Hero The Badge

I am not a frequent flyer. The last time I flew overseas before this recent trip to Switzerland was when cell phones were rare and laptops were even rarer.  Now there are all manner of smart phones, iPads, and laptops, and instead of being at the mercy of whatever the airline chooses for an in-flight movie, you have a big menu of choices of things to watch, individually, on the small screen on the back of the seat in front of you.

Though it was a long flight, I had no interest in watching anything, but my eyes kept being drawn to the screen of the laptop of a woman sitting across the aisle and one row ahead of me.  It was work material she was reviewing, some kind of marketing presentation for a major American beer brand.  It drove me crazy that I would have any interest in bullshit like that, but I must say it was an educational experience.  It was educational not in the sense that I learned interesting facts about the beer, but that I got a glimpse into the mindset of that particular tribe.  My tribe is artists, musicians, writers, creative people.  This woman, who was probably quite creative herself, was from, or was trying to join, the marketing tribe.

The marketing tribe has peculiar ideas about the use of the language my tribe reveres.

My tribe uses the language to create, to inform, sometimes to fight.  The marketing tribe uses it to manipulate, to set up artificial realities that have only one objective.

The gist of the marketing scheme she was studying was that they were trying to establish a market of people who not only were loyal to their product, but who actually believe that an integral aspect of their "lifestyle" was consuming that product.  Fair enough, if that's your job, I guess.  So this lifestyle would consist of certain activities, preferences, and such, with an emphasis on good times--and always present would be this product.  To put it in my terms, these people, this market, would be a tribe.

The really twisted thing they did to my tribe's language was to refer to this whole lifestyle thing as a "badge", and the objective for the marketing tribe was to "hero the badge".  What the fuck?  Last time I checked, the word "hero" was not a verb.  I should talk, I guess.  I mean, "What the fuck" makes no grammatical sense either, but at least it's a recognized phrase, having a dramatic or comic effect.  These marketing people are just corrupting the language for commerce. I have been annoyed at how companies now "partner with" other companies or organizations instead of simply working with them. It's another example of this foolishness.  I guess it's supposed to sound more impressive to the average Joe when you "verb a noun", but I have a degree in English Literature, and it makes me cringe.

At some point she must have closed the laptop and maybe went to sleep, sparing me the eye draw.  Later I saw her, laptop bag in hand, at Baggage Claim.  We had gone from a clean, well designed airport in Europe to an old, oppressively warm one with stinky restrooms just outside New York City.  She may have been thinking Bud Light.  Here we go.  Hero the Badge.  I was still thinking Feldeschlosschen, Euli, Oufi, Warteck, Lowenbrau...We don't need no stinking badges!