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Well that kills our idea of making a logo of Mister Wong based on Ernie...
Most of you already know that I work for Mister Wong, the social bookmarking site. Usually I am just going on about how I am now addicted to bookmarking and how much I love my job, but today, well.... http://wagner.journalspace.com/?&entryid=886
And I've never physically met Claire either.
Maybe I'll be inspired...
Assuming we can more or less agree on the following premises:
- The Mr. Wong team did not use their original logo to intentionally offend anyone
- The logo *by itself* was not offensive – as not imagery or word can be
- The logo was *subjectively* (I'm not judging here) felt to be offensive to a number of people *by association*, i.e. because similar imagery has been used in the history of the U.S. to express derogatory intent, some/many Asian Americans associate Mr. Wong with those intentions
- In Germany/Europe – which has a different history in that regard than the U.S. – on the other hand, the depiction of an Asian man is generally associated with someone who is clever, resourceful, diligent and hard-working (this apparently was the intent of the Mr. Wong team)
The conclusion would be that although the logo had no bad intentions, it is currently not a wise move to use it when expanding business to countries or cultural regions outside of Germany/Europe, specifically the U.S., where there this may cause offence (see above).
So here's my idea. As it is difficult and often impossible to discern the intention behind imagery or words on the Net – because we do not personally know the creators – we need a "disclaimer system". Wouldn't it make things easier and clearer if you could automatically see in what way something was meant? In the case of the logo, if there were associated information along the lines of
"This logo was chosen/developed because to us, the creators of this service, it represents positive attributes like efficiency, diligence and friendliness. We hereby expressly distance ourselves from negative, derogatory connotations such as may have been or are being inferred by other parties. Thank you."
The creator "owns" the image and has clearly defined its intent. That means
a) the intent is unambiguously clear to anyone and thus there are no reasons for misinterpretation, and
b) the creation (image) can not be hijacked by others with malicious intentions.
Similarly, other branding elements or content that *could* be misconstrued, like blog posts, comments, forum posts, essays, articles etc., due to cultural differences or the plain fact that the reader/viewer does not know the creator and his/her personality, could benefit from this too. Example: "DISCLAIMER: This post is written with satirical intent. Please take the elements of satire into consideration; please do not interpret as being factually accurate. Please be offended only if the satire aims at you. Thank you."
Same goes for the other end of the spectrum: "This is genuine flattery. Not sarcasm." And so forth. Of course, this is all very verbose and obviously it sounds pretty silly, so a technical solution needs to be found. Something along the lines of metadata elements for web documents, digital photography, rating systems for movies. Somewhat more complicated and subtle than a mere scalar or binary value, but I think it can be done.
The point is, I think it would facilitate understanding and fruitful discussion more than is possible at the moment, where A accuses B of whatever, based on subjective or "subjective-cultural/gender/whatever" interpretation while ignoring B's actual intent or purpose, which B usually finds just as insensitive or insulting and lashes back. And so on. You get the point.
Anyway, for the time being, the logo redesign contest seems like a viable solution.
*Raises index and middle finger, facing palm forward* (see footnote) from Germany.
—Reinmar
Footnote: In my cultural environment that means "peace!", a sign of goodwill. If anyone is reading this coming from a culture where this may mean something else, e.g. "your mother engages in erotic contact with goats" or "what a bummer, I just missed my bus", please temporarily readjust your interpretation. Thank you.