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It Was a Huge Week for Bullying
By Kyle Pagan
Published:
If you’ve been living under a rock you probably didn’t hear about the Cracker Barrel backlash when they changed their logo and the interior of their stores. People freaked out (and of course some politicized it) so much that the Barrel is now going back to its original logo, which is the right move, after they saw their almost $100 million in market value vanish:
I’ve never eaten at a CB, but I’ll tell you what – that new logo stunk. It had no personality. It didn’t stick out from any other restaurant or fast food chain. What Cracker Barrel would you rather eat at? The fun-loving grandpa that loves eating southern food off his barrel or this private equity-inspired logo that looks like it wants to talk to me about shareholder value and maximizing my 401k? –
Logos nowadays stink. The NBA used to have some of the best logos in the world. Today’s logos feel like profit-maximizing pieces of AI that you can slap on everything from shirts to a koozie and squeeze as much money out of your consumer as possible. The Dolphins used to have a dolphin with a helmet on! A DOLPHIN WITH A HELMET ON PEOPLE! We need cocaine back in our greatest artists’ bloodstreams, folks! They’re taking away dolphins with helmets and dinosaurs dribbling basketballs for dull wordmarks and oppressive 90° degree angles!
But now that CB smartened up, their stock is higher than it was before. Sure maybe we were the pawns in some genius marketing scheme, but I’m going to chalk this up to one small fact and that is bullying works. Look at this soulless corporate dungeon:
Did it used to look like Carson Wentz’s living room before? Absolutely:
I’d still rather eat under the taxidermied deer head then next to my mother’s rolling pins stacked neatly 4.8 inches apart because some marketing analyst said people feel a sense of calmness when they see cylindrical kitchen products. It reminds them of their mother, duh. Not everything in this world needs an upgrade. Nostalgia works. Happy Gilmore 2 and Freakier Friday just released in the last month and people gobbled that shit up even though they both sucked.
Speaking of a cracker with a barrel, Bryce Harper was bullied into wearing his regular batting gloves after the Mets “Rivalry Pack” idea blew up in his and Under Armour’s face:
I still don’t understand what went through Harper and his team’s head when he decided this was a good move. A guy who is chronically online and has his ear to the ground should’ve known that Phillies fans would’ve hated this with or without a win on Monday. There was no tribute or charity angle that would’ve at least softened the blow a little. And you know if we’re giving props to WIP we mean it. Spike’s Joel Embiid and Jalen Hurts analogies were spot on:
It’ll be interesting if Harper and Under Armour continue the “Rivalry Pack” for more games. The comments on his Instagram post are off already. Maybe we can bully him and the Phillies into a win tonight.
Kyle writes blog posts and does Man on the Street-style videos all around Philadelphia. He graduated from Temple University (a basketball school) in 2015. contact: k.pagan@sportradar.com