Which things have you avoided or embraced on the name alone?
Is it shallow, or petty, to decide based on name alone? Yeah, pretty much, but there’s probably something, a product or service or site, that the name has made you gloss right over it or jump to it ASAP.
What are some examples that spring to mind for you?
I’ve been playing World of tanks blitz. I had fun, then discovered there is a world of warships blitz as well, which has a Dutch line of ships. It was the 1st game I heard of with Dutch content, so I’m now kinda hooked on it, chasing after all Dutch ships. It wasn’t exactly the name of the game, but more the hint of the content.
BTW I’m Dutch, when you haven’t guessed it already. ;)
For 3 or 4 seasons I completely ignored Game of Thrones - the name just threw me off. To some extend I’m happy I did - there was a lot of content to catch up to when I finally did give the first episode a shot :)
Well done for not letting the end ruin the beginning, I’ll rewatch it every so often but my god it leaves a sour taste these days. The last season is enough to undo all the good work they’d done to that point, it’s such a shame :(
The ending is not great, but it definitely was an ending. Some shows can’t even manage that. And to me it hasn’t spoilt all the previous seasons - those were solid.
Yeah I still rewatch and enjoy the heck out of it, but then the choice is either an incomplete story or a godawful ending with characters that barely resemble the ones I enjoyed initially.
I don’t hate the show as a whole but it doesn’t get near my top 10, yet it could’ve been my number 1 of all time if they turned the last 2 seasons into 4 or 5 with the same quality as the first 4 or 5.
I honestly don’t even hate the final picture, it’s just the complete lack of justification to get us there I can’t stand, and the embarrassing endings of some characters who deserved more (or should have died sooner).
Warby Parker. Something about the name just completely frosts me. I know I should grow up and give them a chance (because Luxotica is fucking evil). But it really turns me off. “Warby Parker”…sounds like the name of some kid who’s dad owns racehorses.
I think part of the reason I use Zenni Optical online is because Warby Parker sounds like a place that’ll offer grandma glasses for stupid-expensive prices.
I tried Zenni a couple of times. Really wanted to like them. But the glasses they sent me were horrible. I do have a somewhat complex prescription, though. I suspect for basic prescriptions they are OK.
Mine are basic and yes, zenni crushes it every time. I even get my phone number lazered into the ear thingies so that people can call me if I lose them.
Glad I’m not the only one. I am highly averse to anything that sounds like a “lifestyle brand”. Hollister and such. I’ll never understand people who wear expensive brand name t-shirts and provide free advertising for giant corporations. Ryan George made a pretty funny YouTube video about this strange phenomenon.
It was originally developed in 2003, just as the hat started to come back. The neck beard meme seems to have come about later in the 2000’s (knowyourmeme.com/memes/fedora-shaming).
It wasn’t the name alone that did it, but I got the Newbury Comics pressings of Phanerozoic I and Phanerozoic II (by The Ocean) on vinyl because A) the name is cool, and B) the pressings looked cool. Turns out the albums sound cool too.
I gave The Crazy World of Arthur Brown a try because of the album artwork. Turns out it’s now one of my favorite albums.
I’d heard Ziltoid the Omniscient was good, but what really won me over was the album artwork. Between the cheesy name and cheesy artwork, I had to give it a listen. It’s easily one of the greatest albums of all time.
King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard.
I’ve been considering getting one of Intel’s Raptor Lake cpus.
Uh, I’m trying to think if there’s anything else. There have been games that have caught my eye purely because of the name, but none of them were that great iirc. I think Risk of Rain mighta been one of them, and that one was pretty good; but most of the games I’ve tried based on name alone were pretty meh from what I remember.
Avoided: Captain Laserhawk - A Blood Dragon Remix. The title is just so …edgy. I took one look at it and immediatly lost all interest.
Spoiler: Big mistake. Once I did finally try it out, I immediatly binged all 6 episodes and was devastated that there wasn’t more. Fair warning tho, the 18+ rating is completely justified.
Embraced: The Owl House. I had no idea what the show was even about, but the name has a nice ring to it so I got curious and gave it a try … with a similar result as mentioned above (binge it all and be devastated that there isn’t more of it)
Semi-related tho not about the name: I refuse to shop in ANY store that has a self-checkout. And by that, I do not mean that I just refuse to use the self-checkout - I will reject the entire store for that sh*tty business decision. You either employ enough actual cashiers or you can go jump in the lake. Yes it is petty and childish, but I still feel it is justified.
Where do you get groceries? The only grocery store near me without any self checkout is Trader Joe's, and while I usually shop there first, there's always something I need that they don't carry.
I live in Germany. There are eight different supermarkets within driving distance (less than half an hour), and two smaller markets within walking distance. Two of the big markets have self-checkouts, so I stopped shopping there altogether out of spite.
EDIT: just to visualize the statement, this is one of the cities around these parts (~150k people). Not my actual home as I don’t post personal stuff online, but a good representation of the situation.
Everything within the blue area is less than 20 minutes walking distance away from the blue marker in the middle, and every red marker is a supermarket. If someone dislikes a shop for any reason, it is a matter of minutes to find a different one.
I’d love to be able to boycott places with self checkouts as I hate that shit too but I also need to eat and unless I started just eating crisps and sweets from the local newsagents I wouldn’t be able to buy any food at all around here :(
I liked them as well, those self checkouts. Use the app from the store, scan what you need, have a total at hand, checkout and leave. That was how it went at the start.
Now it’s:
start app
battle with the wifi, as the store requires you yo use their wifi to be able to scan, let alone check out
have a grocery check at checkout (and need to pack it again, as no, they just take out, not repack)
when buying alcohol, have an age check
when buying a crate of beer, wait for the help to get a sticker
checkout
get a receipt even though you’re happy to go paperless and set so in the app
get stopped before leaving, as the sticker needs to be put on the crate
leave the self checkout area
get checked if the crate of beer you have has the sticker (even with 1 item in the cart, the crate and the bloody sticker clearly visible)
leave
When you’re just going for the crate of beer, you’re at least 5x as long busy by jumping trough all hoops at self scan and get treated as shoplifter to boot as well. I’m done with self scan. (especially with the shop closest to home, they lost a customer)
Don’t know the English word for it but we bring back bottles (plastic, glass, beer cans) and beer crates for the store who then dispose of them / recycle and we get some money in exchange. Probably why he needs the sticker?
Neither is it here. You’re lucky in you get 15cts for a bottle. If you’re not in need of the few extra euros, most people I know give the bottles to homeless folks so they can get a bit of cash out of it.
Also, loyalty cards cost money to make, so they discurrage the use of those as well. You can use handscanners from the store itself, but then you’ll have to scan the virtual card in the app to be able to start shopping, have a cumbersome scanner and no total for your groceries displayed. WHen you still need the app, why not scan with it.
The sticker seems to be for personel after checkout to see that the crate of beer has been bought and paid for (with the receipt, although legal, not being good enough.
Even though there is a huge distrust, still those self scan isn’t been dismantled and replaced by regular checkouts, nah, that would be to logical and you’d have to admit you made a mistake.
Yeah, that’s what was the situation here as well, until the grocery prizes exploded and customers started to scan a few items and taking the rest without paying. (so yeah, shoplifting made very easy) Especially this store seems to be a target, as it’s way out of the regular routes. It looks like they’re starting to notice the drawback of the idea.
You need like two tablespoons of yoghurt per liter of milk. Just cook the milk beforehand and let it cool to about 45°C. Mix in the yoghurt and put it in an oven with the light on for a few hours. Voilà!
I have one that I don’t think is shallow or petty. I avoid the Wondergrove cannabis company because there is a children’s show/educational program of the same name. While state regulators are making cannabis brands who have made no attempts to advertise to or appeal to children change their packaging to single color designs to reduce their appeal to children, there is a weed brand named after a kid’s show that calls its flower line “Field Trip.” I call it “Kid Weed” because it makes me think of the WKUK Kid Beer sketch. And I don’t buy it.
Trying out new things in life is an effective way to learn something new about yourself and the world around you.
Part of why I’m asking tbh! I’m blanking on stuff I’ve avoided based on names, but I’m hoping some replies here might highlight them as, “Avoided but…!”
Does judging books by their cover count? Seems like in the same vein…
In the 90s, I avoided Lois McMaster Bujold’s Vorkosigan series books because the Baen covers were awful, and at the time she hadn’t written books for any other publisher so I didn’t get introduced to her via that route. In the 2010s I finally read her books…and I was mad as hell that they’d put such ugly covers on them back in the day, because I would’ve been crazy about this series in the 90s!
in the same vein, I’m so glad they reprinted Glen Cook’s Black Company books, because no one I tried to get interested in them would read them with the old covers. I’m not sure even I did. I certainly can’t imagine I deliberately chose to pick up a book with this cover.
I used to! I picked up a set of Black Co at a used book store to try and loan out. finally didn’t come back after I “lost” the cover and apologized for the state of the book I was loaning. but got another convert, so a win in my book.
Add comment