Consumerism & Advertising (Feed Part 2)
Two weeks ago on the blog, I talked about internet privacy and how that was one of my main objections to the Feed, in the novel Feed. This week I want to talk about another objection I had with the Feed. This objection is that the Feed is consistently making the culture in their society consumeristic.
A consumeristic society is usually created when there's an abundance of advertisements. I’m sure that most of you know what an advert is. But for the few of you that live on some other planet, I’ll explain. Advertisements are images, film, or audio that pushes a message to people. Usually, adverts are used to sell products but occasionally adverts are used to push a message. Now that the Martians are caught up, back to consumerism and advertising. When it comes to advertising there is a problem. Adverts are great at building brand awareness and pushing great messages. Like the old Smokey the bear adverts, the sentiment in this kind of advertisements makes the world aware of a problem. But too much of anything is a bad thing, and the majority of advertisements are to sell products. The reason advertising is linked with consumerism is because consumerism is an ideology where people are encouraged to buy products, as often as they can.
The Feed makes the culture in their society consumeristic by forcing advertisements down users throats. Just look at the end of some of the chapters and you’ll see adverts for entertainment and drinks.These ads are played to anyone who has a Feed.This means that the people who have the Feed implanted are always being sold to. This at the very least influences people's opinions and becomes a pseudo-platform for Feednet ( the corporation that controls the Feed) to domesticate its users.
The problem with a consumeristic society is that significance is sometimes absent.What I’m trying to say is that in Feed’s world objects and people are made meaningless because they seem replaceable. An example of this in the book is the relationship between Titus and Violet. Titus, (the main character) started the novel by having a crush on this girl(Violet).But after Titus finally meets the girl and dates her, his appreciation and affection start to subside and degrade. This degradation really starts to happen after he learns that Violet is dying. For the rest of the novel, he is constantly struggling between love and toleration.
This is like when I buy a new pair of shoes, at first I absolutely like how the shoe looks, but over time I start to tolerate the shoe and not appreciate it. Then seven to eight months later, I either don’t care about the shoe or I think it's raggedy and end up buying a new shoe. Titus goes through the same motions with violet. He finally tells her what he thinks about their relationship at a romantic getaway. Titus says “ We’ve only been going out a couple of months. And I’m supposed to act like we’re married. A couple of months. It’s not some big eternal thing we should’ve broke up weeks ago. I would’ve if you hadn't been... [Dying]” (p. 271,272). This sentiment, that a relationship should only last a couple weeks or months seems like a by-product of consumerism.
I say this because consumerism creates a cycle of attraction in a person. It starts with a shiny new object and then moves on to the next shiny new object. This cycle of attraction is constantly being fed into Titus through the Feed. Ultimately in the same amount of time, I buy a shoe and end up tolerating it, Titus creates a relationship and destroys a relationship. This is a huge problem because Titus ends up treating another person the same as any trendy product. This way of thinking objectifies people. But even if his actions here are the most obscene. Consumerism creates even more bad behaviors in people.
A behavior that consumerism creates is an artificial need. We all have been susceptible to artificial need. Hell just this weekend, I bought a game on an impulse. I wanted and craved nostalgia so I ended up buying Kingdom Hearts 1.5+2.5 Remix, a game where you fight alongside Mickey Mouse. Now I’m not the biggest fan of this genre of game, but I bought it anyway.
Titus does this oh so many times throughout the novel. But the worst of his impulse buys is after seeing Violet, his ex-dying girlfriend in a coma state. Titus ends up impulse buying a bunch of pants (p.293,294). This is strange but seems to be Titus's coping mechanism. This kind of coping is directly related to consumerism because even though Titus has pants, he continuously buys an exuberant amount of pants. He has no need for pants but because he has always been in a consumeristic society the urge of buying something new is comforting to him.
This behavior is terrible because some people may end up losing all they have. Titus does this exactly when he buys so many pants that he runs out of credit. (Also p. 294) This behavior would absolutely demolish someone who has very little credit and needs to use the credit they have for the essentials. Let's say someone had very little money and just lost a family member if that person followed Titus they would eventually have no money to bury their family or would neglect their personal needs.
Up until this point, I’ve told you about consumerism, in the novel Feed. I’ve shared a little bit of my experience but I haven’t told you my struggle with consumerism. An overly consumeristic society, like the one in Feed, is alway going to be dystopic. But as someone who has seen far too many advertisements, I still latch on to some of the sentiments in consumerism. The reason I still cling to consumerism after reading a novel, where it is the detriment to society is because I am still appealed by consumerism. To understand my appeal for consumerism, you have to partially understand my background. You see I am an artist, I often find myself creating things that are in the same vain as advertisements. Heck like any artist I too have my own logo. Advertisements are just way too interesting because when done right it's unforgettable, but done wrong and you're hated. The problem in Feed is that advertising was taken too far.
I think advertising often needs to walk on a gray line. I say this because adverts need to be forced and unforced, at the same time.I know it contradictory but it makes sense, to me. I think a good example of this would be to compare two advertisements. I’ll compare the new Pepsi ad and the old 1984 Apple ad. The Pepsi ad doesn't work because it feels forced. The advert comes at a time where protest is happening because of legitimate reasons, but Pepsi trivializes protest by making it part of their brand. Also, Pepsi doesn’t make any message clear aside from having a Pepsi, it might solve the problem. Apple’s commercial is different, it was shown during a time where protests weren't widely known.The Apple commercial was broadcast onto people the same way as the Pepsi commercial, but Apple takes a stance in their commercial giving the illusion of "unforcefulness". I think this is the reason why the Apple commercial works better than the Pepsi commercial.
- Andre M (1300)
Cited Sources
Anderson, M.T. Feed. London: Walker, 2013. Print.
Macintosh, Apple. Advertisement. Accessed April 17 2017
Pepsi. Advertisement. Accessed April 12,2017
