Remember 10 mean tweets about the LA Rams Logo? Let’s revisit them

The LA Rams tried to create a new brand image in 2020. They were on schedule to open the newly constructed SoFi Stadium for fans in the 2020 NFL season.  The team wanted to synchronize the Grand Opening with an entirely new logo, new team colors, new uniforms. In short, a new reason to shop for new merchandise. Only, it didn’t go as well as hoped for.

In my head, the LA Rams’ new logo is (and always will be) an abomination.

The “new & improved” 2020 version is ‘The Logo. I call it this because that’s one of the few things I can call it that are printable. It was leaked to the public at first. Then it was dumped onto the public.  Yes, both terms are also verbs used by persons who are making a trip to the restroom. Both meanings apply.

The public-at-large did not find the new imagery for the team worth waiting for. They were not alone. LA Rams Hall of Fame great running back Eric Dickerson made a pretty damning comment about the new logo. The funny thing is that he was right. Just look at that nose. It DOES look like a penis.

You will forever score points with me, Eric, for trying to convince Rams brass to change it, too. Thank you. But they didn’t listen to you, either. It’s a big club, Eric. They didn’t listen to the ire of the entire LA Rams fan base, either.

But now that a season’s gone by with The Logo appearing all over social media, television, merchandise, etc. I’m finding myself oddly co-existing with The Logo. It’s grown on me (and I want to scream it’s grown on me like toenail fungus, too!) But I seem to have reached a truce with The Logo. It doesn’t seem to be grating on me quite as cringingly as it once did.

Am I softening my stance on The Logo? What with the passage of time and all. Am I beginning to reach a begrudging acceptance of The Logo? Are me and The Logo heading to some sort of detente? Now that a little water’s passed under the bridge. Does time heal all wounds or something like that?

I’m supposed to accept what I cannot change, right? And I can’t change The Logo. It was jammed down LA Rams’ fans throats like the way they make foie gras by shoving a bunch of grain down a duck’s throat until its liver gets all fatty. They even have a name for it – a process known as “gavage.”

Well, Rams ownership “gavaged” the fans.

We’re moving forward with The Logo, they said. Just get used to it.

Follow the money

Was this all just a money thing? Probably. After all, a $5 billion facility named SoFi Stadium sat vacant, unoccupied, and forlorn in 2020. Somebody gotta scramble for every drop in the bucket to keep the bankers happy.

The Rams marketers bilked, bulled, and bamboozled Rams fans. They never really truly cared too much one way or the other about what the public thought about ‘The Logo’.

And, it’s not as if ownership is ever going to back to the previous logo.

It’s just bid-ness, ya know? No hard feelings.

The old Rams logo is Yesterday’s Logo. The Logo is today. Deal with it.

That old iconic logo, that’s a relic now, a thing of the past. Yesterday’s Logo has now been unceremoniously saddled with the handle of “throwback”, and it’s to be stocked on the shelves alongside the throwback jerseys . . . and memorabilia.

Maybe Yesterday’s Logo was not kicked to the dust bin, but you can see it from there.

And so, I questioned what has happened to me. Where is my ire? I needed to refresh my ire, yeah, that’s it. Refresh my ire. But how?

The answer was a simple one. All I needed to do was watch Eric Dickerson’s “Looks like a penis” video. That helped. Ire is now recharging.

Wait, I recall watching a ’10 Mean Tweets’ video about The Logo once upon a time. They were not just mean, they were raw and real. Gimme some of that to energize my ire to full capacity.

Oh, but wait, can I  endure watching LA Rams COO Kevin Demoff reading the tweets aloud AGAIN? I’ll do it because the sight of that guy would be like bonus ire.

And I just gotta say this: If the Rams marketing gurus had held any “focus groups” with actual Rams fans before they unleashed The Logo upon us, then they would have heard the same comments.

So I watched and listened to Demoff read ’em again. One year later, my thoughts:

1. “There’s a Rams’ logo debate? What is it between? Trash and hot garbage?” (Yup. As valid now as it was then.)
2. “If you’re low on toilet paper, don’t worry. You can get it now on NFL shop.” (100%  as real today as then.)
3. “The new LA logo definitely appeals to the younger generation. Since it looks like a f’ing Tide Pod.” (At the time, this was funny, but looking back on it now, it seems dated.)
4. “Rams fans: 2020 can’t get any worse. Rams: Hold my beer” (Still makes me smile)
5. “The new LA Rams logo is the major way of social distancing” (Just reminds me that of all the crappy things which happened in all of our lives in 2020, so did The Logo)
6. “Don’t need you to read them, they’re pretty much everywhere you look.” (I never quite got this. Too deep for me, I guess. Didn’t work then, doesn’t work now)
7. “* * * *” (expletive deleted). (Precisely. Worked then, works now)
8. “Oh I can’t read that one” (bewildered by this then; still bewildered)
9. “This is actually embarrassing. Looks like some freshmen college student in Graphics Design 101 made it in about 6 minutes” (This would be funny, if not for the money that was actually spent on “designing” The Logo)
10. Kevin Demoff is such a ‘douche canoe’. (status quo)

Verdict: I’ve mellowed toward The Logo. I still hate it, but darn it, I seem to hate it less. Which is what Rams ownership knew all along would happen to Rams fans, now didn’t they?

It’s easy to imagine them saying “Give them time. It (The Logo) will grow on them, and eventually, all this hubbub about The Logo will just fall by the wayside.”

Damn it, they were right.