According to Ray Lovegrove,
"The substances in the [contraceptive] pill may be altered a little by the body but for the main part, pass through the bloodstream and eventually into the urine. Urine ends up in water supplies and eventually back in the drinking water - so what has happened to those hormones during this process? Well, much of the hormonal material is still present but very diluted - so diluted in fact, that it is hard to say what effects it is having. Hormone replacement therapy employs similar hormones and these also get into the water supply. This issue is beginning to cause concern for a number of reasons..."
More:
"You will doubtless have read news items about young males having a much lower sperm count than they did twenty or thirty years ago. The average young man in the UK, for instance, has a much lower sperm count than a man in his forties or fifties! Various causes for this phenomenon have been put forward, including the fit (or not...) of underwear, pesticides in the environment (many of which are surprisingly similar to hormones) and hormones in the water supply."
I started considering this issue after reading my fellow Amentior blogger Cathy of Alex's piece "We Are a Nation of Pansy Children" where she noted the sissification of today's youth.
I now wonder if the oral contraceptive hormones in our water supply are responsible for a disturbing trend, something I'm certain we all have noticed but I've yet to see discussed anywhere.
The Emasculation of Corporate Logos
This pattern can't simply be an accident. These designs are overly horrid, excessively effeminate, exorbitantly ugly, and the situation is far too pervasive.
Nor can these exceptionally shitty designs merely be a design fad. No one in his or her right mind could possibly see another company's weak all-lower-case logo and say, "Oh yeah! We gotta get ourselves one of these!" Clearly the cause must be either a conspiracy such as a nefarious government mind control program, malevolent Extra-Terrestrial intervention, widespread demonic possession, or the most likely reason: contraceptive hormones.
Yes it must be estrogen in the water that is affecting the brains of advertising professionals, graphic designers, and corporate CEOs (both male and female alike.) And just like the reduction in sperm count, it's getting dramatically worse over time.
Examples of hormonal logo neutering:
They could have selected a designer by randomly picking someone's name from the white pages and obtained a better result. Were they intentionally trying to convey weakness and lack of leadership?
The first logo looked very appropriate for a pizzeria - a place where you can sit down inside and dine.
The second one, designed a couple decades following widespread hormonal contamination, gives me a headache. Perhaps the design was meant to suggest the idea of speed (like crappy take out/delivery pizza places?) And the final one is an anomaly. I'm not sure what the designer was thinking here. Maybe it was a leftover unused design for a hardware store? Does it evoke the idea of Italian food, or any kind of food?
Obviously they were going for a soft friendly environmentally conscious look.
Anyway, I thought it might be fun to predict what will happen to other logos that have thus far escaped this trend.
IBM, "Big Blue," the grandfather of the (non-Apple) PC you are probably using to read this blog. According to Wikipedia, this logo has been around since 1972. To me it conveys leadership and strength. But since those attributes are no longer desirable today, they need a new design that reflects weakness and failure. We're a nation that elected Barack Obama, who is trotting the globe apologizing for America's greatness. Who needs silly antiquated ideas such as technical innovation, profits, success, and growth? So we will probably see something like this soon:
A chart of NASCAR demographics indicates that their fanbase is 60% male and 40% female. For the sport to grow and attract greater interest among females, something has to be done to soften its image.
Surprisingly according to Scarborough Research, the fanbase of the NFL is 52% female and 49% male. However, loyal fans are 63% male, 37% female. And "avid fans" are 69% male, 31% female. So, it's very possible that a future emasculated Dallas Cowboys logo could look something like this:
I really like Sony's timeless logo. But if my theory of hormonal water contamination is valid, good sense will go out the window and we might see a new design similar to this:
And a potential new design for the National Security Agency needs no explanation:
