Rues of Roo

Have you ever met somebody who has no identity of his own?

I remember a while ago, Apple had this wonderful ad campaign, their slogan was ‘Think Different’. The irony, of course, as with most ad campaigns that focus on ‘individuality’, is that you’re just asking everyone to act the same. I remember a dear friend of mine who had on his website ‘Think Different’ as a sort of personal slogan. Someone inevitably posted on his tagboard ‘is your idea of thinking differently using the slogan of a MNC on your website?’ or something along those lines.

It really is the same for all other branding manipulation, the idea that if you buy a product you are being ‘individual’. I guess to a certain extent, limited edition items could be considered individual, but again, it’s the branding ‘mantra’ that you are subscribing to, and essentially, in owning, say, a Nike special edition item, you are essentially owning a smaller piece of what is inevitably a worldwide, ‘owned by a million other people’ brand. Just that it’s, DEAR GOD, IT’S ORANGE, where did you get an ORANGE one????

Such is the banality of the brand.

Which brings me to my first line. Have you ever met someone who simply just has no identity of his own? Those individuals who seem to exist to repeat you. Like those mini-keychains or toys that when you press the button record everything you say and spew it out again. The only difference with this brand of individuals is that they seem be a living thesaurus, vomiting your words, and the words of others, in as many different ways as possible.

It’s like a vending machine. You choose an apple and it gives you a green apple, a red apple, and a couple of blue apples just because it’s so stupid it doesn’t know blue apples don’t exist. Or you choose a Mocha Frappaccino and instead it gives you a hot latte. After all, it’s just coffee and milk in different proportions. Inevitably the latte is made from UHT milk and comes from Delifrance.

But seriously, what gives? It’s conformation, but in the worst way possible. In fact, it goes beyond conformation, it’s just stupidity, and I’m not talking about technical information. I’m talking about:

A: Hey did you watch Transformers?
B: Yeah it’s great!
The Idiot (“TI”): Yeah, it’s great
B: They already booked up for a sequel, or maybe a trilogy I think?
TI: Yeah, they booked the actors for three movies
B: I loved the original from 86
A: Yeah that was great
TI: Good old retro Transformers!
B: With the Dinobots
TI: Yeah, Dinobots are so cool
A: Wasn’t Bumblee a different car in the actual movie?
TI: Yeah he was different
A: He was a VW Beetle originally, right?
TI: Yeah a Beetle
B: Now a Chevrolet Camara. Talk about product placement!
TI: Yeah the product placement was so huge in Transformers
A: Tell me about it, all the GMC cars were crazy!
TI: GMC, except for the Beetle, who was Bumblebee
B: They weren’t too discreet about it, I think they wanted to cut down on costs
TI: To save money
A: [takes out a knife and quickly thrusts it into the bowels of TI, pulling out his intestines and then removes TI’s heart while it is still beating]

There’s another breed of person who is equally irritating. The breed of person who watches movies adapted from novels, never reads the novel, but then says ‘apparently, in the novel’ in every conversation about the movie, and inevitably, every ‘apparently, in the novel’ comes from conversations he/she has listened to in the days prior to this. Oh, and by the way, the only reason you know this is because you seem to be in every conversation that this person is in. For example

Day 1:
A: Hey did you watch the Lord of the Rings trilogy?
B: Yeah it was great
Another Idiot (“AI”): Yeah it was pretty cool
A: They cut out quite a bit from the novel though, like the Tom Bombadil guy from the Fellowship
B: Yeah I know, but it was pretty pointless anyway.

Day 2:
C: Hey did you watch the Lord of the Rings trilogy?
D: It was so cool
AI: Apparently, they cut out a lot of stuff which was in the novel, like the Tom Bombadil guy.
C: Yeah they did. They also changed quite a lot in the ending too, like Saruman being in Hobbiton at the end of Return of the King.
D: Yeah that was strange, but I guess it made the ending better.

Day 3:
E: Did you watch the Lord of the Rings trilogy?
F: Yup, I loved it!
AI: Yeah, but, apparently, they changed a lot of stuff that was in the novel, like the Tom Bombadil guy, and also Saruman being in Hobbiton at the end.
E: Yeah, that was strange, but the ending was better.
F: There was also quite a bit of creative directing, like when Aragorn went to summon those ghost people, that wasn’t in the novel.

Day 4:
G: Did you watch the Lord of the Rings trilogy?
H: Nah, stupid Hobbits
AI: Apparently they changed a lot of the stuff from the novel. Like Tom Bombadil and Saruman in Hobbiton and the ghost people that Aragorn summoned.

They’re out there. Honestly. Give them a slap please. It’ll feel so good.