Gap, Wal-Mart, and Disney do get paid less than the market average for their position. And the second competitors to these (Burger King, and other shoe company, Old Navy, K-mart) also get paid nearly nothing.
My point is this: the advertising budgets are high, the pay of these companies is low, the homogeneousness is incredibly high and the chance for innovation or advancement for working at these places is absolutely zero.
My point is this: if people were to stop working at these places, then these 'evil' systems would colapse. A simple solution would be a recruitment page for small businesses where new employees would decide based on pay where to work.
-Ben
I'm surrounded by logos right now and I don't care. The reason I don't care is because just about everyone of them is sitting on a mighty fine product.
Dell (workstation)
one solid machine
O'Reilly (books)
The best damn computer books money can buy
Cambridge Soundworks (speakers)
They sound great
Nike (sneakers)
after 5 years they're still in one piece.
L.L.Bean (jeans)
most comfortable pair of jeans I've ever owned
Ralph Lauren (shirt)
comfortable and I live next to an outlet store
Swiss Army (watch)
Can't kill it and it keeps the time
Radisson (pen)
free, writes good, and it was a nice vacation
Red Hat (software box)
an excellent Linux distro
Dilbert (calendar)
It makes me laugh
Logos are not the problem, people are. If someone is dumb enough to buy something because of the logo and not the product, then that is their problem. Let's blame the consumers for their own failings and not try and reinvent capitalism in a kinder, gentler image.
"The words of the prophets are written on the Slashdot walls."
Today, it's a "match made in heaven". Logos work for companies because they get "free advertising" by placing logos on things, and people believe that wearing that logo gives them "status". As a society we can't look beyond the logo to tell us who and what we are.
My father tells me that in the 50's companies like Coca-Cola couldn't GIVE t-shirts away. Wearing logos on clothes were thought of as demeaning, since it said that you couldn't pay for the clothes you're wearing. My how times have changed since then.
Maybe we should blame Andy Warhol for using corporate logos in his artwork.....
Logos on appliances and cars and the like dont' bother me. They aren't as obtusive as the crap found on clothing. Because nothing says more about a person (to strangers) than how they dress.
When it comes to clothing, today's popular "designers" have gone the safe route. Rather than create a signature style (like say the "Chanel Suit" -- you just knew it was Chanel by looking at it), bums like Tommy Pullmyfinger are altering creativity into marketability . He's not a clothing designer, he's a LOGO DESIGNER. He takes his logo and alters it to fit plain clothing. It's just a simple t-shirt or a jacket or shoes with a logo embeded in it. THAT'S how we tell clothing designers apart. We don't look at the style of it... WE LOOK FOR THE LOGO.
My favorite thing to do is go up to people with "TOMMY" on their clothes and say "HEY TOMMY". Usually gets my point across....
I don't wear logos because I want people to see the clothes I wear, not the "designer" who made it. Nothing ruins a good piece of clothing like a LOGO.
The book makes a good point of how marketing is slowly but surely invading our personal space. So it's a bit extreme, but maybe it's not that far off :)
There once was an ad-man named Pete
His best clients, outfitters of feet
In the sack he'd not quit
The slogan: "Just do it"...
He had Nike tattoo'd on his meat!
Ayn Rand's objectivism is about doubting everything. Nazi-ism is as dogmatic a "philosophy" as you can come across, and is rooted in ignorance.
Lowmag.net
For a great Sci-Fi read about an earth completely taken over by advertising, read "The Space Merchants" by Fredrick Pohl. It was written way back in the 50's and like a lot of great sci-fi written back then - is right on target with reality circa year 2000.
Amazon shows it being out of print so you might have to worka bit to find a copy...
i really think that Lisp, or better yet, Scheme, is the way to go for teaching kids to program. it teaches algorythms etc, rather than structure (which changes from language to language)
check out www.schemers.org for more information
-------------------------------------------
Start them on object oriented from the get-go. It's syntax is also good at catching "newbie errors".
What I _wouldn't_ worry about is teaching them a "toy language". Of course they'll learn other languages. Do NOT start them on C or C++. Yes, those are languages "professionals" use. So? You don't learn to drive in a formula-1 race car or an eighteen wheeled semitruck, despite the fact that is what the "professionals" use. You don't learn to fly in an F-16 jet fighter. You learn to drive in a Geo Metro with an automatic (or equivelent), and you learn to fly in a piper cub.
Not involving huge quantities of "line noise" or other such punctuation
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
You need to get your kids started in LOGO. Yes, the little turtle who leaves lines on the screen -- Visualization is key. Let them figure out that they can create interesting drawings with a simple loop. Logo was what got me started in programming. I had a 5.25 floppy disk FULL of logo programs. Geez.. those were the days...
clearhome
pendown
fw 45
rt 160
fw 45
rt 160
da w00t.
da w00t. mtfnpy?
Oh, I heartily disagree. There are certain fundamentals you need to get down before you start toying with the "most powerful" tool available. You don't throw someone into the middle of the Atlantic Ocean to teach them how to swim. People need to be learning procedural programming before they jump into the quagmire that is OOP. I saw a lot of people on this thread telling the guy to start them right out with object oriented fundamentals, Python, Java, C++, etc. This is just totally wrong. I know this because I tried; I have been learning C++ from age ten until present (17) and I still don't have a clue what I'm doing half the time. It's not like I had bad teachers or anything; there are just a few things that kids are too young to get. I don't think I've ever met an 11-year old that could fully grok on the concepts of operator overloading, data hiding, and (especially) inheritance and polymorphism. I'm sure that there are a few that do, but these are /not/ the things to be learning as a first foray into programming. Give the kids BASIC or Logo and allow them to learn at their own pace. Hell - give them Algebra. I can't think of a more valuable skill to know that understanding the significace of variables, functions, return values, and the like.
--
I think there is a world market for maybe five personal web logs.
I was going to say the same thing, but you beat me to it friend.
Folks, mod this guy up another for me!
More detail: Python is an object-oriented language built as such from the ground up, un like C++ which is none the less derived from C and has less syntactical conformity (and I say this where my only difference with the above statement is that I perfer C++ slightly over Python, though Python is a close second.) Not only that, but Python is a great numeric language with native Ultra-Long integer type and a complex number module build in. With the LLNL PyNum Numeric Extensions. Couldn't find a good implementation of the Gamma function over the set of Complex numbers, but I guess your youngins' ern't inta that yet. :)
Another possility if you wanna get retro is do what I and doubtless you did: teach them on the C64! That is, get one of the variety of C64 emulators on the net and let them programme their hearts out in Basic. The great thing about the C64 is that because it uses PET/ASCII with all those graphics character in the characters with the MSB high so it's pretty easy to use graphics without having to use MoveTo, LineTo and the DC (if you do go the Windows route -- though so far all I've suggested exists in Linux-port form and I don't recommend teaching X-Motif just yet! :) The point is, it's much more WYSIWYG and really easy to come up with some cool stuff. For instance, I wrote a character editor for the C64 which was quite a fun project. The advantage is that the entire operating system is Basic so you have to be a programmer from the beginning just to use it. :) Disadvantage: it's a Proceedural, not on OOP language.
A good list of available emulators can be found at http://commodore64.net/emulators/
The other thing I would strongly recomend is Logo. Logo is graphics and geometry application in which the user controls a 'turtle' by simple geometric commands. This is a great tool for learning the [most] basic principals of Graphics which I'm sure your kids will be most interested in because of their love for games. They can use it to draw their own pictures using basic proceedural programming techniques such as loops and recursion.
You can get an MS Windows version of Logo at: http://www.softronix.com/logo.html.
You could also download a Linux port of the Berkley Logo Software from this University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill software archive though you may need to check out Steve Bakers' Software Page if you have any problems with the port.
Anyway, Python DOES have a pretty good graphics library and with TCL/TK you could even teach them a bit about interface design and with PIL you've got Graphics so that's just about everything. Anyway, at least I would choose one or more of those three options and make sure in time they should try to learn them all.
One last note I should make is it's you be very helpful to their overall understanding of programming and logic if they could learn at least one rule-based language down the road, such as Scheme (thank you Professor Romanik! :).
Be Seeing You,
Jeffrey.
Time Lord, Dark Horse: The Techno Mage of Gallifrey
Forget the langage. You can teach kids good programming technique in any language, and kids don't get hung up on the stupider elements of programming systems the way we dinosaurs do. Programming skills aquired in one system can be applied to any other.
What you need is strong motivation. If your kids are anything like I was, that motivation is games. Do you have any games that support scripts or macros? Use 'em! Another poster suggested Lego Mindstorms. Great! I happen to enjoy MUDs, some of which allow extensive player programming. Even for the ones that don't, a specialized MUD client will.
My point is, exploit your kids' desire to excel in their game, or make their own. They'll learn. Faster than you'll believe. It worked for me.
Long ago, I played hack a lot. Then my dad got me the source. Printed out. So, I read the source, and I had the game, and I learned C because it was pretty easy to compare sets of instructions in the source to what the game actually did.
Your milage may vary.
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
Book
Interpreter with IDE
Gates' Law: Every 18 months, the speed of software halves.
Lego helps you very much to understand how to build and put together components, things can always be adapted, expanded and be made better in some way with intelligent composition of basic pieces and evolve to new structures, buildings, machines, robots, ...
I enjoyed building with lego, not playing.
I'm not Linus, but I'm sure he played Lego too. And some day in the future my children will play Lego too.
ms
Do not confuse yourself, languages like BASIC are NOT good for teaching children. You may have learned it first, but that doesn't make it better.
The only thing that makes BASIC easier for anyone than C is that it is more like (bad) math. But this only helps if you've had lots of (bad) math. It doesn't really help those who haven't had the (bad) math.
What a programmer really needs is Data Structures and Flow Control. Until these things are internallized, you are not a programmer, after they are, you will always be one. BASIC doesn't do either well, so your children will not learn either well. C does both well, so your children will learn both well. (Actuall I would use C++, it's a little more forgiving, but still doesn't let you cheat like perl does (which is something you don't want newbies doing (as the wont fully learn those two lessons)))
Do not underestimate the flexibility of a child's mind. Look at baseball or pokemon stats. Give them a real language. After they learn it, even a little bit, it will stew in their brain. With many cognitive tasks, how LONG you have know something is more important than how WELL you know something, and they will NEVER need to have know BASIC for 20 years. (but if they are 10 year C/C++ veterans when they get to college?)
Do not underestimate how very MUCH time children will spend working on something they find interesting, so even hard tasks are mastered. Think of video games, sports, TV, reading. They HAVE the time, let them work on something real.
Also, C on UNIX is simpler than most things they can do on WinX boexen. File access and piping makes more sense, etc. If they have NEVER programmed, they have no legacy to overcome, so start them on the simpler system.
---
"Elegant, Commented, On Time; Pick any Two"
-- Crutcher --
#include <disclaimer.h>
There's a project out of UBC (University of British Columbia) that has a program for teaching teenagers Java. It involves programming a Virtual Family. A bit reminiscent of the Sims idea... The website is here
Look for links pertaining to 'Virtual Family'. It's intended for Win95/98, and I believe it's still being worked on. I am not sure if you can just 'buy' a copy, I think you may have to get a beta version and give them feedback on it, after using it. (I may be wrong here... info should be on the website).
---
I hope you're not pretending to be evil while secretly being good. That would be dishonest.
And really, it's a toy that evolves with you. If 30 year-old jaded programmers can still get a kick out of it, imagine a kid... He'll probably wear it down before he gets tired of it!
Lego Mindstorms Website
confidence in your code;
do things quickly is what keeps up interest
frustration
I think in all of these respects Python is as good as BASIC. Plus it
has GUI IDE's which really help with polishing I/O, plus one is
learning good programming habits from day one. It doesn't hurt to
have the powerful features there: on the contrary it's nice when one
wants them not to have to learn a new language.
Coding machine language is nice, but it's not so easy now as it was
back then. One of the satifscations of learning Z80 and 6502 was that
you could grasp the architecture of the processor without outside help
and you knew you had mastered the whole instruction set. Not so easy
with multi-level caching, instruction pipelines, stack frames
coprocessor pipelines, memory management, SMP, privileged
modes... have I forgotten anything? Well, the point is, really
grasping a modern PC is a much bigger deal than it was 20 years ago.
Charles
something more structured like C involves having to deal with too many complicated issues of programming theory and structure, and unless you're willing to sit through complicated stuff like X or Windows GUI coding, all you'll get is some boring text program.
There's a very easy library for graphics and sound under C. It's called Allegro, and it has the advantage of being available on most important platforms; it currently works on DOS, Win32, Eunuchs/X11 (even on non-Intel such as linuxppc), and BeOS. You don't have to wade through that WinAPI bullshit; Allegro is a simple layer around GDI or DirectX.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Definetly BASIC, it's simple and does not have a lot of extra syntax/structure to get in the way of learning to write a computer-readable algorithm. Most non-programmers I know had an OK time with BASIC, and most programmers i know started in BASIC. One thing I suggest, however, is using TI-BASIC is a kid is using a TI-83 or higher in their high school math class. I find this to be very versatile for simple games, and good to know for programming math, chemistry, or physics functions.
Now, if you really want them to grow up with a structured language embedded in their brains, BASIC can get in the way when taught later: it has no functions or "black-box" capabilities. I suggest that you stop speaking in English to them, and start conversing in C. This way, even though it is hard and confusing, they will pick it up quickly and will be permanent hackers. but note, under ALL CIRCUMSTANCES, you are NOT to do this with HTML, this can cause brain damage and even cancer!
As a lot of other posts concur, any of the BASIC dirivatives are a good idea. VB, although poor at developing high-availability, cross-platform applications, is just fine for a youngster to start out in.
There are also those *toy* programming languages based on eiffel and Smalltalk put out by Lego and others. Those are great. Hell, Smalltalk is pretty wonderful as it is, and quite easy to pickup.
Just because we as professional developers know of a languages limitations, doesn't mean it isn't *programming*. Remember, what's basic to us, is still quite a bit over their heads!
Unless you had kids just to turn out a team of software engineers, I would start them out with something simple. If you try to through a command line compiler and debugger at them and expect any results, you have another thing coming... especiialy if they are heavy into games and graphical stuff...
This is not just a hunch, I have a degree in education, and know from studying childhood development models that the pre-teen and the "terrible twos" are the two periods of life when the human brain is growing the fastest... and they were too busy learning to talk to write code when they were toddlers. :) You do not want to waste these years.
Give them the most powerful tools they can handle. Kids at this age don't just love the feeling of power, they crave it. They have no control over their voices, bodies, emotions, or sex drive... that's why kids often go for weird or elaborate haircuts at that age (one of the few things they can control is their hair). Put one of these kids in front of a flexible CLI and let them hack away at it! One of the best things my parents ever did for me was buy my my first computer (a Vic20) and insist that I figure it all out for myself. With all the web information out there these days, your kid might even know more than you in a couple years. :)
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
Since object oriented programming seems to be the major direction in programming and e-commerce, why not start them off with java?
Its no more difficult than any other language to learn (remember, kids have nothing to unlearn), except for the grasping the object concept. And that may actually be easier for them to start with, since it models the real world.
Its also reasonably platform independant (just stay away from j++ *cringes in terror*)
Of course I use Microsoft. Setting up a stable unix network is no challenge
Squeak. Definitely Squeak. Definitely Squeak. My son tried it for his graduation project in Gr. 8, and despite his a _bit_ different interests, loved it. At Disney, they set up a class - 1.5 HRS every week with 4-5-graders. Going well. But, that's where OO the way we know it started (I mean, Imagineering Group - Kay et al.) Wondering, why only 1 post on Squeak out of 50?
I don't know if it's around anymore, but I got a really good start using logo. It's good for learning basic programming skills (loops, etc) as well as applied logic and geometry.
For those who aren't familiar with it, you basically have a cursor (called a Turtle) that draws a line behind it. There are commands to move the turtle, change the color of the line, in a friendly programming environment. I've seen everything from games to really wicked fractals done in Logo.
This was, admittedly, over ten years ago, on an Apple IIe. Anyone know if it still exists?
--Alex
Causation can cause correlation
I love Perl, but starting kids off on it is like teaching them to shoot by giving them a machine gun.
I think the most important characteristics of a beginners programming language are simple, logical syntax, a reasonably small set of instructions and operators, and enough high-level functions to allow kids to do something useful. Specifically, you should be able to run a "hello world program" in a line or two, and you should be able to graphics and other fun stuff like that without knowing too much about OS internals.
Perl's not a terrible language for this (it is interpreted and provides some high-level functionality), but its syntax is only logical if you're used to c, it has an ungodly number functions and operators, and it's not designed to do graphics or interactive functions. (Yes, I'm sure there are modules and such to do pretty much anything, but the whole point is that we're talking about beginners)
I grew up with BASIC on the Apple II. I started in first or second grade, and spent the next 5 years programming games and stuff almost constantly. I moved on to other languages and platforms in high school.
So I still think BASIC is a good choice. Not sure VB is quite the ticket-- I wonder if there are any good free BASIC interpreters.
I guess Perl would be an OK second choice. A close third would be Java, which has some nice graphics capabilities and a less obfuscated and complex syntax.
No, really..
:)
* JBuilder Foundation is free (as in beer) and comes with the JDK. Few parents can justify spending $hundreds on an IDE for their child.
* It will let kids put together a simple GUI just by dragging buttons and stuff around. Immediate sense of accomplishment keeps kids interested. Writing a "Hello World!" program isn't impressive enough to keep their attention. VB will do this, but it's expensive.
* It let's you make a graphical change in the GUI designer, and immediatelly let's you see the changes in code - and vice-versa. This is great for demonstrating how changing X and Y values of an object translates to a GUI layout.
* The code is pretty simple to read (may be my bias, since I'm familiar) when compared to C and even VB. The syntax is pretty straightforward, and the API naming conventions are consistent and English - no modified Hungarian notation here. There are some freaky things (for a kid) like escaping characters in Strings, logical operators, ternary (?:); but there are no pointers. Pointers hurt small heads.
* The IDE color-codes keywords and offers dynamic lookup of methods and parameters, organizes declarations and definitions, supports auto-indentation for readability, but doesn't enforce 'weird' habits. VB will structure their code for them (Capitalizes keywords, automatically normalizes spacing and such BS) but I've found that this just makes people sloppy - some discipline is good. Unlike VB, in JB you see all your code. VB keeps the subroutines visually separate - this breeds bad habits and confusion later, with REAL languages.
* It's something that they can show to their friends on the net, without the complications of VBRUNxxx or missing libs or actually copying the executable. Applets are a neat thing for this. Peer reinforcement is a powerful thing in the teen and pre-teen.
* It's a simple, yet non-trivial language that's a valuable skill (nobody hires Mindstorms developers). Granted, they're kids and it's not yet a priority - but Java is Cish in syntax, and the transition will be easier later; it's something they can use non-trivially NOW. They can do MATH homework with it, they can do hard-science with it. They can even hack together their own mini-ICQ with relatively (to other languages) little effort.
* It's something that will scale as their skills and interests grow. The API is developing and includes built-in support for neat-o things like images, sounds, 2D and 3D graphics; as well as XML, databases, real-time, complex math, crypto.
* It's as simple or as complicated as you want it to be, and the performance (a sore issue for hardened developers) is not a problem for kids writing toy programs. Once they start complaining about the poor performance of the interpreter, it will have done it's job.
Add to this a decent book, with examples, and you should be golden.
-- What you do today will cost you a day of your life.
I think I learned quickest not when I was writing stuff from scratch, but when there was existing code that I was used to running, and started changing it. I remember adding features to other kids' programs on the school computer, speeding up games that I had typed in from COMPUTE!, etc. That way I learned both from doing things myself, and from seeing how other people had done things.
Maybe start with a game, written in something like Python.
And if they get bored with that, give 'em the BSD kernel. ;-)
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As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Between the ages of 17 and 22, I was a camp councelor / teacher at a computer came (think the kids that went there were nerds? Imagine what the means the teachers were ;-) I taught the 'intermediate' level stuff - basicaly, one step up from LOGO, and one step down from Pascal (which was the advanced course.)
My trick was to show them some graphical stuff in basic (things like random lines, minor stuff like a really low-tech computer etch-a-sketch with they number pad where they could also change the numbers.
I would show what was possible, then, begin teaching them the command set nessisary to achieve that small goal (for instance, the random lines demo required teaching them to change the screen mode (this was back in QuickBASIC), the RND statement, line lables, and the goto statement, plus explaining how it worked.
After each time that I explained one of these programs, and showed how it worked, I let them have time to play with it, and teach them more commands to extend thier command set (for instance, teaching them what the circle command was, what all the parameters for the line command (box, fill so they could do filled rectangles), changing colors, etc. I wouldn't implement the new commands for them - I would just tell them what they were, and how they worked, and let them implement it themselves.
As the programs got more advanced, I tought flow control, formating the program correctly so that they could look at it later and understand it, variable types, etc., etc., etc. I rotated back and forth between programing new parts for them to play with, and letting them implement things themselves.
Granted - this was in a teacher-student environment with 20 some odd kids, and someone else helping me out. I'm not sure how well that would work in a one-on-one parent - child relationship. But, the pointer I have that would apply is this: make thier progress very visible. Let them see the results onscreen, so that they have something very visible and tangable to see. Set it up at first so that every minor change produces a change on screen for them to understand. You'd be surprised how excited they can get by very little graphical changes.
Oh, and one more thing - the kids were age range from 9 to 14 or so. That probably also has alot of bearing on how they react, and what works best for them.
Davis Ray Sickmon, Jr - looking for something to read? Check out my three free novels at MidnightRyder.org
I am not exactly sure what age level kids learn algebra these days but I think it is an important step. What I'm really trying to get at is the concept of variables. I know that was at first a hard concept to figure out. If your kids haven't learned algebra then hey maybe it would be a great time to kill two birds with one stone. Finally kids can see where that math pays off!
Now I haven't looked at all the comments frankly since none of them were at the 4 or 5 level. So there is a chance that I could be saying something already said. So here it goes.
Make sure that you give them a good lesson in computer history. A person must have good, strong roots in order to grow strong. Teach them binary. Let them know there is more than one way of counting things. Once they have a good foundation don't be afraid to teach them the 'hard' languages.
How many times would we M$ converts be grateful it we had be taught a real operating system in the first place? I know you say your kids are primarily on windows and playing games but maybe it's time to introduce them to the greater powers of the computer. I started out playing games on the computer too. Then a game came a long named X-Wing. Awesome game. The only problem was when I died my pilot was gone. Everything I worked hard to achieve was gone. That's when I learn the copy command to save my pilot file somewhere else just in case. They've only just scratched the surface and now they are asking you to teach them more. Personally I would not look towards the 'easy' languages that's just seems like scratching a little bit harder at the surface. I rather just get to the root of it and then let the rest fall into place. They can handle it.
I think C/C++ or Java would be a good place to start. But more importantly the underlying principles of programming is what should be concentrated on. Once you know what algorithms are and what variables are does it really matter what language you learned it in first?
Which ever language you do choose I'm sure they'll thank you for it later. :)
Squeak is your answer. It a free version of Smalltalk available on whatever platform you want. It's got excellent support for multimedia stuff, and it's nice and graphical. Kids get very immediate support. Smalltalk is actually very easy for kids to learn (they've introduced it in kindergarden classes) and allows them to define their own language and functions. Furthermore, it would instill in them good OO development practices from the beginning. OO is actually very intuitive to young kids, just not to programmers who've been hacking away at functional programing for n years. ;-)
sigs are a waste of space
Like many of the others, I started out in BASIC on an ancient 8-bit machine. But what really got me started in serious programming was scripting languages and VB.
I realise VB is an incoherent mess, and perhaps Delphi is better (I've never used it) but the biggest advantage of VB is that you can quickly and easily produce visual applications. You can see results, right there on your PC, even with simple projects. Learning something more structured like C involves having to deal with too many complicated issues of programming theory and structure, and unless you're willing to sit through complicated stuff like X or Windows GUI coding, all you'll get is some boring text program.
There may be better ways to do this than VB. Tcl/Tk for example, or tkperl, or even javascript/HTML. But I think the place to start with children is something that produces highly visual GUI output in short order.
I absolutely agree that python is perfect for studying programming - .1% users who participate in
it's easy and at the same time it'll scale down to C. It has been
said that it bridges the gap between RAD languages like perl and
serious languages like C.
One interesting project based on Python is 'computer programming for
everybody' (cp4e). Parent article links to document with details.
In short, the idea is to eliminate difference between a programmer
and a user. Right now there's probably
development and 99.9% users who don't and therefore have only indirect
influence on development. If the language was easy enough for let's say
60% of users to be able to go and make minor changes/tweaks, that would
be quite a revolutionary change. That's what cp4e is trying to accomplish,
in a nutshell.
Python highlights:
* Free, OpenSource
* Simpler and more elegant than Perl (subjectively)
* Mature - started in '89 - before Linux.
* Unix/Win/Mac/etc
* Some big organizations like NASA and Yahoo use it.
* Core philosophy is KISS (keep it simple stupid) vs Perl's 'There Is More Than One Way to Do It'.
-- ATTENTION: do not read this sig. It doesn't say much.
Don't underestimate your kids by teaching them something that you consider sub-par. If they want to learn to program like their old man, there is nothing that should prevent them from programing in a shell account from their windows box. I think it's great that they want to learn, so give them the best tools you know. Believe me, they'll learn faster than you can teach them if they decided they like it!
Python, which also happens to be my personal favorite language, was designed from the ground up to be easy to learn but to teach proper programming fundamentals. In fact, the almighty GvR is actively developing an IDE designed for classroom use.
http://www.python.org is the main home page, and http://www.python.org/cp4e/ is the home page for his educational projects.
How about Mindstorms? Good introduction to the relationship between programming and results.
bun-fhuinneog agam!
It isn't dead, by a long mile.. It's just quiet. There's a free interpreter for most platforms called 'UCBLogo', and its derivative for windows environments, called 'MSWLogo'. I've been using MSWLogo as an environment for introducing elementary school children to procedural thinking and logic, and we plan to use Python for a second phase for students who show a desire to continue learning how to program.
We use Logo, first, because it's got a very high work-to-results ratio for the children. That kind of visual feedback is priceless, for getting them to think in a methodical fashion about a problem. Python requires a bit more of a learning curve before the children get 'interesting' programs that they enjoy, which is why we teach it to them, second.
The idea is, get them addicted, and identify the ones who want to learn more, then switch them onto a professional, albeit gentle, language. I'm still debating whether I'd rather use Pascal than Python, because it's strongly typed, but the quick turnaround for type-it, eval-it environments is nice for teaching.
But I agree with earlier comments. The first rule, is never underestimate your students. The second, is to never slow them down. Once you've given them a foundation, hand them a list of projects to do, and let them move at their own pace in accomplishing them. Younger students prefer praise as a motivator, older students will find their own motivations, and will want a more mentor-like relationship.
Good luck!
Weapons of Mass Analysis
http://www.alice.org
To quote:
The scripting language used by Alice is a slightly modified version of Python, a language itself designed to be used by novices.
I don't have a windows box, so I haven't played with it, but it looks like it would be a good, fun way to ease kids into programming.
Corran
Same goes for anything kids do - expose them to everything and let them decide as they grow.