• Hildegard (she/her)@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    1 month ago

    This was from the cool time when companies used their money to make things even if they’re only tangentially related to their business. The mickelin guide and the gennis book of records are cut from the same cloth.

    Now companies just spend money on stock buybacks and other financial chicanery.

      • Phanlix@lemmy.zip
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        1 month ago

        He’s talking positively about major corporations, are you really surprised at the spelling and grammar?

        • DaPorkchop_ [any]@lemmy.ml
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          1 month ago

          i see what you’re getting at, however along the same vein this seems like a good time to point out that it literally says in her name that she’s not a he :P

          • Phanlix@lemmy.zip
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            1 month ago

            Missed the pronouns, I guess my bad for misgendering. I’m a child of the 90s, male, female, or whatever spectrum you fall on, it’s still largely dude and bro in my vernacular. I’ll still support you playing sports, and whatever else it is you crazy kids do that you think will make you happy. Just don’t expect me to personally participate or pretend to give a shit about pronouns.

  • insanemantis@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    Michelin is the exact opposite of AMC

    You expect AMC theaters and the AMC channel to be the same thing

    They’re not

  • jello@programming.dev
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    1 month ago

    Does it actually make money for them somehow? Or does it just keep their name in the public’s collective mind?

    • marcos@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      It helped them sell more tires, it associated the tires name with higher quality, it made money by itself, and it pushed the mascot into an icon capable of making money by itself.

      All for something that sounds like a dr. Doofenshmittz plan.

    • atomicbocks@sh.itjust.works
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      1 month ago

      You have to remember that Michelin is a French company, so the Michelin star guide was originally about getting the French public to drive to French restaurants.

    • Plastic_Ramses@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      The state/county/province/whatever pays several million dollars for the guide to judge its restaurants.

      Its a very valuable tourism and service industry development tool.

        • Sturgist@piefed.ca
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          1 month ago

          I have both accidentally eaten at a Starred restaurant and unintentionally bought their tires. Happened to eat at a restaurant around the corner from a hotel in Spain that was Starred and only found out after. And got the garage to put new tires on and asked for the not totally cheapest but affordable and got their All Seasons.

        • Damage@feddit.it
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          1 month ago

          Michelin tires are fine, I bought many of them because my favourite tire place sells a shitton of heavy truck tires from them so they have great discounts. And I’ve eaten at a starred restaurant because it was my friends’. Haven’t loved the latter tho.

        • piccolo@sh.itjust.works
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          1 month ago

          Meanwhile the Michelin OEM tires on my car were the worse tires i ever had. Didnt last 20k miles and they didnt have much grip on dry pavement from day one.

    • ceenote@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      I would think it would be really hard for them to tell if it’s working or not, but at this point the restaurant ratings are kind of their own institution and there would probably be a backlash if they shut it down.

    • Akasazh@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      The cost of eating in the finest establishments in the world, together with hotels, air-fare and double blind secrecy makes that it’s a net money sink.

  • raspirate@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    I was so confused when I realized that the restaurant thing is the same as the tire company. I’d assumed my whole life that it was just random that both happened to be associated with the same name. Honestly it still doesn’t make much sense to me.

    • MrShankles@reddthat.com
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      1 month ago

      It’s ok, I was today years old when I learned about this. Also about the Guinness World Records. “Wtf ever” is how I’m handling it

    • Phanlix@lemmy.zip
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      1 month ago

      Saying the Pledge of Allegiance during school was a tradition that was invented by a company which made American flags, they did it as a sales tactic.

      America doesn’t really have a culture it just has capitalism.

      • AliOski@feddit.nl
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        1 month ago

        The reason was literally so they could have some interesting facts for customers to talk about at the “pub” 😭

        • Buddahriffic@lemmy.world
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          1 month ago

          Lol, I gotta admit that there’s something adorable about that approach to capitalism. Like they are actually adding some value in their attempt to attract sales (both this and the Michelin star system), unlike these days where it’s more of a race to the bottom and someone doing something shitty to their product is an excuse for their competition (or “competition”) to do the same rather than a chance to capitalize on having a product without that shitty aspect (or both, brag about being better while they develop the version that isn’t better and then never mention it again).

          I’ve only been to one Michelin star restaurant, but it was easily one of the best meals I’ve ever had and I only ever knew about it because I decided I wanted to see if there was anything to the fuss about those stars. Though ymmv as a friend of mine who has been to a lot more of them says they can be hit or miss; better than average on average but can still have bad days.

          • Captain Aggravated@sh.itjust.works
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            1 month ago

            It is my understanding that the Guinness Book Of World Records was started because of a discussion/argument in a pub that had no resolution, a couple of blimey blokes fussing about what’s the longest bridge in the world or something, so publishing a book of world records would allow that kind of thing to be settled. It then became a marketing gimmick; people start mentioning Guinness in contexts they never would otherwise. The book itself has been a sales phenomenon, and then they started selling the records themselves.

            So…Guinness sells the service of awarding a world record, sometimes at exorbitant prices, and often to brutal dictators. The likes of North Korea, Qatar etc. are fond of these. Kim Sick Fuck will order 90,000 people to dance at gunpoint and Guinness will send a white chick in a stuffy blue skirt suit with a framed certificate, for tens of thousands of euro, to certify it as World’s Largest Interpretive Dance.

            I wonder if they make more money doing that or selling Bud Dark?

            Edit to add, off the top of my head I can think of the Guinness World Record book being mentioned offhand in media as diverse as Happy Days, The Brady Bunch, House and The Abyss, among others.

      • ZILtoid1991@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        French-style cooking is quite infamous of “entrying” other cultures. Hungarian here, people often try to minimize seasoning in the food they cook, because they saw some French star chef on TV doing things that way, often they’re going even further. I.e. instead of replacing bouillon cubes with soup stock, they just use tap water, jet still claim it’s more “luxurious cooking” that way.

        • Phanlix@lemmy.zip
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          1 month ago

          That’s not it at all. Look, I know it’s easy to place the blame on those cheese eating surrender monkeys, but this one is on human nature.

          Multiple scientific studies done by the big food corps have shown, consistently, that the majority of people in the world prefer blander food.

          You may not personally, but multiple double blind studies have shown that the average Joe prefers blandness, and bland unspiced food tends to sell better than the opposite.

          • Datz@szmer.info
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            1 month ago

            I think there’s some context missing here, otherwise cooked unsalted chicken would be a common treat (it’s not). Do you mean it more like “1 or 2 spices is better than 5?”

            • Phanlix@lemmy.zip
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              1 month ago

              Know how McD’s they have both a real egg vs the flat yellow thin precooked one? In a blind taste test most people prefer the flat one because it’s less ‘eggy’. I mean strong spices, most people prefer blandness, at least in the US.

  • Masuta@thelemmy.club
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    1 month ago

    To be fair , the restaurant reviewed need to be decent at serving their menu at minimum in order for this to work.

  • Dolphinfucker420@sh.itjust.works
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    1 month ago

    Fun fact, the michelin man gets his shape from the way rubber looks when the sap is drying on a (probably congolese) rubber worker’s arm. They would wrap it around their wrist and push it up the arm where it would scrunch up into rolls like the michelin man has.