On: OK Soda

[qubex]

I think I was into my second year in middle school in Italy when this came out... so it’s far from my experience in both time and space. And yet it triggers an inexplainable sense of nostalgia in me for the nineteen-nineties, grunge, early-New Economy, pre-9/11 world. Somehow it also makes me think of William Gibson’s Pattern Recognition, both because it features a protagonist who is hyper-sensitive to branding to the point of allergy, and functions as a funereal eulogy to the era.

It also reminded me of Pepsi Perfect, the fictional brand of Pepsi-Cola featured in Back To The Future II’s (now) alternate version of 2015: http://design.pepsico.com/pepsi-perfect.php?v=101#section2

[krstffr → qubex]

Yes, for some reason reading/looking at this made me super nostalgic as well! Just want to sit in a couch in the mid 90's and listen to CD's and watch Beavis and Butthead and read stuff in magazines instead of on the internet.

Very strong melancholic feeling.

[isaachawley → qubex]

I think in Pattern Recognition a character says, "More creativity goes into the marketing of products than into the products themselves."

I'd love to think of it all as some kind of art project, but there are always undertones of manipulation and intentional disaffection.