It's a Frap!
So we see the progression from the name, to the prominent name
around the image as the logo, to just the image, larger and larger. The
image alone becomes the icon, and then it can be placed on things like
clothing, toys for children who don't drink coffee, etc. and it makes
sense, it works, because all literal references have been erased, even
to the point that the image itself has become so abstracted that the
original meaning of not only a mermaid, but a two-tailed (two-legged,
with legs wide apart) "siren" who seduces and kills men is lost,
replaced by a vague, brand-differentiated "special" mermaid, with only positive, if ill-defined, qualities, but most of all of the cultural "force" of the original.
The use of acronyms, such as IBM, FBI, IRS, KGB, GOP and so on serves a similar purpose. The letters are still there, but their meaning has long since been lost, for the most part, most people don't
know what they even mean, and so they become mere placeholders for an
abstract idea, the reality of which is free to vary and "float" from one
individual mind to the next, giving it significantly more power.
Memetic Index
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