TV commercials sure have taught me a lot about the everyday products I as a consumer take for granted. For instance, did you know that chewing gum brings you closer to your daughter? That wearing the right deodorant causes every woman you meet to wish they were your next sexual conquest? And great news about alcohol! Drinking beer automatically makes you the life of any party, while vodka turns you into a trendy urbanite who gets to go to nightclubs packed with beautiful people. Here I was, oblivious to the fact that the products I use all the time have been improving my personal life and correcting emotional flaws I would have thought could only be remedied by a good therapist. Needless to say, I owe the four corporations that make everything we buy these days a debt of gratitude for churning out such helpful products.
?Hopefully you see what I’m getting at here. TV commercials operate by turning products into symbols with the meanings tied to certain products often being so ridiculous that my only response is bewildered amusement. If products were truly as miraculous as they’re made out to be, you wouldn’t expect to see their manufacturers pouring as much money as they are into ad agencies whose sole job is to make you think that things as banal as gum will improve your home life, appearance, attitude and so on. Nevertheless, I usually manage to take this silly system of symbolism (get a load of that alliteration) with a grain of salt. Having a sense of humor toward TV commercial culture helps keep me from being totally ensnared by the insidious machinations of corporations and their advertisers.
That said, there is one message commonly propagated by TV commercials that I just can’t help but be offended by: It’s the idea that buying a certain product will make you an individual. While many companies and interests push this message, the car industry is particularly guilty of associating its products with notions of individualism. The narrative goes something like this: Alone in a sea of predictable consumers who all think and do the same is you, the individual. Thanks to the choice of car you choose to drive, you stand a cut above the rest. Having seen this line of thinking spun out in car commercials time and time again, I’ve come to realize just how contradictory it is, as well as how damaging it is to the idea of what makes someone an individual.
The idea that individualism can be achieved by emptying your pockets for a fancy car just doesn’t hold up when you consider the production methods and economic imperatives of the auto industry. Consider the history of the industry and inevitably you arrive at the Fordist assembly line. How ironic it is that the industry that helped pioneer the system of mass production now works to convince consumers that buying mass-produced commodities will make them unique.
Moreover, the success of car manufacturers hinges on the number of people who actually buy their cars, so the notion of individualism propagated by their commercials runs counter to their profit model. It’s practically like something out of The Twilight Zone: Every citizen is told that by buying Product X they can demonstrate their original tastes as individuals. Every citizen does buy Product X, exhibiting his or her uniqueness while simultaneously acting as everyone else has. The makers of Product X sit fat and happy while the citizens scratch their heads wondering what makes them so unique.
What’s also troubling about this view of material possessions is the implicit assumption that you can put a price on being an individual. Indeed, Americans are willing to go to great financial lengths to acquire the things that advertisers would have us believe will make our lives better and define us as individuals. The total amount of consumer debt in the United States in 2010 was $2.4 trillion, with 67 percent of that debt coming from loans on things like mortgages, tuition, and of course, cars. Recent work has shown that past a salary of $75,000 money tends to have a negligible effect on one’s day-to-day happiness, so perhaps if Americans were more understanding of the fact that possessions can only make you so happy they’d be less eager to sink into debt in pursuit of the ideals promised by advertisers.
Fancy cars and material possessions simply don’t define the individual. There’s nothing wrong with having prized possessions in our lives, but ultimately what makes us who we are is the way we treat others and ourselves. The extent to which we love, appreciate the universe we’re a part of, make something of our time here, these are the things that define us. And that’s something you’re probably not going to hear from the next Nissan commercial.
Do you agree with Elijah? Please send all feedback to opinion@dailycardinal.com.
