If anyone could tell me who this photograph is by, I’d really appreciate it.

—

Today I finished the book Buy Buy Baby by Susan Gregory Thomas. What stood out to me, in her book, was the discussion on Generation X’ers and “newstalgia”. She theorizes that Generation X’ers compensate for their lack of a loving childhood (as their mothers were increasingly joining the workforce) and buy their kids what they want. They are also more apt to buy things that were from their own childhood (i.e. Strawberry Shortcake, Carebears, Transformers, Star Wars, etc.) for their own children. Also, parents are pretty much tricked into buying toys and videos labeled as “educational” for babies. There really hasn’t been that much research to show “educational” toys or videos are at all effective for babies. Media shown to children under two mesmerizes and hypnotizes them. That’s why the American Academy of Pediatrics urges parents to not let children under two watch T.V..

—

Today, I discovered the work of Jonathan Darby. He uses stencils and Photoshop to make consumer-defined portraits. What makes me most interested about his work (besides the topic) is his process. He paints abstractly and uses layers in his work. It’s very messy (as he also uses spray painting and airbrushing) and the results are Bansky-like.

—

I also looked at JeongMee Yoon’s Pink and Blue Project. She says that her work demonstrates gender identity and association with the colors pink and blue. She also says it’s a commentary on globalization and consumerism.  My initial reaction to her work is “damn, these kids own a lot of stuff”.

—

Well, school starts in a of couple days…

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

—

While I was out of town, I read through two books. As I mentioned before, in my proposal, one of the books I read was called Consuming Kids by Susan Linn. I liked her book a lot. She discussed the media’s role in manipulating children and their parents to turn profits. She also talked about how Advertisers and the Market take advantage of child consumers because children aren’t fully mentally developed. Young children do not know the difference between their shows and commercials. Hell, entire shows are just commercials for brands and products (i.e. Pokemon). This really wasn’t an issue until the Reagan administration deregulated the media. Now children are bombarded with brands on T.V., their school buses, and even their classrooms (i.e. Channel One). Consumerism is inescapable.

In one of her chapters, Linn talked about Channel One News. If you didn’t know, Channel One is a 12-15 minute news program meant for students that airs in class. It also is current co-owned by NBC and CBS. My middle school, in North Chicago, and high school, here in Connecticut, both had contracts with the program. Apparently, if schools signed agreements with Channel One, schools would be handsomely compensated with nice media equipment that they otherwise would not be able to afford. So, it would be surprise for an underprivileged school to sign contracts with Channel One. The vexing thing about Channel One is that a third of their program are advertisements. And, of course, Channel One makes a TON from advertisement revenue because advertisers know that the kids are going to have to watch it. Really. In their contracts, Channel One requires that schools HAVE to show their program in class.

And it’s no surprise that kids “remember[ed] the commercials more than the news“.

Ugh. I can attest to that. Channel One always aired the same goddamn commercials. I also remember my class would recite the commercials when they aired.

Tomorrow, I’m going to see if I can find the film documentary version of Consuming Kids online.

—

The other book I read was The Overspent American by Juliet Schor. It was a lot like her other book, that I read, Do Americans Shop Too Much?. What struck me the most with Overspent was Schor’s discussion about expensive lipsticks and cheap facial products. Women acknowledged that they were buying the expensive lipsticks because they would use their tubes in public and wanted people to see they were using the expensive brand (even a ‘downshifter’ admitted she did this). That’s why women were buying cheap facial cleansers and such, because it was a more private product. This behavior was again exemplified in how people lavishly decorated their livings rooms and kitchens over their bedrooms and second floors. Their living rooms, again, were meant to be seen by a more public audience, while their bedrooms didn’t have to impress anybody.

In general:

Basically, people buy to show off.

There are a lot of people who are unhappy with their jobs who buy stuff to try to make themselves happy (retail therapy!). Also, when those same people buy too much stuff, they have to work more at their job that they hate and the cycle repeats itself.

Middle-aged educated women are the biggest spenders of all. They have to show off that lipstick. Also, they happen to be the most status-conscious group of people.

‘Downshifters’ are people who realize that there is more to life than money and material happiness and they change their lifestyle to reflect that attitude. They are different from hippies and lot of them live near Seattle.

—

I’ve checked out more books from the library and will read them in the next couple of days.

—

As I mentioned multiple times, I was off vacationing in Disney World for a week with my fiance. For all of your amusement, I’ve included my thoughts on this trip (because it sort of relates to my s.p. topic).

It was my second-ever trip going there with my first being in May of last year. You will see people in jackets because Florida was going through a freak-freeze snap:

Disney World’s Christmas Creep is only 356 days before Christmas.

I find it amusing that Disney World tries to commodify every single little thing/detail about itself. Here we have a miniature Monorail Playset and you can even buy a miniature Model Contemporary Resort to drive your miniature Monorail through. In our room, there was a catalog where you could purchase bed sheets, mattresses, and toiletries used in the resorts. Another example are the Pins that Disney sells everywhere in its resort. There are pins for every resort, every ride, every character from every ride, multiples for every Disney animated feature, etc. etc. etc. They get expensive.

And, as most people know, every ride ends with a store.

Milk and juice are expensive. It’s more expensive than soda (due also in part to free refills for soda at the resorts). While it’s harder to find milk and juice, soda is pretty much sold everywhere.

However, I understand why Disney does all of this. It is a business and they make money doing all of this stuff. They need money to keep running and, hopefully, turn a profit. That’s what businesses hope to do. Disney just happens to be a larger and more successful business.

We’re trapped in a Hasbro nightmare!

—

It’s not that I’m cynical about Disney World, unlike what you think CHRIS. It’s just that I find it a tiring place. I get tired of seeing the same Disney merchandise and stuff, in every store and every place, everywhere. I get brand fatigue. It doesn’t help that all the channels, save for the local ones, that were on the television in our room were all owned by Disney. A good chunk of those channels were just infomercials for Disney cruises, international vacations, and timeshares themselves.

To me, Disney’s Celebrate Something campaign translates as Disney customers, we can help you find a way to justify coming to our resort even though it is really expensive and probably out of your price range. But that’s okay, you deserve the magic. That’s the kind of thinking Schor discussed in Overspent.

Also, the key cards that Disney gives to resorts guests makes me uneasy. It can also link to one’s credit card, it just makes it all the more easier to spend money at Disney. Because of that, I have to admit, it’s a smart move on Disney’s part for profitability.

I will elaborate more on the research I did, while I was away in Disney World, tomorrow. In the meantime, here is my S.P. Proposal:

Ever since the end of World War II, Americans have always been encouraged to shop. Consumerism was built around maintaining a decent and comparable standard of living. However, in recent decades, consumerism has mutated into something more sinister. “Keeping up with the Joneses” does not apply anymore. Rather, it is now spend, spend, spend. Because of that attitude, America spends more, borrows more, and wastes more now than it ever did. Our country is in about ten trillion dollars worth of debt and has a trade deficit that is further strangling our economy. We are a country spending ourselves disastrously. I believe that we are trained to behave this way since birth. In American, we are born consumers. As children, we are trained to desire and consume. That attitude follows into adulthood and so forth comes a generation of broke borrowers. This semester, I want to focus my senior project on the “Commodification of Childhood”. I believe the root of our consumer culture begins at childhood and I want to take the semester to explore that topic by bringing the facts and data in an engaging light through guides, posters, and maybe even a commerical (like a campaign).

For the past month, I had been reading and watching documentaries regarding corporations. After doing research and looking at other artist’s reactions, I felt that the subject of marketing to children interested me the most. While watching the documentary The Corporation, I felt most drawn to this topic. At one point, a director for marketing explained how the “Nag Factor” worked; advertisers use psychologists to create commercials that will manipulate children to whine to their parents for products. Not surprisingly, the director would not answer if their actions were ethical. It was after watching this segment that I felt more compelled to focus on child consumerism.

As I write this proposal, I can not help but dwell on the statistics that were presented in the book, by Susan Linn, called Consuming Kids. The average child spends as much time watching T.V. as they spend in school. Parents are powerless against a multi-billion dollar industry. Parents give in, children give in, and marketers, advertisers and corporations all turn a profit. Childhood is rampantly being consumed. Children are raised only to be consumed themselves later on in life whether it be because of debt, lack of resources or just shallow materialism. This is the topic I would like to expand upon for the semester. Like other anti-consumerism artists such as Barbara Kruger, Bansky, or those whose work are featured in Adbusters or the book The Design of Dissent, I want to make informative work that brings this topic, its related data, statistics, and philosophies, to light. I want to make work that will, hopefully, get people to pause and think for a moment about their own consumerism.

Today I read some essays from the book “Consumer Society in American History” by Lawrence Glickman. I felt it would be a good read to get a general idea behind the theories regarding my ‘proposed’ topic of choice. I was especially drawn by the essays that focused on America and Consumerism after World War II. As we all know, after war vets came home, many of them bought houses and ‘modern’ consumerism started to take foot. Appliances had to fill houses, citizens had to buy cars to get to work, etc. The essay that stood out to me the most was Elaine May’s “The Commodity Gap: Consumerism and the Modern Home”. As her essay discussed, during the heights of the Cold War, being a consumer was patriotic and American (because it was Capitalist). In general, in order to ‘combat’ the Communist threat, it was an American’s duty to define their individuality and consume.

I also finally read through my book “The Design of Dissent“. The book showcased posters/other works that focused on a variety of topics. My favorite poster from the “Corporate World” Section was the “First Things First” manifesto/poster by Kevin Garland. He writes to his audience (artists and their clients) that even thought most of the work that designers and other artists do will be soul-less (and corporate) he hope that society will call for more meaningful work from young artists in the future.

I also really liked the “Corporate American Flag” poster by Shi-zhe Yung. It’s a simple but very real idea.

Even though this poster, “Printed in the U.S.A.” by Emek, was meant to be a critique on privacy (as the book stated), I felt it spoke also as a critique about consumerism:

I was looking at the Adbusters website and (obviously) found work there that related to my topic and appealed to me. I’m also glad to see that a lot of their articles are online (even if their artwork isn’t) seeing as how the only 2 Adbusters issues at UConn are at the Dodd (which means they probably don’t circulate).

—

Well, I’m going to be gone until next Sunday. Like I mentioned, I won’t be able to post anything during that time. However, I’ll be taking some books with me though to read so I’ll be ‘sort of’ productive during my trip.