Your brand may be a cult

Or maybe you're making it one.

A brand can be a cult, or could easily be a cult.

Wait, please, let me early enough call out here that I don’t mean “cult” in the most traditional (if not, extreme) sense. Nor do I think it ever amounts (or maybe even degrades?) to that. What I mean is the kind of slavishness to the idea of a thing without a moment’s pause to ever question the thing, ever. Is that a problem? Can it not just be innocent (fun), or just one of those things? Should it be?

Shrugs. But still hear me out.

There’s a bedsheet or some kind of piece of cloth, wide enough to be a bedsheet hanging on the line, across from me, gazing out the kitchen window.

Perhaps, I need not mention the name of this particular brand the bedsheet is ostensibly made of, or that the sheet is—you’ll see why. No, I shouldn’t—it’ll be clear what I’m saying nonetheless. I think.

Okay, let me mention a couple of names and then, you know, you can pick which one this might be. And just so the picture is clear way ahead of my point—this sheet’s entire motif is a grid of the brand—sheet’s the logo. Like saying it’s a sheet of logo. I look at the sheet, all I see is logo.

So those names—Balenciaga, Versace, Hermes…uh, what other brands do I easily see like that, plastered all over sheets? Layered all over the gear? I’ve seen a couple. Too bad, I can’t seem to name more than these three now.

I wish I could name more, there’s more, but you could easily see Apple.

Okay, wild one.

Back to the message.

Um, so you look at the fabric, I can’t tell its quality from just looking, from where I’m standing. It’s flimsy, alright. Or maybe it’s the wind. I mean, anybody could fake, you know, fabric and just plaster this brand (or the other) on it, all over it. Or are they all fake when the brand is all there is, on them?

Now except for one of those three I listed—another one to guess, sorry—the other ones seem innocuous. Other than the almost outrageous placement and prominence of their logo on each piece of product, I don’t quite see any items that’re sheets made of just the logo.

You could argue some of the hats and hoodies on there are but the brand’s logo other than the fabric’s color, at least as far as I could see, because from sheer display of identity on these items, it’s as if that’s all you can see. That’s all there is—perhaps, all that matters. Or no?

So, yeah does the brand do that because people like the brand, like it—the plastering, the style, that type of thing? Like it whether legit or not? And like so, it always “looks good”, whatever good means? And then, quality no matter, the products become mere swags people love, love to be festooned in, be known for, reckoned with in some way?

Quality no matter? Why should I care?

That’d inspire a counterfeiter, no? After all, people love the brand, so they’re not going to be able to tell (or care) whether it’s good quality, whether it’s the real thing (presuming the very brand itself was based on great quality, not just “brand name or identity or golden neonness of logo)”, people are gonna, because of the brand, have it anyways? Yes? No?

And at least when you see it, from a distance, you can give credit or regard the person in a certain way because after all, look at that—look, it’s an Hermès! (Listen, I’m not saying that that’s the one, feel free to swap Versace, if you like). Oh, look at that—Versace! Damn, they’re the bee’s knees—they’re all rocking Balenciaga! That kind of thing, right? That kind of feeling…

Well, let’s see. So you look at that, and then when you see the brand plastered all over the product like that, then it’s no longer about the product. No longer about quality. Utility. Sense. No longer about the material, the print, the design. Meaning. Or what’re you looking for in a piece of cloth? A bag? A hat? A shirt?

Say, a piece of sheet can be the design of the prints, the texture, the motif, you know, something that might mean something to, you know, a certain group, right? Or just generally, something that looks interesting, right? Sensible. Send a message. Same way you react when you see a certain photo. Everybody can take pictures of the sun, whether a rising sun or a setting one.

But there are angles, there are framings of the same setting or rising sun, that make you look at several, if not, thousands of pictures taken of that, and still find them interesting, as if you never get tired of seeing the sunset, because the photographer, who is like an artist with a camera, is able to take several angles of framing and communicate something different every time they do so.

And millions of photographers have been doing that. Ages. And we still cherish a fresh sun picture. So, looking at fabric decoration from the same lens—it can be an art, some artistic portrayal by drawing or an actual photo. Right? Something someone somewhere finds interesting, compelling enough to buy the product even without the prominence of the logo. Really regardless of whose logo it is.

So something—even irrational—might draw us to the product, then the brand, but quality (even some other preference which should always somehow tie back to quality) may make us stay with the brand. And we couldn’t care less because quality, no?

But not just the brand, it’s logo, plastered everywhere.

Where what you’re wearing or driving, or holding in your hand, say a phone or something, is just the brand, plastered all over it, or etched on to call attention to itself, and the very thing itself does not have its own life or seem to do so…

The warmth, or the cool, or whatever the material is supposed to do for you, or what that which is designed on the material is supposed to do for you, but it’s just the brand… Then again, it’s like you’re buying it just because of the brand, not even out of a trust of the brand—you know, because the brand logo has a place somewhere and can take a moment to find. The brand is not the thing. When it is…

The brand logo has a place somewhere on the thing, but because you trust that the brand does quality stuff, you look for it. And then nobody needs to know, nobody necessarily has to know that, that is the brand that you’re wearing or that you’re holding, but you know it’s quality stuff. You alone. Shouldn’t that do? Quality stuff?

You want quality stuff and you trust that brand for quality.

When it’s not that, but just a brand plastered all over. That is a cult. You’re in a cult. Or you’re making a cult of the brand. And you do have company, you do? That kind of cult or whatever kind when you’ve totally lost it.

The brand’s become the culture or cult leader or the cult itself. And you are a member of that cult. That is how a brand can easily become a cult, and most brands today, whether they know it or not, or they can’t care less, or they like it, set it in motion…

They make it so.

After all, it’s capitalism, there’s profit to make, and if it means becoming a cult?

Well…