attin002: May 2010 Archives

Looking at trends because we are trendy and its important!

I was at work yesterday having a conversation with a coworker about the seemingly diminishing number of vegans. We were talking about how most counter-culture music nowadays isn't politically driven, but is more about an expression of the individual rather than a cry for societal progress. It might seem unfair to compare 80's political punk to the 21st century scenester, but the wave of politically driven bands are certainly not as prevelant as they once were. Now all thats left is the fashion inspiration, but none of the beliefs it once stood for. Maybe it is because its already been done, maybe because we are burnt out, maybe we want to spend our lives feeling happy rather than focusing on all the problems. Or maybe Brokencyde really is in the battle for societal progress. Either way, I was interested about the vegan thing. It used to be much more popular to be vegan, at least in her perspective, than now. BACON. There is so much hooplah about bacon now. If it were veal bacon, it would be the polar opposite of veganism. There's free bacon at the Triple Rock and many other bars, there's 'Ba-K 47's' and bacon bikinis and I can't even type all the baconness. Why bacon? Well, its good. I had some this morning. But bacon just might be the most indulgent most naturally enjoyable most salty most fatty most warm and crispy most delicious food ever. Most importantly, it's indulgent.

Most of the parents and older folk I talk to about social movements and whatnot seem to have the same 'well finally' attitude. Every generation wants to feel special for something, (which is a good thing, yay progress!) but I feel like we kind of forget about the whole 60's free-speech, environmental, civil rights, women's liberation, anti-war movement thing. Go green and all but just because we learned the marketability of alliteration doesn't mean our generation is pioneering the movement.

I seem a little hostile? Why am I so angry? Because people are angry and thats why theres free bacon.

But, but, people shouldn't get irritated with vegans and vegetarians because they care about the environment. Just think of all those factory farms and high methane gas levels and runoff and the amount of corn, the energy pyramid that can't be any other way, and the amount of subsidies going to the corn farmers so there's all this nutritionally low corn syrup in all our foods and we are only harvesting one crop so all the nutrients that one crop needs is getting sucked out of the soil and its not sustainable and all the water needed to grow the crops to feed the animals and how all the low quality of water and food is in the animals so in us and it's just a cycle and the unnatural hormones that are affecting our bodies and the antibiotics that are inevitably culturing one big mega virus that will wipe us off the planet, and I didn't even get started on the ethics of all this.

But, we know these things, why does bacon taste so good? Apart from the taste, its what it represents. Just like veganism was associated with punk culture in the 80's, bacon (at least how it is celebrated in society lately) is now a notion of counter-culture. Admittedly this counter-culture is definitely further up the self-actualization pyramid, and you probably have to understand our post-modern generation based on irony, but I think this is fair to say. But now it is becoming hip to eat bacon, so we are in a dilemma as to what is cool and what is right, and what feels so right (just like the Eagle Eye Cherry song), and it feels so right to eat bacon.

Being vegan is extreme, eating bacon is extreme, neither is helping our environmental issues with the industrialization of meat. It is the industry, after all, that causes most of these problems. We can't get around the energy pyramid, but in small localized animal farms is it easier and more economically beneficial not to waste.

Extremism can be good sometimes. Earth First members can chain themselves to trees to make a statement about sustainability, but their action is directly related to their message. In the matter of either not eating meat or eating large quantities of environmentally detrimental meat either way we are missing the point. We need to somehow fight or communicate for quality meat. What we need is a shift in the market from industry to local. Which is never pretty, and might not be as efficient in quantity, but it is quality that we want anyways.

Well, either way, we are trendy right? Well at least we enjoy learning about them as it ties into the psychology involved in design. So lets be meat trend setters, and have a party with a modest quantity of quality local bacon. mmm.

The Impact of Marketing on Society as a Whole!

There are lots of mediums we can apply our Graphic Design experience to, and because of this we are hopefully able to have a more actualized perception of our job and tasks. Graphic design not only requires creativity and skill of the programs, but most of it is psychology and much time is spend considering audiences and expectations. We are (hopefully) not going to be simplified to a specialized task for our job, we are expected to have independent thought and constantly weighing the ends and means of our actions not just on the company but society as a whole. This is awesome! So lets look at a medium we will be working with, marketing, and define ways we can have an upper hand at creating a better world, for as in a previous post I wrote that marketing is a notion of authority that has potential to breed a society either hyper-suspicious and cynical or mindless zombies. So how can marketing be healthy for both the company and the consumer?

It could probably start by not seeing our neighbors as consumers.

In a cynical point of view which may or may not be true, it seems our capitalist world is going down the inevitable track of valuing consumption over community. With our technologically advanced and globalized world we can be friends with people across the world or a few blocks down the street, no big deal, but when it comes to going 'home' and feeling welcome surrounded by neighbors that look after you this isn't always the case now a days. I remember having block parties every years in our neighborhood, but that notion of community and belonging dissipated into staying in and tending to our own interests.

And maybe this lack of neighborhood community is being replaced with more voluntary and proactive community, for because of our economy we are able to have time finding out what we specifically enjoy, in turn creating community out of those interests. This might not mean you and others that enjoy the same scene as you happen to live next door on a block, but you make it work.

But back to marketing and society. No one enjoys being told what to do or what to believe, which essentially is what marketing is doing. Marketing is also simply communicating, but there is so much at stake to the company's bottom line the 'communicating' results in 'cpersuasion' (I was doing good with alliteration with the letter 'c' up until this point). Looking at the marketing of Jesus! I was 'cpersueded' by the marketing tactics of the cool, alternative Pentecostal church from about 7th grade to 12th grade, which might be why I am now so sensitive and perceptive of roles of authority, persuasion, and the ends and means needed to do so. But after falling out of the dogmatic believe system and writing reflective papers on the matter I realized the real reason I was voluntarily consumed with this subculture for so long even though I was constantly justifying the irrational fundamentals of the belief system was a combination of--- fear and community. We were fearful of eternal fire and brimstone for us and our loved ones, but I think we were actually mostly fearful of loosing the loving, supporting, and welcoming community we were a part of. I also realized a lot of situations in life outside of a religious standpoint are rooted with fear and the desire for community, which seems like a pretty natural drive looking at humans in a evolutionary perspective.

So if two strong human drives are fear and community, how does that relate to marketing? Well is shows why the act of marketing will always have conflicting sides. It helps get rid of a sense of fear for the company, in turn the individual workers within the company, but it also threatens our sense of community, forcing us to treat our neighbors as consumers over comrades.

As newly budding graphic designers going into the field I think we should be considering what our role is in society, and to not be afraid to stand up for ethical issues. I'm sure most of us will be just happy to get a job no matter what, and we aren't entering our jobs like we are going to take over the place or anything like that, but to keep our world progressing and considering how large a design community there is in Minneapolis, its good to consider at least.