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what makes something iconic?

 
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dhex
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PostPosted: Tue Jan 15, 2008 11:35 am    Post subject: what makes something iconic? Reply with quote

i thought of this question after viewing the 400th novelty implementation of something from portal over on rockpapershotgun.com.

it is a bigger question than just games - i.e. why do some things become immensely catchy and some do not?* but as far as games go portal is a good place to start. considering the amount of time and effort put into various cutesy things - cubes made out of balloons, making a glados thingy for amiga, the turret casemod someone made, etc etc - far outstrips the amount of time most people spent playing portal. i've probably spent more time reading about this stuff than playing portal, even.

portal, unlike many other examples one might pull from the games/anime/con junction, doesn't have a tie-in movie or cartoon show, and didn't have any personalities at all beyond a demented computer (your actual character is a blank slate); yet people have become infinitely more attached to a cube with a heart on it that had no place other than being a sick joke/prop for a brief moment.

so what creates this kind of attraction? is it simply length? (i'm inclined to think in part it is)
is it all simply good design and characterization? creating a simple narrative experience? a dramatic montage of setpieces? mystery?

ending with a personalized song?

i don't have any real answers on this side, so i'm throwing this out there.

* as an aside, when people try to boil it down to marketing dollars spent or something along the lines of "false consciousness" as applied to industry xyz and their marketing efforts, i always briefly wonder if they're a plant from one of the larger ad agencies or adbusters (i.e. the only folks who directly benefit from such a narrative) or if every memeplex thrives on being opposed - or even hunted - more than anything else. perhaps it's a way of saying "we are so very important."
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PostPosted: Tue Jan 15, 2008 2:09 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

In brief network externalities. The hype feeds on hype and enogh people got on board that you can talk about Portal and be understood. Playing Portal or ast least taking part in Portal mania is like a very simple language. This recognition also makes it a convenient sort of shiboleth for gaming culture.

Unlike Monty Python quotes of old geek culture, Portal references are easy to make. Monty Python lines on the other hand usually involve more than one sentence and a funny voice on top of that making them extremely intrusive to normal conversation as opposed to simply saying "huge success".

Barrier of entry is very low, with the game not requiring a beastly computer to power it nor the sort of time investment upfront that Final Fantasy VII would. The network rewards investing time into Portal as a hobby by getting your balloon animals featured on big blogs like rps and sexyvideogameland so there's incentive with very little demand in that you can stop making Companion Cube lunchboxes without getting behind a la WoW.

That's all I can come up with off the top of my head. I'll be sure to contribute more to this thread in the very near future.
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fish
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PostPosted: Tue Jan 15, 2008 2:50 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

wouldnt it be neat if we knew exactly what made things successful.
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PostPosted: Tue Jan 15, 2008 3:02 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I think in the case of the companion cube, it's just a simple case of it being really neat. You have a cold, sterile, boring, metal cube that this machine (or the people who think like machines that run it) decided would make a good companion if you simply place a heart on it. A symbol of affection is mistaken for enough to produce affection. And ironically it was right (both in the game and in real life). In the game because the people were probably driven mad, but outside of the game we are attracted to it because it's a very simple and funny way to present an idea we're familiar with (the object/person we have to take care of). Beyond that, the cube also stands for the game, which was one of the best games of 2007. The companion cube is an icon for several things, and it makes for a nice plush toy, sticker, little drawing, etc.
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PostPosted: Tue Jan 15, 2008 3:05 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Signs versus Symbols:
What is a cube with a heart?
Lemon Curry



ok, so my haiku is 5/7/4


close enough
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Scratchmonkey
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PostPosted: Tue Jan 15, 2008 3:23 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

blah blah blah the 5/7/5 standard doesn't really apply because japanese syllables are different than english syllables so if you're really trying to recreate the rhythm of the form you should use less syllables blah blah blah required linguist response, etc.
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dhex
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PostPosted: Tue Jan 15, 2008 3:30 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Quote:
wouldnt it be neat if we knew exactly what made things successful.


it would.

but this isn't success, really, though it's obviously successful. a lot of iconic stuff isn't, though, at least in outright terms. and a lot of successful stuff isn't iconic.
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Cycle
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PostPosted: Tue Jan 15, 2008 5:24 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I think it's mainly because most people are idiots.
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PostPosted: Tue Jan 15, 2008 5:29 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

sez the guy with the marathon logo avatar.
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PostPosted: Tue Jan 15, 2008 5:31 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

shut up.
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PostPosted: Tue Jan 15, 2008 7:45 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

wrote:

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Harveyjames
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PostPosted: Wed Jan 16, 2008 2:19 am    Post subject: Re: what makes something iconic? Reply with quote

dhex wrote:
ifar outstrips the amount of time most people spent playing portal.


You know what? I think that's it right there. People liked it so much but they've still got a lot of energy to expend. The game's over so quickly. It's a bit like my chewing-gum monument to Kylie Minogue- if I saw Kylie Minogue all the time I wouldn't really feel the need to make the monument, but because she's so untouchable, our contact with her so fleeting, we want to make her a bigger part of our life than she is and that manifests itself in fan-made projects.
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PostPosted: Wed Jan 16, 2008 2:22 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

i dated a girl who liked just like kylie minouge once, i think it's the only reason i liked her.
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PostPosted: Wed Jan 16, 2008 8:55 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Before I realized this thread was mostly about Portal having its moment in the geekculture sun, just seeing the title, I thought about what games are most "iconic". The one that comes to mind is the Marioverse. The games have such a rich history to draw on, and having successfully jumped from 2D to 3D w/ Mario 64, the baseline universe continues to grow, like how that Bowser Jr or whatever is running around Mario Galaxies as well, though in some ways it's harder to add to the more complex the games get.
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PostPosted: Wed Jan 16, 2008 9:03 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

i'd rather it be about icons than portal, really. or iconoclastic countermovements, for that matter.
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PostPosted: Wed Jan 16, 2008 9:08 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Cycle wrote:
i dated a girl who liked just like kylie minouge once, i think it's the only reason i liked her.

I would not be able to pick Kylie Minouge out of a police line up of attractive women.

That would be a nice police lineup, though.
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Harveyjames
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PostPosted: Wed Jan 16, 2008 11:43 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Well, Mickey Mouse became an iconic figure in the 30s even though there were several characters doing the rounds practically identical to him, some of which predated him (Oswald, Foxy, Bosco [kinda], Felix the Cat). So we can rule out his design as the reason for his iconic status. Rather, I'd say it's because he was the first cartoon character to do sound, or at least to do it well. Is Super Mario iconic because of his design (maybe! Like mickey Mouse, he's designed mainly out of necessity, which is normally a good thing) or is it because he was the first character to star in a good platform game, pretty much, and then the first character to star in a good 3D platform game?

So iconic status is achieved by starring in something fresh, new and instantly popular, and having a visual design born mainly out of necessity. That's my current hypothesis.

Wait, fuck it, the Gibson Flying V guitar is kind of a form over function thing, so scrap that.

First we should define 'iconic'.
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PostPosted: Wed Jan 16, 2008 12:19 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

iconic - relating to an important or enduring symbol.
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PostPosted: Wed Jan 16, 2008 12:55 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

dhex wrote:
i'd rather it be about icons than portal, really. or iconoclastic countermovements, for that matter.


More often than iconoclastic countermovements (oy) you're more likely to see camp-ish reclaiming of things rejected by the main stream. Like the giant horned rim glasses of hipsterwear.

Getting back to games, it's funny to kind of see but not really feel how for some in a younger generation Sonic has a cultural cachet equal or greater than that of Mario, thanks in part to the extra-game reprentations, the comic books and cartoons. (Mario had some of that, but somehow I'm not convinced its as important to him being what he is as it was for Sonic.) To the young30-somethings like me, Sonic is always a johnny-come-lately, a character who only manages to transcend that era's "Totally RAD and EXTREME!" goofiness by being in a very good game that actually put the "Extreme"ness to excellent use, much faster and kinetic than its competition.

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Quote:
So iconic status is achieved by starring in something fresh, new and instantly popular, and having a visual design born mainly out of necessity. That's my current hypothesis.

Sonic fits some of this very well... though less design "necessity" (2D designers had a lot of flexibilty at that point) but nicely in line with the speed motif, which kind of was a necessity. Sometimes being cool is a necessity too, like the Gibson Flying V.
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