You Say You Want a Pretty Revolution

Explainer has a good take on the rose/orange/jasmine revolutions.  While these social movements (not yet social transformations/revolutions) may not spread from one place to the next, their marketing strategies do.  Using a flower/color to make the movement appear to be the equivalent of a previous successful and widely supported revolution makes sense.  After all, even insurgents need to "Market Rebellion" as Clifford Bob wrote an interesting book about how groups try to appeal to Amnesty, Greenpeace and others who serve as "credit bureaus" for the community of non-governmental aid agencies. 

So, the marketing strategy of the 21st century is to name your movement after a flower or color.  It does not make the movement democratic or successful, but given that we still add -gate to any scandal, it does make sense for dissenters to use a kind of label that outsiders are likely to pick up. 

Of course, it leads to all kinds of questions: who will have the "puke green" revolution?   Mauve?  Magenta? Fuchsia?  Banana?  Daisy? I guess there are nearly infinite names for colors and fruits and flowers.  I am sure that there will be dissertations to figure out why certain colors/fruits/flowers are chosen and others are not.  Are certain colors/tones associated with specific outcomes?