Name Dropping
Gerber Bear Grylls Ultimate Fixed Blade Knife
When it comes to tools, I have a problem with "name dropping" and hyperbole.
I don't believe I've ever bought anything serious with "extreme" in the name.
I bought something with "tactical" and "Blackie Collins" in the name, but I knew exactly what I was getting, and had no elevated expectations. Besides, Blackie was no poseur.
"Ultimate" anything? Bleh.
Tool named after someone with a "cool name" pseudonym? Bleh.
Wanna impress me? Show me a decade of performance and call it "classic." Show me two or three generations of performance and call it "legacy" (or "classic").
Of course, there's always the geek factor, and if you have something new that kicks butt, then post up the stats and steel. Gimme the facts, man. Spare me the "
raw mountain meat, extreme untamed wilderness, Icelandic jungle proven, tactical backyard survival, sharpened crowbar of doom" that's starring in a reality TV show.
For me, credibility declines with every outlandish adjective and adverb, to the point where, once we get to the "
. . . of doom" part, I'm ready to pay to not own one.
Of course, marketing is all about verbal pheromones and visual cues to bypass critical thinking and short circuit directly to the seduction-by-consensus-of-awesomeness centers of the brain, just like it has always been.
Naturally, I, personally have never been snared by the as-seen-on-TV attraction gambit. At all. No, really, it was someone else who looks like me.