from one sheep to the rest of the herd
Who are you?
What I’m basically asking is what are your circumstances. Who are your parents, what books and movies did you grow up with, what kinds of values were taught?
And, more importantly, what ads do you see?
Let's talk about Kay’s Jewelers. You’ve probably seen their commercials before. It’s always, like, two happy people in love, and then one proposes to the other with a Kay ring or gives a Kay necklace for an anniversary or something, and they embrace, their love forever both strengthened and symbolized by this physical token. And then the slogan rings out: every kiss begins with Kay. Get it?
The association is simple: buy Kay’s, find love. Your girlfriend won’t marry you unless you have a ring from Kay’s- nowhere else will do the trick. This way, Kay’s isn’t marketing based on the perceived superiority of their product or what it can do for you versus its competitors. It’s selling an emotional package, one where you’ve finally found the love-of-your-life romance we’re all supposed to be looking for. And again, maybe you don’t buy Kay’s now, but in five years when you’re shopping for an engagement ring, and you’ve been hearing this commercial your whole life and occasionally the jingle runs around in your head, guess where you might head? Or recommend to a friend? Or bring up in conversation?
The simple fact is that Kay’s is lying, or at the very least exaggerating. Kay’s stuff isn’t going to make anyone love you, or even particularly like you. But they’re introducing this subtle form of brainwashing -- aka commercials -- to get a point across. But Nathalie, you say, attaching an emotional response to a brand is just what advertising is! Why are you so upset?
Because I hate to feel like a sheep!!! In particular, a capitalist sheep!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! My mom has a degree in advertising and she called it ‘nefarious’ so!!!!!!
The beauty industry is a particularly insidious example of this. The underlying logic of beauty advertising -- no matter how ‘feminist’ or ‘body-positive’ it claims to be -- is that your natural state is insufficient. Growing up, I accepted as fact that my bare face wasn’t good enough, because all I saw was this rhetoric of women living in makeup 24/7 and constantly talking about and wearing makeup, and the idea that to let the world see your unedited body is the gravest of sins. (And on the subject of beauty products pretending to be body positive: we could talk about corporations stealing the language of activist movements in order to sell products, thus undermining those same movements but gee whiz that’s a whole other blog post!)
Anyways, as an aside, realizing how capitalism/advertising works actually helped me be more accepting of my own appearance. Once I realized that making women hate their bodies is a billion-dollar industry, the mini Karl Marx that lives on my shoulder started to get really angry and start ranting about capitulation to heteropatriarchal white supremacist capitalist power structures every time I put on makeup, and so I got used to seeing my bare(ish) reflection. I then felt a lot better about my face. (I’m not saying that wearing makeup makes you a bad person, for the record. I do still wear a little bit of makeup, but I’ve been trying to wean myself off of it. And yes, I do think that for some people makeup can be a really important and valuable means of artistic expression- but the relationship most women have with their natural appearances is seriously unhealthy (for me, wearing makeup has always been about insecurity, not art, and I know for most girls it’s similar), and the makeup industry is actively worsening it to raise profit margins.)
And honestly, so many beauty products just strike me as completely and utterly inane. I mean, eyelash curlers? Seriously? I have never in my life understood the purpose of eyelash curlers. Are you deadass trying to tell me that I should feel bad about my eyelashes being too straight? Once you realize how silly most of this stuff actually is, a lot of products (like beauty blenders and, honestly, shaving your legs, among many other things) starts to feel kind of ridiculous in how arbitrary they are and how it's pushed as being 100% mandatory just to go outside. I think we (women) only accept this kind of nonsense because we’ve been so conditioned to believe all the propaga- I mean, advertising, about how our natural bodies are hideous, unloveable, etc, and most of us are so filled with trauma regarding our appearances that we’ll accept whatever kind of products a beauty guru tells us will make the reflection in the mirror just a little more tolerable.
But what are we supposed to do about it? I mean, it’s not like it’s going to stop anytime soon, nor could it- under these definitions, any kind of mainstream attitude or culture is basically brainwashing. Are any of our thoughts truly ours, or are we merely an amalgam of every word and image and idea we’ve ever encountered? Am I me, or am I commercials and supermarkets and animated cartoons and my parents and Ramona Quimby and Potter Puppet Pals, all superimposed on top of each other like an ill-fated tiramisu?
The short answer: both. The long answer: who are we if not our circumstances?
I don’t really have a concrete answer for what to do about advertising. My strategy, though, is to try and be as aware as possible. I certainly don’t think most advertisers are bad people- I mean, people gotta know about your stuff before they’ll by it. Still, I think it’s been a bit jarring to learn how un-individualistic all of my choices actually are.
And, ultimately, really the only thing is to just sort of...deal with it. And yeah, sometimes it’ll hit me when I’m in the makeup aisle or tempted by an Instagram ad that oh my god I’m a brainwashed sheep but you just gotta push that away, accept that We Live In A Society, and move on.
Isn't it amazing that something that anyone could have figured out on their own with very little effort comes as such a shock when someone finally points it out to you? I knew everything written about in this post before, and I still found it shocking to read. It's just so easy to fall seamlessly into the society we live in and let it flow over us, pouring ideas we shouldn't agree with into our puny heads for us to mindlessly accept. Even if we do get over being sheep (baa!), it's good to have it pointed out to us now and again, just to keep us thinking.
ReplyDeleteThis is so interesting to read. A lot of these things I have known for so long and consciously think about whenever I see an add for a beauty product or, like you said, an ad for Kay's jewelry, but it is still shocking to read about it all at once. Though I like to wear makeup, sometimes as a form of art or sometimes just because I like the way I look with mascara on, I think I have gotten better at understanding that there is no expectation of me to wear makeup, and whether or not I do, is entirely my choice.
ReplyDeleteJust to offer my two haypennies, for me, the best way to live in This Society is just to accept that I am a product of my environment as well as of products of my environment. The sad truth is: we live in an era where the old gods have died and the gods of Kay Jewelers and Apple and Bezos drive most of our consumer choices. This Society dictates that money may not be able to buy happiness but that it can buy things to make you happy. The new gods of today don't use lightning and plagues, they instead sell us, as you argued, the fear of never having It. And sometimes I think that motivates far beyond the Fear of god ever could.
ReplyDeleteThis was a quality post. Very detailed, and expressive. I loved the sheep analogy, and how you brought your ideas full circle. In regards to the idea of being brainwashed by society, I personally think there's truth. In my vast and super validated wisdom, I think that since humans are all so similar, comparing ourselves to other people too much is a dangerous road to walk, but a healthy amount of selfishness is a good thing. Basically, cast aside social media, down with the government, and fight system, before the robots take over.
ReplyDeleteI've wondered for a long time about what you're saying - that capitalism, and the saturation of advertisement it's brought, creates an unethical society, where women and other oppressed people are taken advantage of to make money. I will say that the way advertisers manipulate consumers to buy their products, by telling them they're not good enough, that they need to fix their lives, is wrong.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I also can't help but think, especially in the context of your women's example, that all that advertising and capitalism does is bring prevailing attitudes to surface. My mother, who grew up in a communist society, actually experienced more pressure to wear makeup and shave her legs than many women experience in America today (and during the 1990s). Ultimately, I feel that capitalism is as good as the people who operate it - if we have a society where emphasis is on making profits ethically, then capitalism serves as an excellent vehicle for innovation. But , if we have a society where people care about money and prestige over doing the right thing, then capitalism is used to propagate an oppressive status quo.