History Main / TradeSnark

A humorous way to make Things[[SelfDemonstratingArticle ™]] stand out is to add Random UsefulNotes/{{Trademark}} Symbols® everywhere. May be used as a Social Commentary® on our increasingly homogenized, commercialized World®, but more often than not, done just because of the RuleOfFunny™. They can also be used to point out how Cliche™ something is, or employed in SarcasmMode (perhaps in conjunction with ScareQuotes) to passive-aggressively imply that something exists only as a Concept™; for example, some people refer to global warming as "Global Warming™". Another sarcastic variation is to sprinkle Trade Snark over [[StrawmanFallacy your paraphrase of an opponent's position]] to imply that he's using the term in question as [[ConceptsAreCheap a meaningless buzzword®]].

* Done almost gratuitously throughout ''Webcomic/{{Sonichu}}''.

[[folder:Web Comics™]]

* Leftist YouTuber Mexie put out a video called [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oY_Dt1jey4M "Why I'm No Longer Vegan™"]], with the titular "Vegan™" referring to what she sees as a culture of myopic purity testing rather than pragmatism within the vegan community, but simultaneously parodying the common title of ex-vegan declaration videos.

[[caption-width-right:204:[-Well, to be fair, the Brand Name™ should have clued You[[labelnote:©]]"You" copyright your parents [[TropeName year of your birth–year of later parent's death+70]][[/labelnote]] in.-] ]]

* ''Fanfic/PartRightHalfWrongAThirdCrazy'', an ''Webcomic/AxisPowersHetalia'' fanfic, brings us "Epic, life-altering journey®".

And of course, it's always fun to have characters with MediumAwareness™ compliment others on their expert use of the "™," especially if the symbol appears on the word as written but not the word as spoken.

* In [[{{Woolseyism}} the English version]] of ''VideoGame/PaperMarioColorSplash'', the minigame Snifit of Whiffit is apparently trademarked in-universe, as revealed in a note found in a chest in Fortune Island. The English version of ''VideoGame/PaperMarioTheOrigamiKing'' has an even more blatant example, as Mario "agrees" to the terms and conditions of a "Not-a-Lease Lease™" by obtaining the Boot Car and its whistle and is specifically told that there's "no need to read or understand the details" of it.

-->-- '''Creator/RogerEbert's''' [[http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19950630/REVIEWS/506300304/1023 review]] of ''[[Film/MightyMorphinPowerRangers Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers: The Movie]]''

->''"Paging through the movie's press kit, I came across this quote attributed to Amy Jo Johnson, who plays Kimberly, the Pink Power Ranger: "''Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie''™ is a mix between ''Star Wars'' and ''The Wizard of Oz''." I wonder if Amy Jo actually said "TM"..."''

->''"Paging through the movie's press kit, I came across this quote attributed to Amy Jo Johnson, who plays Kimberly, the Pink Power Ranger: "''Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie''™ is a mix between ''Star Wars'' and ''The Wizard of Oz''." I wonder if Amy Jo actually said "TM" when she was delivering that wonderfully fresh and spontaneous quote, which is so much more involved than anything she says in the movie."''

For added Spice™, try adding Registered Trademark® and Copyright© Symbols®&copzy;™. (This is not actually How Copyright Works™.)

* After taking over Fox News' "Fair And Balanced" slogan for his own show, ''WebVideo/SomeMoreNews'', anytime Cody now mentions this slogan, he will randomly add TM and CR after.

[[folder:Real Life™]]
* "The expression 'Literature/BreakfastOfChampions' is a registered trademark of UsefulNotes/GeneralMills, Inc. for use on a breakfast cereal product. The use of the identical expression as the title for Creator/KurtVonnegut's book is not intended to indicate an association with or sponsorship by General Mills, nor is it intended to disparage their fine products." In this case, this note wasn't needed since trademarks are limited in the type of products they can apply to. While the limits can be vaguely defined, no court would consider this an infringement. However, both companies most likely settled an arrangement just in case (as seen commonly in copyright with fair use cases), which probably included adding that notice to the book.
* In a dismaying example from RealLife, [[Series/BarneyAndFriends Barney's]] catchphrase. And the names of his friends. ''Super-dee-Duper™, Baby Bop™!''
* There's similarly a trademark on [[WesternAnimation/TheFlintstones "Yabba-Dabba-Doo™"]]. This was especially noticeable in Taito's NES games based on the series, where it's not just labeled with a ™ in-game, it's labeled with a ™ ''on the HUD''.
* Back when UsefulNotes/{{UNIX}} was first released as a commercial product in 1983, AT&T started insisting that people refer to it as "the UNIX(tm) Operating System" or something similar to that. People on Website/{{Usenet}} almost immediately started referring to the OS as "UN*X" as a subtle TakeThat, and there was even one BSD-based product called [[SdrawkcabName "MT XINU"]] whose advertising included such things as a BSD-powered [[StarWars X-Wing]] rocketing away from [[DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything an AT&T logo wreathed in flames.]] This became less popular after AT&T sold off the UNIX group in the mid-1990s.
** Ironically, during the late 1990s, the OpenSource Unix clone Linux ran into trademark trouble when a random troll named William Della Croce secured the trademark and attempted to shake down the community for usage rights. Della Croce disappeared back into the woodwork when the trademark was revoked and reassigned to Linus Torvalds himself. Around the same time, some people on Usenet and web forums started replacing "UN*X" with "*n?x", a [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glob_(programming) filename pattern]] that matches both "Unix" and "Linux".
** Thanks to a lot of software cross-compatibility, operating systems like Linux, BSD forks, and Mac's Mach/BSD kernel have become known as "*NIX" platforms.
** AT&T was so notorious for this that more than one paper included (in the page one footnotes on trademarks) a statement like "and UNIX, although not mentioned in this paper, is a registered trademark of AT&T."
* Another Creator/RogerEbert [[http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090623/REVIEWS/906239997 example]], from his review of ''Film/TransformersRevengeOfTheFallen'': "The dialog of the Autobots®, Decepticons® and Otherbots® is meaningless word flap."
* Numerous A-list porn stars have their names (or, more accurately, their stage names) trademarked. This is disconcerting enough, but particularly weird in the case of alt-porn star Stoya, whose stage name is no more than a clipped form of her real last name.
* Tell him that's silly to Creator/HarlanEllison, who actually ''did'' register his name as a trademark.
* Real estate agents in the National Association of Realtors must be called [[AC:REALTORS]]®. Yes, with all caps. It is an infringement to call any non-member "a realtor", regardless of what they do or sell.
* The word spam only refers to unsolicited emails. In order for it to be the canned meat product, it must be [[http://www.spam.com/about/internet.aspx SPAM®.]]
* Remember: This image has been [[http://www.adobe.com/aboutadobe/pressroom/pressmaterials/pdfs/photoshop_guidelines_pr.pdf manipulated by Adobe® Photoshop® software]].
* The name-licensing of major international sports events is usually ruthlessly enforced:
** ''Any'' reference to UsefulNotes/TheWorldCup on Creator/{{ESPN}} is written as "World Cup™". Even on the ticker or lower-thirds, regardless.
** There was a lot of snark over the heavy-handed way the London Organising Commitee for the Olympic Games™ claimed trademark not just of the London Summer Olympics 2012™ but of Summer 2012™ and London 2012™, in any contexts.
** Anyone attempting to tie into UsefulNotes/SuperBowl Weekend (for example, offering pizza specials or sales on party drinks and snacks) without a license will feel the wrath of the NFL. They even tried unsuccessfully to trademark common evasions like "The Big Game", which in that case was already taken by the USC Berkeley/Stanford rivalry game, and "The Big Weekend". The NFL's litigiousness on this point has been parodied by the widespread use of phrases like "The Superb Owl"--which in turn let to ''The Atlantic'' magazine to actually run [[https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2017/02/superb-owl-sunday/515712/ a photo essay on "superb owls"]] on Super Bowl Sundays.

* [[http://www.curtisgotslappedbyawhiteteacher.com/ "Curtis Got Slapped by a White Teacher"]]. Not an example of actual snark, as the document seems to be genuine (though it must be seen to be believed). Ms. Bowen probably intended to ''trademark'' her son's name and her own (as if that weren't strange enough), but she has instead ''copyrighted'' them; this may result from her apparent belief, as stated in the letter's opening paragraph, that one's children are one's "intellectual property". (A perusal of the entire document, however, reveals that a discrepancy in nomenclature is the ''least'' of this woman's problems.)

* Music/{{Beyonce}} and Music/JayZ decided to ''[[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/09/beyonce-jay-z-baby-gwyneth-paltrow_n_1265921.html trademark their baby's name.]]''
* @ your library® is a registered trademark of the American Library Association. "The Campaign for America's Libraries can only be a success if libraries across the country-and across the world-use the trademark consistently [[http://www.ala.org/advocacy/advleg/publicawareness/campaign%40yourlibrary/prtools/downloadlogos/trademark_use_policy in accordance with the following guidelines]]."

* A lot of modern ''Creator/{{Nintendo}}''® game descriptions and instruction manuals are ''chock-full'' of this.
* In 2020, Greta Thunberg announced that she [[https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/30/us/greta-thunberg-trademark-trnd/index.html filed]] to trademark her own name.

* ''VideoGame/TheBattleCats'' features [[StoneWall Eraser Cat]], which according to its description has "Really Good™ Defense". In this case, the Tradesnarked term is [[MadeOfIron completely]] [[GameBreaker accurate]].

* In 2020, Greta Thunberg announced that she [[filed https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/30/us/greta-thunberg-trademark-trnd/index.html]] to trademark her own name.

[[quoteright:204: [[ComicStrip/{{Dilbert}} https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/crashinbox_9508.gif]]]]

A humorous way to make Things[[SelfDemonstratingArticle ™]] stand out is to add Random UsefulNotes/{{Trademark}} Symbols® everywhere. May be used as a Social Commentary® on our increasingly homogenized, commercialized World®, but more often than not, done just because of the RuleOfFunny™. They can also be used to point out how Cliche™ something is, or employed in SarcasmMode (perhaps in conjunction with ScareQuotes)to passive-aggressively imply that something exists only as a Concept™; for example, some people refer to "Global Warming™". Another sarcastic variation is to sprinkle Trade Snark over [[StrawmanFallacy your paraphrase of an opponent's position]] to imply that he's using the term in question as [[ConceptsAreCheap a meaningless buzzword®]].

A humorous way to make Things[[SelfDemonstratingArticle ™]] stand out is to add Random UsefulNotes/{{Trademark}} Symbols® everywhere. May be used as a Social Commentary® on our increasingly homogenized, commercialized World®, but more often than not, done just because of the RuleOfFunny™. They can also be used to point out how Cliche™ something, or employed in SarcasmMode (perhaps in conjunction with ScareQuotes)to passive-aggressively imply that something exists only as a Concept™; for example, some people refer to "Global Warming™". Another sarcastic variation is to sprinkle Trade Snark over [[StrawmanFallacy your paraphrase of an opponent's position]] to imply that he's using the term in question as [[ConceptsAreCheap a meaningless buzzword®]].

A humorous way to make Things[[SelfDemonstratingArticle ™]] stand out is to add Random UsefulNotes/{{Trademark}} Symbols® everywhere. May be used as a Social Commentary® on our increasingly homogenized, commercialized World®, but more often than not, done just because of the RuleOfFunny™. They can also be used in SarcasmMode (perhaps in conjunction with ScareQuotes) to passive-aggressively imply that something exists only as a Concept™; for example, some people refer to "Global Warming™", or point out how Cliche™ something is. Another sarcastic variation is to sprinkle Trade Snark over [[StrawmanFallacy your paraphrase of an opponent's position]] to imply that he's using the term in question as [[ConceptsAreCheap a meaningless buzzword®]].

A humorous way to make Things[[SelfDemonstratingArticle ™]] stand out is to add Random UsefulNotes/{{Trademark}} Symbols® everywhere. May be used as a Social Commentary® on our increasingly homogenized, commercialized World®, but more often than not, done just because of the RuleOfFunny™. They can also be used in SarcasmMode (perhaps in conjunction with ScareQuotes) to passive-aggressively imply that something exists only as a Concept™; for example, some people refer to "Global Warming™". Another sarcastic variation is to sprinkle Trade Snark over [[StrawmanFallacy your paraphrase of an opponent's position]] to imply that he's using the term in question as [[ConceptsAreCheap a meaningless buzzword®]].