January 26, 2010 · 2:42 pm

silver lining

Consumers are growing sick of consumerism! How can we consumerise that ? Well, first we have to tell them that’s what they’re doing; they’re growing sick of consumerism. Then we have to centralise them in a myth of themselves as coping. We have to sell them themselves, making these powerful, almost surprising choices in their strong, surprising lives. They’re “making do & mending”, these strong, sensible people! We admire that so! We can sell them something for it. Something they can consume. Every cloud, for us, has this silver lining.

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15 Comments

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15 Responses to silver lining

  1. Martin M
    January 26, 2010 at 5:18 pm

    My strong sensible person’s worth more than your strong sensible people. My strong sensible person’s got a cave you have to climb to; and a magazine profile. Wouldn’t you like your own cave, and a magazine profile?

    http://www.details.com/culture-trends/career-and-money/200907/meet-the-man-who-lives-on-zero-dollars

    He’s got his own blog, too:

    http://zerocurrency.blogspot.com/

    No, I don’t know how that works, either. But I bet you’d like to have your own blog, wouldn’t you?

  2. fredhale
    January 26, 2010 at 6:38 pm

    the anti-dollar dollar.

    i do like nice shiny things, though. and i always worry that critiques of consumerism let capitalism as such off the hook.

  3. uzwi
    January 26, 2010 at 7:00 pm

    Critique, moi ? Sarcastic rant, I think you’ll find.

    I like shiny things too, but on balance, as I said to Lara P only this morning, I’d rather be one than buy one. I mean, wouldn’t you ? I looked at the magnetic connector at the end of my Mac power cable & although it has a satin finish I thought: life as an impeccably shiny thing, how good.

    My problem is that having been born into a real austerity I’m not sure I can stop laughing at the consumerist one. Or the consumers, for that matter.

  4. uzwi
    January 26, 2010 at 7:25 pm

    PS, Barbaric Document has some sound advice on this, here–

    http://tinyurl.com/yh66jwg

  5. fredhale
    January 26, 2010 at 10:51 pm

    i’m critiquing your critique yeh?

    i like the barbaric document thing, but epaulettes have been in for ages, i feel i should point out. i even have some, on a coat, myself. i look like a twat. live i’ve been listening to british sea power.

    or, worse, the libertines.

  6. Greg
    January 27, 2010 at 8:32 am

    The ‘Stores Wary’ bit is like a Ballard short story. Tweak it slightly and you have the shopping list for the folk — I mean, consumers — in High Rise.

  7. Lara
    January 27, 2010 at 9:26 am

    I love the idea that adapting includes completely collapsing (‘Small shopkeepers are adapting to a post recession landscape as best they can. Some have fallen by the wayside, unable to cope with the savage spending squeeze.’) followed by the possibility of a squeeze being savage.

  8. Mia Wolff
    January 27, 2010 at 1:07 pm

    the wrens are running amok

  9. uzwi
    January 27, 2010 at 4:26 pm

    always the wrens driving me mad with that thin mad piping song

  11. foiblecarrion
    January 27, 2010 at 10:06 pm

    “The losers are ready meals, with customers more willing to cook themselves”

  12. fredhale
    January 27, 2010 at 10:35 pm

    Foible – nice. I mean -

  13. Greg
    January 28, 2010 at 7:50 am

    Like the thin, monotonous piping of an unseen flute?

  14. uzwi
    January 28, 2010 at 9:06 am

    A bit like that piping, yes Greg, some days.

  15. aelea
    January 28, 2010 at 1:10 pm

    there’s also the usual implicit wedge: in order to be able to “make do and mend”, in order to be able to save, you already have to be fairly well off to start with… the product here is a kind of righteousness…