We hate branding.
Oh sure, we used to love it, like back in the 90's or at the
turn of the millennium or so, but now...well, it's like this:
did you ever have a favorite song and then one day it was in some
crummy but popular movie and all of a sudden everybody was
singing it even though they couldn't get the lyrics straight and
didn't even know what it was really all about and then, to make
matters worse, they all started putting your song on their mix tapes
next to incredibly lame tunes by spandau ballet or ricky martin or
menudo and all of a sudden you couldn't even walk past a bodega
or a bowling alley or a parking lot without hearing your once-
special song blasting -- sounding shitty -- out of speakers not even
good enough for flock of seagulls? Did that ever happen to you?
C'mon, you know you know what we're talking about.
Anyway, that's what happened to us with 'branding'.
Now don't get us wrong: we still love the idea of branding. We're
committed to it in fact. But the word has lost all of its stock.
example: not too long ago, we bumped into a friend of a friend,
a tiny, sweet, semi-goth girl schlepping a laptop nearly as big as her
hipster attitude. We asked what she'd been up to and she told
us she'd opened a little company doing 'branding'. "Oh?"
we asked as innocently as one of those deadly trapdoor spiders that
waits all day long for its prey to come by and then has to stay
super cool until it gets just a little bit closer, "what
exactly does that mean?" we pounced. She replied, blithely: