Elyse Draper's Blog

by Elyse Draper

Modern life often feels like navigating a marketplace saturated not just with products, but with competing narratives as well. The most unsettling realization of the 21st century is that the tactics used to sell a soft drink are now virtually indistinguishable from those used to sell a political candidate or a complex worldview.

This isn’t a simple analogy; it’s a haunting convergence in which the atmosphere of media and politics has absorbed the fundamental, often manipulative DNA of consumer marketing.

At the core of this convergence is the Attention Economy. Marketers, media outlets, and political operatives all operate under the same ruthless mandate: capture attention and hold it long enough to deliver the message.

The algorithm is the silent master of all three domains. For a brand, the algorithm ensures you see the perfect product advertisement. For a news feed, it ensures you see content designed to generate outrage, maximizing engagement time. For a political campaign, it micro-targets you with emotionally charged, often simplified narratives intended not to inform, but to confirm existing biases.

In politics, this results in campaigning driven by A/B testing—an advertising staple—where different versions of a message are tested on small segments of the population to see which triggers the strongest emotional response (anger, fear, or aspiration), regardless of its factual basis. The substance of policy fades behind the resonance of the brand identity.

In traditional marketing, companies don’t just sell coffee; they sell the image of a focused, creative morning. They sell aspiration.

Politics functions identically now. Candidates are marketed not on dense policy platforms, but on a simplified, often mythological personal brand. They sell the voter an aspirational identity: If you vote for me, you are a member of this strong, authentic, or virtuous tribe.

This shift favors emotional and symbolic appeals over logic. This is why viral soundbites, bold logos, and carefully curated social media personas are often more potent than policy white papers. The political campaign becomes a high-stakes product launch, complete with focus groups, crisis management teams, and highly polished visual aesthetics.

The final, and perhaps most corrosive, point of overlap is the creation and maintenance of echo chambers.

For a company, creating an echo chamber is the goal of a robust loyalty program—to ensure the customer never sees or considers a competitor. They are happy within the brand bubble.

In the media and political landscape, algorithms create personalized realities that continuously reinforce citizens’ existing beliefs with information that validates their perspectives. Media outlets, driven by the need for clicks (a marketing metric), tailor their content to this reinforced reality. Political campaigns then exploit these closed loops, ensuring their base receives only confirming messages, deepening polarization and loyalty.

This means that a politician’s success is no longer about winning over the center, but about maximizing the engagement and “purchase rate” (i.e., vote) of the already committed consumer/voter.

The haunting truth is that the strategies perfected in the world of commerce—manipulation of attention, emotional exploitation, and the creation of insular consumer identities—have become the dominant strategies in public discourse.

To navigate this environment, the consumer-citizen must employ the same critical thinking skills in the ballot box as they do when evaluating a used car or a late-night infomercial. We must recognize the tactics, question the emotional trigger, and demand substance over the glossy, ephemeral packaging of a well-marketed idea.

Scrubbing the Walls of Catharsis

Adopt, Don’t Shop! A look at the Current Shelter Crisis in the U.S.

Pride in Love, Support, and Survival

To finish Pride Month 2024, where should we start? The Stonewall Uprising against oppression and homophobia? On June 28, 1970, marking the first anniversary of the Stonewall Uprising, the inaugural Pride marches took place in New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago. Thousands of LGBT+ individuals gathered to honor the Stonewall legacy and advocate for equal rights. The community didn’t know what was coming in the next decade… yet they would prove again, sometimes with their lives, that supporting each other and fighting for survival takes perseverance and love in the face of hate.

Celebrate Getting Caught Reading!

The Book of Bob by Gary Edwards

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


A fascinating mix of humor, quantum physics, and psychological tomfoolery. It is a highly recommended read for lovers looking for dry wit in their big balls of wibbly wobbly… time-y, wimey… stuff.



View all my reviews

iPub Forum

by Elyse Draper, Jennifer Wyman, and Kathleen Leaf

Did you know that Mental Health Awareness Month started in 1949? No? Have you ever wondered why Americans are so apathetic toward mental health? Have you ever thought to yourself, “The younger generation needs to toughen up. When I was a kid…”?

Why do we think such things? For older generations, why is it a point of pride to hide our emotions and ridicule those who broadcast them? We now know that the brain balances hormones, directly affected by our emotions, affecting our overall health. If there is no separation between mind and body, isn’t it logical to conclude that depression and anxiety are physical manifestations that are just as valid as a heart attack or broken bone? Yet, we have compassion for the heart attack or the broken bone, and we make sure they are…

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Touching article, felt by one raised by the “Lost Generation.”

iPub Forum

By Rabbi James Rudin

“You are all a lost generation.”

When Gertrude Stein said those now-famous words to Ernest Hemingway in 1923, she had in mind the writers and artists who came of age during World War I and the “Roaring Twenties” decade that followed. Besides Hemingway, they included F. Scott Fitzgerald, James Joyce, William Faulkner, and Isadora Duncan.

Of course, Stein’s use of “lost” did not mean the war-shattered generation had physically disappeared. Rather, its members were psychologically and emotionally adrift, without purpose or direction. But for me, her description is also a lament for members of my own American generation who were born between 1930 and 1939.

We were too young to fight in World War II, so we could never be members of Tom Brokaw’s celebrated “Greatest Generation.” The unpopular Korean and Vietnam conflicts were our fights…

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iPub Forum

By Kathleen Leaf

Author Dr. Fawzia Mai Tung kicks off her May Fairy series with The Wonderful Tale of Donkey Skin. As discussed in a previous post, Dr. Tung started this series with the aim of attracting reluctant readers (those who have the skill to read but are hesitant to) at the middle-grade level (between the ages of 8 and 12). As a librarian, Kathleen knows how important it is for children to develop positive reading habits. The Wonderful Tale of Donkey Skin—the first in the May Fairy series—appeals to these ambivalent readers by deftly blending oral storytelling with a pseudo-graphic novel format.

The book recounts Charles Perrault’s tale, Donkey Skin. This is no mere retelling, however. The story of Princess Gomikky and her adventure is told as a dialogue between the main characters, Grandma Nainai, and her grandson, Zakiyy. A comic…

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iPub Forum

By Ann Marie B. Bahr

As I left, boxes and boxes of new books were being unloaded in the restaurant’s entryway. It seemed an odd place to put books. Each was individually wrapped in cellophane and had hardcover binding. They looked expensive. Why drop them where they could easily be stolen?

“What are these?” I asked.

“A photographer took pictures of ordinary people during the pandemic,” someone answered. “He wanted to document what we were like at that time.”

“Pictures of local folks?”

“Yup.”

I dove back inside and quickly cornered the restaurant owner. “How much for the books?” “Nothing,” he said. “They’re free—take one.” Amazed and curious, I did.

Back home, I unwrapped my mysterious treasure. It contained 266 pages of black and white photos. Most were taken where the subjects lived since that is where we were asked to stay during the pandemic. Many…

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