• DerArzt@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    I never understood this one. Why is the Red Cross so annoyed about videogames depicting the red cross to mean health?

    • renegadesporkA
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      2 days ago

      I think they were worried about their branding being associated with violence. In the 90s, there was a ton of anti-video game propaganda branding it as violent garbage that was corrupting our children.

      Ironically, video games are very good at conditioning human responses to iconography. So despite the Red Cross’ hostility, video games still succeeded in conditioning a lot of people to instantly associate plus signs (any color) with health.

    • Kimmie@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      i think it has to do with trademarking law
      if enough people use is to mean other stuff they can lose their trademark

      edit: i looked it up and its called genericize