I’ll be heading over to America later in the year so it feels like as good a time as any to brush up on some American culture. And what could possibly be better then than – pink flamingos!
You may have thought infrequently (never…) about them before. So here’s some pointers:
1. Pink flamingos (the garden lawn type) were invented by Donald Featherstone in 1957. They soon became cultural icons of the US. As Featherstone stated, “We sold tropical elegance in a box for less than $10”.
2. The powerful assumptions that accompany the ubiquitous flamingos have been put to good use. On occasion, people have been subjected to ‘flocking’ – a form of bullying to encourage the target to ‘voluntatily’ donate to a charity when he or she wakes up to find flamingos all over their lawn. Although interestingly, such a tactic clearly only works when the target is someone who would be clearly embarrassed by an infestation of such visible tackiness on their homestead…
3. Bonus fact: Donald Featherstone and his wife Nancy wore exactly the same outfit/clothes design for over 35 years..