For the last five years there has been a movement reclaiming typically male gadgets or activities by using one very distinctive color: pink. Sure, it started when we were little, with pink socks and sneakers, and pink balls and bats, but as you may have learned from analyzing Faith’s pink ribbons in “Young Goodman Brown,” pink’s not a color for kids anymore.

There’s been a small burst of internet buzz about a gun shop in Wisconsin, which advertises custom paint jobs, especially pink. The shop, Jim’s Gun Supply, paints whatever the customer wants: it even put “Hello Kitty” on a pink assault rifle for one lucky customer. (via)

Even if a gun isn’t your speed, you can get yourself a set of pink tools. As one pink-tool-owning friend mentioned, it keeps guys from forgetting to return your tools when they borrow them! (I notice there’s even a pink Leatherman!)

But has pink has gone from reclamation to sales gimmick? A recent explosion of pink phones, pink gps devices, and pink laptops suggest so. As Vicky Frost pointed out in an article for The Guardian:

It is tempting to be grateful for small mercies - at least manufacturers have realised that women buy technology too (although it is obviously to their benefit to do so). Then the full horror hits you.

I tried searching for the “Fly Pink” airline that was supposed to take off last summer with trips between Liverpool, UK, and Paris, France, but they may have already come and gone. It boasted fuschia jets, pink champagne, and pre-flight manicures.

I don’t own very many pink gimmicked items (I prefer red, haha) but I am forced to admit there is a draw to some of them (particularly the tool set — I want one for the car). What’s the oddest “pink gimmick” item you’ve ever seen?