[crazygringo]

> being personally invested in corporate branding has got to be the saddest

I think you misunderstand.

It's about growing up, going to a restaurant with your grandparents, it becomes a kind of comfort and home. It's not just branding, it's the entire experience, of which the logo serves as a central symbol. What you see from the highway, what you see when you arrive.

And then the company is taking away something you love. When you go back, it's not the same. They were completely changing the interiors too. It wasn't where you went with grandma and grandpa anymore. They did a total 180° on it's atmosphere and personality.

From that perspective, can you find more empathy for people's emotional connections to a place and its symbols?

[rbanffy]

What you describe is being attached to a parasocial relationship with a brand.

What the company took away from you was never yours to begin with.

[crazygringo]

That makes as much sense as saying someone has a parasocial relationship with a park, or a house, or a beach.

What a strange thing to say. You think there's something "parasocial" about memories of a place with your family? I think you may need to examine whether you're using that term correctly.

And, well, nothing was "ever yours to begin with". That doesn't stop people from acting collectively to try to preserve the things they like. Nor should it.

Your worldview seems strangely sterile and passive, like you don't seem to understand the very basic idea of emotional connection with shared places, or of trying to influence things you don't "own".