Fonts And Nonsense

I came across this article about a Pepsi ad about a month ago, but time hasn't really been on my side of late, so I delayed posting about it until now. Which is silly, really, because there isn't really much to say, because seeing is believing and forming your own opinion:

If it looks to you like it says ''PEPSI X RAPE'', that's because it almost does, as the article states:

Pepsi is quickly learning this lesson after partnering with Japanese clothier A Bathing Ape.

Nothing suspicious there; collaborations happen all the time.

But to promote the brand’s AAPE line, Pepsi chose a font that might skew the meaning a bit for the casual passerby.

I'm not one to be easily offended - if at all; as a matter of fact, I'm usually the first one to promote offensive stuff, because I find North Americans hypocritial about being über politically correct in their speech and yet borderline psychotic in their actions and beliefs (particularly the right-wing, pro-life, pro-death penalty, ''don't touch my guns/don't tread on me'', vaguely-to-extremely racist and violent in their tone with everyone who disagrees with them folks).

But that's precisely why I would avoid, as a marketing professional, the use of a font which involuntarily - I hope - associates a household name in the beverage industry with one of the worst crimes one could commit, probably on par with murder: the rise of violence in our public discourse in the Age Of The Internets has brought forth a very loud consortium of voices calling for and promoting violence against women; sure, a lot of them are just trolling, but in a world where public shootings occur more than once a week, the creeps are no longer afraid to come out of the woodwork and seem to be encouraged by a certain public spotlight to try to one-up their brethren.

We don't need to further encourage them via that large a brand-name recognition. I probably wouldn't have minded if it was a brand I truly despised, or a start-up that I could associate with rapists, psychopaths and other dudebros from the start; free speech does mean one (or one brand) can choose its target audience, just like Barilla decided they didn't need the gay clientele, or Denny's didn't need black customers. But the second-largest soft drink company in the world probably should have been more careful...

Boiling Water Alert In Montréal Today

Don’t drink the water – check. Onto Pepsi Max and beer. Thank you, vile, decrepit, decaying , crumbling, corrupt city I love so much!

Weird Pepsi Flavours

I don't always drink cola, but when I do, I try to drink Pepsi. Because it's the least disgusting, and Pepsi Max has ginseng. And triple the caffeine of the regular brand. Zero fucking calories.

Yet Pepsi Max isn't in this list of 19 (actually 23) of weird Pepsis.

I'd try most of them.

Then again, I really, really liked Crystal Pepsi. As a teen, when my corner store stopped buying it, I emptied their remaining stock by myself, one at a time, for a month. Then I hit withdrawal.

New Adventures In Lo-Fi

Today, I'm a zen fucking master. Like a one-day resolution of sorts.

I've been in the exact same spot for the past 12 hours now, sitting in front of a computer, with 3 hours left, and it's time to make the most of it, and the only way to do so is to let go of the world outside these four walls.

There is no time (6:30 PM), no date (January 5th, 2010), no weather (metres of snow! freezing cold!), no neighbours (downtown!), no circumstances (work!) to take me away from my goal.

Yet I don't know what my goal is. But I won't let that stop me. I can't.

I'm resilient. I also just realized I'm like a Beastie Boy: I can go 4 paragraphs without actually saying anything.

People talk to me, trying to steer me away from my goal, but I won't let them; I answer their queries hoping it might clue me in as to where I'm going, but it's always just a dirty path that ends as soon as it turns away from the highway. So onwards I continue, on the road to finding out what I'm heading towards.

It could be a wall, for all I know, but my brakes are new and I'm not speeding anyhow - had 3 cans of Pepsi to wake myself up, but nothing else 'cause I'd like to sleep tonight.

I'm in need of another week in Cuba, for new adventures in lo-fi; I'd settle for a week in Florida, if need be. Relaxing, beach-side, no care in the whole damn world even if only for a limited time... in the company of people who want to be in the vicinity - far from everyone else.

And the stories would write themselves.