Tuesday, March 25, 2008
No logo Reading: No Space/Alt. Everything
I guess this is what its going to come down to, our culture is bought up by corporations and sold back to us. It's nice to be aware of this fact, yet our generation still runs with it as normality, they know bands sell out to pepsi, and buy up the newest fashion, jeans, soundtrack to the newest indie flick put out by fox searchlight, i know, because I'm one of those individuals. I do feel quite in the dark about the newest age of cool, i feel it must be riding the wave of the last couple of big movies, or newest artists to hit itunes. I remember when bands hit the radio that never would of dreamed making it otherwise, all because of a little film called Garden State. The movies soundtrack launched a wave of cool, the quasi-indie bands because staples everywhere you went, you heard them, saw them on SNL and in Time. I think in some ways, it is good for our culture it make it out to the outskirts and back again, in a way the youth get exposed to so much, and its their decision to accept it, but wouldn't you rather find it yourself?
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11 comments:
The reading in No Logo opened my mind on a few things. I would have never thought of the CEO's of HUGE companies ruling the trend world rather than your typical 'wanting to fit in' teenager. It makes sense though, they have all the money and no rules. If you are a highly payed CEO or a teen your friends are the promoters. I completely agree with that statement made. I think its funny that people who follow the trends are compared to camouflaged fish and insects, very humorous!!
yes and it's also an interesting twist that though the CEO's can still be typical businessmen, the ones you hear about most often are the hip/cool CEOs like Tom from Myspace of the google guys. Because CEO's are getting younger, or rather, it's becoming easier to climb the latter faster with internet innovations, our market is getting younger.
I understand where you're coming from, Ryan. But, I'm trying to imagine what sort of activities I would be engaging in if I wasn't completely surrounded by artifacts of my "culture." True there are many options that isolate us from the rest of the world, but at least we have options. I'm thankful that these corporations are figuring out what we're into, upgrading, and feeding it back to us. I don't think we have enough will power to create our own culture from the ground up.
I like the commentary of taking things more to the "streets." I'm totally okay with marketing on a micro level, targeting one sub-culture specifically. I'm just not okay with advertising products through other products that have no relevance (e.g. a pencil that says "Levi" jeans). This isn't creating the form of options that I spoke of earlier. It's simply making one of those options more dominant, through visual fluff.
garrett (and others): do you think that a culture you created from the ground-up would be any more rewarding than that's pre-packaged and sold to you? i understand what you say about not having the willpower to do so, but why is that? in the small town where i grew up, after i found out about punk rock, i bought a bass and amp, started a (horrible) band with my brother and two friends, and set up shows in super-crazy places: my backyard on a flatbed wagon (we feld we needed a stage), at a work-out place, in a friends shed. is there no willpower because we have too many options?
My mass com and society intro class (pre-art institute) was primarily based around the act of 'cool hunting' and this article was like a re-run of one of the many PBS specials we watched in that class. Cool hunters don't just target one certain culture, but instead, there are cool hunters for a mass amount of cultures. I also feel as if marketing on a 'micro' level warrants a more accurate representation of a certain culture. Garrett suggest that we don't have enough will power to build our own culture, but I can't help wonder if there is a culture that hasn't been built. Too many options? Maybe, but I would rather have to many options than too little.
Freedom of choice
Is what you got
Freedom from choice
Is what you want
i disagree with garrett's comment. while some people DO lack the will to go out and find what their into (ie: those kids who hang out at the mall every damn day of the week; one minute wearing pink and black converse with black eyeliner smudged (so perfectly...which is ironic), and the next they're buying up every pair of oversized D&G sunglasses they can find to match with their LV handbags). However, the beauty of being human is having FREE WILL, ergo, freedom of choice. Yes, we can see all the advertisement in the world of Michael Jordan pimping Haines boxerbriefs, but in the end it's our decision to go out and buy that or any number of cheaper "unknown" brands. I'm personally finding it hilarious how the counterculture is being gobbled up by "the man". Being antiestablishment is the uber hip thing to do, and the hipsters are hating it. Something I learned in my 60's film class with the fine Katz was that once the majority swallows up the counterculture and makes it marketable, it will eventually die out. We see this in every trend. The people who were tried and true to it from the beginning will last through the fad, where as wee, impressionable ones will continue to be in a (brand) identity crisis.
this is a bit of a stretch in relation to the original article but...
i'm obsessed with the life and cycles of trends in fashion. who starts a trend? the article talks about CEOs making these decisions but i think it probably originates elsewhere. is it a decision or does it just happen? why do people follow trends? i think it's hilarious when the trend-rebels become trendy.
it's so strange to think about how powerful trends are on our perceptions. for example: think of just about any trend from the 80s. back then, you were hot stuff if you had a permed mass of hair but when we look at that now, it's horrible. what changed? and who is to say that hairstyle won't come back and we will all love it again.
i think we follow trends to be a part of something, to be able to associate yourself with a cultural group.
in response to what tyler said, i mean i'm well out ont the fringe of that stuff to begin with; i'm aware of (and i can enjoy) pop culture stuff, but then when you get into the category of music and local venues like unholy grave, the haunted kitchen, bathtub shitter, damad, the anchor, g.i.s.m., uh, i mean i could keep listing signifiers, how many punk rock bands i've been in and what other local and national and international bands we've played with but it would a) seem like some kind of perverse bragging and b) not make any more damn sense to you than the list above. which is the point.
but it is more fulfilling. i think it is. you and your friends (and their friends and their friends and etc.) came up with this sorta on your own and it's the copyrighted, marketed property of some nationless slave conglomerate. you feel more free when they don't lead you around by the nose. i didn't know what punk rock sounded like when i started a band. it was 2001 and everything on the radio sucked.
"I would have never thought of the CEO's of HUGE companies ruling the trend world rather than your typical 'wanting to fit in' teenager." yeah, that's how they get you. it'd all be a question of aesthetics except for how ruthlessly they prey on the insecurities and desperate longings of kids.
see i'm not saying "get involved with punk rock" because a lot of people just can't stand it and that's their right. get involved with something. there's roller derby and guerrilla sewing circles and underground hip hop and people who make obsessive psychotic 50ft tall paintings and everything else. people with tinnitus who smell like cigarettes don't have a monopoly on independent creativity. related to that, tina, i don't know how 'above it all' you feel with regard to the marketing of (perceived) countercultures, but yknow. i don't know how invested in "punk" you feel either.
come to think of it a band would probably call itself something like "bathtub shitter" specifically so arbiters of mass culture would have second thoughts about trying to absorb them. so here's another topic for discussion: maybe anything that doesn't intrinsically and seriously challenge the values of the system is destined to be part of it. maybe anything that does still is.
it also occurred to me just now that, being as this is on the visual advocacy blog, maybe the more pertinent question is whether we're gonna be the ones helping to dictate mass culture in a couple months.
this stuff can be more insidious than it seems. there are a couple of dudes at work who just endlessly discuss pop culture ephemera in really knowing, sarcastic tones. if you're so much smarter than everything you consume, then why does it have so much control over you? your whole mental environment becomes this sphere of things you condescend to, with nothing in the middle where you ought to be.
garrett, i'm not convinced that they're "upgrading" these things. upgraded relative to what? you go a store and the clothes aren't worth what they cost, TV isn't worth your time, the radio sucks, the movies suck, the economy sucks, the war sucks... everything sucks. it's like what they do with health insurance; you can arbitrarily take away a person's right to something and they won't even by angry-- they'll be grateful that you allow them to buy it back, little by little.
Tina I agree with you when you say that stars are the ones taking over the advertising and we are the ones that see that and go out and choose to buy the most expensive pair of something we can so we can hurry out and show it off... If you look on tv there are not very many clothing ads out only the big time like adidas and nike and Levi's and wrangler maybe you see a dickies very now and then but only the strong brands can afford the tv screen. The rest just use music and movie and sports stars to market their products. Like say Affliction they have got every UFC fighter wearing their tees to the ring and on interviews in stead of doing commercials. So there are many ways of getting your product out there. I find it interesting that the CEO's run the trend part of the company and have the say so, but its also no surprise because they have the money to make it happen.
My thought is that the reason why Nike was the only no limit spending company for many years was because they were able to make shoes for very cheap and then sold them to the customer for 120.00 a pair. Therefore a lot of that came from the man called Jordan. I think He made Nike what it is today.
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