Distasteful

Design serves an important purpose in everyday life, often imparting style and beauty to the desires of the individual. A problem arises, however, when the individual in question has a penchant for tacky, classless goods. Taste is of course subjective, but often times I am left shaking my head and wishing that America had some sort of minimum cultural standard. The way that things are these days, even the best design or designers on the planet may not be able to inspire the tasteless masses to become something better.


A case in point is the budget fashion retailer Old Navy. After years of awful, disgustingly saccharine campy marketing (and uninspired clothing), Old Navy took a bold step towards improving the image of itself and its customer base in the winter of 2008 to early 2009. Abandoning the camp, Old Navy re-designed nearly its entire line; hired attractive, normal looking actors; and shot stylized, design-conscious ads.

winter 2008 campaign

The campaign apparently failed, as Old Navy soon returned to the horrible goofiness it has been known for, and even scaled back some of its more stylish, ambitious designs. Old Navy attempted to bring itself and its customers to a higher level of design, and it was completely rejected by a tacky flock.

current campaign

These tasteless hordes consist of the same people who run around purchasing cheap-ass ornaments of a snowman dressed in camouflage hunting gear, made in China and completely devoid of class. The same uninspired herd who wears “America - Stick To Your Guns - It’s Your Right” or “Haters Make Me Famous” or all of the other dipshit, ridiculous pop culture clothing. It doesn’t matter what the options are, in America you have the freedom to be as lazy, tacky, and stupid as you want. People take advantage of this freedom because it is an easy road to take, and you better damn believe that corporate vultures are there to exploit and perpetuate the bottom-of-the-barrel market. Honestly, there are times where I wish that we all just gave up and wore potato sacks.