Wednesday, February 17, 2010
yes, but so what?
The proliferation of market research and advertising, be it misleading or offensive, only startles me to some extent. I understand, or at least can acknowledge the fact that the world is a market place, and much can be gained from manipulating that marketplace. So the fact that teenagers are targeted only makes sense, and in fact, I think it's something that is in some ways defensible. I don't believe for a second that culture can't be improved by guiding hands. Perhaps not to the extent that MTV tells us to buy certain albums and see certain concerts, but influence should not be ignored. For a society to embrace something, it needs widespread attention. The reason why Britney Spears outsold The Insane clown posse is not really a secret. Yes, one was embraced by the media and put into our minds, while the other was discovered in a more underground fashion. But I really can't say that I feel bothered by being told by Mtv what is and isn't popular. In fact, I think it is an effective way for kids to make connections with their own generation, and if MTV makes a profit, it is a power rightly granted. I rarely regard it anyway, but I believe that money is the most common impetus for art. This is depressing. I realize this. But keep in mind, Michelangelo was COMMISSIONED to paint the Sistine Chapel. Edgar Allen Poe was pulling in checks for his works. If you ask me, art is created in large part for profit, be it great art, high or low or trash or nothing. MTV happens to do it better than the ICP did. And frankly it's an art form in itself.
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You say: "But I really can't say that I feel bothered by being told by Mtv what is and isn't popular. In fact, I think it is an effective way for kids to make connections with their own generation." But if we are in a sense being told what is cool, what we want or what we don't want by marketing and advertising campaigns, then are we really making connections with our own generation, or are we being told what our generation is made of and simply buying into it? What do you think? Can we be original or authentic if we're being controlled?
ReplyDeleteI was asking myself a similar question about advertisement and manipulation. If MTV, and any other company for that matter, advertises trends, products, styles, music, etc. so heavily with the goal of convincing audiences this is what is "cool" then it leaves no answer to what is the real source of a trend. MTV and the advertising companies say they do extensive research into what is the next "big thing" and the documentary tells us that they are then the ones who inform everyone else of what this thing is. So which is it? The advertising company? Or, was whatever they decide to push really about to explode into the social scene? It's hard to say, but I do think in the least they are the ones to accelerate the process by which a new trend or idea enters the mainstream. If not the reason it ever does.
ReplyDeleteDespite the comfortable familiarity I (and, I'd guess, many of us) have with the "buying stuff out of boredom, solely for entertainment" lifestyle, I hesitated, at first, at the thought of a pro-capitalist sentiment like this one. I worried that it might just seem necessary for a devil's advocate in the midst of this barrage anti-consumerism from Feed and Merchants of Cool. "Corporations will be the death of us" has been the recurring theme of everyone's posts, but as I read through yours, I really found myself (unfortunately, it seems) agreeing with your counter-argument.
ReplyDeleteLike it or not, art, poetry, science, and beauty are commodities in Western society, and innovation, improvement, and drive toward change would not receive a sufficient boost without the competition that is the core of capitalism. If a scientist works especially hard, races with other researchers, and finds a cure for cancer, just because he's looking for fame (sign-exchange value) or money (exchange value), can he really be faulted? Likewise, with an artist who is driven to make new, interesting art (take Warhol, who even used advertising to produce some of hid most known and respected works) by his hopes for profit and glory, is his work any less important? Further, it may seem capitalism always favors the inane and simplistic over the deep in its appeal to the "lowest common denominator," but in the end, criticism and cool-killing also causes, to some extent, a backlash. Thinking rebellion becomes "cool" instead. And because these ideas are novel, they can compete with and exist easily alongside more simplistic ones (see the public's balance of their love for Jersey Shore with Fight Club, which was blatantly anti-capitalist).
As an extension of this, some advertising, I find, to be quite brilliant in its technique: a simple, straightforward, visually pleasing logo or slogan can be aesthetically pleasing. Graphics can be downright elegant. Commercials can be interesting, solely from the perspective of noting a new way of marketing. (There's a reason people watch the Super Bowl, and it's not always the football.) Art, in this sense, can feed off of corporations, just as corporations can feed off art: really, they can act as a mirror.
Of course, I don't mean to say capitalism is all good -- it sure isn't, from many perspectives: environmental, social, etc. But it's here to stay, not just because of the apathy of the proletariat, but because all (even the intelligentsia, schooled in anti-capitalist ways of thought) reap SOME benefit from it. As detrimental as it might be in the long run (da da da apocalypse and extinction da da da), I sure wouldn't want to live in a world where people's shaky definitions of good and happiness were the sole basis on which culture, technology, and progress originated. Nothing would get done!