Is Walmart channeling Kurt Vonnegut? When Walmart unveiled its new logo last week, there was only one thing we thought of when we saw that logo.
Anyone who’s read “Breakfast of Champions” remembers that Vonnegut peppered his writing with illustrations, one of which was a drawing of his own asshole:
Sure enough, we’re not the only ones to have noticed. Terrific marketing job, Walmart!
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Come on guys, it’s clearly a symbolic image of the sun. Just ask any five year-old, or take a look at any given cave pictograph or petroglyph.
ZOMG, I just realized my keyboard has an image of Kurt Vonnegut’s @$$hole right above the 8 key! IBM was so channeling his brilliance when they designed their keyboard! Puh-lease.
Wal Mart*
*We suck, good customer service void in most stores, most everything is made in our own chinese factories.
@JohnnySLC: Umm, do you guys not get that this post was a joke? They don’t *really* think that Walmart intended that meaning…
The symbol supposably “copied” is also the Chinese character for rice, so don’t go calling people A-holes when their sunbursts looks like the Chinese symbol for rice.
From the new Comments Code:
It really doesn’t matter if Wal-Mart uses a percent sign with its name, because at the end of the day I am just a two-faced whore who will just bitch about Wal-Mart, but still shop there to save a few bucks (except for groceries). I know a lot of sheeple like me who say we hate Wal-Mart, but continually shop there–and if adding a ‘ass’terisk to their sign gets me in the door hoping for soemthing new (like may, just maybe some customer service), then go fo it. Maybe Wal-Mart execs and Kurt V. can compare their butts when they meet in hell.
Wow, between this and the “Golden Shit”, this blog seems to be catering to frat boys more than intelligent consumers…
Maybe Wal*Mart is subconsciously pandering to tightwad consumers who want to stretch their dollar.
At least it’s not same homage to goatse.
Trying to improve the only thing at Walmart that didn’t need improvement apparently failed.
@andynomore: Best post
Surprisingly, Wal(_|_)mart was already taken.
its also an asterik so I woulndt say its anything copied
it could have been 8==>
Actually, I think the little “sunburst” is actually representative of some of the following:
The disappearance of American jobs
The money vanishing from your wallet
The hopes of a better life for their employees vanishing
etc.
I t hink it is hideous. Never mind the literary connontations.
It’s a well endowed cingular
I love Mr. Vonnegut Jr. I wrote him and he wrote me back. Supposedly, he was a real sweetheart.
I used to draw the asshole all the time in highschool after I finished Breakfast of Champions.
Wal*Mart isn’t even worthy of being in the same blog post as Mr. Vonnegut, Jr.
Now if it was brown…we could call it the “Brown Eye” of Walmart…
Walmart stole the smiley face too, remember?
New slogan: Walmart * Pucker Up
This is a tremendous stretch. Both look like asterisks. Can’t the Consumerists do better than this?
Meh. Very lame attempt at making a joke against a corporation. So now the keyboard character above the “8″ is a Vonnegut asshole, too?
The Walmart where I forayed as a cake decorator had a severe identity problem. They couldn’t decide whether they were Wal-Mart or Wal*Mart or WALMART or Walmart in their in-store created signage.
I guess by making it really obvious that it’s an asterisk, using upper and lower case letters, and then moving it to the outside the word, they’ve managed to not only maintain the integrity of the word “Walmart” but also put to rest the whole “OH GOD! Is that a hyphen or an asterisk I should be using!?” issue.
But then again, who really cares except people making jury rigged signage?
As for Vonnegut: I don’t see it, but I’m amused. And The Sirens of Titan was an amazing novel. I cried.
Yes, this comparison is a mighty stretch. Google ‘sun symbol’ and it is readily evident that this has been used for thousands and thousands of years across many cultures and civilizations to represent our beloved star .
Whether it is meaningful to identify Walmart with the life giving sun is another matter entirely.
Totally different. Are we really going to find every obscure sorta resemblance out there? For people that hate Wal-Mart, we sure do spend a lot of time contemplating there name changes.
sweet Lord, how far Consumerist’s reader base has fallen.
This site used to be full of funny, irreverent posts like this, that were meant to make “intelligent consumers” laugh (and they did). Part of having a cause is being able to laugh at the absurdity of it now and then. Remember laughter?
Then something happened… (20/20?)
I realize this, too, falls outside of the comments code, but I needed a reminder of why I haven’t read this site in nearly two years, and this was the perfect example. Lighten up, people! Sure the world’s run by greedy, lifeless, miserable corporate types who don’t care about you – but that doesn’t mean you have to roll over to them and become lifeless and miserable yourselves!
Do you people not realize that this post was supposed to be a joke?
I bet the chicken never really did cross the road, either.
well, at least Wal Mart has an “open asshole” design. Frankly, I don’t see much connection here. Charles Schultz used the Wal Marty version in his comics since the 1950′s and I’m pretty sure he wasn’t channelling assholes.
I hate Wal Mart as much as the next Consumerist reader but for crying out loud, it’s an asterisk with a hole in the middle. Period. Slow news day today?
At best you can call it an “ast-hole.”
Tiger got to hunt,
Bird got to fly,
Man got to tell himself, “Buy buy buy!”
Tiger got to sleep,
Bird got to land,
Man got to keep his debt from getting out of hand.
@Alex Chasick:
Shouldn’t that apply to articles as well?
@parrotuya: Wal*Mart’s smiley face was different from *the* Harvey Ball Smiley Face. I only know that because I live in the city where it was “invented” in.
As for the rest of this, I don’t quite know what’s more ignorant, the main article or the wealth of comments. “LUL LUL … I CANT BELIEVE WALMET EXECS READ BOOKS HAR HAR.” “I CANT BELIEVE THAT KURT VONEGUT EVAR READ A FAMILY TREE.”
The connection to the logo and an anus is asinine. Did anyone think about the fact that it is probably the morphing of their old “star” in the middle of Wal & Mart?
Anyone who thinks that looks like a rectum, or would consider that art, has definitely got something wrong in their neurons. Just b/c a stupid “artist” drew an asterik and sold it as art, doesn’t mean he’s a genius or that Walmart is copying him.
I just laugh when people buy stuff like that, especially if they pay a lot. The people who make it are probably laughing too, thinking, “wow, that took me all of 5 seconds to make. What an idiot you are.”
It’s a spark. Like a spark of genius. I know I know…but that’s what it is, I promise you.
Walmart is clearly in arrears and will be the butt of many jokes for their use of this assterisk.