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When I was young, it was quite common for any other child to call me a “banana”. Where I am from, northern Portugal, it is quite common to tell someone they are a banana if you want to offend them.
You are a banana.
Why? Why do we do that? Where did it come from? Why do they call me a banana, and not a pear? Why am I called a banana and not an orange? My intention in this blog post is to try to unravel this mystery, why we call each other bananas; I also want to reveal something that we have only recently discovered.
“What is it,” you ask? Good question. What if I tell you that at Angry Ventures, we are bananas? What if I tell you that a human is not so different from a banana? What if I tell you that there is some kind of magic formula for eating bananas that can help us transform the way we observe, think, and understand?
Let’s go?

First proof – Humans share 50% of their DNA with bananas

As my first piece of evidence, I suggest that we look at a scientific fact. When we don’t want anyone to challenge what we are saying, what do we use as justification? We use the cliché of “It’s scientifically proven,” right? – Also known as “You can’t challenge this because we paid a lab to tell us it was scientifically proven.” That’s what I did. The scientific fact that we bring as the first proof is that it has been discovered that humans share more than 50% of their DNA with bananas. Many of the “regulatory” genes that are needed for basic cellular functions such as replicating DNA, controlling the cell cycle, and helping cells divide are shared among many plants (including bananas) and animals. The first piece of evidence may bring assertiveness and credibility to the content of my blog post that says we are indeed bananas, right? No. I believe that our minds still have a hard time believing that we are similar to bananas. We need more proof.

Second Proof – The Banana Principle

I suggest we start looking at the second proof through a video we discovered online, by Anne Warfield, about the science behind the action of eating a banana.

What Anne Warfield presents in her video is the question of why we open the banana the way we do.
As Anne stated, I would say that a large portion of people open the banana from this side:

Why?
As she points out, by repetition. By imitation. We always observe other people opening the banana this way, and we copy. We get this teaching by imitation. But what if there was another way to peel the banana – would you like to learn about it? I learned.

What if, in fact, everything we do is done by imitation? All our habits – learned through the people around us. What if there is a different way of doing things? Shouldn’t we have the skills and talents to question them all the time? I would say, more than the core business where Angry Ventures is – what really is the essence of the organization is the ability to put things into question. So as my second piece of evidence I would suggest that we have been programmed with a set of beliefs and we model our lives according to what we see by imitating it. The same thing happens with bananas. Everyone, from the outside in, tries to shape the banana we are by trying to “make us open” the wrong way. Do we have another way to “open ourselves up”? That is what I will try to suggest with the last and final proof.

Third Proof – At Angry Ventures, we are bananas

No, we were not the ones who produced the spectacular Chiquita campaign:

Some campaign actions, spread across London in 2018:

What I want to show with this proof is that – to begin with – at Angry Ventures, the first type of fruit that gets sold out is always bananas.

How about in your home? In your office? Think about it. There is a high probability that the first type of fruit that runs out is bananas.
We start thinking about this as the Banana Principle of Angry: bananas always go first, oranges last.
It’s not because of the fruit itself. A psychologist might say it’s because of human nature; a designer might say it’s because of usability.
And in this way, we come to the conclusion that at Angry Ventures, we are bananas. Why? Like Bananas, we always go first.
Why this blog post? Eventually, because you got a banana – and you still don’t understand why. So there you have it. Just to say that at Angry Ventures, we always go first.

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