by Rob Walker
(c) 2008
978-1-4000-6391-8
The Desire Code
Figure out why symbols matter to us.
“Maybe we live in a world riddled with logos because symbols are something that we enjoy, desire, and even need.”
- p. 20
“[Understand] that in the twenty-first centruy we still grapple with the eternal dilemma of wanting to feel like individuals and to feel as though we’re part of something bigger than ourselves – and that, most of all, we all seek ways to resolve this fundamental tension of life.”
- introduction xv
“When something is aesthetically beautiful, people react. And when you can assign a meaning and value to something and summarize or capture all of that instantly, that’s something that I think human nature just gloms on to.”
- Ecko, p 12
Not only can logos have meaning, and not only can that meaning be manufactured – it can be manufactured by consumers.
- p. 18
Kindster Outlaw is perfectly defined on page 22:
Deep down, each of us is different, unique, and special.
Deep down, we are all just the same.
For years I shared this observation, for laughs, fefore it finally occurred to me that this was no joke. In fact, it articulated what is more or less the fundamental tension of modern life.
We all want to feel life individuals.
We all want to feel like a part of something bigger than ourselves.
And resolving that tension is what the Desire Code is all about.
- p. 22
The Mark and Pearson’s sketch of the Outlaw Archetype:
“The Outlaw feels helpless and seeks the experience of power even if only in the ability to shock or defy others.”
- p. 25
The real attraction of the Outlaw isn’t just individualism, it’s defeating helplessness with self-reliance. In addition to serving as an exemplar of authentic living, the skater is depicted as a person who makes something out of nothing – and expects help from no one in doing it.
- p. 25
(In essence, how you help people hang on to a brand, solving the problem of balancing individuality and belonging, is:)
Every member of the community helps define the community. That is to say, these symbols aren’t defined by rational rules; they’re flexible and open to individual interpretation.
- p 34
To attract Consumer Economicus, build something that helps people solve a problem, or do a job, better than before.
- P.36
Naturally, we want to tell (and think) interesting and meaningful stories about ourselves – stories that are coherent, that add up. Zaltman (Gerald Zaltman, How Customers Think) argues that brands and logos and products have a place among the symbolic tools we use in telling those stories.
- p. 37
Psychological Term: “the confirmation bias”
“makes us give greater weight to messages and perceptions that confirm our preexisting beliefs and less weight to those that don’t.”
- p. 39
when talking about what made Lance Armstrong’s rubber bracelet the height of what people wanted, he pointed out that: “It had little to do with any particular property of the object; it had everything to do with us.”
- p. 62
(meaning that it just declared our values in the world and our outward expression of it.)
Virginia Postrel, in her book The Substance of Style, correctly summarizes that critique concisely: “It’s all about status.” That is, these critics say we glom on to symbols and objects as a means of impressing, or even competing with, an audience. It’s a never-ending game of status-oriented on-upmanship,” in which we “just want to stand out, or at least not look bad, compared to other people,” Postrel wrote.
-p 64
I love this understanding between rational thinking and rationale thinking:
[Your] interpreter can fail us: when it faces gigantic or meaningless sets of data; that’s “when we insist on imposing logical structure on nonsense” and “see connections where there are none.” – p 68
