Consumer Programming ™

It's hard not to feel deep sympathy for people so unhappy that consumerism is their only relief from the pain of living. 

Thanksgiving at Walmart?

It's like they're programmed.

视频: 2012.09.12 TEDTalks - Leslie T. Chang

To agree or disagree with author of Factory Girls, Leslie T Chang's TED Talk about the people who clamber over each other to work in China's factories to make the consumer electronics and handbags we buy is missing the point. There are so many dimensions to this topic that listening to her should make us all feel a little more humble about knowing how little we know.

I loved hearing about the people and their dreams instead of the endless talk of capitalism and consumer products.

Infographic: How Much Money Is Printed To Save The Western Perpetual War/Central Banking Model?

The liquidity injections tell you everything you don't want to know. We're insolvent and our holographic fiat currency is propping us all up at the expense of the poor. We''re predatory around oil countries (Libya and Iran), and I say morally bankrupt. The full story is over at the Financial Times.


The comments below the article refuse to ask the 64 cent question. 


How much keyboard tap money can the fiat currency/federal reserve/central banking model take? 


We're going to find out.

Oishi - It's A Question Of Taste

Let me think. First we have an online mall. It is promoting a new consumption model that encourages more material consumption using credit and borrowing initiatives. These are named after Western naked short selling through the financial markets by portraying the idea of three women taking their clothes off. What's not to like about that?

Sometimes I think we did a smashing job of converting China and frankly the disrobing is the least offensive thing.

All Watched Over By Machines Of Loving Grace

Earlier, Mark pointed me to the ever interesting Adam Curtis' blog who reminds us that the Greeks have a lot more street-savvy awareness of elite rip-off techniques including rapid power swaps that we most memorably experienced when blue blood Alec Douglas Home needed to dump his title to run the UK after the Suez crisis. 

Or as The New Statesman puts it:

We British look complacently on the installation of Mario Monti and Lucas Papademos as unelected leaders of Italy and Greece respectively. Couldn't happen here, we say. But in 1963, when Harold Macmillan resigned, our unelected Queen, advised by mostly unelected Tory elders, sent for the unelected 14th Earl of Home and made him prime minister. He subsequently renounced his title, changed his name back to Douglas-Home and won a by-election in a safe Tory seat conveniently vacated for him. All that was stitched up in weeks.

I like Adam Curtis but I've not followed his latest work. He's not sussed out why 9/11 happened which makes me squirm a bit. Nevertheless I started to watch the first episode of Machines of loving Grace, and I remembered that he has a brilliant BBC film library at his disposal and a good enough brain to adumbrate a point of view that while not flawless is able to provoke new thoughts in my own. He also digs up bits of history I wasn't aware of. I knew of Alan Greenspan's Randian worship and I'm familiar with her work, but I didn't know he was part of her swivel eyed private circle. The lens on this period in New York was fascinating though once again we're reminded that the people who really took over the US after the first coup d'etat of Kennedy's death were all subsequently installed during the Ford presidency.

I put it to you that the people (string pullers/banksters) really in power used the Nixon downfall to set up a clique of players including Rumsfeld, Cheney, Wolfowitz, Perle and Greenspan to set up the game for later down the road. They cut their teeth during the tail end of a volatile period and then returned with a neoconservative agenda of nitrous oxide shock doctrine debt capitalism, false flag opportunism and empire expansionism under the quintessential puppet president. George Bush 43.

Brilliant really. We've been schooled by the best. If we get through this rollercoaster to the end we'll have picked up some very useful lessons in spotting the finest manipulation, trickery and mendacity in the galaxy. 

These will be essential skills to ensure the empire can never strike back to anywhere near the effectiveness they once had.

Terence McKenna - Eros & The Eschaton (Why Consumer Culture Is Brainless Culture)

"We have to stop consuming our culture. We have to create culture. Don't watch TV, don't read magazines, don't even listen to NPR. Create your own roadshow. The nexus of space and time where you are -- NOW -- is the most immediate sector of your universe. And if you're worrying about Michael Jackson or Bill Clinton or somebody else, then you are disempowered. You're giving it all away to ICONS. Icons which are maintained by an electronic media so that, you want to dress like X or have lips like Y... This is shit-brained, this kind of thinking. That is all cultural diversion. What is real is you, and your friends, your associations, your highs, your orgasms, your hopes, your plans, your fears. And, we are told No, you're unimportant, you're peripheral -- get a degree, get a job, get a this, get that, and then you're a player. You don't even want to play that game. You want to reclaim your mind and get it out of the hands of the cultural engineers who want to turn you into a half-baked moron consuming all this trash that's being manufactured out of the bones of a dying world."

Is This The Voice Of Consumerism?

Food For Thought

Some lovely soul had this in their feed and I don't recall who, which is a shame because I'd really like to connect a bit deeper with them? Is it you? Leave a comment please.

This TED talk came out in 2007 and I'm surprised I haven't seen it before. Not because I've seen all of them. But because it's the most robust case I've seen argued and presented at TED connected to this topic. You may recall that only recently I was switched on to Raj Patel and his ideas on food sovereignty, and so this is now two exemplary videos on a subject that is integral to our future unless you've bought into that monoculture vision peddled by Monsanto that the Gates Foundation is unfortunately investing in with a view to making profit out of hunger. (Zizek is so right on charity)

I heard a lovely quote earlier today. The people who want to sell you a nice smell are not interested in you. I think that's most interesting in light of the lovely touchy-feely Old Spice work which was responsive, warm, humorous and most importantly championed a seminal dialogue/real-time tone-of-voice (look at him, now look back at me) which could be tapped into later for what is now considered a text book case study for social media in marketing.

OK.... I've been interrupted and lost my train of thought so as I want to come back to paragraph above later. I'll just leave it up there as it will be useful. I hope it's not too distracting but if you find it confusing..... well just be grateful I haven't started mucking around with digital William Burroughs narrative cut up experiments. Not sold? No I don't blame you. Sorry about that.

So my point about this video is that it's so well argued I'm surprised it hasn't surfaced in my lifestream before. What it has done for me this morning is begun to coalesce further, some ideas on marketing, 21st century branding and most importantly reconciling that gap between wealth creation and consumption that nags at my amygdala like a rodent in 1984. 

I wont dip into the structural imbalance of capitalism and growth (I know I'm knee deep in Marx again) but what I will say is that this video re-enforces the point about food being pretty much the only link in the chain which can resolve the full spectrum of 21st century  impending doom.

From  diseases like type two diabetes epidemics in the USA and India, global obesity and starvation (an imbalance capitalism can't fix despite sufficient food being the hallmark of the 20th century) and say the extraordinary influence of big agra, big pharma, big retail and fast food (and yes I still see great work for McDonalds in all this which is why I love them). 

That's a tall claim but if, and if is a fucking huge word I know too well, but if we took all of those things really importantly, and actually we do but we're freaked out by the scale of our individual thoughts vis a vis planetary action. If we we're serious about nailing on the head some of the most pressing challenges of our time then what you and I next put into  our mouths, by hand or by silver cutlery, it doesn't matter. What you put in your mouth is the most influential consideration to make as a consumer ever I'd go as far as to say that once in control of that the word person is a much more powerful noun though we can settle on citizen if you wish.

Problem is, as I know all to very well from putting weight on a bit too quickly for my own liking. If self control over our own body mass is hard as hell to control. Then what chance has collective change got? Slim chance right?

I think there is a way though, and this video just nailed it a bit further for me. I hope you watch it because as I think things through I know I'm going to be asking for your input. I certainly don't have a hope in hell without it.

The Business Of Skin Whitening In Asia

I've been talking about this for so long that the only thing that really interests me is why anybody in marketing and advertising who would want me do for some work with them, might not have googled my name and Unilever + Skin whitening. 

In any case it's still worth making a quick summary because money doesn't come first in my universe. Skin whitening creams in Asia are broadly speaking about hierarchy. The whiter the skin the less likely you are to be fresh from the rice paddies. The less likely you come from the rice paddy, the more likely you are to be hired, promoted, secure a Blu Ray DVD player, iTablet, BMW 3 series and/or shiny white teeth.

Though it strikes me that for someone who argues a woman is entitled to make her own decisions about abortion that the final decision on what colour one wishes to be is down to that person. So I'm not anti skin whitening.

They say that holding opposite and conflicting thoughts in our heads at the same time is a mark of evolution and so the only position I can take when thinking about this category is that it behooves the multinationals; that is the onus is upon them. That they bear the responsibility that there is a clear responsibility to fulfil and articulate, that melatonin expectation transactions should come with an unambiguous message that Unilever, P&G, Johnson & Johnson et al respect all people of all colours. The reverse isn't true for tanning lotions because that hierarchical imposition isn't present within that context. I maintain it's a great communication opportunity of the win win variety - if it's with sincerity.

Anyway, above are a series of ads by Ogilvy & Mather Hong Kong regional office. They look innocuous and in some markets they may well lean more towards the beauty end of the spectrum than concealment but as I've mentioned over here in the comments; the focus groups are revealing because with skilful moderation, the kind where dirty secrets surface...well they tell the story of skin whitening. 


And it aint pretty.

The Bird's Nest

One of the great experiences of Beijing is the sheer velocity of construction which has had me pondering for quite some time on the implications of whole neighbourhoods flattened overnight with new superstructures going up faster than I've ever seen in my life. I've already talked about the CCTV building by Rem Koolhaas which we will never see its like again (and he knows it) but the other supermodel on the catwalk is the Birds Nest, or the Olympic Stadium. It's awesome. Period.

Here it is from some photography I took the other day. Notice the traditional peasant (migrant worker) in the foreground. I chose this pic out of the 30 or so I took because like the washing below it represents something about modern China that Noam Chomsky talks about a lot in this podcast here; the human development index for China is still quite low, around 70th if I'm not mistaken. 

There's a lot of people still running around on loose chained tricycles shifting bricks from one place to another. 

Wait till all those have offspring that want to go to college, drive a car and double China's GDP with the 'Chinese Dream' (One World One Dream).........Yeah, we need to rewire our economies and the answer might be most candid in Asian economies today. 

Not tomorrow.

I live only a stones throw from the Forbidden City and a short walk from Tiananman Square. Beijing is often a sooty and polluted overcast metropolis. It's also, in its own way the most tidy I've ever come across for its size. I've never seen a broken glass, a crisp packet or an empty packet of cigarettes on the road and that's because there is no litter. But still there are quaint signs of a rapidly disappearing life, and though I live amongst the political elite (and those who did them favours) The washing is still out on the road drying in the occasional spell of glorious sunshine. For when Beijing shines. It really does shine beautifully.

 

Sorry about the lack of links and layout at the moment as I'm using the new version of blogger and playing with new features.

Just The Watches

I visited this place first back in September and at the time it struck me how extraordinary the sheer range of watches were on sale. I took this QIK video earlier at the Silk Street Market which is kind of like MBK in Bangkok. Its depressing isn't it, how much effort goes into pumping out enough timepieces to keep our insatiable 'consumer' appetites fulfilled? Each of those watches has so many hundreds of component parts and must be at least days, weeks if not months of time from drawing board to supply side distribution and retail all around the world.