D Mascot

[kris]

Knud Sørensen wrote:
> I think we should have a D-Dolphin ;-)
> 
> On Wed, 22 Mar 2006 01:04:42 +0800, Wang Zhen wrote:
> 
> 
>>Kyle Furlong wrote:
>>
>>>Does anyone else think that D-man needs to retire? I think some cute 
>>>animal or other recognizable mascot would suit better.
>>
>>I once made a D-dog for D last year (http://shfls.org/w/d/ddog.png). 
>>Walter replied with exactly the same question -- "What's wrong with D-man?"
>>
>>Come to think about it, why do we need a mascot for a programming 
>>language in the first place? When did the lack of a mascot hinder the 
>>growth of C or C++?

I don't know if others share this observation, but does it seem like the 
whole "mascot" thing is particularly American? Seems quite prevalent in 
sports and so on. You'd rarely see such a thing in Europe, for example. 
And perhaps it's just me who finds it vaguely amusing to imagine some 
sort of giant wobbly Chicken|Goofy|BigBird thing prancing about on 
behalf of Australian or Kiwi Rugby teams?

There's definately a "team" element associated with mascots, which I 
suppose is reflected in the corporate arena by a marketing logo? Seems 
like it all comes down to branding? If so, then the D-dude is perhaps a 
bit "back of the napkin" type of thing, from a branding perspective? I 
hate to say it, but D-dude doesn't add anything at all in terms of 
"professionalism" ~ to D as a product. Perhaps the contrary, actually. 
For me, D-dude has always had a waft of, umm, shallow hubris? But then I 
just ignore brandings anyway.

I guess it comes down to which audience the /Branding/ for D is intended 
to help seduce