03.04.06
Are the wants and needs of the average consumer manufactured by industry, or are we simply being supplied demands that are inherent in us all? I only ask, because I have begun to notice the miraculous efficiently of certain companies who seem to anticipate my changing demands as I move into my thirties. On Saturday just gone, I caught myself behaving exactly as a person in my demographic (male, thirties, professional, urban dweller) should, though I was unconscious of the desire to do so. Go to an Art Gallery and buy a critical theory book (that I'll never read) plus the Guardian newspaper (the magazine of which I'll flick through and discard the rest). Go to an expensive supermarket (Waitrose) and buy organic food. Go to an interiors shop (Habitat) and buy unnecessary designer knick-knacks for the home. This day hadn't been planned as such; the wife and I seemed to drift, quite effortlessly towards our natural consumer types and soon we were laden with shopping bags, the brands of which succinctly encapsulated our crushingly predictable middle class lives. It felt pleasingly comfortable, browsing for ergonomic fish steamers, until at the bus stop heading for home, we were confronted with our doppelgangers. Waiting there for the bus were another thirty something, centre-left white professional couple who, wielding the same carrier bags, had obviously been out shopping for entry-level designer home furnishings and reassuringly overpriced consumables of token ethical value. Of course, we trumped them clothes-wise (us: Marc Jacobs, Bernhard Wilhelm, vintage Dior… them: K-Swiss, Lacoste, Evisu) but as we stood there studiously ignoring each other, I realized that for all the limited edition this, vintage designer that, our off-the-shelf individuality is really an expensive nonsense. I am a walking cliché with average aspirations and limited understanding of my lot in life. After a week of diligent hard work, I like nothing better than to my spend time buying things that make me feel good about myself, just like everybody else. Atop the bus, other people like me had the day's purchases out, touching and feeling the branded trophies from a successful day's hunt.
I met up with a close friend later that day, who embarrassed my by saying he would have worn his new Puma trainers to meet me, had he not read my blog labeling the brand as 'the most all-time rubbish money can buy'. I spluttered some halfhearted hole-escaping defense about there being certain types of Pumas that were acceptable and anyway it was just a joke, but I gave up halfway through, the damage already being done. The more shallow thoughts I reveal on this blog, the more un-appealing, I'm sure I become. I just hope I can retain some friends by the time the book is done.
17 Comments:
Whats that I hear? Rejection of the modern branded world? Better get a
tom cruise-esque sprint on Neil - I hear the thought police at the
door!
Like the concept, and will definitely follow the progress.
The missus must be happy -think of all that space in the flat that
gonna be freed. She can stick a couple of trays of potpourri out.
dreamy
Ps - Puma = Jamaica lovin crap trainers with nazi parentage -FACT.
Neil,
Extremely funny mate. I have a busy johnny corporate type of day ahead and
have been sucked into your blog by the tale of the bus bird in rubbish
Pumas. Yes!!! Been there so many times.
Anyway your theme reminded me of this which I peruse regularly: excellent
combination of useful insight and complete fucking insanity presumably
driven by some form of class A substance abuse (because the authors are
dutch). http://www.trendwatching.com/trends/. My favourite buzzwords are
Excusumption and Maturialism (obviously).
That trendwatch site is hilarious. Its going on the links page now.
Starting to feel a bit sorry for Puma now. Maybe we should take a straw poll on this. Would you turn down a girl/ boy if they were wearing Pumas?
hey dude
you out of your friggin' mind or something?!?....
ain't you heard of ebay?!
charity shops?!?!
worthy mates?!?!?....
man
u better a get a big bloody advance for your book
best of luck sicko
x
Am really enjoying this project. Can we have more brand snobbery and affectless American Psycho-style heartless appraisals of hapless fellow men. Your condition reminds me of the bored aesthete and hedonist, as set out in Kierkegaard's Either/Or. After a dissolute youth, the aesthete finds "My soul is faint and powerless; I dig the spur of pleasure in vain into its flanks, it can no more, it no longer rises up in its royal prance."
I like to think of such boredom, as being the engine of consumerism. Globalisation promises homogeneity, a guaranteed brand experience in every nation on earth; what J.G. Ballard referred to, with specific reference to the European Union, as "a giant Switzerland of the soul."
Unfortunately, the brands we seek to distract us have boredom hardwired into them. A brand is more than a promise, it is a contract with certainty. That is why each brand has its brand manager, its brand matron, dedicated to delivering the proscribed experience of their brand. Our orthodox panacea for boredom is, unfortunately, more boredom. What globalisation promised was a world where you get always get your brands: a world, therefore, where nothing much would ever change.
But I wear shit clothes and you're my friend Neil,..ah,..or maybe not,..well now we can be!
Or maybe it's because we'e both Gemini's?
I presume you got married re; your posts? If not, do so,..have a child,.go off round the world,..that'll sort it mate. For sure get out of London. That's what happens in this arsewank of a town.
Oh, and can't you just give it all to charity instead?
Hello Gay Boy.
I've scrolled down and committted 10 minutes of my precious time to the project, I even made notes in order to construct something worthy as a comment.
Neil, I feel I know you reasonably well. I know your mum customized a pair of you Pumas for you with Burberry....I could go on.
Why am I going to the trouble to route through my brain cells pondering on the lifestyle/brand philosophy when I then read on to see you claim to have "low aspirations" that's total bollocks.
More alarming is that all this brand shite that you have accumulated is going to be burnt. Surely the piece this whole blog/project should be about how you can justify that?
Aids, starvation, child abuse, cancer, mental health...doesn't burning that money signify that you and some twisted producer aren't infact a couple nazi supremos.
Now why don't you pop round and show your ass a good time and I'm sure we can find an Oxfam or Sue Ryder drop point you can the film crew could pose in front of.
Well, lots of people seem to think I should give the lot to charity. I agree its a stupid waste, but giving the lot to Oxfam isnt as cathartic, violent or, lets face it, dramatic.
Question: every time you throw away perfectly edible food from your plate because you're full, do you suddenly think of the starving Africans? Are you posting off little parcels of unwanted goodies to abused children/ cancer patietns/ mental health victims each time something runs out of use? No, you're throwing it way or flogging it on e-bay. So that argument is a bit shakey really.
Yes, my Mum did customise some Pumas for me many years ago. There, I said it. I was confused at the time, and now i'm much better.
Isn't it easier to self-administer a panacea alternative to the boredom of our ridiculously well-read correspondent Mr. de Abaitua, by learning to sew and shopping at Primark? Or is the subscribing to clone brands/styling worse?
I've always thought, Neil, that you had a gently mocking approach to fashion and it's dictates -- neither slave nor master, but then, there could be few contributors to this blogoshpere less qualified than I to opine on the articles of fashion, so I shall limit myself to a platitude : I wish you well in this endeavour as I have in all the others; may you find what you seek.
I'll certainly be following your blogress.
Neil
you know whenever i mutter on about my state of financial ill-health and how i own, well very little, my sister always reminds me 'it's only stuff, claire. who needs stuff?'
respect. i'm sure it will bring a cleansing of the soul, mind and heart.
claire
You have to burn it.
It recalls the K Foundation burning of a million quid. It must be destroyed, for occult reasons. There is no aesthetic charge in recycling. Protests require fire, as the self-immolations of Buddhist monks attest. The bad information must be destroyed, not recycled.
fuck giving it to charity. what a bunch of homeless people need to be wearing your old trainers for? the point, as i understand it, is not to pass along brand addiction to the less fortunate, it's to bring the whole shitty system down.
gandhi could have gone on being a lawyer and donated all his profits to the poor. but that wasn't the point. the point was to shut down the empire so that everyone could see it's fundamental uselessness and hypocrisy.
burn baby burn
Perhaps in the spirit of consumerism, you could actually eat one of the significant branded goods, rendering it as shit.
hey neil. mathew's earlier post concerns me. especially the kierkegaard quote "My soul is faint and powerless; I dig the spur of pleasure in vain into its flanks, it can no more, it no longer rises up in its royal prance"
you are still rising up in your royal prance aren't you? i'd hate to think that due to this project your stallion would become dispirited. that it would no longer toss it's tangled mane and role it's little eye.
say it ain't so.
I like the sentiment (if not the digestive challenge) of eating and evacuating a branded item...but if we're not careful the comments will be require more analysis than than the blog itself!
Oh here we go - another middle class trustafarian doing a 'noble' cause in order to generate vast amounts of publicity for themselves. Why is it that press these days seem to think they are celebrities?
I'm guessing if a global brand such as HMV would like to sell your book you will turn them down - opting instead to sell it at Brick Lane market in order to make yourself feel better?
It's lucky that you can fill your time with burning your clothes - if only the rest of us didn't have to get up and work for a living. Perhaps we could do something equally noble - sorry pointless and self publicising.
Actually yeah... everytime i throw away good food because I'm full i do think of starving people. That's why I either save it or don't fill my plate up with a lot of food in the first place. Maybe you should think about that. Instead of throwing all of this stuff away and ending up going out to buy more because you need clothes, maybe you should just wear old, supposidly out of style brands and clothes and accept the fact that you may not look like a rich guy anymore.
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