At the start of September, Netflix announced that they would split their DVDs-by-mail service from their streaming service, and introduce a new brand (and website) called Qwikster. Today, they did a total Cmd-Z and put the idea of Qwikster to bed. DVDs-by-mail will remain part of Netflix, alongside streaming.

Netflix explains the move in a blog post. The New York Times also tells the story, in more detail.

This is interesting because it illustrates just how quickly a brand can die. Qwikster was never a popular idea with consumers; it was born out of scandal and generally created pain for the costumer. It’s a terribly vague name reminiscent of the first dot-com bubble with a tricky spelling (and very annoying to type, I might add) and no brand personality. I’m genuinely confused as to why Netflix didn’t simply call the brand Movies By Mail, using a ultra-descriptive brand name to describe the service. That would have been a challenge in creating a unique brand name, but because of their size and resources, they could have pulled it off.

But even with all that working against Qwikster, it was abandoned in a remarkably short time. How long was it a living brand in the wild? Maybe 2 months? That has to be some kind of record.

What do you think? Are you glad Netflix has everything back under one roof? Will you miss the Qwikster brand?

Luckily, the astute folks at the New York Times are highly organised, and thus they have produced for our enjoyment, a grid-based, icon-fueled look at the last ten years in news, business, culture, and other categories of time–space. Love it.

Think for a second that this was done mainly with icons. One tiny image can encapsulate such a complex and important idea or event. So the next time you’re tasked with the design of an icon or pictogram of some kind, take an extra moment, these things matter.

Picturing the Past Ten Years »

Rio’s 2016 bid logo, official until further notice

So yea, I’m a little behind in covering the massive story about the Olympics of 2016, which are officially headed to Rio. The Olympics are a recurring theme on this blog, as I have taken particular interest in the London 2012 logo, and the mascots of Beijing, and Vancouver.

There’s a lot of political sniping to be done. We could debate the merits of Rio as a host city, and sending the games to South America for the first time. Plus there’s the whole aspect of how to deal with such a shiny, expensive event in a city known for massive slums and drugs and crime, including the kidnapping of tourists. But let’s skip that for now.

What I’m concerned with is the graphics! The Olympics are a global spectacle, and all eyes are pointed at screens to see the world’s athletic competitions draped in the lusty visuals of the host nation’s disposable branding effort. China set the bar rather high for it’s consistency and style, referencing national trends and history but also appealing to the world at large whilst managing not to look like a souvenir stand. Is Brasil up to the challenge?

A quick glance at the official site shows the national colours used in a subtle but pleasant manner. Inoffensive, but otherwise unnotable. While we’ve seen Brasil hoist the World Cup [of Football] numerous times, and the ensuing hordes of supporters clad in flags and jerseys, Brasil hasn’t done a tremendous job of showing the world it’s design DNA. What is Brasilian design?

Putting aside my PhD thesis for a moment, I’m genuinely interested. Brasil is a huge country and one of the fastest-growing internet-using populations on the planet, so why have we seen so little of their design work? There’s a language barrier, to a certain extent, but I do come across French or Japanese or other foreign examples of excellent design work on the web. Where you at, Brasil? If I close my eyes and picture my associations with Brasilian design, I see screen printed t-shirts and hand-lettered signage — but that’s common to the entirety of the new world and caribbean. What am I missing?

This promotional video does well to paint Rio as a fun destination for the sporty vacationer, but is strangely naked of all motion graphics and branding. It could very well be an advert for beer, or more likely, tourism.

It seems that much like China’s hosting the games in 2008, Brasil’s hosting will be seem almost as a coming out party, welcoming the world to 21st Century Brasil, and opening the doors of global commerce and tourism. And design. Obviously, tourism is presently a massive industry in Brasil, but Rio is hoping the Olympics change the status of the city on the world’s stage. The model they’re hoping to follow is that of Barcelona, which held the games back in 1992, and even Sydney, which hosted in 2000. Those cities are now well-known to everyone, from teenage backpackers to global bankers.

Will Rio be the next design hub? The next business center? Athletics destination? I, for one, will watch with great interest.

… and for no reason at all, here’s a photo of Brasil’s women’s beach volleyball team.

* Note: for this post, and going forward, I’m going to use the Latin spelling of Brasil (with an S) simply because it’s easier for me to type. In English, it’s supposed to be spelled with a Z, even in England, but this is my blog, so I’ll create my own style guides. As long as I’m consistent, please leave me alone. kthanxbai.

Design Highlight of the Year: The Beijing Olympics Aside from being the largest spectacle in the whole of human existence, the Beijing Olympics were also a giant leap for design. To say that design was integrated into the games would be incredible understatement — it was really more of a top-to-bottom, air-tight, spandex jumpsuit with goggles … of branding. Brilliant to watch and something that will be memorable to designers for generations to come. For more along these lines, check out my design review of the 2008 Olympics.

Personal Highlight of the Year: The Presidential Election (and results) For nearly two years we waited with anticipation, watching, speculating, blogging, and sometimes yelling about who would succeed Bush. And while the election featured a number of design stories, this makes the list for less tangible reasons. Like Michelle Obama, I am on my way to being, once again, proud of my Americanness after four (if not eight) years of walking with my face down, often in my own palms while shaking my head. It feels good to back in favour with my home country. It’s still a strange relationship, but we’re warming to one another again.

Biggest Surprise: Twitter What’s surprising about Twitter? The results. Before signing up in March or so, I thought it was just a tool for über-cool Silicon Valley folks to keep track of one another while out to parties and bar-hopping and whatnot. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Between sharing links, proclaiming news, and asking questions (and getting speedy replies), I managed to make Twitter a part of my life. And you know what else, Twitter has helped me make loads of friends right here in the City. Seriously, it’s very social.

Design Low Point of the Year: The new Pepsi logo Not being involved with the project, my connection is only tangential. But as a designer, and someone passionate about branding and identity, I’m appalled. Plus, I actually prefer Pepsi, so now I have to contend with that every time I drink some of that fizzy crap. The logo has been covered on tons of blogs, including this one, so I won’t belabour the point, but designers, please be wary. I fear that in the new year large corporations will have renewed mandates to prefer, if not demand, simply bad design. (Also on the wall of shame for 2008 are Xerox and Walmart)

Personal Low Point of the Year: October That sounds rather vague, but October marked for me the first time in my post-educational career that I didn’t work a single day. This was a month where I was totally unemployed; even the freelance side projects measured only a minimum or hours. After the bailout and news of unemployment numbers, the stock market crashed (several times, methinks) and the economy really shifted into a lower gear. October was the month when it all fell on me, and I found myself quite down and out. Things haven’t gotten too much better, but somehow I feel that I’ve climbed out of the ditch that was October.

The Blogs, and other thoughts. 2008 was another progressive year for me internet-wise. I discovered and started using Google Reader. I got connected with folks from FreelanceSwitch.com and TheDieline.com and even appeared on a few podcasts here and there. I feel that after a few years in the dark, the non-internet design world (print, packaging, product, etc.,) is finally waking up to the blogs and there are finally sources for viewing logos, packaging, and even design studios. This, along with the elevated use of Facebook and LinkedIn make the Internet a friendly place to be for non-internet designers … at last.

Prognosis for 2009 If I could predict the future, the last thing on my mind would be writing blog posts, but I am cautiously optimistic. I honestly feel that New York, sooner than the rest of the country, will begin to recover from the scandals and shenanigans of the financial industry. Once the banks get settled, business will start to pick up again, and in turn design work will resume as normal. It’s hard to predict my own fate because of my continuing odd-ball position as a freelancer. I’m hoping to find more projects of my own and produce some work I can actually be proud of. Since slow economic times are often a good environment for startups, I’m hoping to work with some folks starting in business for themselves, which in a sense is me starting a business for myself.

Aside from that, it’s more of the same. More Twitter, more meetups, more networking in real life and online. More blogs, more podcasts, more magazines and books (when I can afford them), more software, more free downloads, more PDFs, more photos and more paper and more ink.

Onwards and upwards, like I always say.

Chinese food box plastered on every surface with ads for Noticias on NY1

Putting aside for a second the obvious initial shock of holding a bright blue and yellow chinese food box, I have only two questions: When did Chinese food boxes, those cherished symbols of urban existence, become an advertising medium? And, do Latinos, the obvious target audience for these particular ads, eat much Chinese food?

My answers, as an advertising cynic and packaging purist, of course are “they’re not” and “no”, respectively. My roommate pointed out an interested point that this could in some way ignite a movement of free, ad-supported food. Give away the product, and fund the venture based on the advertising dollars. You figure, if these boxes were in the hands of X families per night, that’s Y eyeballs on the news, and that leads to Z sales in products from those ads. It’s like a perverted Mobiüs strip of over-stimuli and forced-fed consumerism … no pun intended. This being Brooklyn, there are many different nationalities all living on top of one another, but to place ads in languages other than English is always controversial, even on New York soil, and especially for a neighborhood that is still mainly English-speaking. Yes, we see many Spanish language advertising in the South Bronx and parts of Spanish Harlem, but in Williamsburg? Even on the South side, I think the Puerto Ricans are in the minority. Maybe they should have written the copy in Yiddish. Then again, I’d be shocked if Chinese food were Kosher.

This deserves a major WTF for A.) slapping advertising on an inappropriate and unwilling medium, and B.) existing as a total non-sequitur demographically. I hope this sort of thing does not catch on. In fact, I hope that people complain and throw back these boxes.

Side note: ordering Chinese food in Puerto Rico, to Spanish-speaking Chinese immigrants, is the single most bizarre experience I’ve ever endured. Maybe from that awkwardness could spawn a really interesting idea…

It wouldn’t be my blog if I didn’t talk about the branding of nations.

This year’s Olympics were touted as China’s “coming out party.” Here they are, showing the world what they can do — showing the scale, precision, technology, tradition, coordination, planning, and slick execution of a massive event that took about 8 years, and $10 Billion to assemble.

Firstly, it was impressive. The Chinese showed they can do pretty much anything in grand style. That’s hardly up for debate. But at what cost? Ah, there’s the rub. The Olympics were peppered with scandals, and it seemed that China, and more specifically the Chinese government, was at the center of it all. The successes and the scandals each have an effect on the Chinese brand, and its perception in this, our consumer world.

Before the Olympics even got started there were two points of interest poking holes in the Chinese brand and reputation: Pollution and Tibet. Athletes and tourists alike were wondering how polluted China actually is. Was it all exaggerated or does Beijing make Manchester in the early 1800s look like the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens. Considering that all construction was halted two weeks before the Games, the scene wasn’t too ridiculously dusty, but we did catch more than a single smokey hazy shot of Beijing through the windows of Bob Costas’ set. A few marathon runners opted out of that event in favour of a shorter milage run. It didn’t become a story during the Games, but it lingers. And as for Tibet, mum was the word. The whole world is aware of this issue, but during these two weeks, no one was allowed to talk about it — not world leaders, not athletes, not visiting foreign nationals, and certainly not Chinese citizens. Anyone who was even suspected of supporting any Free Tibet actions was locked up, held, deported, or worse. Rocketboom interviewed a few of the less-than-active activists who spent some time in a Chinese lock-up.

Since most foreigners had never been to China, the international media couldn’t exact comment on how the city of Beijing looked before all that construction. But it didn’t take long for photos to emerge of how the Chinese displaced millions of their own people to keep up the appearance of a tidy capital. In fact, some rather slummy neighborhoods were simply walled off from public view rather than renovated or repaired.

After all, they did invent fireworks, right?

The world watched the opening ceremonies in amazement. The choreography and coordination was second-to-none, and the ability to assemble and rehearse so many highly skilled musicians, acrobats, and martial artists is commendable. But then stories began to emerge of how those same performers were actually locked up in military-style camps for the better part of year, forced to live and train in conditions more often associated with POWs rather than touring dance companies. But the ultimate let-down came a day or two later when it came to light that the adorable little girl singing during the Opening Ceremonies was actually lip syncing the tones of another, less attractive, young girl.

Yang Peiyi, left, was the voice; Lin Miaoke was the face

This globe-sized bait-and-switch left the world shaking our heads at China’s shallowness and deceptiveness. If they’re willing to pull such an elaborate stunt simply to cover up a less-than-stunning little girl, imagine what they’re hiding in terms of labour, trade, military, economic, and other important issues.

The Chinese athletes wasted no time in kicking ass on the actual sporting fields. Yes, the hosting team usually gets a medal bump, but it can’t be denied that the Chinese train hard and take dedication to a new degree. What can be denied is the claim that the Chinese women gymnasts are in fact 16, the required minimum age for Olympic competition. Compelling [internet] evidence emerged that no only was He Kexin only 14 years old, but that Chinese authorities had collaborated to cover up her true age.

Is He Kexin 16, or 14, or perhaps 7, which is how she looks

The International Olympic Committee promises to investigate the true age of those Chinese gymnasts, but who knows what they’ll conclude. If they prove it was a cover-up, not only will those gals be stripped of their golds (with team gold handed to the US women), but it will be many, many eggs on the face of Chinese sport.

The rest of the Games went off without too much drama, China-wise, but just after the Olympic Flame went out, The Great Firewall of China was rekindled anew. Following speculation that a new album was released with some pro-Tibet lyrics, China blocked iTunes access. The whole thing. They blocked 1.3 billion people from shopping for music because they didn’t like the lyrics on one record. Whoa, that’s power.

So what do we think about China now? In my opinion, it’s pretty simple: China can accomplish anything, but they are a bunch of shady, shady, motherfuckers, willing to brainwash their own people, hide the truth, flat-out lie, and pull all sorts of underhanded tactics to convince the world they’re on the up-and-up. But like I said, they can accomplish anything.

The Chinese brand didn’t get the shiny dose of global co-operation and openness they were hoping an Olympics would bring. Instead, they got raised eyebrows from the rest of the world, and a first-hand reminder that they are not to be ignored. China is an industrious nation — the people are hard-working, and the combination of human, natural, and intellectual resources will surely lead to China as a major player in the 21st century. But they’re nobody’s favourite nation, especially now.

I predict that you’ll see a sort of a backlash against China when it comes to the production and manufacturing of consumer goods. While Chinese goods may be the cheapest, consumers may opt to pay a premium for electronics assembled in Japan, Korea, or even Taiwan. Wearing clothing and shoes made in China will earn the same social scorn as wearing fur. Buying hardgoods like computers and cars from Chinese companies will be equal with not recycling. The Chinese brand is becoming a villain.

Eating up those American styles

Need a metaphor for the new Chinese brand? It’s no longer the world’s workshop, it’s the world’s Mob Boss. Yes, he can get you what you need on the cheap, but do you really want to be indebted to him?

This is about more than sports, consumer goods, politics, or other world issues. Branding of nations is the unseen charm that holds all the issues together — it creates for the rest of the world a perception and an instinct. So how do you perceive China?

When I was watching the games I was obviously watching the sports, but I had a keen eye on the background graphics, the signage, the uniforms, the flags, the t-shirts, the baseball caps, and every other bit of graphical brickerbrack that appeared on screen. And what I saw was pretty awesome.

The graphics for this years games were daring and modern, but also warm and welcoming. They didn’t command too much attention, but rather blended in to provide a great scenery before which the dramatics could play out. All the world’s a stage, and China provides the set.

I had three main observations about the graphics: First, there was a lot of cool swirly, firey, spectrumy stuff happening. Second, for a country that uses Red as it’s national colour, everything felt very blue. And there wasn’t much typography, which makes sense but sort of snuck up on me.

Since this is about graphics, let’s just take a look. These photos are brilliant, but take a look at the backgrounds, especially the blueness.

Is there some rule about gymnastics equipment that it has to be blue?

These girls where everywhere during the beach volleyball events, although not wearing the Chinese national colours

many of the backgrounds were blue, as were the staff uniforms

A rare instance where the logo appears against a red background

The Chinese hostesses wore white and blue, not red

More blue backgrounds

More blue backgrounds

The tennis courts were coloured blue, although this does seem to be a standard among hardcourts


While the backgrounds for most of the arenas were blue, the medals themselves were attached to red bands. Here, the national colour is apparent, as it was in Athens 2004, and Sydney 2000 (blue and green respectively).

Multi-coloured backgrounds, often using yellow, were popular at the Games as well.

I have two theories about why the Games were so blue. First, red is a bit of a harsh colour. It’s overpowering and in such large quantities, may have people a bit on-edge, feeling threatened or nervous. Blue is much more soothing and neutral. Also, red is the colour of Communism. With the always-tense political climate in China, covering the city in red might not be the best idea. No need to remind the world who they’re actually dealing with. More about this in my next post about China, the Brand.

As I mentioned, there was a ton of swirly, firey, tribal-style patterns that were seen on everything from the uniforms to the medal bands.

These patterns were featured on a number of uniforms, including the United States’ basketball jerseys, so I suspect that Nike and other outfitters had something to do with pushing the trends. But these patterns did make things a bit more interesting, and created a bit of intricacy against what could easily turn into a flat and dull series of flag-like backdrops.

The wooden spoon award for this year’s Olympic-based design goes to Canada and their team uniforms. This is a classic example of going overboard, and trying too hard to be innovative. Wow, these are seriously ugly.

For more info about the graphics at the Beijing games, check out this interview with Design Director Min Wang. »

Now that the dust has settled at the Bird’s Nest Stadium and the Olympics flame has been extinguished, I can finally collect my thoughts and comment on the global circus that was the media coverage. This year’s coverage was bigger, more intense, more global, more comprehensive, more technologically-advanced, more highly-defined, and more quickly deployed than ever in history. But there were a few hiccups.

In the States, NBC was the network tapped with with covering the games. A coveted prize, and a massive undertaking. Generally, NBC did well — they flooded our airways and cable streams with more coverage than could ever be consumed, and they did it will sparkle. And for the first time, coverage was attempted (and heavily promoted) on the Internet. First, let me talk about the television coverage.

NBC covers sports well. They have a team of knowledgeable commenters and the crew to get the job done. The graphics are always top notch and innovative, yet controlled and universally-appealing — never an easy task.

Beijing intro graphics

Bob Costas was again appointed to be the main presenter of the games, covering the sports desk in China and interviewing some of the higher profile athletes, like those of swimming and gymnastics. And he did well. But after watching him, and moreso the rest of the commentators, I am reminded of how painful it can be to endure the clichés and cheeseball idioms that spew from the American sportscaster. Over-the-top emotional pitches, absurd hyperboles, and the constant need to hear themselves speak are the most apparent symptoms. Here’s a clip that illustrates how much I don’t need to hear the commentary.

Hey guys, just shut up and watch the race

The AP is slightly more subdued than normal sportscasters

Perhaps it’s because of my time living in Britain, or even watching the Spanish-language channels here in America, but I just can no longer tolerate mainstream media’s over-important tones and falsely-dramatic language. Ugh.

The second problem with the television coverage can be summed up in one word: ads. My lord, how many ads can you fit in between 30-second races? I dunno, NBC, how many? Because this year’s games were the most viewed in history, the commercials carried the highest pricetags in history. Following the model of the Super Bowl (and Friends’ finale), advertisers created custom ads for the Olympics — except this time they’re intended to make us shed a tear of patriotic humility, rather than burp out a chuckle of puerile humour. Here’s a taste of the sappiness…

I commented earlier this month how the Olympics have become “three weeks of sappy ads … plus archery”. And I stick to that. In this era of Tivo, Hulu, and the Internet, many of us 21st century tv-viewers bemoaned the 17 days we were forced to watch ad after ad just to get our sporting fix.

However, as cynical as I am towards conventional television advertising, I have to admit that the Visa ads, especially those produced with almost-instant results-based themes, were pretty sharp. Go World.

Morgan Freeman does great voiceovers

As the Olympics are a global affair, they don’t always occur in our local timezone. This always presents the problem of when to air coverage. With China 12 hours ahead of the East Coast, some events aired live during Prime Time, but many were delayed up to 12 hours for purposes of commerciality. Is this the right thing to do? In the spirit of openness and co-operation, should a live sporting event be delayed to serve the whims of one network? The time-shifting also presented a problem for those on the West Coast of the US where some events were delayed even further to abide by the classic West Coast Delay. Tom Merritt and Rafe Needlemen of CNet talked further about this topic on a recent episode of their show, The Real Deal.

Next, to the Internet! This was the first Olympics, and really, the first large-scale sporting event, where coverage was presented online as an alternative to tuning and spending time on your living room couch. At least, that was the theory. NBC put into place every possible safeguard to prevent that audiences didn’t spend too much time on their website, but instead vegged out on the couch in conventional fashion. This paranoid desire to force us to watch commercials caused them to handicap the coverage and pick and choose what they send over the tubes. For example, while I was able to load up Badminton coverage live on the web as it happened in China, no Swimming events were available until after the events aired later that night. Even then, only select races were available as archives and highlights. In short, the Internet was not the alternate viewing experience it was touted as, and it certainly wasn’t the all-you-can-eat infobank that we geeks desired it to be. It was a skeleton of it’s potential and served more to wet our appetites than to satisfy us fully.

Additionally frustrating about Internet coverage was that each country’s media outlet of choice was the only company allowed to serve Internet content to the populous of that nation. In other words, we Americans could only watch online content from NBC. In Britain, BBC was in command, and in Canada it was CBC. (Although Canada and Britain’s stations are publicly funded, so it’s a slightly different story) Firewalls and other Internet misdirection were put into place to entrap users and prevent them from peeking into the walled garden of their neighbors. Again, where is the Olympic spirit of unity and collaboration between nations? Is the Internet not the single most global tool even presented to mankind? Should NBC and other networks used 20th century corporatism and old-fashioned greed to sandbox their viewers? Methinks they should not.

And here’s something shocking about the Internet experiment — it was beneficial for NBC! Internet traffic didn’t canabalise television watching, but it bolstered it. Instead of ignoring the broadcasts, folks were checking the web sites and getting excited about the upcoming televised broadcasts. The next day, they were back online watching replays and highlights. Word of mouth took hold and viewers were using the Internet in coordination with television to get their friends and families involved in the Games. The Internet worked. This lesson has been hard to swallow for old media companies, whether they be in television, movies or music. Hey guys, the Internet fuels our desire for media, not extinguishes it. Leo Laporte talked about this in his monologue on his The Tech Guy radio show the other day. As an experienced broadcaster, he’s usually better at phrasing things than I am.

One more thing about the Internet coverage: it didn’t work for everyone! Because NBC decided to use Microsoft‘s Silverlight technology for their live video streams, users were first prompted to install the Silverlight plugin, and if they had the patience and tech savvy to endure, they might get to see the games. But for novice users, the barrage of demands and errors was too much. For users of Linux and older PowerPC Macs, we were out of the loop entirely. Silverlight, being a Microsoft property, is proprietary and not an open Internet standard. Way to bring the world together.

PC World touches on this and other topics during in their rundown of the Olympic Tech winners and losers. TechCrunch, being a bunch of Silicon Valley geeks, were somewhat harsher in their criticism of NBCs web strategy, calling it ‘a loser’.

There were, of course, some oddities to do with the media coverage. For example, this year’s Opening Ceremonies set a record for most HD cameras in one place at one time. Considering every country in the world was there, it’s not surprising. Also, because of the heavy-handed police tactics in China, civilian coverage was at a bare minimum. Considering the number of tourists in Beijing, there was a shockingly few numbers of videos being posted online. It’s almost as if everyone with a camera was strapped to a chair in some dark room, even if they were just a tourist. Hmmm.

And the media coverage didn’t end when the flame went out. In this, the YouTube and Hulu era, that footage will live forever in smaller, bite-size chunks. Consumable when we want it. If this year’s media coverage had one theme it is this: next time will be even better — the media coverage will be just like being there. The world will come to us, whether by airwaves or electrons.

One final note, in the WTF category, a cake:

Obviously, there was some miscommunication about what the client wanted on to be drawn on this custom cake. I mean, seriously.

My absence is due to mainly to three causes: the start of rugby season, my own work schedule (including a return to on-site work) and The Olympics.

As you know, the Olympics just finished. I spent a serious amount of time watching the Olympics this year, as I do every time they come to town. Therefore, I’ve got tons to say about it! So hopefully this week I will get to write my review of the Olympics in three parts: first, a commentary on media, television, internet and so forth; next, a take on how the Olympics has helped or hurt the brand that is China itself; and finally, a graphical review of Beijing 2008. Considering I’ve been talking about these games for well over a year, I want to take my time to accumulate some nice links and photos, and simply to take my time.

Aside from that, I don’t have much else planned for the week. August is a slow month. Everyone’s on vacay, and while I have returned to on-site work for the past several weeks, the business world in general is less talkative and showy. I think that with the back-to-school/end-of-summer season upon us, we’ll see some new draws in the world of packaging, design, advertising, and branding. And of course it will be Christmas before you know it.

So until next time, get outside and enjoy the last week of Summer!

Since this is the final WTF Wednesday before the Beijing Olympics kick-off on Friday, 08.08.2008, I figure I’d post my reaction to the oddity of Chinese cheerleaders for the Olympics.

I’m saddened to learn that we Americans are exporting this silly, and some would argue antiquated, tradition. In my mind, the notion of cheerleaders is tied to American Football, especially in an academic setting. As much as I despise both, I have to admit there is a sort of completeness that comes during those dry autumn days where the bands, and players, and girls in skirts, and local townfolk all head to the field to make the spectacle work. Cheerleaders moved to other sports like Basketball, and I’ve even seem them overseas in England cheering for Rugby matches.

But now the Chinese have got a hold of it and taken it to the extreme — cheering for the Olympics! Do the Olympics need cheerleaders? Will dancing girls pervert the traditions of sport and purity of nationalism (no pun intended)? I feel that much like dance and music and sports in general, each nation should have its own form of cheering and supporting your countrymen in competition. For example, scarves are part of English football culture, but not really part of Jamaican track & field. I know China is trying to be more worldly and western, but isn’t this pandering a bit? What next, rap music?

Obviously there’s nothing wrong with the dancers themselves; they’ve had American coaches give tips and with a billion people out there, the talent pool is pretty massive. I just don’t think we need cheerleaders at the Olympics.