The Three Little Pigs: A Once Upon A Time Conclusion.

The enemy of the three little pigs was the wolf. He tried to persuade and manipulate those pigs
in to granting him entrance inside their houses. The story of the pigs starts with them all leaving home and starting their own lives, they are each very different because they choose different materials to construct their houses. Three different materials, of three different qualities and strengths. This could either mean that the pigs differed in intelligence, or in financial means.

The Wolf preys on the weakest first, cajoles him and then when the pig does not relent he blows his house down.

To apply that to the consumer world, the first little piggy would be those who want more, and who are seriously caught up in using objects to obtain happiness. The wolf is consumerism and he preys on those of us who want more, who cannot afford more, but that believe objects will provide the gratification required to be a part of the social circles we desire to be in.

The consumer world eats us all up, and we end up caught up in something that there is not an easy escape from.

But there are some of us that put up resistance, piggy two and three. Pig two put up a fight but was swallowed in consumerism in the end.

It was only when the wolf came across pig three and his solid fortress that he admitted defeat. Although, he was still trying, until the very end to infiltrate the house of pig three. He tried every possibly entry, including the chimney. Consumerism does the same, it will stop at nothing to try and tell us about a product; to try and persuade us to buy and spend; to encourage
us to own things we cannot afford; to ensure that we become brand loyal; to force feed us information about the social implications of a product; to cajole us in to believing that happiness comes in the form of a car, a washing detergent or a breakfast cereal.

We can no longer sit idly by, in our houses of straw and twigs and let advertising tell us about apparent social standards in an attempt to manipulate us in to buying things we do not need. Consumerism does not provide everything it promises to. It is necessary for our survival and to fulfil our social needs, but we need to focus on our inner identity to fulfil the needs of love, gratification and self-actualisation. We are all amazing, and we all have the inner superhero power necessary to not let the wolf blow our houses down.

The Wonder Years: A Two-Point Episode.

‘What would you do if I sang out of tune…’ Those lyrics, accompanied by the visual of a poor quality film reel, cause goose bumps on my arms. The life of Kevin Arnold was not just a piece of light entertainment; it was a way to understand life. Although it was set twenty years before it was written it appealed to and bridged the gap between generations.

I’ve been watching some episodes again recently, and to be honest I remember none of them. I have vague recollections of small events or things that might have happened, and yet I still get goose bumps when I hear the first chords of the opening theme tune. This is because of what The Wonder Years actually means to me. It symbolises the family and all of the typical social and personal trials, problems, and experiences that happen to us all. I was watching events on a screen that were happening to me in reality at the same time. The Wonder Years is a family show, constructed for family viewing and so the family viewed it - all of us. Like a weekly ritual.

The genius of the script lies in its ability to appeal to such an eclectic audience. By setting the episodes twenty years in the past it ensured the interest of the ‘grown ups’ who had actually experienced those things first hand, and could empathise or criticise with every authority. The experiences of Kevin Arnold - friendship, love, school, cliques, unwanted crushes, family problems, family holidays, family in general – were understood by the younger members of the audience, because they were experiencing those same trials and discoveries at the same time. This was life. It was almost like a manual for life, with many little morals, and learning achievements added in. It dealt with themes that people can relate to, that people could understand and this is why it is not dissimilar from The OC.

The decade that lies between the final episodes of The Wonder Years and the first of the OC saw many cultural changes. The west grew richer, and objects became cheaper and in greater abundance. The typical social classes continued to change and reality TV took prominent popularity over fictional TV programmes.

I was never the intended target audience for The OC, I was at University when the characters were still in high school. We had a 4 or 5 year age difference, and we came from completely different worlds. It was with that foundation that I watched The OC knowing that it was all purely fiction. The audience it was targeted at were smitten. They were the 14-16 year olds, who coveted the celebrity lifestyle strewn across magazines and reality television. The OC’s characters were their age and living the celebrity lifestyle without the famousness. The themes of The OC were the equivalent of the trials and experiences of the target audience: high school, friendship, love-triangles, finding an identity, teenage-life in general.

There was however, an element of The OC that runs parallel to The Wonder Years and that is the theme of the family, it was the foundation of the programme. The main characters included the parents, their story-lines were just as important and enthralling and realistic as the teenage characters. The reason that The OC wasn’t viewed by the whole family and The Wonder Years was is the shear fact that the volume of objects, in reality, had increased, and every family had at least two television sets, which meant it was no longer essential for everyone to watch the same programmes. The potential that the OC had to bring family entertainment back was defeated by the abundance of objects and in effect the ‘rich’ lifestyle that the script for the OC was, in fact, telling the story of.

The cancellation of The OC happened because it failed to continue to draw the parallels between reality and fiction. The OC characters were experiencing things that most of its audience were not and so the viewings dropped and I was left alone loving it for what it was: a story, filled with romance, wit and family unity.

The family is fundamental, and whether we did watch The Wonder Years as a family or not, does not matter in the grand scheme of things, just as long as we had the same interactions, experiences, trials, arguments, and togetherness that the families from The Wonder Years and The OC and every TV programme that has ever addressed the family, had.

The second point of this double bill essay leads on from there. There was one episode, in particular, I watched of the Wonder Years, where Kevin’s Dad was torn about selling the family car. He had felt an emotional attachment to it. It held memories of family trips, of life, of the experiences that we had watched the characters go through in previous episodes. The value of an object is two fold, it has a financial value and it has an emotional value, and that emotional value will never and can never be really expressed or understood by anyone except the owner or those who interact with the object. Our relationship with objects do affect who we are because the objects provoke different reactions, memories, and opinions.

When I started to think more about it, I related his story to my own car. My car is called Missy and her naming has good reason, I bought her second hand and she is a very good secret keeper because I know nothing of her past life. But since being in my possession we have travelled forty thousand miles and clocked a lot of time together. I’ve slept in her, I’ve eaten in her, I’ve carried loads of different friends and family in her, I’ve become synonymous with her. The memories will always
be mine, but the car is the vessel, and object that I use to remember. It might appear silly to think the memories will be sold with her, of course not. The memories will always be mine, but the object has become attached to those memories, and to let go of that object is letting go of a small, but significant part of my life.

The importance of objects in our life has brought us to the point that everything has become objectified. Nostalgia, memories, preferences and our personal thoughts and values have all become objects that can be compared in value to another object. Even my experiences of being with my family and friends have become objectified through Television shows. Just as I value the time I spent watching The Wonder Years with my family, I value the time I spent discussing and watching The OC with my friends.

The object that is my car; the object that is the OC; the object that is the Wonder Years, they all hold emotional value, because I have had different experiences and interactions with them all that have become intrinsic to my personality, life,
and opinions - their value can never be measured.

Need: The Consumer Religion and the Hierarchy of Needs.

Our identities are based on several components, some of those are fixed and some of those are changeable. The fixed ones are things like nationality, age, and gender. The changeable ones include birth given aspects that can be changed, like hair colour, upbringing, language, and, for some of us, religion.

Most of the generations living just now will remember when our lives were based upon, predominantly, Christian principles of loving fellow man, love for ourselves, humility and integrity. Most religions preach the same fundamental values so, essentially all religion is the same in the context that it is nourishment for the ‘soul.’

Our lives are based upon the fulfilment of five levels of needs. These start with the fundamental physiological needs like eating and drinking, then as the hierarchy moves up it passes the need for security, love, self-esteem, and finally self-actualisation is the highest level. Religion used to provide for those needs, it used to encourage us to love and be loved, to feel safe in the knowledge of our faith, to have self-esteem in ourselves and finally to help us feel one hundred percent gratified with our lives, and our success, because we had a belief and a knowledge that there was more to life than the objects that surround us. Our needs were fulfilled through our faith in religion and our belief and awareness of an inner soul. Attendance at church is evidence enough to claim that we were aware of the need to nourish our inner, psychological selves.

It all started to change though, as consumerism became the forefront of living, and the material possessions in the world started to provide a social gratification, there was no longer a need to believe in something that was intangible. Why would you need to when you could believe in Nike, Coca-Cola or Sony: the lust and desire for objects overshadowed the religious precepts that our nation was, not too long ago, built upon.

This has lead to a paradigm shift in the hierarchy of needs. Based upon my own research and theories I have come to the conclusion that the needs of the individual are no longer represented by a triangle, but more-so a circle, or sphere.

Based upon the original hierarchy determined by Maslow, my own theory starts similarly with the Physiological needs in the centre. It is a small circle that is the pinnacle and inner most important need. It ensures our basic survival and it always requires us to consume in order to fulfil it.

The middle circle is our need to love and be loved, our need for belonging, stability and security. This ring encases the physiological needs because we are now more focused on achieving more than just survival. Basic survival is taken for granted and our concentrations now lie on making consumer choices that will ensure we feel safe, and we are loved. This includes making fashion decisions in order to be accepted by friends, and selecting brands that will ensure stability – those that are known and expected to provide high quality, thus, making the consumer decision process easier.The last ring and circle is self-actualisation and self-esteem. It is our top priority and we use consumerism to make us feel good about ourselves, to help us feel like we belong, or that we are more successful than others.

This is our new religion, this is what we have replaced spirituality with: objects. Christmas time is one of the prime examples. What used to be a pagan holiday, adopted by the Christians to honour the birth of their saviour has now been passed on to the corporate companies to exploit and make profit.

My Mum recounted a story to me recently about the introduction of Cabbage Patch Kids dolls. It would have been somewhere in the mid 80s. Presents, gifts and toys were always a treat, and the smallest present would suffice. I remember Christmas in my young childhood, I would be overwhelmed with excitement at the prospects of receiving presents, and new toys. I’m sure I had already formed my Sindy doll and My Little Pony obsession, so any new additions to the fold were always welcome.

This particular year there was a huge push and market for Cabbage Patch Dolls. Everyone wanted one, and everyone had to have one for Christmas. It was this point that, my Mum has decided, was the turning point for consumerism - she stakes the blame solely on the Cabbage Patch. Naturally, like every other child in school, and everyone on the street who had a TV, I wanted a Cabbage Patch doll. They were in short supply and high demand, and they also cost £20. Which, in the mid 80s, was a lot of money. Usually the average Christmas gift would total in around £10, to double that price was a huge risk taken by manufacturers and the marketers. It worked though, and since then the prices have risen and the quality has dropped,
but as long as the product is in short supply and high demand, it is the must have toy for the Christmas season. If you receive one, you are the luckiest, most popular and coolest person in school, on the street and in life.

I never received a cabbage patch kids doll until a while after their release, and it was only a 4-inch plastic figure. But it made me happy. It had the brand, it had the woollen hair, and it almost looked like me. I had made a connection with an object that I had longed for, and when I achieved it, it fulfilled my need of love, and self-gratification, because socially, I had the object it would take to be successful.

That is the consumer religion, obtaining the inner happiness and joy with a product. Unfortunately we will grow out of that product socially, which means we will loose the inner happiness it had provided. This will lead to a constant feeling of instability and a need to keep looking for the item that will never let us down, that will always portray our changing inner identity and that will always satisfy our wants which, appear, to us, to be needs.

Financial Value: Branded Gratification.

Every object has two ways of measuring its value. One is financially the other is emotionally, the latter will be discussed as part of the double-bill finale, the former will be discussed now.

If I was to show up to a business meeting driving a BMW, wearing a Prada skirt and jacket, Monolo Blanihk shoes, and brandishing a leather bag with the word Dior engraved subtly on the metal catch, I would be emitting sings of financial success and therefore, professionalism, ability and confidence. Whether this was my intention or not, it will happen. This is because there are certain brands that everyone knows, and understands the financial cost of, whether it’s cheap or expensive.

I drive a Ford Ka, it’s small, impractical for large loads of people or luggage, but it does the job, it’s served me well during the four years that I’ve owned it. But I am aware that I will have to upgrade one day, as I earn more money and I can afford more, the social implications of the consumer world will encourage me to change my car, to upgrade it to one that reflects how I feel I have progressed in life. This is a form of self-gratification.

According to the social implications of branding I have not ‘made it’ in life until I own a car, or a house, or any other branded object that holds such successful symbolism. The brands that cost the most, that have the best advertising and that apparently produce the best quality objects are the ones that reward the consumer by physically emanating success.

Without a healthy advertising campaign and brand presence the object’s social value will be worth nothing. It is through preconceptions of a brand and the stereotypical opinions of those owning it and not owning it that its financial value exists.

However, unless there are cars like mine on the road, with dents, and rust, then the new BMW or Porsche would be worth nothing. Our gratification and personal financial success might be emanated to the external environment by our brand purchasing decisions, but the true value only exists when it is compared to another object, when we know we are better off than our neighbours and our friends because of the kind of car we drive, the brand of jeans we wear, the supermarket we use.

This results in psychological damage, when we end up over-worked, seeing our friends and families less and less, and becoming too stressed about the things in life that are less-important. Success is measured from the inside, but it is so easy to be caught up in the social hype that demands us to buy out of our means in order to feel like we are achieving, and to feel like we are meeting the goals, demands and expectations of our neighbours, peers, and colleagues.

It’s hard to break such expectations; it takes a lot of inner self-confidence and the knowledge to exist in the consumer world by standing out and going against the grain; by questioning the social expectations and blatantly challenging them.

Harry Potter and the Social Community.

I have never really been a fan of Harry Potter. I don’t remember exactly when I first heard the name Harry Potter, I guess it was sometime around 2001, when I was getting ready to leave Secondary School and move to Dundee for University. I was fully submerged in my ‘unique’ phase, during which, I would go out of my way to be different and to against the grind. The foundations of my standards and morals had already ensured that my teenage conduct was contrary to the expected, so when something over-popular appeared I was not interested in the slightest.

Harry Potter continued to increase in popularity and before long there was a huge fan base that was hard to avoid. There was always someone that I knew that loved Harry Potter. The natural commercialised order of entertainment soon ensured that a movie would be released. This, I had no qualms about seeing. I think I was even one of the first people in the UK to see it.
The years passed on, and so did the movies, until 2004 when The Prisoner of Azkaban suddenly surpassed the entertainment of the previous two movies. I remember thinking that it was an exceptionally well thought out and planned piece of cinematography, I have always been partial to films that embrace the space time continuum, because I am a child of the eighties and therefore a born and bred fan of Back to the Future.

Moving on to the fourth movie, and I found myself in attendance of the midnight showing in Glasgow with two of the greatest friends I will ever have.It was this year that I was working full time as a web-designer and I would spend many hours listening to music and on occasion I would dapple in some comedy or audio books. After the fourth movie I really wanted to know what happened next. So, I obtained the fifth book on mp3 and ensued to listen to it for twenty-six hours of my working week.

Having previously never read any of the books, I was amazed at the finer details and the deeper story line that is simply brushed over in the movies. I somehow, prior to my listening of the fifth book, had learned of the deaths of certain characters in the fifth and sixth books, therefore at the end of the fifth I refused to read or listen to the sixth until I knew for sure the seventh book and the definite ending had been written. I would have hated to have a two-year cliff-hanger. The ‘real’ fans though, were dedicated to the cause, that was for sure. I felt more like a fly on the wall of an epic tale that had taken years to discover.

Then the end came. 2007. The release of movie five spurred my Harry Potter curiosity once again, and I found myself enthralled in the movie that I had listened to 18 months previous. I wanted to understand the Harry Potter hype; I wanted to know why it was so exciting, for weeks talk of the seventh and last book had been hitting headlines. It had been the talk of many conversations with friends and the number of friends that I have who are avid fans have increased, this is either because of the growing popularity of the series or because my social circles are always changing.

I found myself cramming the sixth book into 4 days. I listened to it on mp3 as I worked - I was ‘catching up’ essentially. In comparison to the Harry Potter fans, who have been with him from the word go, I was cheating. An intensive seventeen hours worth of listening brought me right up to the day the seventh book was released, with a few hours to spare.

I decided to head out early and observe the ‘hype.’ Borders was the first port of call - they were hosting a Harry Potter party. Families, friends, the old and the young were dressed to the wizarding-nines, some assuming outfits of significant characters,
but everyone part of something bigger than themselves. Every person in the shop, past 10pm was there for the same purpose. You didn’t have to be a fan to feel the connection and the sense of social community.

A short distance away there were huge queues forming outside the two other bookshops in the city, supermarkets were plagued with hoards of Potter fans, and there was still 2 hours before the launch.

I waited outside one of the other bookshops and witnessed the queue increase in size and variation. (I say variation because the people who were there didn’t have one particular obvious trait in common with another.) There were hecklers, people jeering, and laughing; people intent on ruining the ending, or mocking the queuing people for their passion, dedication and care for Harry Potter, we will call them un-fans. At one point during the wait there was a short-lived fight between some of the un-fans and one of the Harry Potter fans. Unfortunately for him he did not have the magical power Harry possess in order to protect himself from the un-fans.

Just before midnight we were allowed into the shop and then there was a ten second countdown and consumer madness ensued: Book after book leaving the shop ready to start the race to the finish.

I hadn’t expected to read the book so quickly, I felt that life would get in the way. My reading began after my drive home from town and it ended that night around page 90 and at 3am.

When I awoke the next morning my flatmate had reached well in to the 300page mark. By Sunday I was hearing of the hoards of people who had finished the book. I ended up in conversations with people about the few chapters I had read, and then I found myself growing nervous and anxious in case the conversation developed in to a plot spoiler. Around 3pm on Sunday I shut myself off from society. I could no longer communicate with anyone just in case they knew something I didn’t.

On Monday I kept a low profile and on the Tuesday, I refused to leave the house until it was finished.

By the end my reading was no longer for pleasure, it was for self-discovery, and the chance to learn for myself what happened. It was not a race to the finish, it was a race to be free. Free from the paranoia and fear that the ending might be spoiled for me.

For those brief days I was part of the Harry Potter hype, although I felt like somewhat of an impostor because I had cheated my way to where I was. I had no 2-year wait between books, and I had not grown up with or developed along side Harry, Ron, Hermione, or Neville. My view was very passive and disconnceted because I had to look back to compare my own life and experiences with the character’s lives.

I started to understand why Harry Potter was so important to those younger than me, and to those whom had found him years before I had. He was a comfort to them; he was a connecting object - he brought people together and helped them find a common interest. Rather than settling in to a pre-existing social circle Harry Potter was the basis of social formations. As one of my friends said ‘it’s how you wish your own childhood had been.’ The appeal of Harry Potter is the mythology and the magic; the ability to reach beyond the normal constraints of society and live a completely parallel life filled with fantasy and adventure. The books appeal to such a high range of people because the writing style encapsulates the reader and allows them to feel part of something bigger. That something boils down to two things: One. The fictionalised wizard community, with its intricate details and ability to co-exist with the contemporary world we live in, thus making it completely possible to be less than fiction. Two. The worldwide community of Harry Potter fans, with it’s many nationalities, and different types
of people, with different interests all united over the one book and story.

Reading the same book as the rest of the world for a few short hours or days is something that I will never feel again. I don’t think there has ever been such a hype and such a popular demand for a book that causes hundreds of people to be awake and queuing for hours just to be a part of something and I honestly believe that it might never happen again.

One of my main reasons for partaking in the Harry Potter hype this time was because I realised it is and was a cultural phenomenon. I still don’t believe that I am a Harry Potter fan, I think I missed that opportunity years ago. What I have come to realise is that whether you are a fan or not, that on the stroke of midnight on the 21st of July 2007, where you were and what you were doing matters. It will become a part of who you are. Whether you were queuing, sleeping, waiting, unknowing, not-caring, a full fan, a half fan, or an un-fan, your actions will be marked as your identity. The way that we react to an object and the way that we perceive other people interacting with that object in effect becomes a part of who we are. The value is undefined and varies from person to person, but for me Harry Potter will always be a cultural phenomenon that gripped the world and forced people to choose a position: for, against or neutral. The magnitude of that choice will never really be understood, social circles will continue to form around other objects, but an individual’s reaction to Harry Potter will always mark what kind of person you were and are. Whether you regret not partaking of the universal read, whether you waited until it was less popular, perhaps you still don’t care or perhaps you were one of the hecklers. My explanation for the hecklers lies in the fact that we all, as human beings, want to be part of something bigger and we want to feel a social, collective belonging. Essentially, they are jealous of what Harry Potter fans have. This reasoning also includes those who wanted to know the ending to feel a small connection to the social Harry Potter collective.

The emotional and sentimental value of the events that Harry Potter has created will be a part of every individual’s identity. For me personally, the value that lies in the experiences of the book launches I have partaken in, the people I have talked to about Harry Potter, the people I have queued with, the people I have watched the movies with (and the experiences before and after the movie viewing); the general memories that I have attached to the significant events that Harry Potter has created will always be a part of who I am. It could be argued that I do not need Harry Potter to appreciate that kind of value, but without it I would not interlink the experiences as an epic journey that resulted in me feeling like I could almost be a Harry Potter fan.

Advertising: A Stable Diet.

Watching television in Britain in the 80s and 90s was quite limited. We had channels one to four - and sometimes Sky One if your aerial could pick up the signal. Two of those channels had commercial advertising.

Watching ITV or Channel Four meant only one thing, that when your programme was interrupted half way through or at least every 20 – 30 minutes you would play the ‘ad game.’ No one really invented it, it just happened. During every ad break there would be a race to see who could guess what the advertisement was selling before the product was revealed. Scores were kept and extra points were gathered by changing and adding rules.

I never really thought about it much at the time, but with hindsight, it’s almost terrifying to think that because of a certain song, or a certain character in an advertisement I would know exactly what I was being sold: the brand, the product and the object. I was receiving those advertising messages loud and clear, and I was also creating a bond with them.

I used to get excited about the next installment of the ‘Oxo’ family, and I wanted to see how Lurpack’s Douglas would next attempt to play his trombone. That is one of the many methods advertising uses to captivate the target audience. It encourages the viewer to feel a bond and an affiliation to a particular campaign.

I was once standing in Holborn tube station in London waiting for the next train. There’s not much to do on those platforms other than watch the mice, watch the people, or read the large advertisements strewn across the panels on the wall that you are ‘supposed’ to stand facing. I was doing just that, and I was enthralled in the wit, humour and relevance of a FedEx campaign that used their corporate identity to sell their services. That seems like a pretty obvious and common thing, but the manner in which it was executed was so clean, and clever that I instantly felt an affiliation to the brand. I felt like I had been allowed in to their ‘club,’ because I understood and deciphered the dual meanings of each of the posters in the campaign.

This method preys on our need to feel stability and belonging. Stability was provided through the continuous use of the corporate colours, and belonging provided by giving the viewer the chance to solve a simple puzzle. There are so many techniques that advertisers use, but it all comes down to the basics of type, colour, image and knowing the target audience.

Two further examples of knowing the target audience starts in my homeland, Scotland. Since I remember being alive I remember Irn Bru. One of the country’s most famous productions, which has maintained its orange and blue corporate livery has become a renowned and honoured piece of national identity and culture. Their advertisements have always been quirky, humourous and in par with the sense of humour shared by the majority of Scots.

My other example brings us to the underground subway system in New York. I was making a platform transfer somewhere in the middle of Manhattan, which involved a lot of stairs - moving and stationary. I remember reaching the top of one flight of stairs and being surrounded by eloquent but dirty tiles on the walls that were covered in advertisements that had been rawly affixed, so that the advertisements themselves had geometric bumps and grooves.

The one that struck me depicted a lone figure photographed in the middle of a sporting event, so he was kitted up (in Adidas), sweaty, and his facial expression appeared to emanate passion. Beside his image sat a large paragraph of text. The text was almost a mantra or a manifesto; a declaration to the world that sport was serious, and that everything was possible. The exact coined phrase was ‘Impossible is Nothing.’ I was impressed by the power of this campaign and the thought was embedded in my mind that Adidas are serious about sport, and help people to achieve the impossible. I returned home from that trip to see
a live advertisement on television, that depicted an athlete performing to their best and beyond, while a dramatic voice, filled with conviction, recited the mantra that I, myself, had read on that tiled wall in Manhattan. I felt close to the brand, I felt that somehow a 3000-mile gap between the United Kingdom and the East Coast of America had been bridged by Adidas.

I believe the ‘impossible is nothing’ slogan is still running after three years and still a synonymous part of the Adidas brand and promise, the promise that you can achieve anything as long as you choose Adidas.

It appears a little ridiculous now, but that was the power of that campaign in my life. Granted I didn’t run out and buy new clothing branded with Adidas, but I did start to respect the company to the point that when I would make my next sports good purchase I would seriously consider their brand, the one that helped me feel connected to the world.

Isn’t that what we all crave? It is a need, to feel stability and belonging and that is what branding and advertising provide. The problem lies in the fact that placing our ethereal needs in the hands of tangible products can lead to a reduction in the social interactions and experiences that would usually fulfil that need. And is life not just about that, experience? What do we honestly own or possess? What have the brands given us back? All we have are memories of how we used those products, how we interacted with them, and how others interacted with them. But at the end of the day, we will still have as many experiences and just as many memories with or without the products.

Identity: Our Secret Superhero Costume.

The idea of being a superhero is one that has always fascinated me. Through my childhood and beyond, stories of Superman and Supergirl always caught my attention. I liked that they could have a hidden identity that no one knew about. It added an element of mystery and intrigue. Other superheroes that have since sparked my attention have been Batman, Spiderman and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

I’ve never been a huge fan of space exploration or sci-fi entertainment, but Buffy was different. Although it falls under the sci-fi genre it was more than that. It was about being a superhero on a pretty normal level. Buffy never had a uniform to confirm her superhero identity. She always looked and dressed like herself.

When she first realised her higher calling and purpose she had to give up her life as she had known it. Her mission in life defined who she was and she could not escape it. Just like our own inner identities are concealed deep inside of us. From there she found friends and a whole new life that complimented her inner identity. That is pretty much what we as individuals are trying to achieve. To surround ourselves socially with the people and things that best support and define whom we are within.

Our identities change depending on our social surroundings, when we are alone we behave differently than how we do around our families, and we would never associate with clients or colleagues the same way we do around our families. Every person knows us differently, and it’s not because of the way we externally appear it is because of the personality that we demonstrate. We might not be conscious of it, but it does occur. Do we honestly know who we are?

Just like superman and wonder woman we don a costume every day. We wear what we think best describes what we are capable of inside, just like the superheroes do – they dress to reflect their inner strength and identity.

Buffy, will always be my favourite hero because she never changed her appearance to suit. She just kept being herself, because what she was inside was whom she was outside. She never made the conscious decision to consume products that confirmed her calling in life.

We are defined by our life-style, our careers, our beliefs, and our aspirations in life. We are told that in the consumer world the only way to demonstrate our inner selves is by surrounding ourselves with products that compliment our identities. This is true, and this is the way to survive in society. We have social constraints placed upon us that put us on trial every second of the day. We are judged constantly by strangers, and associates. Just like Buffy the Vampire Slayer we have an inner identity that not many people know about, we choose what to tell people, and what to conceal. Our identities will never really be known by anyone, and we will continually don our costumes every single day to conceal that which we want no one to know, and to advertise that which we want people to believe about ourselves.