We have had rants now about Barbie, My Little Pony, Fisher Price Little People - Tools of the Fascist, toy Teletubbies, Care Bears, boy band dolls, etc.
Are we to believe they are all sinister plots?
I think they are all just normal merchandising.
Earlier times had very strange offshoot merchandise from Kewpie doll and Raggedy Ann, not to forget Buck Rodgers and Space Cadets.
It’s not new, and it’s not sinister. People ask for more and more of their idols, and kids(and doting relatives) are people. If something appears it’s because people want to buy it. Nobody produces a product that they think won’t appeal to anyone.
This month’s issue of Smithsonian has a typical example of “giving the public what it wants”. Besides the 24 Tarzan books, and a dozen movies, Tarzan appeared in endless toys and games and activities. He was on bread and ice cream novelties and chewing gum and bathing suits (because one Tarzan actor was an Olympic swimmer).
So go easy on the toys and the promoters. Some of us loved all that stuff as kids, and love it again as parents.
Another example: Someone made this list in fun, but my kids would actually collect 'em all
http://www.late-show.com/readers/top-ten/givens1.htm LATE-SHOW.COM - Fan Top Ten List
Top 10 Rejected Barbies
10. Convict Barbie
9. Nose Job Barbie
8. Slim Fast Barbie
7. The Doll Formerly Known As Barbie
6. Psychic Barbie
5. Seasick Barbie
4. Super Barbie! Faster Than A Speeding Rubber Band! Able To Leap Tall Doll Houses In A Single Bound!
3. Allergic Barbie! She Really Sneezes!
2. Hanson Barbie
Siamese Twin Barbies
Hmm… Maybe I could make these for the Barbie folks and cash in myself
I would challenge you to examine the case of the :Cue:CAT barcode reader produced by the (possibly now-defunct) :Digital:Convergence. What was this amazing product? A barcode scanner that would take you to websites off of advertisements in magazines. How many of us ever want to visit a website in a magazine ad? Now how many of us would be willing to install complex software and hardware on our computer to do so when we could just type in the web address?
That’s not all, folks. They also included a cable to connect your computer to your TV. The amazing function of this cable? To AUTOMATICALLY launch websites from TV advertisements on your computer. I can imagine the planning session for this product:
Exec 1: Hey, how do you think we could get people to visit our fucking spam?
Exec 2: Let’s make a fucking complicated piece of gadgetry to automatically load fucking spam on your computer.
VP of Marketing: Yeah, and we’ll wrap it up in a “CAT” so it goes along with your “MOUSE”. “CAT” - “MOUSE” - get it?
Exec 1: Sweet. Let’s put a bunch of fucking colons all over the place so we sound high tech, too.
There is no “value-added proposition” - a reason for the consumer to use your product, even if it’s free - in this product. None. So people DO make shit that nobody wants, and I have to imagine that even the colossal dumbasses that made this piece of shit realized that it WAS shit.
My dad insisted that I go to Radio Shack and snag one of those things. I did, but I had no confidence that it wouldn’t fuck up my computer, so I never used it. I gave it to a friend who’s a library worker so he could try it out on the county’s dime, but they forbid him to get it near their computers.
with respect to the theory that “they are giving the public what it wants”,
thats total bullshit.
I just completed a call with a marketing firm vis a vis musical tastes. They asked me to rate songs based on the song quality. However, if I hadnt heard the song, i had to respond “not familiar.” I’d give 10 to 1 odds that a “not familiar” registers far below a 1 on a scale of 5 in the voting.
now, does anyone stop to think that maybe i WANT to hear the music that i was unfamiliar with??? I mean, shit, even if its fucking Pink Floyd, if I have heard a song on the radio more than 5 times, i will have bought it if i liked it that much. so replaying songs is a total waste of my time.
at least they also asked me to rate how bored I was with hearing the songs. So i could give Flavour of the Weak a big VERY SICK OF HEARING IT even though it is a 3 out of 5.
