There’s a blue emergency call tower halfway along a walking trail I frequent each week.

If you’re being attacked or having a heart attack, you smack a button on it, and it immediately calls emergency services and shares your location with them so they can find you—fast.

When I walked by it the other day, I noticed they’d added something new to it. It was a big sign, probably a square foot in size.

And on the sign, printed in big block letters, were the words, “Proudly made in the USA!”

I thought about that sign for the rest of my walk. I just kept thinking, “Who was that for? What was the purpose of that new sign?”

I don’t think it’s for the person in trouble. If you’re being chased by an axe murderer, would you check the tower for a “Made in China” stamp before you pressed the button?

I doubt it.

And if it were manufactured somewhere else, would that really deter you? Oh geez. Made in China?! Gross. I’d rather this guy just kill me than press the button.

It’s not marketing. No one who sees it has any need (or ability) to buy one and stick it in their front yard, so where it’s made doesn’t factor into a buying decision.

Is it supposed to inspire confidence in people like me who walk past it every day? I already know most things aren’t manufactured here, and they typically work just fine.¹

The only answer that seems to fit is that it’s for the people who installed it.

It’s a flag. It’s performative patriotism—not for any user of the tower, but for whoever approved the purchase, or whoever installed it. It’s a tribal signal. To paraphrase Seth Godin: “People like us install things like this.”

The sign isn’t communicating with us. It’s communicating about someone else.

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1. In fact, I’ve had such horrible experiences with American-made brands (see: any American car) that it might actually be triggering the opposite effect the sign intended. Now I’m thinking, “Man… Would that thing actually work in an emergency?” ↩︎