Thursday, December 09, 2004

This blows

So, Jacksonville is hosting SuperBowl XXXIX and someone came up with the idea that we need a new slogan to go with all the exposure, which I don't have a problem with, since our official slogan "Bold New City of the South" not only sucks, but is also dated, andother nicknames like "River City" and "Florida's First Coast" aren't so great either. But to spend $91,000 and come up with "Jacksonville. Where Florida Begins" is kind of a joke, as far as I'm concerned.

One of the problems with Jacksonville's identity, I think, is that a lot of people simply don't know where it is, and this new sloganwon't help with that, since it isn't even true. There is an entire county tothe North of us, an entire state both to the West and South, and even to the East where it is the most true (to those people arriving to Florida by boat, I guess), there is either Ponte Vedra Beach, Jacksonville Beach, Neptune Beach, or Atlantic Beach before you actually get to Jacksonville, which are all their own cities, even if they are small. Technically, I guess we are the first large city in Florida when coming from the North, so I guess that's the thinking behind it.

But the other problem I have is, what the hell does it say? Where Florida begins.....so fucking what??? First of all, I'm not sure we should be all that proud of Florida at this point, especially with everything that happened in the 2000 election, but also, even if Florida is the best state in the world, where it begins means what exactly? Congratulations on our...geographical signifigance, I guess.

Now, I'm not the most creative person in the world, so I can't really say I could come up with something great, but give me $91,000 and I could find someone who can. To me, our slogan should say something about our city, more than just where we are located, which doesn't mean a damn thing. The city is spending a lot of money improving a lot of things including a lot of road work, new Arena, new Baseball Field, Library, Courthouse, things like that, or the SuperBowl and beyond. Our slogan should reflect that somehow. It has also grown quite a bit in the last several years and that is something that should be expressed. But I guess it's possible that these things were considered and the perfect slogan was found, but rejected, because our Mayor is an idiot. My idea would be "Jacksonville, it doesn't suck as bad as the slogan does"

Posted by

2 comments:

Melissa McEwan said...

How about "Jacksonville: Closer to a Blue State than Most of the Rest of Florida"?

John Howard said...

Yeah, I kinda like that one.