Brand Loyalty, Poetry, and Me

I've sat through countless hours of commercials that try to differentiate products from one another. Dodge vs. Ford vs. Chevy vs. Datsun (or whomever makes trucks; I never see myself owning one, so I just tune the commercials out) or Miller vs. Samual Adams vs. Budweiser vs. Coors (I don't drink beer very often, but I will admit that babe-focused ads at least get me to pay attention).

These ads vie to make their product different by convincing us that their product name is better. Once we associate a brand with quality or value or fun or whatever, that brand doesn't have to be the cheapest for us to purchase its products.

I'm not immune from brand loyalty (Les Schwab, I'm convinced, will always treat me well, so it doesn't occur to me to go anywhere else or even to shop around when I need tires)... but I am less prone, I'd like to think, than the average consumer. Cars/beer/vodka/toilet paper/paper towels/laundry detergent/condoms/bread/salad dressing/shoes/etc., etc., ... none of the brands in those product areas give me much reason to prefer them.

And most of the brands I do prefer? There's nothing particularly spectacular or special about. I won't give a guy a high-five if I see him with a box of Glad plastic wrap, and I won't start chatting up a woman in the checkout line if we're both buying Heinz ketchup.

All of this is to say there are very few moments I have in my life where I see, like Larry David in Curb Your Enthusiasm with fellow Prius drivers, a stranger who has something that I have loyalty to that I actually consider congratulating on being awesome enough to possess, as well. (Man. That sentence was a piece of work...)

Such a moment happened the other night, though.

I was at Ozzie's, having a drink and watching people sing, when I noticed that a fellow at an adjoining table was capturing his friend's song on his phone. On his Nexus One.

I have a Nexus One (aka the "Google phone"). I love my Nexus One. I only know one other person (Heels) who has it, and it was only sold by Google for about six months. It's a good phone that is a bit different than most other devices out there, and it's not common to see another one "in the wild".

As a result, after the guy finished videoing his friend, I leaned over and pointed to my phone and said, "Nexus One, huh?"

Before I get to his response, I'd like to go on a quick tangent.

I think of poetry--and perhaps art in general--as the conversion of one type of thinking or feeling into another. A poet can express, in words, a sunset or the yearning of unrequited love or the pain of a canker sore underneath one's tongue, and the reader feels those sensations. A poet translates feelings into words.

I am no poet.

So... back to the guy with the Nexus One. I pointed to my phone, said, "Nexus One!" and gave him a thumbs up. And he gave me a look.

A look of irritation and confusion and disgust and boredom and ... I don't know. I am no poet, remember?

The look he gave me made no sense to me--Nexus One owners all know how awesome their phone is, right?--and I've been chewing on it ever since.

My conclusion? He was using his friend's phone to capture the video. There's obviously no other explanation.