HBO... also known as "Home Box Office" to people like me who grew up with it... started as a premium channel that you could add to your cable subscription package for an additional fee. It offered movies, specials, and other stuff at a time before VHS video tapes existed. The concept was hugely successful, and so other premium channels followed... Showtime... Cinemax... The Movie Channel... and more.

Over the years HBO has kept up with the times by having a streaming on-demand channel, which was originally called "HBO Now." They also had a version of this for their cable subscribers called "HBO Go." But, in the end, no matter where you went to consume their content, it was still HBO.

But then everything got rolled together and became "HBO Max."

And then something remarkable happened.

HBO, one of the most recognized brands in existence, decided to call themselves "Max."

I have no idea what dumbfuck came up with the idea to bury such a well-known brand by dropping the actual branding from the brand... but it was one of the stupidest advertising decisions I've ever seen. Companies would kill for the brand recognition that HBO had developed over the past 50+ years. They'd kill for it.

And HBO just threw it away.

When I got back from vacation on Saturday I saw a news story which said that "Max" was going to rebrand as "HBO Max" again, because people didn't seem to know what the fuck "Max" was. Which is why I never referred to it as "Max" ever. I always called it "HBO Max" because that way people actually know what the fuck I'm talking about.

I understand better than most that sometimes difficult decisions have to be made and the people in charge have to bite the bullet and make it for better or worse. But you'd think... you'd really think... that they would at least try to educate themselves about the decisions they make to keep from having a painfully obvious fuck-up. Especially when millions of dollars are at stake. "Brand recognition" is not some abstract concept. And anybody who's in charge of making decisions for a company at such a high level as HBO branding should fucking understand that concept.

But they didn't, and HBO paid the price.

Now they're trying to roll back this laughably catastrophic decision in an attempt to salvage the brand that they tossed in the trash.

Well, good luck with that.

Fortunately for them there were people like me who were ignoring their whole "Max" fiasco and keep the brand alive on their behalf (and I'm not alone... a lot of people and media outlets continued to call it "HBO" long after it had been rebranded). The problem for HBO (or, more accurately, their owner, Warner Bros. Discovery) are people during the past two years who don't know what the fuck "HBO" is because they've ever known the service as "Max."

And don't even get me started on the fifty buckets of stupid that is the name "Warner Bros. Discovery." Jesus. Who the fuck gives a shit about Discovery? Why rename your entire company to add something that has ridiculously poor brand recognition? The channel is still "Discovery" so what the fuck does that have to do with Warner Bros.?!? God... I just... HEY, DUMBASSES, I CAN CONSULT WITH YOUR BRANDING FOR FAR LESS MONEY THAT YOU'RE LOSING WITH ALL THESE SHITTY DECISIONS! CALL ME!