So I was reading about the Ukrainian dude who got assassinated and the article mentioned he was about to get into his car, a black Mercedes-Benz.
You never read about anyone calling the police with their blue iPhone.
Or a description of a suspect wearing a red banana republic t-shirt.
Or that a young man was stabbed with a green santoku knife from Victorinox.
It’s like free advertising.
a black Mercedes-Benz.
This example is just the make, no model.
it seems to be the first element of an identification
- black Mercedes (any other recognizable marks on it?)
- number of people in it
- license plate (if you were able to read and memorize it)
most brands are recognizable for many people (designs were even more brand specific in the past)
while a red T-shirt is a red T-shirt, a red Mercedes isn’t a red Renault
I mean yes if we’re actively looking for a suspect in a red Renault Clio. But in this case the dude is dead, whether his car is a Mercedes or a BMW is a ridiculously useless piece of information for an article to give.
I don’t feel the cars brand is always mentioned, but definitely more then other products like brand of jeans a thief wore or operating system a scammer used. I’m inclined to say low-effort news outlets would be more likely to fill their article with any information as long as it ends up as a decent length article, but might be a false assumption.
I feels like you read too much into this. The best descriptor is usually the getaway vehicle and the easiest, unchangeable feature(giant tattoo, birthmark, etc) because those thing cannot be changed in just a few second, and what the public will have easier time to identify. What phone people calling the police with is super irrelevant, and they’re not gonna have extra obscure detail described that the public won’t know, it just gonna confuse people. Everyone know merc, saying “a black merc” will have everyone on a look out.
Hmm… hypersensitivity on your part or motornormativity on their part? I think it could go either way.
