How consumer brainwashed are you?

Tue, 04 Dec 2012 19:54:00 +0000

For his 15th birthday, I gave my son an iPod Touch, a piece of technology that would have seemed like the purest magic to me when I was his age. He likes it, a lot, and I like to watch him use it a lot, because paying attention to how teenagers interact with modern consumer technology is an endlessly fruitful way to learn about where the intersecting forces of capital and entertainment will push society next. But even with long experience at this voyeuristic style of technology journalism, I was a little taken aback when I saw what he was doing with his new favorite toy last Sunday.

He was playing Logos Quiz, a game that is based primarily on the ability to identify corporate logos.

I was appalled and amazed. We've all become quite used to product placement in our entertainment, to living in a world in which TV shows like, say, "Hawaii 5-0" don't even try to hide their primary function as vehicles for Victoria's Secret and Microsoft Surface marketing campaigns. But to make the ability to recognize a brand into the product itself -- that's pure genius. A 15-year-old's attention span in 2012 is perhaps the most fickle thing to ever exist on this planet -- to see my son trying to guess whether a certain squiggle signified BMW or Mercedes Benz was astonishing.

Salon.com > logos quiz

How consumer brainwashed are you?