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Comment by jetrink | Hacker News Reader

When authors go out of their way to avoid using a brand name, it can be equally distracting though. I'd prefer that a character simply visit YouTube rather than visiting 'an online video site' or some fictional site with a made-up name like Chumhum. I think a distaste for product placement has sensitized us to seeing brand names in fiction, but some brands are a part of our daily lives in a way that is difficult to avoid.

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That's mostly when people use bad brand names, mostly in foreign media. I say foreign because I imagine that it's a case for say, a Japanese author trying to imitate an English brand name without knowing enough English to make it sound even slightly sensible. That's how you get stuff like WcDonalds and "Bobson Dugnutt".

Done well though it works perfectly fine. It's not like everything is huge brands out there, so there's plenty room for random branding.

And once in a while somebody comes up with something neat. I think "Pesterchum" is a great name for a messenger app.

When you use alternative brand names, you are cementing your story as taking place in an alternate universe of sorts. That works for some readers and for some stories, but for others it can be even more distracting than regular brand references.

To use your example, if I am reading a book set in mid-2010s Seattle and a character is wandering down Pike Street after a bad date, it would be jarring to see them using an app called “Pesterchum”

There's plenty odd brands for everything in the real world too. There's Ubuntu Cola, Migo phones, and AbiWord, to name a few examples.

But having a character in novel use such a brand has to be a conscious choice and say something about that character. Why are they drinking an odd brand of cola, or using an unusual sort of phone?

Why? Tying brands to identity is a weird thing. Companies aren't static anyway. I switch brands depending on how the wind blows at the time of purchase.

yes but that itself tells something about who you are, and precludes stories about certain kinds of people. not that I really want to read about them

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