Geek in Heels - Page 124

Aug 26, 2010 • In Logos/Branding, Marketing/Advertising, Personal

Brand Associations [Unbranding]

Last night I read about a new marketing trend called “unbranding,” where luxury houses allegedly send out their competitor’s products to keep their own brands from being associated with celebrities who don’t match their brands’ carefully-crafted images.

Unsurprisingly, they used Jersey Shore‘s Snooki as an example; Snooki was originally known to have carried around a Coach bag everywhere but now seems to have gone on to various other designer brands. Not because she is earning more money and able to afford these new purses, nor because publicists and PR staff are sending her free swag to hawk, but because luxury houses are sending her each others’ bags in an attempt to disassociate themselves from the train wreck!

I don’t think I have ever become more loyal, or distanced myself from a particular brand due to celebrity associations. To me, it is more about the design and the quality. Sure, there are some brands to which I am more partial just based on their names, but there is usually a good reason their brands are associated with luxury: their superior products speak for themselves.

The funny thing is that I have found myself placing negative connotations to certain brands as of late. But not because of celebrities or pop culture. Rather, because of spam comments.

Yes, you read that right: spam comments. Because in the past month or so I have been getting tons of spam comments from people pushing (probably counterfeit) luxury brand items — more specifically, from Louis Vuitton and Christian Louboutin. As a result, I have noticed that whenever these two brand names come up, I cringe inside.

I am well aware that Louis Vuitton or Christian Louboutin has no control over these comments. But the fact of the matter is that these spammers have ruined these brands for this blogger, at least for the time being.

I can think of another example which dates all the way back to high school: a girl who used to bully me had a penchant for Prada bags. Because of this girl, I now associate Prada with painful high school memories and have no desire to own a single Prada item.

Again, Prada has had no control over this situation. It is merely due to my own personal experience that I choose to distance myself from this brand.

What about you? Are there certain brands that you are fiercely loyal to, or tend to stay clear of, due to personal experiences? Are you ever swayed by the products that celebrities use?

Asian Emoticon Stamp

J likes to tease me and call me a “twinkie” (yellow on the outside, white on the inside) because I’m not too familiar with the Asian culture. Sure, I like to pretend — and write about it on this blog — but the truth of the matter is that I routinely research and triple-check my facts before writing anything Asian/Korean-related on here.

One of the many trends I still have trouble deciphering are Asian emoticons. After a bit of head-scratching, I was able to figure out simple ones like ^_^ (happy face) and ^_~ (wink), but more often than not I can’t make sense of what the heck my friends are trying to convey when they use Asian emoticons in their online messages.

But for those who are familiar with Asian emoticons and regularly use them, I stumbled upon a product that may be of interest…

The Kaoiro Emoticom Stamp from Ginghami looks like a regular stamp at first glance, but upon closer inspection you’ll soon realize that it is capable of producing hundreds of cute Asian emoticons.

The office supply lover and stationery geek in me wants to purchase one pretty badly. However, I’m not sure how I would be able to produce concepts that I don’t understand…do you think it can be used as a learning tool?

Via Neatorama.

The Stuff That Nightmares Are Made Of

Via Geekosystem.

The New Generation of Sticker Pictures

I’m sure my Asian readers will be more familiar with the sticker picture phenomenon that was so popular in the late 1990s to early 2000s. My friends and I always took sticker pictures when we got together, and traded them among ourselves like baseball cards. It was always fun to find a familiar face on someone’s sticker picture collection, to exclaim, “I didn’t know you know _____!”

I used to collect all my sticker pictures in my planner, which I personalized and made pretty with tons of stickers and colored pens (decorating planners was another trend back then). Here’s just one page out of the dozens I had in my planner:

Slowly, the sticker picture fad died out and was soon replaced with purikura, or photo booths which went a step further by washing out the colors in the photographs to make the skin look smoother and lighter. I knew that these “Photo Clubs” existed all over Asia; however, I was surprised to read the latest trend in photo booth pictures: eye enlargement software. Take a look at these “before” and “after” shots:

Examining these photos even further, it seems that the software also slims your face (a trend that is very much desired in Asia) and perhaps trims your jawline.

Recently, a Japanese television show decided to run a picture of the Mona Lisa was run through the software and got the following result:

When shown a picture of the original Mona Lisa alongside the new, purikura version, most Japanese women tended to favor the sticker picture version.

I’m curious as to how I would turn out using these new generation of photo booth machines. However, this would be purely for fun as the changes that are produced are a bit too drastic for my tastes.

As for the experiment being conducted on such an iconic image, a priceless piece of art? And to have the majority of pollers prefer the new version? The word “travesty” doesn’t seem fitting enough. (But then again, this classical art aficionado is biased.)

Via Kotaku.

P.S. — As Kotaku points out, I want to make it a point to say that skin-whitening and larger eyes are not evidence of Asians attempting to look more Caucasian. These features have been desired in Asia long before contact with Westerners.

Geeky PIN Numbers

I must confess that I’m horrible when it comes to passwords and PINs…I really need to be more creative and diversify! (Did I just open myself up to hacks and thefts with that opening sentence?) Perhaps this will help me think of some good combinations…

Via Spiked Math Comics.

Six Random Thoughts

The Geek in Heels household is in a bit of disarray at the moment. J is sick. I am still suffering from insomnia (and am a walking zombie as a result). I sent Comang to stay with my sister for a couple of days while we try to recover and we’re missing him dearly. And I have a gazillion thoughts running through my head at all times…

So I figured, why not write about some of these thoughts?

1. My hair smells like perm chemicals and I like it. I can’t stand most perfume scents, but I have never had a problem with perm chemicals. Or the smell of gasoline. Why am I so weird? (I’ll try to post pictures of my new hair tomorrow. I don’t want to take a picture today because I can’t wash my hair for at least 24 hours and so it’s a royal mess right now.)

2. I think I have gone to the bathroom more than 20 times today. And I can’t remember the last time I had a long, satisfying pee.

3. I want to cry whenever I see our guest room, which is currently overflowing with boxes and bins and is a complete mess. We can’t move anything down to our storage unit until our condo’s management company cashes our first check, and they confirmed this morning that they still haven’t received it. I hate that our management company always takes forever to sort their mail and only goes to the bank once in a while to cash checks. We can’t do ANYTHING to the nursery until this stuff is moved out.

4. Seeing this made me smile today, because I just know that J will give all boys a hard time when it comes to our daughter:

5. My mom calls me every day, sometimes several times a day, to see how I’m doing. On one hand, I want to scream, “WE WILL LET YOU KNOW IF ANYTHING’S HAPPENING.” On the other, I’m grateful because she’s the only one who calls me regularly. I have turned into the lonely pregnant woman again and I’ve been really down lately. I do not know anyone else in real life who is pregnant, and most of my girlfriends are still single. So far, only about 5 people have RSVPed “yes” to the baby shower and they are all family members. (And I know that it may seem like I’m sad no one will buy us gifts, but I honestly don’t care if we do not receive any gifts…I’m just sad that so few people seem to want to come celebrate the baby with us.) I have been trying to make some new friends whose lives are at similar stages as mine, but it’s difficult when even walking around is physically painful. Pity party for one, please.

6. I realize that the majority of these thoughts are negative ones where I am complaining and/or b*tching. I apologize for this — I’ve just been so tired, cranky, and emotional lately. I took pride in myself through the pregnancy for not turning into a crazy pregnant lady who takes everything too personally and cries over every little thing, but it seems that the stereotype has finally caught up with me in the past month or so. All I can do is tell myself to keep looking forward, and stay strong for our little girl.

Wookie the Pooh

These illustrations by James Hance remind me of the Chewie and Han t-shirt I posted last week…

Via Geeks are Sexy.

Cankles

Earlier today I decided to cash in my push present and went for a steam perm and cut — my first in almost a year!

Sitting patiently through the 3 hour process, I took a look at myself in the full-length mirror and was dismayed to see how fat and swollen my calves, ankles, and feet have gotten. I realized right then and there that I am now the proud owner of cankles:

I took the above picture with my camera and uploaded it to Facebook, in hopes that mommy friends will chime in to reassure me that the swelling will disappear after giving birth. And they did — most said that their calves, ankles and feet returned to normal just a few short weeks post partum.

I have hated being pregnant in the hot summer months, and this year’s record-breaking temperatures did not help much. (I can already imagine that years down the road, when my daughter is giving me a hard time, I will remind her that I carried her during one of the hottest summers on record.) However, one good thing about being pregnant in the warmer months is that I can wear flip-flops. If I had been pregnant during the winter I would most certainly have had to purchase new shoes in larger sizes.

I am now in my 34th week of pregnancy. We are starting to receive presents from our baby registry…it’s scary to think that we will actually be using these items in 6-ish weeks!

P.S. — For those that may be wondering, I love my new haircut and perm! I will post pictures later, but suffice it to say that I have never been more pleased with a perm while walking out of a salon. The staff at Hidy II were super-accommodating for this preggo — they periodically asked if I needed bathroom breaks (which I did), let me walk around to relieve swelling and pressure, and served me refreshing water and tea. I didn’t get my hair done by Jay this time, but by a stylist named Jenny who did a fantastic job and went the extra mile to make sure that I was comfortable at all times.

P.P.S. — I asked my stylist what the difference is between a Digital Perm and a Steam Perm. She told me that a Steam Perm is a combination of the Setting Perm and the Digital Perm; it follows the general procedure of the Setting Perm but uses the less damaging chemicals of the Digital Perm…in other words, the best of two worlds! The only problem with Steam Perms is that it is still not yet offered by most salons in the United States (even most Korean salons do not have it), so not only is it difficult to find a salon that does it, the price still remains pretty high (mine was $250, not including tips).