Another Whinny Essay... seriously. I need to stop.

I just submitted this to adbusters. Not my finest piece of writing, but let's face it, I am slacking these days. Lack of reading equals lack of quality writing. Alas. Enjoy.

A Call For Superheroes.

Now is the time to forget the rules; all bets are off. Now is the time to shed our contemporary consumer society costumes, and truly reveal the superheroes within ourselves.

The concept of superheroes is not unusual, they have been part of our fantasy culture for decades and they cross international cultures and barriers. I would go as far as saying that as long as man has existed he has always dreamed of having super-natural powers and abilities that set him apart from everyone else and give him authority to help and save the world, or at least help with his labour.

What’s not so commonly recognised is the similarities of superheroes to the contemporary consumer world. Superheroes don masks, capes and lycra snug-fitting outfits and alter their identities to conceal who they are, or rather augment who they want to be: a crime fighter; a life saver; a bringer of justice. We are guilty of doing such things with our own purchases, and our own everyday clothes. We buy things that will make us feel like who we want to be and that we think will display our inner personality to the outside world. Really we are just fitting into genres and shoe-horning our lives into a brand we think we identify with. We have been behaving like superficial superheroes for decades, but this is now a call for real superheroes: for people to realise their potential and realise the difference they can make in this world.

No, we don’t have any kind of super natural powers, but I don’t think that possessing abilities beyond reality would actually help, but more so hinder. This is up to us. We don’t need a mask, a cape, or any kind of special outfit. We don’t need powers, or to have been born on another planet. We really don’t need to conceal our identities or suppress who we are any longer. The pressure to conform to a certain genre and to appeal to the people already leading that niche of society has reached boiling point and we can now free ourselves. It’s time to let our superhero selves reign supreme. We need to save the planet, and we need to do it as superheroes.

Let’s shed our brands, and our obsession with spending. Let’s start to help the people we know and the people we don’t know; let’s talk to our neighbours and save society; let’s go outside and experience nature and appreciate how intrinsically linked to it we are; let’s make amends with our family and friends and have no animosity; let’s look at the sky and realise how wonderful and beautiful it is; let’s not fear our own culture, anyone else’s culture and especially not religion; let’s stop working so many hours, and stop wanting gadgets, brands, and things beyond need; let’s say no more to being psychologically tormented and depressed by the cold world we have invented; let’s listen to the young and the old; let’s cook real food and no longer be a slave to work and the microwave meals made for convenience; let’s realise that the things we own will not afford us one iota of real happiness; let’s design things that will help people rather than things to make money; let’s put down the TV remote and read books; let’s enjoy life and realise that memories are what make it; let’s learn from each other and never stop learning; let’s care about the world; let’s care about people; let’s be happy; let’s care about oppression, war, and let’s no longer stand for corruption among our ‘leaders’. We have the power to rise up and take back the planet that is ours. Let’s change the world, let’s be superheroes – together.

Hillary (Hilldog) Clinton

I hate American Politics. Fact. It's not really democracy, and the winner is the person with the most money for advertising. It makes me sick.

This is what life boils down to: a popularity contest. Based on manipulating people using propaganda about yourself; using clothes, flyers, slogans, cars etc.

Anyway.

I read today that Hilldog Clinton has threatened to pulverise Iran if they launch a nuclear attack on Israel.

The terminology she used to describe such an event and act is disgusting, disgraceful and clearly only used to get the republican vote.

What makes me even more mad/sick is the fact that we have to hear about it; that the United States has interfered so much in everyone else's business, to the extent, that we all dread who will be elected, that we are all put in a position that we care. This should not be the case.

However; I read somewhere, I'm not entirely sure where, about the simple fact that no one can stay on top forever. The article was predicting the rise of India, China and the rest of the Asian world. I think they are the next contenders for the top.

Britain was once Great (now it's just Britain regardless of its outdated GB title), the USA believes itself to be currently great and forced itself on everyone else. But soon China will rise up and take the lead (if America don't pulverise them because of their lack of democracy). It's just like McDonalds and Coca-Cola. They are no longer on top. They won't be around forever. Greatness comes before a fall. I suppose the Buddhists call that Karma.

So, has anyone started brushing up on their Chinese language skills? All 7,000 dialects?



Image from flickr by user: jgmphotography

Black Friday and the Mass Production Line of Consumers.

I stood in a queue that lasted over an hour because there was no order, there was no etiquette - there was just shopping.

On the stroke of midnight on the evening of thanksgiving thousands of people took to the mall, to stand in whatever extreme weather condition their state of residence felt like throwing at them that night. In the state I was in, it was freezing temperatures, I cannot give you the exact temperature because I have the inability to convert fahrenheit to celsius. These people were not queueing for Harry Potter or hot tickets, they were queueing for clothes, for televisions, for lingerie, for make up, perfume, shoes, bags, hats, jeans, mobile phones, computers, and every other object that has been created for the sole purpose of being consumed.

As I walked in to the mall at a little after midnight three young people darted across the car park shouting 'I've gotta get to the sales.' It was their way of mocking the consumer world they understood to be a farce, how long would it be, however, until they were saying those words with sincerity. With age comes responsibility and does that, in effect, bring unnecessary consumption?

The mall was packed, every shop and fast food area was open - I couldn't believe it because it was the evening of a holiday (granted a holiday I don't celebrate being British and all). There was one shop in particular that had a queue outside of it, and my accompanying consumer wanted that shop. So we queued, and queued. As we did I watched the line of people travelling up a nearby escalator, the noise that the escalator made, as each person was deposited on another level of shops, sounded so mechanical and so rhythmic it was almost as if the people themselves were being spewed off of a mass production line.

Then I realised that they were. Every single one of us. We are moulded and shaped in to consumers. We no longer have the upper hand. We are told that we need need need. So we buy buy buy to fit those needs. The prices of certain objects in the United States are so high in comparison to those of Britain, why? Because the population of the United States have been told that they 'need' certain things, so they won't refuse to buy something based on price if they 'need' it - will they?

That is where Britain and the United States vary. The dense population of the U.S. is such that companies can charge what they like because there are enough people to buy products to keep their company in business. Where as the UK have to fight over the target market, which leads to price slashing and deals in favour of the consumer. It doesn't matter which way you look at it, both populations are being persuaded to buy.

Black Friday is a purely post-thanksgiving U.S/Canada day, but the UK have their January sales and the pre-Christmas spend. It all started when shopping centres started opening on a Sunday. I remember hearing the radio advertisements for the first rare and unheard of occurrence. It was a grimy winter back in the mid 90s. I can only hope that the future of Britain is not a day named after the mirkiest and hopeless of colours where people will risk their health to queue outside a store and fight for the products they are under the impression they need.

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.

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.

The Three Rs: Radiohead, Ramones, Right Said Fred.

I came to discover and hear Radiohead the same way Jonathan Ross did. I was around the age of 14 when I bought the Clueless Soundtrack in Dublin. I’ve always claimed that they ‘saved’ me - but what post-teenager doesn’t claim that a musical genre or band ‘saved’ them. The movie clueless had reaffirmed my naive ambitions to live the ‘American Dream’ (something that was later quashed by Michael Moore’s realism), so the soundtrack appeared to be a logical audio choice.

The varying tracks were definitely different to the classically composed music of Gershwin that I would usually be found listening to. I didn’t have a vast musical knowledge of anything other than Classical and perhaps some of the popular bands of the time like Right Said Fred. This was a time when the Spice Girls had hit the UK with a zig-a-zig-a, Boyzone were established and the eye-candy of every other girl my age and Take That were still being mourned after. I was, as you can imagine, not the most popular person in school. So it was only natural that I was to slip in to the pre-defined shoes of a Radiohead fan.

Their musical composition, their lyrics and their sound, was truly amazing. It was like nothing I had heard. It was like a phenomenal discovery. Oddly enough, there was an OK Computer album to hand (belonging to my cousin), and without further ado I was hooked.

Naturally my thirst for rock music was not quenched. With the introduction of Napster at the age of 15 I was able to explore and experience a lot of music. I was at the brink of musical knowledge. As well as using the internet for musical gain,
I was using it to communicate and ‘chat’ to people across the globe, usually Americans, who would fill my head with bands that were new there, which meant they were never heard of in the UK. I had a general thirst to be unique, so to have music that no one else had in the UK was one of the best feelings I have ever had. As my musical tastes began to settle and develop I started to make new friends, ones who shared the same passion for music as I did, before long I was dressing in baggy clothing wearing band T-shirts and, for a good couple of years, I sported chains attached to my belt hoops, my bracelet collection began and all my consumer choices were based upon the foundations of my musical choices.

A few years, many eyeliner pencils, experiments with hair and a change of shoes led me to the punk era of my life. Changing from DC Skate shoes to Converse’s Chuck Taylor’s opened up realms I never knew before.

My wardrobe started to change again to accommodate the ‘chucks’ – mainly my jeans became skinner, the studded belt stayed and so did the eyeliner - my music tastes even incurred a paradigm shift, as I started to explore older punk genres like the Ramones and the Sex Pistols. Regardless of what I was exactly listening to, I had always made a conscious effort to always appear that I was listening to music within the punk/rock genre. I would judge people solely on their appearance and decide within a split-second what kind of person they were, how dedicated to the music they were and what music they preferred
by something as menial as a shoe or the colour of their hair.



Every musical genre has values and beliefs stereotyped and attached to it: like listening to Radiohead means you must be miserable, or listening to hardcore dance music means you are violent, irresponsible and a drug user. Why can it no longer just be music, a form of entertainment? Back in my days of listening to Gershwin and Right Said Fred, there was no way of knowing that was what I liked unless I had been asked. There was no set attire, or rule of advertising my own musical taste to the rest of society. I had no desire to do it either. What has driven us to the point that we feel we must wear our personalities? There is a need to broadcast our lives and tell people who we are and what we think and what we like, it is almost like we are all competing for the most attention, and the most recognition of being part of something. Are we that lost amongst the objects that we must use them to be noticed?

The point is, that in the consumer world there is nothing untouched. Everything is an object. Music is an object. The like and dislike of music is an object that can now be bought and I’m not just referring to the hoards of merchandising that occurs, my reference is to the manner by which an individual displays their likes or dislikes, their passions and preferences. I elected to join a genre of music and with it came a natural consumer map for me, it was easier that way, to know that because I liked Radiohead I was supposed to buy clothes that suited the ambient emotions their music emitted; that because I liked Rage Against the Machine I was supposed to wear chains and have spiked, leather bracelets; that because I liked the Ramones, I was supposed to (and have), at least once in my life visit CBGB’s; that because once upon a time when I liked Right Said Fred
and George Gershwin I was able to pass under the radar of society, unnoticed, because there was no pressure to uphold the preset archetype of a particular musical genre. Although, to have such passion for a belief and or preference is quite a good quality, times were just simpler when it was just me, George and Fred: There was just life and just music.

Authenticity: Our Authentic Soles.

I remember my first pair of Authentic Dr Martens (the shoe with the bouncing sole). When I ripped them out of their box to start breaking them in, I noticed an advertising flyer in the bottom of the box that read ‘if you walk a mile in another man’s shoes you will understand his pain. If you walk a mile in another man’s Dr Martens, you will never give them back.’

Over the years I have worn several different brands of shoes, and with every new pair I have had to break them in, and mould them into the shape of my personal footprint, making them unique and intrinsic to only myself. I have walked in several different places and the places I have walked are completely unique, and no one will ever be able to mimic my experiences - although they can wear the same shoes. These experiences are what make us all authentic, real and completely unique; they have become inseparable to our own personal identities, because it is our opinions, beliefs, values, emotions, feelings, and experiences that make us who we are. Our identities are the only thing left that is truly authentic.



Our inner soul (I use the term soul to mean our emotional and psychological attributes, rather than an attempt to spark debate about the existence of the human soul) is no longer what matters to the consumer culture. We already have two branded soles on our feet, why would we need another that takes time to understand? By electing to wear a pair of Dr. Martens I was attaching that brand to my physical identity. Since then I have associated with scores of objects that have been scrutinised and judged by other individuals. Our physical appearances are always on trial, and our external identities are based upon our relationship with objects, brands, and the symbols that they emanate. In this contemporary world everything
is consumed quickly: objects, information, images, attitudes, the general ethos of society; we all expect things to happen now. There is no longer time to walk a mile in another person’s shoes and truly discover their soul brand, because the only soul that matters in the consumer world is the brand name on our sole.








* This article was published in the June 2007 edition (issue 72) of Adbusters - The Journal of the Mental Environment.

The Big Bad Wolf: A Once Upon A Time Introduction.

The defamation of the character of the Wolf has occurred in every single fairy-tale that he has featured in. The Wolf is the fairy-tale symbol of everything that is dangerous and everything we should avoid. Fairy-tales and story telling are a large part of our childhood and create a foundation for the teaching of morals and ideas.

There is one story in particular in which the wolf dresses as a sheep in order to trick the shepherd, his motives are clear: he is hungry and he wants to eat the sheep – he will do whatever is necessary in order to sustain himself.

This one story and principle can be compared to contemporary consumer trends. Consumerism is essential in this society because we no longer self-produce the things necessary for our survival. So we consume to live. But there is a large consumer market filled with hundreds of products – some of them essential, some of them no so much – every product has a manufacturer and a brand and they all want to survive in the marketplace. To help the individual decide what products to consume advertising, packaging and branding were created to communicate the products contents, manufacturer and to convey its quality.

Over the years as more and more brands started to appear, it became essential for products to compete for their share of the market place. This led to surreptitious methods of communication that uses psychology to exploit the needs of the individual in order to achieve a higher status and standing in the market place.

This involved lowering prices, changing packaging, introducing new sub-brands or products under the same brand and advertising campaigns that promised happiness and fulfilment through purchasing objects – in other words, the brands and the products, did everything they could to stay afloat in a competitive market. Just like the wolf they dressed themselves in ‘clothing’ that allowed the consumer to feel comfortable enough to trust and believe in the brand. But where is the danger in that?

The danger is that these brands and products are not fulfilling their promises; they are not making us happy, they are not helping us to find romance, or to succeed in our job, or to have the perfect family, because, these things cannot be achieved by buying.

Consumerism has become a ‘vicious cycle.’ It involves ‘the chronic overwork to be able to spend more; the social disintegration resulting from overwork; the environmental damage caused by consumer waste; conflict over resources to supply consumer demand. In other words, a myriad of problems loosely bound by the innocent desire for an iPod or a luxury car collection’ (Uechi, 2007, p.51).

It is necessary to consume, but over-consumption is damaging our mental and natural environment and clouding our perspective and priorities in life. I don’t want to preach, and I don’t want to tell anyone how to live their life, I just want to bring these issues to the forefront. With the rise in fear of global warming, a focus has been made on the amount we consume and the exploited countries and people that are affected by our over-consumption habits.

So, I am crying wolf, in the hope that someone will listen and realise that just because the wolf is in a disguise, of either sheep’s clothing or Granny’s clothing, doesn’t mean he is not there.