Adjusting my #BrandZero Praxis

Earlier, I detailed how I would do the #BrandZero practice of not mentioning major brands. I had initially started with a very strong position of not mentioning big brands in any context at all, whether woke or not.

However, yesterday’s blog post required me to mention a big brand so as to illustrate a point. Since I want to illustrate storytelling techniques like this in future blog posts, I have decided to adjust my #BrandZero praxis.

Due to the realities of blogging, my praxis is now as follows:

– I will not devote a blog post to any big brand, whether to praise or condemn it.

– I will allow mentions of big brands in the comments if they are pertinent to a discussion. Keep this under control, however; if I think there’s too much fannish gushing going on, I will step in.

– I won’t promote big brands on social media, whether they are woke or not.

– I will not talk about any past or present controversy involving a big brand.

– Big brands will not receive any sort of link — not to Wikipedia, not to TV Tropes, and definitely not to Amazon.

– When illustrating a particular storytelling technique, I will use a big brand as a point of reference since that’s what everyone knows about. However, I will not use woke brands, which writes off most Western audiovisual media; nearly all of my examples will likely come from anime, manga, Japanese-made video games, or older Western sci-fi and fantasy. Discussions on storytelling will be the only time big brands are mentioned.

It’s not as strong a position as I took before, but the point of #BrandZero is to get away from gossiping about brands and their creators and instead foster more wide-ranging discussions that would benefit smaller media. #BrandZero is a work in progress, and I’m still experimenting.

—–

Support my smaller brand by purchasing an e-book or paperback copy of Shining Tomorrow Volume 1: Shadow Heart.