I’m a big fan of irony and sarcasm, as long as it’s done with understanding and humbleness. However I realized that Americans (from my empirical observations) don’t use irony in the same way as Europeans do. Americans are much more straight forward than Europeans, and honest about their emotions in the moment. Sarcasm is often taken as an insult instead of a compliment. On the other hand, when someone in Europe uses sarcasm in a conversation with someone they don’t know too well, it’s often perceived as a sign of understanding - great, you get me.

Many of my friends have also pointed this out, and I often try to push the boundaries in conversation to see where the line goes. I also see this in advertising. If you compare European vs. American advertising, the stories in Europe tend to be a little more complicated because of a strong departure from literal meaning. It’s obviously difficult to give an example of this without being biased, but just as a conversation starter, look at the tone in this European ad and this American ad from Vitamin Water. 

Further more, researchers have recently found what parts of the brain is active when a person understands irony, meaning that my point could be proven pretty soon! 

The retail industry is now digging into our personal lives for any bits of information that can be useful to them - trying to give us better services. This past PSFK event in San Francisco highlighted that, and yesterday I again went into a conversation about this. 

Many newer services like Modcloth, Glimpse and many more, aggregate your Facebook likes to generate custom catalogues and recommendations. The problem is that our Facebook likes are far from accurate portrays of our personal likes and personas. 78% of people who like brands, like fewer than 10.  Even though it’s arguable (as in the post) that it could mean that the brand you like at least are authentic, I call that BS, since when we DO like them, it’s most often for the potential discounts we could get, or because we already own the product/service. The last exception is when we like a brand because we want to be a part of the community or movement, and we want to show this to the world, and take part in the conversations. This is the path more brands are moving towards (finally, and thank god), which is also well displayed in Scott Goodson’s book Uprising. 

Back to the problem - how do we get people to more authentically share their tastes online? Well, I don’t know the answer to that question. maybe if we had a better idea of exactly what brands would post on our feeds, and access in our accounts, that we would then be more likely to like without harm. Maybe there should be a passive like button? Maybe there should be a service where we get paid for sharing our preferences? Mulu is pretty much there already (btw, check it out if you haven’t, brilliant idea). I was going to start working for a startup called Social Economix, that took the idea of giving the consumer the power to the next level. Here they ask you to share a lot of your data like age, socioeconomic status, environmental concerns etc., to give a brand a rating. The problem is that you don’t get much for it except that you can influence the brand (when many people sign up, which is THEN powerful), and that many brands might be opposed to the idea in the first place because they are scared of really bad reviews. 

I don’t know what the solution to this all is, but I do believe that solving this problem will lead to both happier consumers and brands. I might take a while for cunsumers to both get even more used to sharing, and like Mr. Green of Personal said in this NYT article, “It’s not easy to make data sexy or fun. It’s not sharing photos with your friends on Facebook.”

digitalheirloom:

“Networks are everywhere. The brain is a network of nerve cells connected by axons, and cells themselves are networks of molecules connected by biochemical reactions. Societies, too, are networks of people linked by friendships, familial relationships and professional ties. On a larger scale, food webs and ecosystems can be represented as networks of species. And networks pervade technology: the Internet, power grids and transportation systems are but a few examples. Even the language we are using to convey these thoughts to you is a network, made up of words connected by syntactic relationships.”

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“Have you seen the keep calm and carry on poster?” I ask about 20 people today. “Why do you think it became so popular?” is my next question. “It’s a universal truth”, “it calms our stressed society”, and my personal favorite “we are herd animals” are some responses I get. But most shockingly, nobody I asked knew where it came from. Am I the only one who finds it interesting that a public safety poster that was designed for a potential major crisis in 1939’s Britain is now suddenly everywhere? That there are only two originals left (one seen here: http://wartimeposters.co.uk/keepcalm) and that one of them was found by Stuart Manley, a bookstore keeper, and his wife when going through a box of hardbacks he bought at an auction. He just saw “A big piece of paper folded up at the bottom. I opened it out, and I thought, wow. That’s quite something. I showed it to Mary, and she agreed. So we framed it and put it up on the bookshop wall. And that’s where it all started.” This was in 2000. Now it’s a cultural phenomenon. Yes - the probability of any individual adopting it has increased with the proportion who have already done so.

So what do I think of this growing popularity? An exciting thought to me is that this rapid adaption and spread could have never happened in 1939 - and a poster like this would never be part of a governments communication strategy today. The fact that people like it so much makes me a bit worried. Obviously it fits well with our zeitgeist and got much attention when the financial crisis hit. It could also have something to do with the occupy movement and the fact that most of us are utterly confused and lack focus in our lives. We obviously crossed the line where the poster has become mainstream and we as a cultural mishmash might need something that gives us a sense of intellectual fellowship - whether that be eating cupcakes or getting excited and making things. So, what propaganda poster would you like to make money on next?