Authentic You Inc.

Spending is not the result of a booming economy, or a promising stock market, rather I believe that Consumerism has become the driving force of our culture itself. Shopping has become a quest for meaning and personal identity. But how did we get here? Is our ubiquitous, largely non-discursive media the result of our own predilections? Or are we being bashed over the head into identifying ourselves with our valuables rather than our values? Is the media a mirror, reflecting the requests of society? Or is it rather a barrier – curtailing our ability to lead authentic lives?

James Twitchell in his book Lead Us into Temptation attempts to explain how society arrived at its current state – we simply chose a new religion. Whereas in the past, people went to religious institutions to achieve meaning and transcendence, today we head to the mall. The new liturgy is advertising, and the pastor is on Prime Time. He argues that we arrived here quite happily and consciously. We were given the choice to spend or not to spend; we chose to spend, and our media environment reflects that predilection.

Twitchell then details the evolution of advertising and such techniques as branding, packaging, database marketing, and psychographics. It was around here that I grew suspicious of Twitchell’s argument. If consumers are such eager participants in the process, why must marketers pursue them so arduously? Why are companies like Prizm making millions to gather data to sort us into such categories as “Blue-Collar Comfort" or “Cosmopolitan Elite”? If we want your product so much, why was global advertising spending over $450 Billion in 2007[1]? Does society really want that much money going into attempts to influence our purchases? Assuming we truly value the retail experience, shouldn’t they get their sales without all the brainwashing[2]? Couldn’t this money have been allocated to some practical cause (i.e. health research, global starvation, etc.)? If this is really what we want, why are privacy concerns raised consistently in class? I thought we desired to be catered to…

At one point, Twitchell observes: “What advertising does is add meaning to otherwise interchangeable and often unnecessary products.”[3] How can that be something a sovereign consumer wants to happen?! Where is my ‘personal well-being’ in the RVP equation? I once heard Don Tapscott say that “the way to put shareholders first, is to put them last.” I maintain that retailers are still too provincial in their stakeholder models; they include my dollars, but not my well-being. William Bernbach once said: “All of us who professionally use the mass media are the shapers of society. We can vulgarize that society. We can brutalize it. Or we can help lift it onto a higher level.” I felt that our current mediascape exhibited the former. So I dropped out. I haven’t watched television or read a magazine in over three years, and I’ve never been happier.

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[1] http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?id=1003650

[2]Dictionary.com - brain·wash·ing: any method of controlled systematic indoctrination, especially one based on repetition or confusion.

[3] Twitchell, James B. Lead Us Into Temptation: The Triumph of American Materialism. Columbia University Press. 1999. Page 71.