In the spirit of an annual ritual, in progress this week, involving the thorough evaluation of about 40 percent of our female friends-aka sorority rush-I feel like someone should talk about our society's self-image problem. It makes people sad. Or something.
Now that we've got that annoying, yet obligatory, little statement out of the way, let's talk about something much more fun: how those very self-image issues fuel the consumerism embedded in our society, which is... awesome.
People buy stuff on the basis of brand names, often to improve one's look. For example, people don't always buy the best smelling cologne, they buy the one that says Dolce & Gabbana (I did over break). Some would say that this makes society worse; a quick search of "consumerism" on Amazon returns book titles like "Consumed: How Markets Corrupt Children, Infantilize Adults and Swallow Citizens Whole." Yet consumerism is the very fabric of American culture. Brand obsession, massive corporations and whatever else trendy political activists protest these days are what drive America.
The desire to improve our self-image through different brands causes make-up, fragrance, computer and clothing companies to spend egregious amounts of money on advertising to create a brand association (that's how I know Macs are totes the latest fashion accessory)-and all this advertising revenue is what drives television. Companies work hard to create a brand culture because it works. When we can easily associate a brand name with something, why look any further? The primary revenue for broadcasting companies comes through advertising, and advertising relies on this brand relation to sell products.
When I went to NBC studios for a tour at 30 Rockefeller Center, the tour guides tried to convince the group that TV (and NBC specifically) is the center of American society. TV dominates the conversations of your average American. Whether at the water cooler or in entertainment section of newspapers, TV is at the heart of societal discourse. The way foreigners view the United States often is filtered through TV as a cultural export (I discussed "The West Wing" with a cabbie in Cork, Ireland over break).
The advertisements themselves are just as important. Budweiser frogs, Geico Cavemen, Mac vs. PC, the Pepsi Girl, even HeadOn and the "Can You Hear Me Now?" guy are all cultural phenomena. The point of these advertisements is to hammer brand recognition into your head. Both flourish because of our consumerism.
Even cooler is how consumerism drives our economy. Commies aren't materialistic because they want everyone to hold hands and fight freedom, leaving them no time to worry about the brand of the dress that their comrade is wearing. But we Americans (who have enough free time to watch shows like "The Hills") can worry about judging items solely by their labels, and objectify people by the labels they are wearing. So corporations spend billions of dollars to create a brand, which is reflected in the price tag. People eat that stuff up, and resultantly (which is surprisingly a word) makes consumption the largest part of GDP.
Consumerism provides other societal functions. It made Christmas a cultural holiday rather than just a Christian one (some call it "ruining Christmas," I say "making it awesomer"). It returns over 4 million hits on Google. It provided the motivation to build those gigantic Easter Island stone heads, which are just cool. Okay that last one was a stretch.
The consumerism that supposedly enslaves our society is actually the very fabric of that society. It drives our cultural vehicles in the media and economy.
In the current recession (finally, I can call it that after the official announcement; "financial crisis" was just too many syllables for my taste), people trade in brand recognition for affordability. But if we just all indulge the consumerism deep inside of us (there are so many sales to take advantage of!), we can spark consumer spending and get us out of this thing. Not really, but it'll help a little bit. So stop complaining about consumerism and embrace it.
Drew Everson is a Trinity sophomore. His column runs every other Friday.
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