Does that sandwich have your name on it?

August 23, 2003 11:02 PM

Have you ever inserted your name as you read the Bible to make it more personal? No? Well have you ever wondered if you could pay the guy that says AOL's "YOU'VE GOT MAIL" to say your name for $25? Dream the impossible dream no longer, it can all be done because you're a slave to the current trend of personalizing and customizing everything you own with a splash of me! Marketing droids have already dubbed this as Gravanity (Graffiti + Vanity = Dumb Fucking Marketing Buzzword). After all, nothing says that it's you like slapping your name all over it, right Scott?
posted by Stan Chin (29 comments total)

But hey, some of us doesn't need to advertise.
posted by Stan Chin at 11:05 PM on August 23, 2003

I still want James Earl Jones to record my answering machine message.
posted by cinderful at 11:27 PM on August 23, 2003

My only regret is that I never conceived of the personalized bible scam.

Damn.
posted by five fresh fish at 11:31 PM on August 23, 2003

Gravanity. No longer must my private shame suffer in anonymity. I've had this disease since the apex of the dotcom era, when tchotchkes were a dime a dozen and every company out there was offering free personalized this & that. I dove right in, and to this day have thousands of personalized business cards with a silly little joke on them, and a huge stack of post it notes with another silly joke on them. They still make me chuckle slightly, but I realize that my desire to see my name professionally printed on things is no laughing matter. If only there was a 12 step program for kicking this loathsome scourge.
posted by jonson at 11:35 PM on August 23, 2003

I'm not a Christian, but isn't this kind of 'editing' of the Bible regarded as sacreligious by the very people that this is marketed at?

And if you're desperate to hear your name read out, you can make your own 'you've got mail' message.

Because hearing my name read in a stilted computerised voice makes me feel like I'm really someone special.
posted by backOfYourMind at 11:57 PM on August 23, 2003

answering machine.
posted by quonsar at 12:19 AM on August 24, 2003

Q Do you get royalties? (...and other money-related questions)
A I don't discuss my finances with anyone besides my wife, Karen..... I mean, really, do you discuss your finances with just anyone who asks you??

In other words, they hosed me, so I'm pimping out my voice for 10 bucks a pop.
posted by PrinceValium at 12:23 AM on August 24, 2003

Hardly "emerging trend," I'd say. People have been monogramming and engraving their names and marks on everything possible for hundreds of years. Coining a dorky buzzword does not equal identifying an actual trend.
posted by pineapple at 12:48 AM on August 24, 2003

My sneakers have my name on them.
posted by neuroshred at 12:50 AM on August 24, 2003

The great and powerful TIM said "Light! Be!", and light thereafter was. ;-P
posted by mischief at 1:14 AM on August 24, 2003

No comments about Scott, the nametag wearing fella? I am gonna go tag up on the bum who is sitting at my Gravanity table, excuse me....
posted by RubberHen at 1:18 AM on August 24, 2003

TRENDWATCHING.COM predicts museums selling sponsorships of even the smallest works of arts (or just the frames!)...

Can trendwatching predict my calling bullshit?
posted by iamck at 1:57 AM on August 24, 2003

pineapple: Exactly. Welcome to the world of marketing babble. Anyone else remember the world before the word 'wellness'?!? Blergh.

As for this Scott dude who wants to have everyone chatting away to each other, it's worth pointing out that time for personal thought & contemplation is time well spent and having everyone jabbering away to each other all the time may not necessarily be a positive thing...
posted by i_cola at 2:08 AM on August 24, 2003

Semi-related to backOfYourMind's post (okay, not all that much), I thought it would be more fun to play with those same robotic AT&T Labs voices (I like Charles and Audrey the most) like puppets to make a silly little radio show. More fun than just getting them to say my name - I can get almost anyone to do that at knifepoint. So, just type in one phrase at a time, string them together, and layer in some free Apple iDisk muzak in the background and you get this. (Yeah, I had a lot of time on my hands.)
posted by scamper at 2:12 AM on August 24, 2003

Ha ha ha - Oh my God, what a load of bow-locks!

Now that's some nice work scamper!
posted by backOfYourMind at 2:57 AM on August 24, 2003

Ha ha! scamper, that is excellent. Nearly as funny as the Wolves result yesterday ;-)
posted by i_cola at 3:08 AM on August 24, 2003

By which He has granted to Quonsar His precious and exceedingly great promises; that through these Quonsar may become a partaker of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world by lust.
posted by rcade at 4:40 AM on August 24, 2003

I get to save money because my name is already in the Bible (my real name, not my MeFi one).
posted by tommasz at 6:06 AM on August 24, 2003

Even when Lawn Furniture was dead in trespasses, God made Lawn Furniture alive together with Christ (by grace Lawn Furniture has been saved), and raised Lawn Furniture up with Him and made Lawn Furniture to sit with Him in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. (Eph. 2:5-6)
posted by grabbingsand at 6:29 AM on August 24, 2003

The AOL voice guy must not get much work aside from the AOL gig if he's making personalized files. Then again, he's probably not able to get much work since if he did the VO for something like Ritz crackers people would keep saying "why is the you've got mail guy telling me about Ritz crackers?"

I'd get him to record my outgoing message but he has that rule about profanity so he wouldn't do my current "leave a message after the tone you punk ass mutha fuckha."
posted by birdherder at 7:02 AM on August 24, 2003

Scamper is my new boyfriend. Or girlfriend. I'm flexible.
posted by LittleMissCranky at 7:21 AM on August 24, 2003

scamper, is that the best use of your time?
posted by TimeFactor at 7:26 AM on August 24, 2003

Go to portalofevil. much funnier excerpts there.

BTW. they justify that whole revelations "if you change this book you will burn in hell" thing with some wimpy explanation, like we;re not changing it we're adding to it.

Shees christians eh, can wangle their way out of anything.
posted by carfilhiot at 8:04 AM on August 24, 2003

Even when Judas was dead in trespasses, God made Judas alive together with Christ (by grace Judas has been saved), and raised Judas up with Him and made Judas to sit with Him in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. (Eph. 2:5-6)
posted by Mayor Curley at 9:20 AM on August 24, 2003

And mr_crash_davis knew that the seed should not be his; and it came to pass, when he went in unto his brother's wife, that he spilled it on the ground...
posted by mr_crash_davis at 9:48 AM on August 24, 2003

Just don't let it splash onto my sandals, k, crash?
posted by five fresh fish at 11:51 AM on August 24, 2003

So you enjoy gardening then, Crash?
posted by arto at 1:07 PM on August 24, 2003

gravanity makes me think of gravity way before graffiti. I might think of serious, as in, grave, vanity. Vanity with gravity.

as above, though, people have put their names on things for ages. I actually almost feel like it's become less cool as opposed to more to have your name on your shirt or pen or whatever. Like it's kinda tacky now, whereas it used to be the old school preppies that would have their initials all over the place. Of course, that maybe means the opposite of what I just said - maybe it's tacky now because everyone can afford to do it, and it's become widespread, so the rich folks turn their special uncommon little noses up at it.

anyway. If you want to personalize things, choose what they're made of or have them cut to fit your body specifically, or record something interesting or funny, but just having your name put onto something in an identical fashion to anyone else's name seems like a really lame form of "personalized".
posted by mdn at 5:45 PM on August 24, 2003

BTW. they justify that whole revelations "if you change this book you will burn in hell" thing with some wimpy explanation, like we;re not changing it we're adding to it.

Shees christians eh, can wangle their way out of anything.

Revelations 22:18 For I testify onto any man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, if any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are in this book.

There's still a way to ward off the locusts, however. All they have to do is make sure the company is owned and operated by women.

My real name's in the Bible already. It means "house of poverty". Don't think I want any more negative Biblical associations with my name, thanks.
posted by orange swan at 6:28 PM on August 24, 2003