0
By Erich Vieth on November 06th, 2009
Advertising, the good old-fashioned way
Check out this collection of vintage magazine advertising, for a chuckle.
Category: Consumerism
By Mark Tiedemann on November 03rd, 2009
Fans, Freedom, and Frustration
Over on her blog, Kelley Eskridge has a video of a “Bono Moment” in which you see two distinct types of fans interacting with U2’s lead singer. Check it out and come back here.
Okay, the guy in the t-shirt obviously is carrying on a conversation. he may be being a fan, but he hasn’t lost his mind. The female is being…a groupie, I guess. Though the groupies I’ve met in my time have been a bit more specific about what they wanted and had a better plan on how to get it. In any event, the questions Kelley raises are interesting and relate on so many levels to so many different things. The fan reaction—mindless adulation bordering on deification—looks to me, has always looked to me, like exactly the same kind of nonsense people put into religion. Mindless, utterly uncritical adoration of an image and the set of emotions with which that image is connected in the mind of the adulant. You can see the same thing in politics. To a lesser degree with less public personalities—writers, painters, photographers (I never knew anyone who elevated a photographer to the level of sex god, but I have known people who got off on sleeping with painters, and of course there’s a kind of Nabokovian/Bellow/DeLillo-esque subculture of writer groupies…) and other creative types—but actors and musicians seem to get all the dedicated obsessives.
I’ve never had this happen to me. I’m not sure if I’m grateful or resentful—having somebody want to associate themselves with you in a mindless swoon because your work has made them, I don’t know, climax maybe is on a certain level appealing. But it’s appealing the same way porn is—something most people, if they’re at all sane and grounded, kind of grow out of and get over. I know I would not find it very attractive now. When I was twenty-five? You betcha. Bring ‘em on.
But if I’d had that then I think I’m fairly sure I would have wearied of it very quickly. I long ago realized that sex, to me, involved the other person—emphasis on Person—and the best sex I ever had included the good conversations before and, especially, after. (There is a point, of course, where you realize that sex is a conversation, of a very particular sort, and takes on a whole new dimension, which one-night-stands, no matter how good they might be, just can’t provide.)
But the real problem with all this is that art is more than just any one thing and the artist is not the art. The two are inextricably linked. Here is a video discussing the question of artist-in-relation-to-muse which I find illuminating. The notion that the talent “arrives” and you act as conduit through which creativity happens is not, as the speaker suggests, a new one, and it’s not one I’m particularly in sympathy with—it all happens in my brain, it’s definitely mine—but I certainly find her analysis of the psychology of following through intriguing and true. Once the muse is finished with you on a given project, you do not continue to exist as though in the grip of the work. There is a person there that pre-figures the work and who will be there after it’s done that has all the needs and wants and sensibilities of a normal human being. To be treated as some kind of transcendence generating machine by people is in some ways disenfranchising. For a writer, if the well from which inspiration and material are drawn is the honesty of human interaction, then the gushing idiot fan robs the writer, for a few minutes at least, of exactly that.
But it also sets the artist up to become a prisoner. A prisoner of other people’s expectations. Those expectations always play a part in anyone’s life, but certain aspects—the most artificial ones—get exaggerated in the instance of fan adoration.
Watch Bono shift from one stance to another when he finally acknowledges the female. No, he doesn’t stop being Bono, but it’s almost as if he says “Oh, it’s time to do this sort of thing now” as he first recognizes her presence and then automatically poses for the camera, with this not-quite-disingenuous smirk. Because he also recognizes that, however silly this person is being, what she’s feeling right then is her’s and to claim it is artificial is wrong. Maybe an artificial set of expectations led her to this point, but now that she’s In The Moment, the emotions are real. If he’d ignored her or told her something snarky in an attempt to snap her out of it, all that would have resulted would have been an ugly moment, a bit of cruelty, and a lot of confusion on the fan’s part.
[more . . . ]
Addictions • American Culture • Art • Communication • Community • Consumerism • Culture • Education • Featured • Meaning of Life • Media • Politics • Psychology Cognition • Religion • Science • Writing • music
By Erich Vieth on September 29th, 2009
History of Thrifty
If you want to study the history of thriftiness (and the lack thereof), check out “Saving Yourself,” an article by Daniel Akst that appears in the Wilson Quarterly. One of the key figures in Akst’s article is Thorstein Veblen:
Thorstein Veblen, the peripatetic Norwegian-American economist (he died in 1929, shortly before the great crash that might have brought him grim satisfaction), is best known today for his theory of conspicuous consumption, which argued that a lot of spending is just a wasteful attempt to impress. In effect, Veblen explained consumerism in terms of status and display, bringing evolutionary ideas to bear on economics and consumer behavior to powerful effect. Reading Veblen is a little like reading Freud or Darwin, albeit on a smaller scale: Do so and you’ll never look at the world in quite the same way again.
As you might imagine, the iconoclastic Veblen took a dim view of all the conspicuous consumption around him, regarding it as a species of giant potlatch in which competitive waste had run amok. You might call Veblen’s the voice of thrift, and it is still heard today from leftist intellectuals who, from their tenured pulpits and Arts and Crafts homes, reliably denounce the spending of others. The truth is that nobody listens to these people, except to submit to their periodic floggings as a kind of penance for sins we have no intention of ceasing.
Where are we now? Akst points out some good news:
Conspicuous consumption, like tobacco, has fallen into social disrepute, a change that removes some of the pressure felt by many families to keep up with the Joneses (who may well have been foreclosed by now).
Akst ends his article with lots of avuncular advice on surviving our current and future materialist downsizing. A lifetime thrifty person, Akst is not pessimistic: “Thrift is far from the worst thing we can have thrust upon us.”
By Erich Vieth on September 20th, 2009
To get serious about sustainability, move back to the city.
According to Witold Rybczynski (writing in The Atlantic), it’s time to get serious about living sustainably. Currently, we do that by going out to buy the latest and greatest gadgets for saving energy. There’s a much better foundation for accomplishing this goal of living sustainably:
The problem in the sustainability campaign is that a basic truth has been lost, or at least concealed. Rather than trying to change behavior to actually reduce carbon emissions, politicians and entrepreneurs have sold greening to the public as a kind of accessorizing. Keep doing what you’re doing, goes the message. Just add a solar panel, a wind turbine, a hybrid engine, whatever. But a solar-heated house in the burbs is still a house in the burbs, and if you have to drive to it, even in a Prius, it’s hardly green.
Instead of putting little Band-Aids on the big problem, Rybczynski argues that we ought to move back to the city. We would save much more energy by prohibiting spread-out low-rise buildings than by pasting solar panels on them. “A reasonably well-built and well insulated multifamily building is inherently more sustainable than a detached house.” He advocates three or four story “walk-ups,” which don’t require elevators. These can create sufficient density “about 50 people per acre, to support public transit, walk ability and other urban amenities.”
Another important approach is to focus on the way we construct our commercial buildings. When we combine residences with commercial and institutional structures, buildings consume 48% of our energy, more than any other sector.
By Brynn Jacobs on September 17th, 2009
Brand Obama–now with more awards!
Barack Obama’s presidential campaign has again won a major advertising award. A month before winning the presidency, he won Advertising Age’s annual “Marketer of the Year” for 2008. Now, his campaign manager, David Plouffe, has won Brandweek’s “Marketer of the Year” for 2009. What better commentary on the state of contemporary American society could there be? Our president is a master marketer, or more precisely, employs a team of master marketers. In a society that is dedicated to worshiping at the altar of consumerism, perhaps it’s unsurprising that this is the case, but it still is shocking to me. Once I began researching for this article, I really was surprised at the extent to which “Brand Obama” has penetrated our national consciousness.
His logo and posters have become iconic. His slogan, “Yes we can” is everywhere– it’s also a marketer’s dream. It’s devoid of any clarity or substance, and yet it makes you feel good, possibly empowered. “Just do it”, anyone? Actually, his campaign beat out the Nike campaign (and even Apple!) for top honors. You can go to mybarackobama.com and sign for immediate updates from Facebook, Myspace, Youtube, Flickr, Twitter, and several other web 2.0 services. You can get Obama on your mobile phone by texting “hope” to 62262– it’s just as easy as voting for the next American Idol! The media is relentlessly focused on what Michelle Obama is wearing next, and there is at least one blog offering daily updates on her clothing choices (”Follow the fashion of Mrs. O.:What and Whom she’s wearing”). For those who are tuned-in, you can even do Ecstasy tablets shaped like Obama. One wonders where does politics end and the cult of personality begin?
By Erich Vieth on September 12th, 2009
A big suburban shopping mall is dying, yet I’m not shedding any tears
Today I took my two daughters to a movie. The theater was located in a large suburban shopping mall in Southwest St. Louis County, “Crestwood Plaza.” I had not been to this mall for several years, and I was shocked at what I saw. Approximately 40% of the stores have been shuttered and the entire place was like a ghost town. A lonely security guard told me that the stores have been rapidly failing over the past two years. That comports with my recollection. Two years ago, this mall was a packed and thriving shopping area located in a solidly middle-class community. Crestwood Plaza is not an isolated story; shopping malls are failing all across America.
[I've posted a gallery of today's images many of these shuttered stores along with this post. If you don't see that gallery, click the title to this post to go to the permalink, where you will see those thumbnails.]
I sometimes get snarkish when someone tells me they’re going to a shopping mall. I sometimes ask the Intrepid shopper to do me a favor and buy something practical for me, “Could you please buy me a hammer.” I usually get the same reaction, a puzzled look accompanied by a response “They don’t sell practical things like hammers at shopping malls.” Now I’m not denying that malls sell clothes or that we need clothes. Most mall clothes are for far more than staying warm or covering up. They are much more often than not, for impressing others.
For that reason, I’m not shedding tears for the shattering of dozens of mall stores at Crestwood Plaza or anywhere else. The failure of most of the stores means that we won’t be buying things we don’t actually need. Because Hallmark no longer sells its commercial greeting cards, we might be “forced” to create and send our own personalized cards and letters to each other. Now that Libby Lu gone, our pre-teen daughters can get back to being children rather than obsessing about their sex appeal. In my mind, many of these store closings are mostly good things, although I am saddened by the thought that so many people have lost their jobs due to these shutdowns. See these terrific videos by Josh Golin of CCFC regarding the dangers of turning our children into rampant consumers.
Another silver lining is that the mall owners have been forced to do something different with their space in order to survive (assuming they do survive). What they’ve done at Crestwood Plaza is to lease out many of the “store” spaces to art galleries, educational facilities, community theaters and other arts and crafts workshops for children and adults. In other words, it appears that the mall owners are opening up their malls for people who want to develop their minds and skill-sets rather than simply their pocketbooks.
By Erika Price on September 02nd, 2009
Why are all the Youtube stars from LA?
Youtube was supposed to be one of Web 2.0’s shining examples of user-generated original content. In a world (in 2005) when everything worthwhile was already online and fully consumed, Youtube was supposed to provide us with a new outlet to both create and consume. I know it is hard to recall Youtube’s original intent as a creative landscape, but keep in mind that the site’s slogan was and is “Broadcast Yourself”.
Most of us don’t broadcast ourselves, or watch broadcasts of other selves. The last time I fired up Youtube, I was looking for a free way to stream James and the Giant Peach. Any cute skits or beautiful shorts I discovered thereafter were barely bonuses; they were just tasty little incidentals to be quickly forgotten. Most people go to Youtube to view unoriginal creations- movie, TV and music clips or mashups thereof.
Youtube’s most viewed videos of all time are music videos like “7 Things” by Miley Cyrus and Rihanna’s “Don’t Stop the Music”. My little sister uses Youtube as a combination DVR-Itunes-Pandora player. Nothing original seeps in unless I send it to her myself- and then it’s usually just a video of a cute animal, not a creative work.
Ah, but Youtube does have some high-caliber producers of original goodies! People who put on elaborate comedy skits with costumes, professional lighting and substantial editing. People who pull in millions of views. People with whom Youtube has formed profitable, advertising-driven partnerships. These people are broadcasting themselves. But they aren’t like “us”. They are all from Hollywood.
American Culture • Art • Communication • Consumerism • Entertainment • Featured • Films and Videos • Internet • Media • Networking • Uncategorized • Videos • advertising
By Erich Vieth on August 27th, 2009
The spammers win one at the 9th Circuit
As I’ve indicated before, I would LOVE to sue the spammers who deluge this site with thousands of fake comments. I’m still researching whether that kind of suit would be possible under the law.
Today, I was reminded of my own frustrations with spammers when I read a recent opinion by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, a case titled Gordon v. Virtumundo, Inc. L 2393433, 3 -4 (C.A.9 (C.A.9 (Wash.),2009), 2009 WL 2393433
In Gordon, a professional plaintiff tried to sue spammers based on the federal CAN-SPAM Act, which was enacted in 2004. The Court turned him down because A) he didn’t qualify as an Internet Access Service Provider, B) the Court did not consider him to be “adversely affected” by the statutory violations (the receipt of spam on his email accounts), and C) His state law claims failed because they were precluded by the Act’s express preemption clause
The “pro-marketing” forces, those who think that they should be allowed to trash my email accounts with special offers for penis enlargement techniques and a wide variety of drugs, are elated by this decision.
Here is how the Court sees the overall legal landscape:
By Erich Vieth on August 23rd, 2009
Holland House: a real world place to enjoy life after you die.
All my life I’ve been fascinated with the way most people refuse to deal with death. Many people simply can’t stand to talk plainly about death. When Uncle Fred dies, they can’t bear to say “Uncle Fred died.” Rather, it’s something like Uncle Fred “passed away” Or “Uncle Fred went to heaven,” even though no one is sure whether there is a heaven—or if there really were a heaven, no one knows how one would really know whether Uncle Fred really earned his way in. Regardless, whenever people die, most people talk as though they are sure the loved one is still alive and that they are absolutely certain that he or she didn’t go to hell.
Further, when people speak of the death of loved ones, they usually speak in a strange voice and with strange facial expressions. It’s difficult to say why people have such a difficult time talking plainly about death, but they do. I don’t claim to have the entire answer, but I am intrigued by the insights of Terror Management Theory.
People also talk this strange way when their pets die. A few months ago, an acquaintance told me that his 10 and 12 year old sons had been crying constantly, for several weeks, that their dog “passed away and went to dog heaven.” Good grief! Then again, we are also living at a time when Americans will go so far as to pay thousands of dollars for chemotherapy for their 15-year old dogs. Most of us just can’t let go.
As a teenager, I often noticed this discomfort with death and I wondered why so many people can’t shoot straight on such an important topic. Why can’t people plainly admit that within 150 years every person currently living on earth will be dead, and that this includes your parents, your children, everyone one of your friends and even those know-it-all preachers who so often assure you that you continue to live after you die?
This fascinating topic of death came up vividly last week. A co-worker was telling me about a strange request being made by her 70-year old mother. Her mother has repeatedly raised the topic of her own (eventual) death and she has requested that when she dies, she wants her children to embalm her and place her body into a glass coffee table, lying on her back, with her eyes open. She wants to remain part of the family forever, as best she is able. My co-worker and her family were somewhat amused by this request until it became clear that her mother wasn’t kidding. Her mother really wants her dead body to remain in the living room of one of her adult children, where it will be plainly visible to her children and grandchildren (and presumably great-grandchildren, etc). Here mother claims to be figuring out how to make this glass coffee table entombment a reality.
Hearing this story reminded me of a concept I co-developed with a buddy named Mike Harty back in high school (in 1974). Mike and I often discussed death back in high school. Many of our classmates found the topic to be disturbing, but it energized and entertained us. One day, we wondered what kind of potential market might exist for post-death “living” arrangements for families whose loved ones were now corpses. We called our concept “Holland House,” (I believe that we borrowed the named from this real life opulent estate). Our company slogan would be: “We think your loved ones should not be deprived of their earthly pleasures.” And also this one: Holland House: Open to all dead people from 7 to 70.” Mike even drew a photo of Holland House, which would offer wealthy families the finest in post-death community living:
[caption id="attachment_8651" align="aligncenter" width="445" caption="Art by Mike Harty"]
[/caption]
Holland House would be a large lavish resort for dead people, an alternative for families not willing to plop their dead loved ones into graves. Here’s how we planned to market Holland House.
Important announcement for bereaved families. Consider this alternative to burial or cremation. Simply send your loved ones to Holland House and we will carry on where the nursing home left off. Our attendants will start the day by taking your loved one’s corpse out of bed, dressing it and wheeling it to the breakfast table, where it would sit (admittedly stiffly and silently) in front of fresh food prepared by highly trained chefs. After breakfast, we will wheel your loved one to a wide variety of activities, including various classes and recreational activities.
There would be visiting hours, where the families could come to talk to their dead loved ones—Holland House staff would wheel the corpse into a brightly lit visiting area, with tea and cookies, where the family could present an update about what was going on with the living members of the family. Our professional staff would update the family as to their loved ones’ activities at Holland House. For instance, we might advise: “Yesterday we had a photography class and horseback riding. Tomorrow, we will have dancing classes–two attendants will assist each corpse–and shuffleboard.”
[caption id="attachment_8653" align="alignright" width="282" caption="Art by Mike Harty"]
[/caption]
Holland House would have a photographer on staff to keep the family photo album updated with photos of everyone in the family, alive or otherwise.
[I'm not recounting these ideas from pure memory. Mike and I wrote up an outline of the services to be offered by Holland House]
Mike and I planned that Holland House would have private rooms for each of the guests, with a color TV in each room. We’d have an extensive library and a medical center (where we’d we well stocked in deodorant). We offer night classes too, including a favorite: “How to get the most out of life.”). There would be a dating service, where we’d match residents based on their accomplishments while they were alive. We’d have a high end clothes store, so that our residents were always wearing up-to-date fashions. Our foods would be naturally grown organic foods fertilized by former residents. Oh, and we’d be careful at Holland House that we’d never refer to our residents as “dead.”
Perhaps you’re wondering how long would a corpse stay at Holland House? The answer is simple: as long as the family couldn’t bear to dispose of the corpse in some other way or until the family money ran out, whatever came earlier.
I am offering this idea for free to anyone who wants to offer Holland House services to people with far too much money. Then again, perhaps post-death living might get so popular someday that Medicare would pick up the tab, which could lead to multiple generation families residing on entire wings of Holland House . . .
Mike and I created all of this for our amusement many years ago, but this concept was all triggered by the fact that so many people can’t acknowledge that dead people were really and truly dead.
American Culture • Community • Consumerism • Featured • Health • Humor • Meaning of Life • Whimsy • ignorance • snake oil
By Mark Tiedemann on August 20th, 2009
Just A Question Or Three
Just a couple of what seem to me like obvious questions. (I know, I’ve been writing a bit on the health care debate, and I’ll try to do some other things after this, don’t want to bore anyone, especially myself.)
I see a lot of protesters waving signs that contain something like this: HEALTHCARE REFORM YES, GOVERNMENT TAKEOVER NO. TORT REFORM NOW!
Something about that doesn’t quite add up. If health care is to be reformed, who is going to do it? The industry isn’t, not without a threat. Which means there will have to be something outside the industry doing the threatening. What might that be?
Hmm. The government?
And the nature of the reform, if it isn’t to be entirely self-serving on the part of the industry, will have to be devised by a somewhat disinterested party. Who might that be?
The government?
And tort law…well, that’s, as it says, Law. Which is legislation. Which is—wait for it!— the government!
So what is being asked for here?
That the government enact reforms that do not involve the government, do not make use of government authority, do not engage government offices, and will not grant the government any power to enforce.
So how will that work exactly?
Or is there some third party out there we haven’t been told about capable of doing all this reforming?
Oh, the market! Which basically is consumers, which is, well, all of us. The people.
But wait…isn’t the government supposed to be the duly elected voice of the people? So if the people are demanding reform, how are the people supposed to both express such a desire and then implement said reforms?
I guess, through their duly elected voice—the government.
But if the government is not to be trusted, I guess that means the people aren’t to be trusted. The people don’t know what they want, what is good for them, or how to go about managing the reforms they’ve demanded and, somehow, achieved. So there will have to be an appointed body of presumed experts who do know how to manage all this to act on the people’s behalf…
Who might that be?
The industry? Hmm. Well, since it’s the industry that needs reforming and the people who have demanded reform, handing management of the reform over to the very thing that needs the reform would seem, well, not to put to fine a point on it, stupid.
So I guess we’d have to elect a representative body to manage the reforms.
Oh, wait, don’t we already have such a body?
Yeah, it’s the government. So by demanding reform of an industry, it would seem reasonable that we not trust the industry (that already doesn’t do what we want it to do) to reform itself. It would be silly to create a whole other body to oversee all this when one already exists that has over two centuries of expertise in doing exactly this sort of thing.
So how is anything is going to change otherwise?
Just wondering, you know, because some of the demands sort of don’t make any sense.
American Culture • Consumerism • Culture • Current Events • Health • Law • Politics • ignorance
By Erich Vieth on August 05th, 2009
Ubiquitous conspicuousity
At a park to weeks ago, a musician started singing “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.” I was talking with an acquaintance, who immediately pulled out his smart phone, clicked on a few buttons and brought up the movie “The Wizard of Oz” to play on his 1 ½” screen. He explained that he loved the movie and that he could watch it wherever he wanted. Impressive technology? Of course, but watching “The Wizard of Oz” (or any movie) is never such an important thing that I’d need to carry it in my pocket. Was my acquaintance really trying to tell me about his love of “The Wizard of Oz,” or was he subconsciously trying to communicate something else to me?
For many years we’ve been trying to convince ourselves that electronics manufacturers were right that we HAD to have their gadgets, including 50″ screen HD TVs. For decades, we’ve been convincing ourselves that electronic audio manufacturers were correct that we “needed” to plunk down $2,000 for high-end audio components with thick copper cables lest the sound degradation would piss us off too much to enjoy our music.
But here we are in an age where small is cool, and we’re somehow able to enjoy full length movies on tiny lo-res phone and iPod screens. And people are somehow surviving with small low-res youtube videos. And consider that the music almost everyone is enjoying on their mp3 players is sampled at a noticeably lower rate than CD-quality. And consider that CD quality sample rates are severely degraded compared to live music. But somehow we’re now OK with far less than perfect because small and convenient and high tech are cool.
I’m in the process of reading Geoffrey Miller’s riveting new book, Spent: Sex, Evolution and Consumer Behavior. We’ve all heard of conspicuous consumption (originally coined by Veblen). Miller refines and extends Veblen’s concept, setting out the differences between conspicuous waste, conspicuous precision and conspicuous reputation as signaling principles. Cars exemplifying these three principles would be the Hummer (waste), Lexus (precision) and BMW (reputation). Conspicuous precision “can be achieved only through time, attention, and diligence, while conspicuous reputation (brand names) reflects a “vulnerability to social sanctions.” Most products exhibit each of these three forms of “signal reliability.” Other signaling principles including conspicuous rarity (exotic pets or pink diamonds) and conspicuous antiquity (ancient coins).
I find it interesting how much we fool ourselves about how much we “need” products based on these qualities. We “needed” large high-quality electronic audio and visual players until it became a much more impressive display to have extremely small portable electronics. It turns out that our “need” for things isn’t ultimately about need for the product’s qualities. It’s about trying to impress others with our ability to differentiate and afford various types of products.
A few years ago, I was looking at stunning images of a coral reef on the big new HD TV sets at Costco. I asked my wife whether we should think about “moving up” to a HD TV set. She asked me: “How often have you been watching a movie on our 25-year old TV set when it occurred to you that you weren’t enjoying the show because the screen was not huge or high definition? I answered truthfully: never. We still have our quarter-century old TV set and I’ve never again been tempted to “move up.” But I also admit that if I were trying to impress people today, I wouldn’t be able to do it by showing off my TV. I wouldn’t be signaling that I can notice and afford fine engineering tolerances. I might show off my TV nonetheless, to signal my frugality, but my old TV wouldn’t be impressive to modern-day Americans, given that it is not (today) an expensive signal in any sense—I could buy a TV like mine very cheaply indeed at a garage sale.
Miller’s book is a powerful reminder that our “need” to buy SO many things is often not about the things themselves, but about the need to tell the world something about ourselves in order to increase our social status or to attract mates.
Miller has a lot to say about the differences among the types of conspicuosity. For instance, Aristocrats eschew conspicuous waste. They tend to hone in on conspicuous precision and reputation.
For more on Miller’s theory, see this book review at the NYT.
