Bootstrappin’

The other day, I read an interesting article on TechDirt — Covering Up Any Brand In Beijing That Hasn’t Paid To Sponsor The Olympics.

Turns out that the “Olympic logo police workers are tasked with vigilantly going around all facilities and putting masking tape over the logos for any product where the company is not an official sponsor.”

Yes, there are workers who spend their days going around Olympic venues and meticulously covering up every single little tiny logo and trademark with masking tape.

Here’s a picture I nabbed from Boing Boing:

Olympics logo cover-ups

The IOC thinks this kind of silly over-reaction is necessary:

The International Olympic Committee says that such “brand protection” is essential for the Games to raise the corporate money that keeps them going and growing. The Games get 40% of their revenue from sponsors, with the rest coming from broadcast rights, ticketing and licensing.

Everything from the logos on elevators and garbage cans to logos on entire walls buildings (like a hotel *outside* of the Olympic Green) have been covered up. Apparently, even people wearing t-shirts with logos of non-Olympic sponsors (Pepsi, for instance), are asked to take them off before entering Olympic stadiums. You know, because the public might (god forbid) see a non-sponsor’s logo amidst the billions of gigantic, illuminated, in-your-face sponsor logos everywhere else in Olympic facilities, and purchase a competing product.

Give me a break!

Well, sure enough, I walked into a bathroom in the National Interior Stadium the other day, in between the finals of the Women’s Handball event, and this is what I found:

Silly, yes. But I think, more accurately, this is some kind of CRAZY COMMUNIST CENSORSHIP!

And after all, the main reason why I came to China was to bring those commies to their knees!

Besides, the logo they were covering up was “American Standard“. (And they didn’t do a good job… you can even see it through the tape):

The nerve! Of all the logos they could have covered, they had to do it to one with “America” in the title. What kind of American would I be if I let this stand?

I made quick work of those pieces urine-soaked tape, just like the founding father would have done (or any TRUE American patriot):

That’ll show ’em! A few zillion more pieces of tape, and I will bring this Chinese Communism to a crashing halt.

Freedom don’t come free, ladies and gentlemen.