The Great Computer Debate

Today in class we were talking about Debord's concept of the spectacle and the gradual downgrading process from being, to having, to appearing. As a class, we discussed the idea that the transition into a modern capitalist economy, as opposed to a mass market, has changed our society by standardizing and popularizing the monologue (visual statements and imagery about oneself projected onto the world) as opposed to encouraging a dialogue between people. I think this is very true in that nowadays, people (including myself) tend to make snap judgements about others just by looking at their clothes, iPod playlists, DVD collections, etc. It's very easy to get a superficial idea of what someone is like just by going online and looking them up on Facebook, as was mentioned today in class.

One topic that came to mind while we were discussing this was the question of Mac computers and PCs. When I was a freshman in high school, Macs were considered frustrating, and hard to use. And then suddenly, around junior year, everyone started getting Macs. Macs were cool, and by comparison PCs were frumpy, archaic, impractical, and definitely not as aesthetically pleasing as Macs. I can't say what exactly prompted this sudden change in computer fashions, but since then Macs have become the computer of choice among most of my peers. As the lone PC user in my circle of friends, I'm the only one who can't use features like Mac Photobooth and iChat (a form of video chatting on Macs). Although video chatting would certainly be a lot of fun, having a hip computer isn't a big deal to me. And: after putting my Inspiron through all kinds of hell (spilling tea and dropping bits of shredded wheat onto the keyboard, unintentionally destroying its battery life, dropping it), watching it come back to life every time, and having to work with Macs that froze up and died all the time last year at an internship, I don't buy into the hype that Macs are technically superior to PCs.

However, there is definitely a stereotype among computer users (at least among those who are geeky enough, ahem, conscientious enough to care) that Mac users are cooler, more creative, more culturally savvy, and more knowledgable than PC users, which is a mindset that Apple certainly capitalizes on at every opportunity. The go-to example for this would be Apple's Mac vs. PC commercials, in which a "hip" young actor portrays a Mac and an overweight, nerdy-looking middle-aged actor portrays a PC.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ci2D1ig4df4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1EbCyibkNB0&feature=related

But recently, I was watching TV when a commercial that looked an awful lot like the Mac setup (white room, PC guy introducing himself as a PC) came on. However, it was a PC commercial designed to reclaim PCs, featuring people like Vera Wang, Kevin Spacey, and Eva Longoria - people who eschew the nerdy PC sterotype.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkZdkHylJ3w

However, even though I am a PC user myself, I don't find the message effective or intriguing at all. It doesn't seem to be a commercial so much as a self-righteous, slightly annoying rebuttal to Apple. Instead of explaining how PCs might be superior to Macs, the commercial only shows the viewer a bunch of famous people in an attempt to raise the self-esteem of a hypothetical audience of disgruntled, sad sack PC users. In addition, although the commercial does attempt to point out how the PC had universal appeal by showing different PC users from other countries, it is not successful in a marketing sense because it fails to communicate a sense of lifestyle or brand. Part of Mac's success comes from the fact that they market to a specific clientele - usually young people who can take advantage of features like Photobooth, iChat, and iTunes, or people working in creative professional fields like film, photography, or music.

In class today, we also discussed the concept of detournement, in which traditional expectations and/or messages are subverted through recycling old, familiar elements. Although there are countless Mac vs. PC parodies available on the Internet, I thought this one, which uses animation from South Park (speaking of subversion) was the funniest and most apt - enjoy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Id_kGL3M5Cg

summer silkworm sales

This past summer I went on a trip to Korea with my family. Among our travels, we visited an island called Chejudo that is known for its rocky topography, small horses, and wonderful orange groves. We were part of a tour group that went on a loop throughout the island on a bus, stopping at several famous locations on the way so that we tourists could get out and snap a few pictures here and there. It was very hot out, in spite of the cool island breezes, and I was feeling tired and disoriented when the bus stopped at a local orange grove. We were urged to get off the bus and take a tour of the orange grove, which was being led by one of the workers there.

He greeted us with a few stock phrases in the Chejudo dialect (which is significantly different from what mainland Korean) and walked us around the different orange trees, pointing out the different varieties and explaining the merits of each type of orange. I admittedly wasn't paying very much attention to the tour, being too tired to care about the slight differences between two types of oranges that to me, looked identical, but I did find it strange when we were ushered into a room and the guide suddenly began talking about silkworms. Silkworms? I assumed that the orange grove also raised silkworms as a side business and that we were about to begin the second part of the tour now. But instead, we were treated to what turned out to be a blatant sales pitch for silkworm powder.

Not cocaine

"Look at these jars!" our guide said, dramatically gesturing towards a neatly arranged pyramid of plastic jars off to the side of the room. They were filled with what looked to be shiny stalks of yellow grass. He passed one jar around the room and announced that inside were silkworms busily working away. I'm not sure as to the biological logistics of how the powder was produced (my Korean isn't that great), but for a bargain price, we could purchase silkworm powder from the orange grove workers in lovely prepackaged boxes and jars. Drinking tea brewed from this powder would then not only relieve all aches and pains, but also provide the added benefits of better circulation, improved digestion, and a more positive outlook on life. "Drink two cups of silkworm powder tea everyday," the guide told us seriously, "and I can guarantee you that you will never experience sickness or fatigue for the rest of your life."

I didn't know whether to laugh or... what. I looked around the room, scanning the faces of the other tourists to see if any of them were as shocked by this as I was. The bait-and-switch method our guide had used on us was so obvious I couldn't help but wonder if I was on a hidden camera show. A guided tour on oranges to - silkworm powder? I felt amused, insulted, and disturbed. Sure, we were tourists, practically walking cash cows for all the locals of Chejudo (tourism happens to be one of the main industries of Chejudo), but never had I been subjected to such a transparent attempt at selling a product in real life.

I walk by giant billboards and posters and ads all the time, and of course I watch TV and go shopping in malls and go on the Internet, but I’ve learned to tune out most of the appeals made by the media on my wallet and my time. If anything, I pay attention to ads that I think are funny or clever or interesting, but that doesn’t mean it’ll make me want to buy the product more if I’ve already decided against it. I’m kind of stingy with my shopping habits, and I consider spending upwards of $30 on myself to be verging on the extravagant. Which isn’t too surprising I guess, since I’m not really a breadwinner yet and received money from my parents all throughout high school whenever I needed it. I’m always reminded that the spending money I have isn’t “really” my own in the sense that I’ve earned it through a job, and I guess that stops me from spending as much as some of my friends. I enjoy shopping when I have a specific goal in mind, like a new pair of jeans or a present for a friend, but I hate malls and try to spend as little time in them as possible. I find online shopping convenient but nerve-wracking, and I’m always convinced, even when punching in my security code to buy a 99-cent song on iTunes, that one day my identity will be stolen by some faceless, devious Internet villain.

While our tour guide continued to extol the virtues of the silkworm powder, I whispered to my mom, “I can’t believe this.”

“Shh. This is interesting.”

“Mom! I can’t believe you’re falling for this. This is such a blatant sales pitch; we were supposed to take a full tour of the orange groves, not be brainwashed into buying silkworm powder.”

She turned to my father: “Do you think your sister would like some? We could get a jar for ourselves and some for her.”

I became indignant. “But that’s exactly what they want you to do! Don’t you see it’s a trap?!”

“You’re being overdramatic. They’re just trying to make some extra money. And who can blame them? The least we can do is buy some of their wares. And silkworm powder tea is very good for you, last I heard.”

“MOM.”

My parents ended up buying one economy-sized jar for our family and about four more smaller jars for friends and relatives. My dad was especially excited about the product, and claimed that the sample tea we received from the tour guide was wonderful and that he could already feel the difference in his stomach and through his veins. I remained skeptical and disapproving, and was chided by my parents for being a wet blanket.

Parents: “Try some of this tea; you said you were tired before, this will energize you!”

Me: “I don’t feel any different. I don’t think we should get it; it’s probably just a scam.”

Mom: “You’re being cynical. A scam, pshaw! They’re just trying to make some money on the side.”

Dad: “Mm, this tea is wonderful! I feel more energized already!”

It’s now been two months since we came back from our trip, and although the smaller jars have since been given as gifts to our family friends and relatives, the economy-sized jar of silkworm powder is still sitting around somewhere, untouched and unopened. In truth, I’d forgotten all about it until taking this class.

Was I wrong to have felt so cheated and used when the tour guide began his sales pitch? Maybe I shouldn’t have been so critical of his motives (after all, tourist season doesn’t last forever, even on Chejudo), but thinking about it now in relation to the more American marketing techniques of “buzzing” and word-of-mouth discussed in the New York Times Magazine article, I still think my reaction was a valid one.

What disturbed me most about this incident was not my reaction to it, but the reasons for my reaction. Was I upset because our tour had been cut off with a sales pitch? Or was it that I had felt insulted by the obviousness of the sales pitch? Maybe I’ve just become accustomed to the subtleties of most advertising nowadays, media-saturated sponge that I am. In that case, all of my assumed moral superiority about malls and online shopping comes down to nothing: I’m just as susceptible to commercial calls as everyone else in that I expect to see them in a sales context and feel their lack when I don’t.

**MAGIC**

Sex and the City

I didn’t start watching “Sex and the City” until its run on HBO had officially ended. In fact, my first exposure to the famous TV show was through the significantly censored, half-hour-long reruns that played on Channel 11. Considering that the show first began in the year 1998, when I was in third grade, this was probably a good thing. I started watching “Sex and the City” sometime in high school, and my friends and I were instantly hooked. Even though we knew how silly the show was, we kept coming back.

For the uninitiated, “Sex and the City” was a very successful TV program about the lives of four New York City women, especially that of Carrie Bradshaw, a sex columnist and Manolo Blahnik devotee. “Sex and the City” focused on their romantic and professional lives. Recently, a movie was released (I dragged one of my less SATC-inclined friends to the theater with me) detailing the story of Carrie’s marriage to Mr. Big, a business tycoon with whom she had a turbulent on-again off-again relationship throughout the TV show’s six seasons.

So, why am I (and countless others, no doubt mostly female others, throughout the United States and beyond) fans of “Sex and the City”? Its premise doesn’t sound so different from any other girlfriends-centered serials that have been floating around the TV networks for the past ten years. There are all kinds of possible explanations out there, from more erudite explorations of how the feminist ethos “Sex and the City” speaks to high-powered single females in today’s fast-paced world to the personal opinion of my friend Jane: “It’s just fabulous.”

While it’s true that the writing on the show has won awards for its light-hearted wit and examinations of socially relevant issues like STDs, the changing roles of women, sexual experimentation, etc., I’m inclined to agree with Jane as to why I enjoyed the show so much. The lifestyles of the four women in “Sex and the City” are indeed fabulous, in every sense of the word - wonderful, marvelous, and “resembling or suggesting a fable: of an incredible, astonishing, or exaggerated nature” [Merriam Webster]. When I'm watching the show, I don’t question the fact that Carrie, a newspaper columnist, can afford an apartment on the Upper East Side, tables at the city’s hottest restaurants, and $400 Manolo Blahniks. And when she steps out of her brownstone in the morning wearing a dress with a flower bigger than a newborn baby pinned to it, my first thought isn’t “Ouch” (although it probably would be if I were to see something like that in real life). Instead, I think “WOW, that’s such a GOOD idea.” SATC does things like that to me.

Exhibit A

“Sex and the City” is defined almost entirely by the act of consumption; Carrie and her friends do a lot of shopping and lunching. In fact, most of their heart-to-heart conversations about Men and Relationships take place in fancy clothing stores or restaurants. In addition, I’d say that about 84.3% of “Sex and the City” is devoted to shots of Carrie’s newest outfits and purchases. And although each of the four women on the show have main men, I’ve always thought that the most compelling relationship on “Sex and the City” was not the one between Carrie and Mr. Big, or even Carrie and her “girls,” but rather the one between Carrie and Manolo Blahnik.

"Manolo Blahnik Mary Janes! I thought these were an urban shoe myth!"

In all six seasons, the only reality check Carrie receives regarding her spending habits occurs in one episode when she needs money for a loan as a down payment on her apartment. While shopping with Miranda, she realizes just how much money she has spent on shoes over the years:

Carrie: "Where did all my money go? I know I've made some."
Miranda: (Holding one of Carrie's designer shoes), "At $400 a pop--that's $40,000. There's your down payment."
Carrie: "I spent $40,000 on shoes and have no place to live. I literally will be the old woman who lived in her shoes."

In the end, the problem is solved when wealthy Charlotte offers Carrie her ring as a loan, which she accepts. The money in Sex and the City comes and goes very easily, which is probably the primary reason why it’s such a fantasy-come-true for fans. The idea that one’s consumption habits can be used to create a glittering new lifestyle for oneself and have no (very) severe repercussions on your bank account is certainly an enticing one.

Adorno & Horkheimer would probably have hated Sex and the City with a passion, for the reason that it is one of the most successful television shows to have stomped all over the boundaries between art and consumption. A typical episode plotline: Carrie is dumped by a boyfriend; upset, she goes shopping and buys a new pair of heels; she wears them and goes out with her girlfriends. Not only did Sex and the City make Manolo Blahnik a household name, it also made the idea of retail therapy more acceptable and glamorous to women everywhere. Case in point: I really think that Sex and the City is nothing more than a very entertaining sales pitch, not necessarily for specific shoe or clothing brands, but rather for an entire lifestyle centered around consumption, and yet I wholeheartedly and unironically enjoy the show.

And while I would never be able to go out and buy myself a pair of designer shoes if I just felt like it (let alone be able to afford it), I can take pleasure in watching Carrie Bradshaw do it and look ridiculously fabulous (or fabulously ridiculous) while doing it. This might be the more de Certeau-oriented part of me talking; that part of me has no problem with Carrie defining her personality and lifestyle with preposterously expensive stiletto shoes. De Certeau would probably argue that the shoes are, for Carrie, a symbol of empowerment and her ability as a strong, independent woman to get over any guy who dumps her. Carrie's fashion sense and taste in shoes could be considered an extension of her personality, and in that sense her purchase of them is a form of creative expression and therefore completely acceptable.

At least that's what I tell myself when I'm turning the TV on.