this post was submitted on 05 Dec 2023
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Showerthoughts

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A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. A showerthought should offer a unique perspective on an ordinary part of life.

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The fact that there's a lady out there named Stephanie who insisted the whole world call her Lady Gaga and we're all just like, "okay." (lemmy.world)
submitted 11 months ago by LemmyKnowsBest@lemmy.world to c/showerthoughts@lemmy.world
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[–] TheQuietCroc@lemmy.world 99 points 11 months ago (3 children)

Prince literally wanted us to call him a symbol with no explanation.

[–] LemmyKnowsBest@lemmy.world 85 points 11 months ago (3 children)

It took me years until I finally learned why he did that. It had something to do with the music industry owning his name. He reclaimed ownership of all his music and art and made a departure from the extortionate music industry.

[–] TeaHands@lemmy.world 23 points 11 months ago (3 children)

Could've picked something easier to pronounce, though.

[–] deegeese@sopuli.xyz 57 points 11 months ago (1 children)

It was actually brilliant. Got everyone talking about him without really giving up ‘Prince’ in the public consciousness.

[–] chepox@sopuli.xyz 15 points 11 months ago

Never thought of it that way but yeah. Gave up his name without actually giving it up. Brilliant. That guy was savy as fuck. Also a genius.

[–] Test_Tickles@lemmynsfw.com 14 points 11 months ago (1 children)

He chose an unpronouncable symbol because it allowed him to break his recording contract.

[–] TeaHands@lemmy.world 8 points 11 months ago

I seeee! Never heard the finer details of that whole thing (I was young and not super into his stuff anyway). Smart guy though by the sounds of it!

[–] Rin@lemm.ee 8 points 11 months ago

I asked GPT why:

In the early 1990s, Prince was embroiled in a contractual dispute with Warner Bros., his record company. He felt they were restraining his creativity by not allowing him to release albums as frequently as he desired. In 1993, in an act of rebellion, he changed his name to an unpronounceable symbol, which was a combination of the male and female gender symbols, in order to free himself from his contract obligations to Warner Bros. Since the symbol had no pronunciation, he was often referred to as "The Artist Formerly Known as Prince" during that period. He returned to using the name Prince in 2000, after his publishing contract with Warner Bros. expired.

[–] A_A@lemmy.world 15 points 11 months ago (1 children)

The unpronounceable symbol :

Hollow circle above downward arrow crossed with a curlicued horn-shaped symbol and then a short bar

(known to fans as the "Love Symbol")

[–] kamenlady@lemmy.world 2 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

I'm in awe of the outstanding quality of the symbols pic

[–] A_A@lemmy.world 2 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

24 x 28 pixels, 320 bytes, from Wikipedia...
Prince_logo.svg.webp
... if it really was SVG format it would be much greater quality.

[–] kamenlady@lemmy.world 2 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

They may have made the classic "let's batch-optimize all images for the web" or maybe using a CDN provider, either with wrong settings.

Yeah SVG would make it almost endlessly scalable.

[–] A_A@lemmy.world 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)
[–] kamenlady@lemmy.world 2 points 11 months ago

Nice - i also found lots of prince wikis, but not the svg

I know now what to hear tonight, perfect

[–] someguy3@lemmy.ca 4 points 11 months ago

Maybe you know, did he want to be called "the artist"? And then everyone added "formerly known as Prince"?