It has got to be made an embarrassing thing to be emblazoned with brands. they BRAND YOU, like the thing you do with a hot iron to a cow you own. why is it not embarrassing to have a nike symbol on your chest? I mean, i know it isn't embarrassing, but it should be. the most egregious example are the nascar jackets, the one's pelted helter skelter with 50 goddamn logos. people buy those things and having those logos is part of the goddamn allure! this has to be understood as debasing. we already have an idea of a shill, so let's expand that to the average consumer. stop being a goddamn shill.
also, mania for branded things makes our wants much more acute and excessive and insatiable. it makes us want not a pair of shoes, but a very specific pair of tod's loafers; not a shirt in which to exercise, but one with a swoosh on it. our wants can be outrageously more particular than they could otherwise be if things were only differentiated by their function or quality, we couldn't respectably fantasize about things which are objectively replicas of what we already have. brands atomize forms -- toaster, sneaker, faucet -- into a hailstorm of desire , with every detail a new grounds for want -- Cuisinart?! Black and Decker?! Kitchenaid?! this is not to say that needless desire was born with brands, it's always nice to have more and better. but brands create and exploit very fine distinctions between models of a form to help us justify wanting them.
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