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Think of this as the potential energy side of elan vital which is sort of a current/flux. Could you reimagine consumption behaviors to catalyze and enable such states? What does branding look like for such products?
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I think this is the branding associated with the most hackable and designed-for-repairability type products. Where consumption segues towards production via maintenance. There is still sentimental memory but it’s of agency, not pleasure. An improvement.
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This can be even more reactionary of course as in sentimental memories of factory jobs. John Henry memories. Memories of mom’s apple pie might make you a sentimental bore but memories of being a steel-driving man might make you a resentful fundamentalist.
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Is there a way out of this bind? I think so. Still working out the details. Maybe I’ll continue this thread in a year or three if I figure it out.
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A brand needs to be consistent about something. To identify consistency, designers and users need memory. In order to market something, it needs to be presented with concepts that the buyer is familiar with.
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How do you get from "some amount of consistency and familiarity is required", to "design and marketing must be reactionary"? I think "reactionary" implies more than simple consistency and familiarity - it is something like a cargo cult of the past.
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Hmm, I think I disagree. I think my point of divergence with your chain of reasoning is here: "when the desires become legible enough to pursue via a simpler mechanism than recreating the remembered experience" - there is not always a simpler mechanism, legible is not always hard
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I think an interesting way to see how much is needed is to look at the careers of fiction authors. The publishers want everyone to be like Nora Roberts, but most authors want more variety and novelty than that. The consistency can be something like "from the mind of Neil Gaiman"
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