Remember when advertising was about selling the product, simply to sell the product? If you wanted a burger, they showed you a burger with options available. Now if you want a burger, they sell you a story to go with your stack of meat, cheese and bun. They sell you studies on their product to back up their story so that you aren’t just buying a product but authenticating it.
In this way, we are subject to multiple truths. Where we once had science simply for the sake of truth, we now have science under the watchful eye of big corporations that hand out paid truths. For example, a simple Google search on coffee yields curious results. The top hits are on the health benefits of the drink from popular media sites written by paid workers. The bottom of the organic results, and dare I say it, page two, will show you the negatives. These results are from pharmaceutical, news and university research sites. Companies capitalize on these “facts”; President’s Choice had a whole advertising campaign dedicated to it.
With all of these multiple truths, consumers have now decided to engage themselves more in the world of products and services. In order to weed out the superior from the cheap, people now research where their products come from, how they are handled, how the workers making the product are treated, if they are eco-friendly, etc. Advertising has changed now that we have changed. Now that we demand product transparency, businesses have divulged more of their processes so that we can see that they are transparent as well.
Here’s where we see the irony though. On one hand we expect our advertisers and products to be trustworthy, ethical and historical, but on the other hand we, ourselves, are leading increasingly fake lives. We fill our lips with poison to look plump and young, we vacuum out stomach fat to look like pencils, we dye our hair with pastel pinks and neon blues to resemble cartoon characters and we contour our faces to be reminiscent of dolls. We are no longer humans experiencing life and collecting stories, but dolls enslaved to aesthetic pleasures.
When did we give ourselves over to irony? How did we allow ourselves to be proactive consumers, but an inattentive society? Perhaps our selfies can answer the question. Before cameras were readily available in our smartphones for selfie usage, we used to look in mirrors to fulfill our vain desires. Since a reflection provides a reverse image, our asymmetrical faces looked differently to us than how the rest of the world viewed us. With cameras and digital technology available to us now, we can see thousands of images of how the rest of the world sees us. This is a very subtle change, and an important one to not dismiss. From these accurate images, we learned to shape ourselves, mold ourselves, to a better image. Where a mirror provided a reflection of an actual being, a camera records a visual presentation of a being. Think about being in front of a mirror. The thoughts that arise are superficial, but soon become personality based.
For example, “If I could just lose this fat here, I would look so much better, those pants would fit better. ...Would I change though? Would I still be the same, or would I think I’ve become too hot and get a big ego? Would my significant other still love me then?” This is different when you stare at a photo of yourself. Thoughts tend to begin and end as superficial questions. Comparisons are not made to past images of oneself, but to current images of others as judgement. “I look fatter/uglier than my friend in this photo, I’m not worth anything.”
This image that we have created for ourselves is not for us, but for public consumption. We have become a product in the eyes of society to criticize, analyze and “like”. Body modification has become the norm, with popular terms such as, “manscaping”, facial hair landscaping, taking hold of our men. Hygienic trimming has turned into elaborate face art. Our women are being shown that contouring is how you look pretty, feel confident, and be strong as a woman.
How does looking like a doll make you feel strong? Dolls are fragile and created by other hands. Our strength is now in our image, not in our minds. Thank you to Kelsey Norberg for illustrating contouring through her makeup skills, and thank you to Kaitlin Norberg for showing the difference with her own true beauty.
We have become the image, the product. Our products have become more real. When do we stop listening to the world and listen to ourselves? When do we demand authenticity from ourselves as much at the products we want?
