I've seen Boy London around on the internet for quite a bit and what actually sparked my interest was the striking resemblance of the logo and the Third Reich's emblem. There was a post on tumblr with a photo of a WWII survivor with the Third Reich emblem and the post said something negative about how people were ignorant to the fact that Boy London's logo was so similar. They look similar, so what? It irked me to no end that people were criticizing this resemblance too much because it is one of the most common, blatant logical fallacies that people are so used to doing that they do not even realize that they are doing it. This specific fallacy is called the association fallacy. It can also be called guilt by association or honor by association. "What are you talking about?" you might ask and my dear reader, the definition might sound boring so I will just use examples:
- Person X is a criminal. Person X has long hair.
- Person Y also long hair. Person Y is assumed to be a criminal
"That's ridiculous, we obviously did not look at all the facts!" That's exactly why I thought that the negativity towards the logo was ridiculous. Though, the examples could turn into something so easily believable that it is true.
- Person X is a drug dealer and user in their neighborhood.
- Person X is friends with very close friends with Person Y. Person Y must be a dealer or at least a user.
The sad truth about the association fallacy is that people use it regularly because it is easier to generalize with that thought process which many times can be helpful especially when a person does not have any information beforehand. The hurtful thing about it is that we all as people might not be giving everyone we see or meet an equal chance.
There might be a striking resemblance to the Boy London logo and the Third Reich emblem but one must learn to associate the facts with one another. Boy London is a brand who has been in the industry for more than 3 decades and has rich history involving musical icons like Billy Idol who work behind the counter of the first BOY store or the Pet Shop Boys who hung out at the store as well. The brand embraces its roots and supports the creative development of the youth.
I have to thank everyone at the BOY London USA booth for showing interest in what I thought was interesting and actually shed some light about the logo and the fact that many organizations and nations have had the eagle as a symbol yet criticism arose just because of a similarity in look. The manager said that people tend to take hold of anything they can hate [on] about something or someone and grasp it firmly with a close mind, which saddened me because it was true that some people were like that.
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| Yuske, draped in a robe of some sort. |
Thank you again everyone who ran the Boy London USA booth at the trade show for giving me and my partner their precious time and letting us talk with them briefly. Check out the Boy London website and the brand new Boy London Denim items.
BOY London USA - http://boylondonusa.com/contents/aboutus.asp
Yuske's store with his own designs - http://www.imonni.com/
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