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Nutshell Kingdom: Consumer Identity
2008
I recently saw this:
"At the Raleigh Times bar in downtown Raleigh yesterday, Mr Obama arrived in the late afternoon with his wife Michelle only to find himself momentarily beerless.
'Where's my beer?'he asked, loud enough for the reporters to hear.
'PBR,'he said, choosing Pabst Blue Ribbon, an inexpensive lager, before working the crowd."
To which Matt Yglesias wrote:
"Now what's fascinating and terrifying about the country we live in is that were it to happen to be the case that Barack Obama had tasted amber Maharaja IPA in the past, really loved amber Maharaja IPA, and therefore decided to order an amber Maharaja IPA that fact would have featured prominently in cable news coverage for days and doubtless been the subject of at least one Maureen Dowd column."
I was struck by the sad truth of Yglesias' statement, and how it applies to all of our daily lives, not just the public image of politicians. I find that being defined by your consumer choices, or choosing to define yourself through your consumer choices - on a personality-level, I have no problem with people defining their politics through their purchases through buying of fair trade products or local produce - is something that we Americans are taught as early as middle school (hell, maybe earlier) and even as we get older and wiser, is an instinct that stays with us.
For instance, I drink a lot of Bud Light, though I am not particularly brand loyal as my tastes are fickle. I don't drink it to present myself as some sort of uber-patriot redneck moron, nor do I believe that my choice (or your choice) of any goddamn beverage is some sort of secret sign to others, some whisper in a crowded bar that can tell perfect strangers "Hey, this is who I am...I'm a Bud man. Who are you?" It's nonsense.
I drink Bud Light because (1) I really don't mind the taste at all, (2) I drink a lot (you can drink a lot of Bud Light and still feel very much ok) and (3) cannot afford to spend gobs of money on beer. Are there better tasting beers that would somwehow identify to my peers as a person of sophistication? Certainly. But I would not be able to drink as much of them as I would like, nor would I be able to spend as much time drinking with friends as I like to do.
Of course, my reasons for drinking anything at all are none of anyone's business. Neither are the CDs I listen to, the formats from which I gather my news, or the flavor jam I put on my toast. Increasingly I am saddened by our culture's (my peers for Christ's sake!) compliance and yes, even eagerness, to be identified as consumers first and foremost. It is a shallow mode of existence, a trait that hearkens back to the worst times of our lives, those days on the schoolbus when you could be ridiculed for a week for wearing the wrong brand of jacket or an uncool lunchbox (by the way, mine was a plain black workman-style lunchbox), and a trait that I fear will end up accidentally defining a whole generation - sadly, mine.
