"Brand Building"

[wolven7]

I hate the idea of "brands" as a new term for "trends" or "subculture." The relativelt new terminology and usage is... disturbing, because it continues the process of reducing every interest and love down to a commodity and every place of commraderie down to a point of sale.

Just... resist the commercialisation of the things that interest you, if at all possible, and use it to break people, whenever it's not.

Back to Serial Mom.

Comments

[unknownbinaries.livejournal.com]

What brought this on?

[wolven.livejournal.com]

A fucking business credit card commercial about snowboarding.

Enjoyment != business. If you can make a living OFF of it, then wonderful, brilliant, and hallelujah, but the business aspect should not take precedence over the enjoyment.

[wolven.livejournal.com]

Everything is interchangeable, what's sickening is that that interchange has to be done for Money, rather than for simple Enjoyment Of A New Thing.

A further dissection of the system:

[raidingparty.livejournal.com]

It's just a different point of harnessing what they see as a potential source of energy, not unlike a windmill or a toll booth.
And "brand" is a valid word for the sort of thing the type of thing they're trying to sell; even if it doesn't refer to any concept of ownership, it's an idea of 'associated products'.

There is an undercurrent of ownership there, and that is worth cautioning. It might end up being a reverse Kleenex, in which... well, Emo is a terrible example because of the derision, so let's switch; say someone decides to make a "Tango" brand (it has probably already been done). It would take lots of work to retrain the public mind, but if they do fall in line it could become a genuine product-identification question.

To break it, the name needs to lack commercial value. Given "Tango" again, if most of the things associated with it are free or homemade or otherwise unable to be harvested by anything otherwise directly involved in the activity, and if you actively dissociate attempted branding (loudly decrying "That's not Tango!" whenever someone mentions Scent of a Woman, let alone the sort of response one could have to Tango ice cream scoops), it doesn't attach itself to money in any occasions other than the activity itself. In which case, people who have nothing to do with the community will be completely unable to get the money without directly involving themselves, and will hence try to figure out a different way to sell us love.

Because as I said before, money is love.

Re: A further dissection of the system:

[wolven.livejournal.com]

At the same time, however, a community that expands to identify these things is still a valid community. Resistance of things of that sort becomes like trying to resist Christian booksellers carrying Pat Robertson. THAT's not Christianity. Except that it is, because it's adhered to by a group that self -identifies as Christian.

To say THAT's not Tango, or Snowboarding, or Goth, or Punk is to ignore the fact that, yes, people want to feel "involved in a community," and a community needs to have It's Own Things Which Are Different From Your Things Even Though They Do Roughly The Same Things As Your Things™. But that does not necessarily mean that those things A) Can't be recognised as Chosen Things, that is things that we have consciously taken to be set apart and B) have to be SOLD to us.

If I identify as A Magician, then the tools of my trade should not need to be sold to me; except for Very specific instances where the transaction of money is Required for something, my tools should be able to be made, found, or realised at hand, because of a certain perspective on them.

Re(2): A further dissection of the system:

[raidingparty.livejournal.com]

Tango probably wasn't the best example of this because there are loads of examples (the shoes, the music, the venues) of things that are vital to it that can be created by people who have never danced.

Why does a community need to have Its Own Things Which Are Different From Your Things Even Though They Do Roughly The Same Things As Your Things™?

There are any number of things in everyday life (food, books, clothes) to which we have little connection, for which we paid. In individualistic societies, we made it ourselves or we just didn't have it. In communal societies, we had a friend (or, at the very least, neighbor) who made it. In modern capital society, we exchange cash for the shortcuts and specialization.
You know that already, I hope I didn't sound patronizing with that paragraph; the point of such is that people buying a "Magician Kit" (as an example) are probably looking for a shortcut, either in the fact that their last one was repossessed and they need a new one quick, or they (think they) lack the knowledge to make themselves one.

"Really, what everyone wants is for someone to hold them and tell them it's all going to be okay." - The Wedding Singer
Insert note about social capital, various feel-good reward brain chemicals, and the subjects of the majority of spam here.

Not to mention a sudden funny realization. Lots of magical requests, be it tarot, amateur spells, or whoknowswhatelse, have to do with love and money. Do The Powers That Be see such as spam, and if so, is e-mail their revenge?

Re: Re(2): A further dissection of the system:

[wolven.livejournal.com]

That would be hilarious, if true.

The IOTWADFYTETTDRTSTAYT™ are there to identify the community. "I like THESE things, so i'm part of THIS community, and Not That One." It's a way of making a demarcation, a definition of self-in-grouphood.

I prefer self-in-selfhood.