I was at the store the other day, and I saw a kid wearing a shirt that said “I Converse Logo MEXICO.” Naturally, I get that it’s one of the thousands of parodies that exist based on the iconic slogan/logo of “I ♥ NY,” but it doesn’t change the fact there are now thousands of poorly done parodies that exist in general. Just because most people can interpret what the intended meaning of a graphic is, doesn’t mean it’s an excuse for it to be complete rubbish. I really don’t believe people understand how parodying I ♥ NY is supposed to work. Frankly, I don’t really believe a lot of people understand how a parody itself works, but one thing at a time.
Take for example the aforementioned “artwork,” I converse logo MEXICO. For starters, it wasn’t the Chuck Taylor circle and star emblem that everyone and their mother can identify, but the lesser used chevron and star logo, that seems to be more associated with their alternate products. Basically, the elimination of the heart outright means this parody is saying “I CONVERSE MEXICO.” I am not entirely sure what that is supposed to mean.
There’s really no end to the madness too, as the ball has been rolling for decades, and there doesn’t appear to be any end in sight of the downhill slope. I get that these parodies are designed and created to convey their love for things, but if they were to be interpreted literally, they completely fall flat on their faces.
And I think this one is my favorite I found on my cursory search, because of how redundant it becomes:
And that’s really the long and short of this rant; all these bad parodies are replacing the heart with something else, and completely missing the point of the entire thing outright. You have to have the heart to really convey the point that something is actually loved in this context. I’ll overlook the fact that many of them substitute the iconic American Typewriter font with other lazy, crappy fonts, but when the design is over, a heart is really the only necessary thing to convey the love.
You know what I think are cool? Silhouettes. It would make a perfect solution too. In any one of these fail examples, a silhouette of these icons knocked out of a heart, would get the point across as well as actually make sense that there is a love for the subject at hand. Personally, I think the mark of good parodies is subtlety; too much editing, and I end up ignoring the content and going straight to critiquing how bad the artwork is.
Parodies aren’t difficult, but man do people try and prove me wrong on a regular basis.
