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You Know You Hang Out With Indian-Americans A Lot When...
While I was driving, I caught a glimpse of this Gap ad in a bus shelter. "DESI(RED)." I immediately assumed it was pun on the words "desired" and "desi". I only got a brief look as I sped by, so I figured it was a Desi model in the picture. ("Was that Aishwarya Rai?")
"Hm," I thought. "I didn't realize the word 'Desi' was so mainstream now. Maybe they're trying to project a multicultural marketing message or something?" But I didn't really think that hard about it.
A few days later, I was perusing Apple rumors sites, and I came upon this article about the naming of the new "iPod nano (PRODUCT) RED Special Edition". Apparently, Bono has a new AIDS charity effort where companies co-brand their products as Motorola RAZR RED, American Express RED, etc. and donate some of the proceeds to AIDS relief.
I browsed around the (PRODUCT) RED website, I saw the Gap ads there, and it suddenly hit me: I was being too literal. I had assumed that parenthesized words were less important, but Gap's graphic designers actually intended the parentheses to emphasize the word "red"! (Well, that, and the parentheses themselves are part of the (PRODUCT) RED branding.)
So the pun was actually "desired" vs. "red", and not "desired" vs. "desi". And, upon closer inspection, the model turned out to be Penelope Cruz, who's not at all Desi. :P
Like I said, I clearly hang out with Indian-Americans a lot. :)
P.S.: For those who don't know me, I'm Chinese, which is what makes this amusing. :)
Comments (4)
When I saw this one, I thought that Newsom did his hair with aioli. (From)
Posted on Oct-21-2006 | Link
Dude, I thought the same thing! I still think the DESI part should be in the parentheses, no? Either way, I suppose, I would misread it.
Posted on Oct-21-2006 | Link
i didn't see that ad in particular, i think, but i've had the same experience in the past few weeks :)
Posted on Oct-23-2006 | Link
Oy, I just heard the best Halloween costume idea. Jeans and a red tee-shirt with "Who(red)" or Deflowe(red) emblazioned on front. Happy Halloween!
Posted on Oct-31-2006 | Link