Juho Salo’s Reviews > The Consumer Society Reader > Status Update

New Work - seems to be like 3rd Spirit of Capitalism without a company in the middle - instead we have something like TE-toimisto. Miniatyrisation of technology would allow every neighbourhood to have their own small factories to manufacture what we need at that time - allowing us all to concentrate on that we like the most. "Why should fellowships be limited to professors and artists?"

Thanks to Tatcher, sweat shops made a return in the 1980s Britain. Some of the sewers were paid 1£/h on cash with the understanding that they would also stay on the dole. The people who should have stopped this were unable to do so: designers because they're working from hand-to-mouth themselves and the journalists due to not wanting to rock the boat. The new New Labour gmnt of late 90s is hoped to change things.

Culture jamming - American dream is an illusion upheld by marketing that stops us from seeing the harmful effects of our actions. Without marketing, without indirect sponsoring and group mentality, we would see the true costs of our actions and we would have communities that actually matter to us, instead of ones that try to fill the missing human interaction with more and more things we don't actually need.

We should live simply and frugally because Earth can't take it if we continue forward as we do know. Simpler life is also good for the soul.

This article has really gone to mainstream in the 23 years since publication. However, this doesn't mean that the problems foreseen were avoided.

How advertising changed during 1960s due to efforts of DDB advertising agency. The main exhibit is the long-running Volkswagen adds from late 1950s to 1970s. The new thing: treating consumers as adults and not as children that buy every line hook and sinker.

Coolhunting: what it is, why it is done and how companies benefit. Short version: you need to find the innovators, those that come before early adopters. By finding them, you can target your products correctly. It's about Gauss curve: you get the ultimate left, and you ride the wave all the way to the ultimate right, making a huge amount of money.

Whites (in Anglo-American context) see other races as the Other from which they can take qualities onto themselves by sharing experienceswith the Other, usually via food or products (such as marketing cholocate with images of black Africa). While better than outright racism/imperialism, it's still treating the other races as convenient storages of experiences that can be bought, not as equal humans.

Marx and commodity fetishism. Value of commodity is in the value of labour used into creating it.

Shopping is important to women as it gives them a place where they are in a position of authority.

Wearing clothing is mandatory, but what do we tell about ourselves by the clothes we wear? We may reach same conclusions with different rationalities or alternatively to different conclusions by same rationalities - it's all about priorities. The problem with fashion that do we want or not, we much make a statement, but due to the medium. the message is never clear.