AntiFriday: Twitter haters, home debranders, etc.

Murketing’s weekly roundup of backlashes, dissent, and critiques:

1. Noah Brier‘s Brand Tags project doesn’t really have anti or backlashy intentions, I don’t think, but it’s really made the rounds and is worth noting as a kind of critique-enabler. If you haven’t seen it, basically the idea is you pick a brand from a list and enter the first word that you associate with the brand, then you click for the results: A tag cloud where the size of the words shown indicates how often people have typed them in as their gut reaction to a brand.

Needless to say, those gut reactions can result in some pointedly anti sentiments.

The most interesting one to me is the cloud for Twitter, which rather prominently features reactions such as “annoying,” “pointless,” “stupid” and “useless.” Meanwhile, lots of people also seem to love Twitter, and see it as wildly important. (I’ll never forget this Johnnie Moore post in which he suggested that asking “what’s the point of Twitter?” is like asking “What’s the point of life?” So if you don’t like Twitter, kill yourself?)

I just can’t get worked up about Twitter either way. Why do people have such extreme reactions to it?

2. AdPulp points the way to Debranded Home, a site “committed to helping you reduce visual pollution by lessening brand presence in your home.” The idea is that once you’ve bought something and taken it home, “its label has served its purpose.” Debranded Home offers no-brand labels instead. (The set at right costs $9 plus shipping.) I assume the idea is you put the cleaning product or shampoo or whatever into another container of your choice, then put the new label on it. There are also how-to guides for making your own cleaners.

I suppose the noteworthy thing about this is that traditionally the argument over too-much-branding-and-advertising has been about public space. I suspect more people are bothered by branding that interrupts a walk in the park or whatever. But maybe this is the last resort, at least in your own home you can escape branding, even though it’s on stuff you actually bought?

Anyway … your thoughts?

List continues after the jump.

3. Disney’s decision to shut down a free virtual online Disneyland (“Virtual Magic Kingdom”) ticked off fans, says WSJ. “One slick Web site created to help save VMK has gathered nearly 20,000 signatures on its online petition, while blogs maintained by the Disney faithful continue to decry the company’s move. A real-life protest to sway the Burbank, Calif., entertainment company’s thinking largely fizzled, though. Only about a dozen die-hard fans picketed outside Disneyland’s main gates on May 10, carrying placards and a banner riffing Disney’s “Year of a Million Dreams” campaign that read, “Year of a Million Broken Dreams.”

4. Generally I read the Houston Chronicle every day only for news of the Astros and Rockets. But here’s a story about a co-op in the Montrose that “caters to consumers who have a bone to pick with big retailers.” Sample customer comment: “Generally speaking, I absolutely refuse to shop at Wal-Mart and I always try to go just as local as possible. … I try to stay away from corporate America as much as possible.”

5. Finally, this one isn’t exactly anti- or backlashy either, but there’s an interesting critique of consumption habits in the Buy-By Brian Blog. As you may know, Ada Puiu interviewed its proprietor right here on Murketing.com earlier this week.