Brands

The BMW example is interesting and reminded me of something. I live in a 2 bedroom apartment in a working class area. My downstairs neighbour bought his place a year after I did and moved in with his wife and kid. He's a nice a enough guy, and this was his first property. He has a humble job working at a recycling station in the city, nothing wrong with that. However, he also owned a brand new fancy-as-hell BMW that must have cost almost half of what he paid for the apartment! I always thought it was crazy that he would live in small apartment with his family when he could have just not bothered with the executive car and bought a much larger place for his family to live in. It always struck me that the priorities there were way out of whack. It's honestly very bizarre how much people value the image of some brands.

I work in IT, for rich people, like actually rich people. They have this utilitarian mentality that is rubbing off on me. For example, they change their phone every 6 years. One dude needed a laptop, I showed him a new ThinkPad, that was about $1500. He showed me a 2nd hand model, that was selling for $500 and asked if that was a nice deal since it was $3000, 3 years ago. Now I kind of understand why these people have lots of money.

I’m a polo shirt guy myself Tommy Bahama silk shirts not the flowery ones but the solid colors. 🌬️💨

DIESEL - For Successful Living

Kizz, you look hale & hearty & happy ❤

I used to have my favorite brands I was loyal to because of their superior quality/craftsmanship, but they have even lowered their standards so much, you pay Nordstrom prices for Walmart quality now.

For the most part I don't care about brands I do usually buy Sketchers just because I know where the store is and the shoes usually feel good.

I am a audio guy. I buy the best I can afford, not a brand. My next system is going to be analog vintage. I like the sound and it looks cool.

I think at a certain point it just becomes 'peacocking' essentially. Non-verbal ways of saying "Look at how much I make and can flaunt" without saying as much explicitly. A sort of juvenile approach at wealth or superficial means of drawing social attention or rank, is my best guess. Reminds me of the "stealth wealth" really rich folks wear, to signal to those in the know still how well off they are, but travel under the radar of anyone with the impulse to mug someone carrying Balenciaga. The only tie I have to brands is if they carry a history, product or service done well with some level of expertise I can't get elsewhere or as a shorthand 'good enough' mental check. Want to get a pair of Russell moccasin boots someday since they still make them the old fashioned, long lasting way for example.

It seems, to me, that this is just an emergent property / symptom / affectation of unfettered capitalism. And yeah, people have a strange relationship with branding. For me, to be honest, I really don't care - other than, for example, cars. Some cars are purely utilitarian. Others are built for looks, and yet others have reliability on their side. Sometimes, a 'brand' can reflect these. Other than this, as long as a thing does what it's supposed to do, then any 'loyalty' I might have with 'branding' boils down to how reliably the thing does what it's supposed to (such as, for example: taste good, work well, look good, etc).

For me, brand relevance begins and ends at the point where a product's name will tell me everything I need to know about its quality. I really only care for utilitarian standards, brands annoy me

I often write private 'scripts' about things that bother me. It's very cathartic and releases built up emotional pressure. It's very good for mental health. Thanks for the Bowie clip Kizzume 😁👍

I'm much younger than you, but seeing how consumers have guided the things I love into a pit I can pretty much say I hate consumers as a class. My little generation grew up in a goldilocks era of the information age where companies kind of fell on their ass trying to market, and much of the internet sphere was ran by individuals or, either literally or culturally. (even though Google and similar were still large, they didn't have such a hegemonic presence to police culture, speech, monetization, etc.) We've turned into little more than data points for these companies, and those of us with a conscious to think about how we want to spend our money with a company we don't respect are little more than a worthwhile sacrifice for whatever a company does to undercut. If a company withholds information, no matter how much activism one can do, people will rush to defend that company unless they come out and admit their crimes themselves; and anyone with the most minor experience knows that lying by omission is piss easy. I can only visualize this class of consumers as modern day peasantry, and I don't think the world is going to get better until they're unable to drive decisions. As it is, people like me are viewed by people with the money to make change as little more than shoplifted goods, and their insurance is other consumers who will just buy and not think. I'm sure I come off as a bit pretentious, but when everything I held dear growing up rotted before me, socially, culturally, economically... It's hard not to get this way.

Speaking of mic. What would you recommend for someone with a limited budget wanting to use a mic for story telling/podcasting. I'd love to hear your thoughts. I use an Mac Mini with an M2 chip. Cost me 600$.

I bet some historians have studied brand loyalty. There used to not be brands. It was just, "Timmy makes better wagons than Wendel." Actually, it might have even been more like, "Thag make better spears than Grog. Too bad stegosaurus got him," (minus the dinosaur -- can't resist a Far Side reference). We sure do expand in some strange directions. There are so many brands now that when we're kids we can't sort it all out. We use whatever childish reasoning we think applies to this brand or that, and it sticks with us. I probably still have a little of that left, but I think I've gotten rid of most of it. Being a cheap bastard helps.

I have no brand loyalty, except to proven results. For power tools, I'm loyal to Milwaukee brand. For shoes, I'm loyal to Sketchers. I'm loyal to certain food brands that are better quality. But, no- my purse brand, my clothes brand, my eyeglasses, etc- I just want what works, that doesn't cost twice as much..

People stick to bdands, as they promise a certain standard to be kept. Let's be honest, almost nobody buys a no name phone, simpy because we don't trust it. Instead we stick to apple, samsung and other similar brands, because we know those phones will work the way we want them to. Its the same with just about anything else. Other brands are well established in the luxury market (to which the song is referring). In the case of clothes or things to wear, its Gucci, Rolex watches and other brands of the kind. I have a nice Adidas jogging outfit, which is really really nice and I feel comfortable wearing. I'm incredibly distant towards nike though. I used to buy nike shoes and they were absolutely poorly designed. They got branded as running shoes, yet started falling apart after just a bit of walking. I'm currently using HOKA BONDI for my hikes.

I'm just an unscripted, low budget, armature.

For me, the only times brands should ever matter is if they have a proven track record and/or quality associated with them. That being said, I think the current fascination with brands comes from how hollow and empty our society has become. We don't value deep thinking or anything of substance. It's all get rich and famous online for doing absolutely nothing of any inherent value to society or the world at large. The other avenue is find some way to spark attention and/or outrage by putting forth the same tired, shallow brain dead takes to get that one tiktok, tweet, or youtube video to go viral. It's all about image online, and far too many people's lives revolve around being perpetually online. We've been headed down that route for a good long while. Unfortunately, the pandemic and all the useless (and counter productive) social distancing only made things worse, putting our descent into warp speed. In a world where most people who want to be in the public eye (which these days is nearly everyone) you have to signal how virtuous, successful, and worthy you are. Hence all the peacocking with brand obsession.

This reminds me of a kid I work with who's very brand-conscious, and always looking in the parking lot and making comments if an expensive car is parked there. It seems kind of pathetic to me. Some people are really concerned with status. I guess I am too, but I don't regard the kind of car you drive (or clothes) as a big indicator of status. It's well known that millionaires drive modest vehicles. I will say I don't really like to wear brands that are known to come from Walmart, like Rangler, so I guess I'm not exempt from my own insecurities. I don't care about having a garment from Walmart, but I wouldn't want to wear something that might as well literally say "Walmart" on it.