Archive for July, 2009
Saturday, July 18th, 2009
Cars, Cell Phones & The (Sponsored) Culture of Narcissism
Raymond Williams called it “mobile privatization.”
I think of it as “life behind screens,” or “bubble life.”
It — experiencing life predominantly through video screens, work sconces, and automobile glass — is not just part-and-parcel of corporate capitalism, but perhaps its #1 intention and requirement vis-a-vis the organization of the lives of the masses.
The latest bubble life news confirms, in spades, that the private automobile may be, as Plan C author Pat Murphy posits, “the greatest creator of alienation between humans that has ever existed.”
To wit, some excellent reportage from a July 18 New York Times story:
Extensive research shows the dangers of distracted driving. Studies say that drivers using phones are four times as likely to cause a crash as other drivers, and the likelihood that they will crash is equal to that of someone with a .08 percent blood alcohol level, the point at which drivers are generally considered intoxicated. Research also shows that hands-free devices do not eliminate the risks, and may worsen them by suggesting that the behavior is safe.
A 2003 Harvard study estimated that cellphone distractions caused 2,600 traffic deaths every year, and 330,000 accidents that result in moderate or severe injuries.
Yet Americans have largely ignored that research. Instead, they increasingly use phones, navigation devices and even laptops to turn their cars into mobile offices, chat rooms and entertainment centers, making roads more dangerous.
A disconnect between perception and reality worsens the problem. New studies show that drivers overestimate their own ability to safely multitask, even as they worry about the dangers of others doing it.
I’ll let the excellent CARtoonist Andy Singer have the last “word” on this totally unsurprising phenomenon:
Wednesday, July 15th, 2009
The Language of Advertising
Sunday, July 12th, 2009
Great News!: Obama Agenda Gains Traction!
Goldman Sachs Likely to Post Huge Profits
Wednesday, July 8th, 2009
TCT Image of the Month
Saturday, July 4th, 2009
A Stroll Back through Marketing History
My friend and colleague Douglas Pressman sends along a link well worth clicking.
These little nuggets call to mind a couple quotes by George Santayana:
And, of course:
Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
Friday, July 3rd, 2009
Trivial, Useless, Dangerous, and Smarmy: Downy Fabric Softener
She ought to be barfing in her sweater.
To see a textbook case of both commodity fetishism and the general sickness of corporate capitalism, keep an eye out for Procter & Gamble’s appalling “Feel More” marketing campaign on behalf of its Downy fabric softener brand.
The ads and promotions emerging from P & G’s campaign encourage people to interpret use of this trivial-at-best, ecologically inexcusable, and probably toxicologically dangerous product as an expression of and gateway to their deepest bonds and emotions.
Equally sick and preposterous is the campaign’s further suggestion that “fabric softener” is some kind of defense against the heightening ravages of the very investors-first system that foists this Earth- and health-endangering shit on us.
You have to worry about the future of a culture in which the dominant behavioral influencers scientifically study ways to convince people that dumping chloroform, pentance, benzyl acetate, and dipalmitoylethyl hydroxyethylmonium methosulfate in your heated appliances and on your clothes is one of “the simple things in life.”
