The best example of how this device would help you maintain control of the hypnotic and pervasive marketing sloganeering, logo pedaling, sign display, etc., is the de-translation this hand-held, battery- (or solar cell-) powered calculator-like device would give to American fast food restaurant names. Guess the actual names of the following:

Ack Donald's
Kentucky Fried Colonel (his picture IS on the box)
Booger King
Undies
Pizza Hurt
Taco Hell
Jack-In-The-Box (unchanged by de-translation)

Simply enter the marketing blitz flurry of supersilious specifiers via the keyboard and the counter-balancing text would appear on the screen. Your mind would thus be spared any effect from the insidious new advertising, after you repeat the de-advertised word or phrase a few times, thereby cementing your healthful misunderstanding.
-- entremanure, Jan 11 2002

Adbusters http://www.adbusters.org
Manipulating and subverting advertisements. [pottedstu, Jan 11 2002, last modified Oct 04 2004]

John Mann's Wacky Packages Web Page http://www2.pair.com/wacky/
Like the above, but more hilarious and less subversive. Oh well, can't have everything. [LoriZ, Jan 12 2002, last modified Oct 04 2004]

So every time we see a fast food restaurant, we type its name into a machine that come up with some kind of lame pun? Or have I missed something?
-- pottedstu, Jan 11 2002


Dead-vertising. There's a joke in there somewhere.

I am as befuddled as 'stu. This is either more complex than it first appears, or is just silly. I suspect the latter.

Tock O'Bells... great Irish cuisine.
-- waugsqueke, Jan 11 2002


Is that a ringing endorsement for Tock O'Bells?
-- pottedstu, Jan 11 2002


Yeah. Hypnotic and pervasive, isn't it?
-- waugsqueke, Jan 11 2002


A few other lame product puns:

Internet Exploiter
Netscrape Navigator
Microsoft Windoze
Coctothorpe (anybody get this reference?)
Wince
Macinslosh
My former boss, when told that someone bought the Newton 2000 that we had languashing in stock: "Someone bought the fruiten Newton?" Seemed amusing at the time.

Anyway, I think this is a good idea, the challenge would be to create software that can invent a silly pun on the input of any arbitrary trademark. Weather it would break the magic of advertising mind control remains to be seen, but it's worth a try.
-- JakePatterson, Jan 11 2002


I thought that was supposed to be "Nutscrape"?

This would probably be easily bakeable by removing all of the words from your spell-check dictionary except the ones with negative connotations, then spell check the advertisement and accept all the suggested changes.
-- mwburden, Jan 11 2002


mwburden: yep, that would be one way to do it, but it would be better if the device could consider the context of the trademark, along with its baggage, so it could be more likely to come up with things like "Internet Exploiter" which has meaning beyond just a goofy word replacement. Admitidly, that is the only one on my list that is any good by that standard.
-- JakePatterson, Jan 11 2002


I endorse the idea of gathering, cataloging and data mining the entire mess of information, disinformation and noise available to consumers. I see no point in simply reversing the connotations of the noise part.
-- LoriZ, Jan 12 2002


Coke Subtracts Life!
-- thumbwax, Jan 12 2002


Pepsi brings your ancestors back from the dead!
-- JakePatterson, Jan 12 2002


You don't deserve a break today!

MMM MMMMMMMMM AWFUL!
-- thumbwax, Jan 12 2002



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