"While the craze over regional mascots continues, recent mishaps involving some characters shows not everything is rosy in the 'yuru-kyara' (soft character) industry."

The Japan Times reports:

Late last month, the city of Tosu, Saga Prefecture, population of 72,000, halted all PR activities tied to its official character, Totto-chan... made several comments suggestive of female genitalia during the show....

Hyakuman-san, the official character of Ishikawa Prefecture... became a bone of contention in the prefectural assembly last month, after some members attacked the design of the Daruma doll-inspired, mustachioed mascot as being “ugly” and “unpleasant.”

You call this unpleasant?



That is essence of pleasant in my book.

Daruma doll, eh?

I'd say more like somebody took LSD and found and found an old can of Pringles.

"Why is your logo a pair of Y Fronts?"

"I had never heard of Y-Fronts, so I wrote it off and scrolled right past. But they kept coming…"

I got there from here: "A data company turns an unusual branding issue into a case study: does its logo looks like a pair of men’s underpants?"

ADDED: What's worse making your logo accidentally look like men's underpants? Making it accidentally look like the contents of men's underpants. I first blogged that link back in 2005, when we laughed until we cried.

"Racism of Sports Logos Put Into Context By American Indian Group."

"The National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) published a powerful poster..."

... featuring two baseball hats that each have a stereotypical racist image of a Jewish man and Chinese man to show it has the same connotation as the Cleveland Indians.

The hats were titled “New York Jews” and “San Francisco Chinamen.”

It's an effective poster, you have to admit. It says: You'd never accept those other stereotypes, so why do you accept this?


On the other hand, you can't say this doesn't exist:



Also, I would distinguish that cartoon-y Cleveland logo from the Redskins logo, which is a dignified image:


It's reminiscent of the profiles of Presidents seen on coins. And we did use to have "Indian Head" pennies. On the other hand, "Indians" is a more dignified name than "Redskins."

Thanks to Irene for sending me that top link. She stressed the use of the word "context" in the headline. "Context" is a tag here at Althouse. Irene's stress on "context" might refer to the context of some earlier blogging about context. This, about distinguishing between "implication" and "implicature"? This, about sex out of context? No, I suspect that Irene is being sarcastic about the claim that something is put into context when it is taken out of its place in the real world of culture and tradition and placed next to a couple of things that don't even exist.

But does that undercut the argument made in the poster? We — some of us — might accept the Indians/Redskins logo because we are used to it as it exists in the world that feels normal and natural, even as we would resist the intrusion of some new thing that was very much like it.

Isn't that a helpful thought experiment: What if this were introduced today, would we accept it? Is tradition enough to support something that would never be adopted if it were a proposed innovation?

Notice that I've just put the question at a very high level of abstraction. I've taken the logo controversy out of context. Please put that abstraction into other contexts and contemplate it.

The list of the adultress, the unfair headline, the "orgasm of life," the twice-seen movie, the arcane logo, and the corporate cult.

I'm no fan of adultery, but "Google mistress more into sex than 'love' and kids," trashing 26-year-old Amanda Rosenberg (who's linked to Google co-founder Sergey Brin), is an awfully unfair headline.

The NY Post has gathered its information about what Ms. Rosenberg is "into" from a lightweight blog post of hers titled "The 10 Least Inspiring Sentences on This Lululemon Tote." Here's the blog post, which has a picture of the begging-to-be-mocked tote bag. #1 on the list is "1. Children are the orgasm of life." Calling that sentence "uninspiring" — I'd call it a lot worse — is not taking the position that one is not "into" kids. The blog post ends with Rosenberg identifying herself as "a misanthropic Brit who lives in San Francisco and works in Silicon Valley," and "She's currently struggling to come to terms with Californian optimism and cannot believe someone actually wrote the sentence 'children are the orgasm of life.'"

Sounds about right to me.
I was in a Lululemon store the other day — just throwing away time while waiting for my ride after seeing a movie. (I saw "Blue Jasmine" a second time, on the theory that a second viewing would inspire me to write a blog post in the style of this 9-point list I did on "Doubt." But I didn't have that experience of details bursting out and themes connecting up that I'd expected based on loving the movie the first time and getting over an hour's worth of conversation out of it. Instead the movie on second viewing turned out to be exactly what I thought I saw the first time. Knowing the story in advance, I admired the sharp storytelling, done through expert writing and editing, but I didn't uncover any cool listables.)

I didn't know I was in Lululemon, because I didn't see that word anywhere, and I looked. I saw the logo, which I had to look up just now to determine that I was, in fact, inside the store whose handbag Amanda Rosenberg mocked. At the time, seeing the logo on the sign over the door...



... I thought "Omega?" (Ω.) At the Lululemon website now, I see:

The lululemon name was chosen in a survey of 100 people from a list of 20 brand names and 20 logos. The logo is actually a stylized "A" that was made for the first letter in the name "athletically hip", a name which failed to make the grade.

So... it doesn't look like an "A," and the store's name doesn't begin with "A." Is it supposed to feel like a secret club, like you're hip (athletically) if you get the logo? Is it somehow connected the way yoga is (sort of) religion, so replacing the name with a seemingly unrelated symbol — like the fish that means Jesus — delivers the vibe that you're entering a cult? Is it connected to "I am the alpha and the omega"?

I Google "lululemon cult" and get 218,000 results. "Lululemon's Cult Culture: Get Fit or Die Trying""

Lululemon wants you to know it's "elevating the world from mediocrity to greatness" and "creating components for people to live long, healthy and fun lives." But, dig deeper, and you'll learn about Landmark Forum, the ultra-secretive, eerily cultish educational series, which Lululemon employees are "strongly encouraged" to attend. Before you're in line for Landmark, you're bombarded with Brian Tracy motivational CDs and a book club that culminates with Atlas Shrugged.

"12 Utterly Bizarre Facts About The Rise Of Lululemon, The Cult-Like Yoga Brand":

The founder is an Ayn Rand fan and the company takes its values from Atlas Shrugged....

Wilson believes the birth control pill and smoking are responsible for high divorce rates—and the existence of Lululemon itself....

"A rare look at the luon empire of Lululemon/The story of a Vancouver business that inspires cult-like devotion":

Part of the initiation and training in the company, known as “on-boarding,” involves setting your vision and goals, referred to as one unit, “vision-and-goals,” in company parlance....

“You’re a whole brain, a whole body, a wholehearted person. You should be focusing on all these things. When your life is firing on all cylinders – so when home’s working, personal’s working, career’s working, health is working – you’re going to be great at work. It’s just going to happen,” [said  said Margaret Wheeler, senior vice-president of Human Resources (“People Potential”)].

"Lululemon: A Cult, a Phenomenon or Just a Great Brand":

Lululemon promotes its brand, its community and its culture with local events, some quite large in scale. In New York this September, an event entitled, “The Gospel of Sweat” was staged at Riverside Church inviting people to “Come together to build community, engage spirituality, and celebrate fitness!”

It's just a brand. Do you want your comfy clothes made out of cotton or synthetic fibers? It all depends on how much you sweat. Sweating sounds lowly, and there's religion(ishness) to elevate things. The Gospel of Sweat. But it's not religion. It's not religion because they obviously don't care about heresy.

And because Ayn Rand was a big old atheist. What's that "A" for again?

Which reminds me...



... do not commit adultery. It will expose all your old blog posts — and all your new movie scripts — to unsympathetic reinterpretation.

UConn's new husky dog logo — insensitive to campus violence against women?

"In an open letter to UC President Susan Herbst, self-described feminist student Carolyn Luby wrote that the redesigned team logo will intimidate women and empower rape culture."

UConn basketball coach Geno Auriemma said the logo “is looking right through you and saying, ‘Do not mess with me.’ This is a streamlined, fighting dog, and I cannot wait for it to be on our uniforms and court.”

In response, Luby wrote, “What terrifies me about the admiration of such traits is that I know what it feels like to have a real life Husky look straight through you and to feel powerless, and to wonder if even the administration cannot ‘mess with them.’ And I know I am not alone.”

Compare the 2 logos:

Resolve the logo controversy.
	Both logos are great, expressing vigor but not violence.
	The old logo is great, and the new one conveys a bad message of violence.
	The old logo is lacks vigor, and the new one conveys a bad message of violence.
	The old logo lacks vigor, and the new one is great.
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