Monday, May 12, 2008

When you care enough to send the very best DNA

Yesterday was Mother's Day, and while searching for a card I spied what looked like a double helix on the front of one card. Finding this odd, I checked the card in detail -- and indeed it was DNA!

DNA is clearly in the public consciousness -- years of Law & Order and CSI have ensured that, but I found it striking that the image of a double helix is deemed recognizable by as mainstream & middlebrow a company as Hallmark.

A nice twist is the card actually bore a message along the lines of 'even though you didn't give me any DNA...' -- a card for mother figures, not birth mothers. So this isn't a sign of rampant DNA deterministic thinking, but rather the imprint of DNA on the public (or at least corporate) mind

2 comments:

  1. Keith,
    Now you have to buy and scan the card so we can see it. Hallmark's brand is warm and comforting.....Do you feel that way about DNA? I sure do ;)

    -Steve
    www.thegenesherpa.blogspot.com

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  2. Nuts! I should have snapped it with the cell phone in the store (or picked it up) -- by the time I get back to a store they will have cleared out all those cards

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