BRANDS-- Our Life Long Friends

Who said they were sinister?

They're just not real. The video doesn't make any value judgments. It just states how things are.

It is left up to you to make up your own mind about whether you want this or not.

Brands have become stand ins for the local store owners, local manufacturers.

There used to be a person behind the product, a real live person that you could shake hands with, and ask how his kids were.

When a person bought shoes, they used to go to a cobbler, put an order in, and if that person hung around, could watch his shoes being made right in front of him. He would then give his money to the person who made the shoes.

What is our relationship with the actual people who make our shoes today? Unless you know a local cobbler, the people who made your shoes work in dimly lit factories in China, Indonesia, Honduras, or Mexico. What is your relationship to them?

There is none.

Brands stand in for those relationships. The mass production of items has alienated us from the labor that creates the things we consume.

It's more palatable to imagine that elves are making our cookies than a factory full people earning minimum wage in rural Missouri.

They have cultivated relationships beyond that, though. They have become stand-in friends and family. We have relationships with them that are just as emotional and connected as the ones we have with people in our extended family. If not more so.

There are experts who work specifically on creating loyalty to brands, who work on creating the sorts of loving connections we have with the people around us. It sounds crazy, and it is crazy, but it's nevertheless, exactly what they have been working at for the past 90 years. And they've gotten good at it.

All this video does is puts some highlighter on this. There's nothing funny about it. There's nothing witty.

It's just how things are right now.

From what I can tell I’m an advocate of an opposing school of thought so I don’t think we’re going to reach a consensus. Nonetheless I’ll try to make my point as best I can without relying on ideas or philosophies I’m sure you won’t agree with.
The cobbler analogy sounds a lot like the good ole days argument in that you could go have a meet and greet with the guy who made your shoes, you could shake his or her hand and watch them make your shoes for you in person. It also sounds like you’re trying to make the argument that it’s better to shop at the local business because you have a greater chance of getting a product that suits your needs. Truth be told though, that argument is only partially true. For instance I have a big, wide foot so when I buy shoes they have to be at least a 15 or up, especially when they’re dress shoes. Now I could go spend the time to hunt down and then drive however far to a cobbler for custom fit shoes or I could just buy skate shoes.
In fact that’s exactly what I do. Instead of buying custom shoes I just pick up my CCS catalog and buy a pair of size thirteen skate shoes. Now this doesn’t mean I have to choose one or the other. I can still go to the mom and pop store and buy mass produced products. When it comes to long boards and long board accessories like trucks, wheels, bearings, decks, shoes, slide gloves and grip tape that’s exactly what I do. I still get all the perks of the locally owned business like the deals, personal service and respect and I save a ton in money.
So personally I think the real difference between then and now is that the availability of goods and services has increased to the point where choice is no longer the exclusive perk of the family owned or local business. It can be, and sometimes it’s even cheaper than the mass produced equivalent, but can be or might be doesn’t automatically equal will be in all circumstances.
“Unless you know a local cobbler, the people who made your shoes work in dimly lit factories in China, Indonesia, Honduras, or Mexico. What is your relationship to them? There is none.”
Dude, economic trade is a fundamental building block toward mutual respect and a peaceful co-existence. In other words it IS a relationship, whether or not you recognize it to be or not. When has an embargo been a positive for the receiver(and I mean the people not the government) and not the product of a failure or unwillingness to comprise and please tell me where the benefit is in denying work to a group of people because of political or social concerns. Most importantly how do the benefits outweigh the costs?
Do you really believe the UN sanctions imposed on Iraq were a benefit to the US or the Iraqis? How is the increase in the infant mortality rate, poverty and illiteracy beneficial to the Iraq’s? How is the completely justified hatred produced of those sanctions, and used by such groups like Al Queda beneficial to anyone?

We certainly are of opposing viewpoints here.

Trade is important, but how it's working now, it's just another form of colonialism. Do some research into the IMF and World Bank and their founding.

Under bilateral trade, your argument might make sense.

I would reccomend you also read the book "Shock Doctrine" by Naomi Klein.

I think you've never actually been to a cobbler. If you have ever been to a cobbler, you'd know, it wouldn't matter what size or shape your feet are, you can custom order them. There is a cobbler in my town. You can custom order your shoes not only made to fit, but made to fit specifically your feet.

advocating that people 'buy local' in no way implies supporting US sanctions against Iraq, there is just no viable relationship between the two. In fact, the sanctions were politically devised measures to extend an illegitimate empire.

Buying local is just common sense economics, measures promoted to preserve legitimate small business, not to mention health and well being.

@asherp
In my opinion the World Bank and the IMF are a lot like the Red Queen in “Through the Looking-Glass.” She can kick her little legs as hard as she wants but in the end she NEVER goes anywhere. Similarly the World Bank can publish as many Implementation Completion Reports with all those little satisfactory check marks but I don’t think anyone besides the World Bank thinks they’re actually accomplishing anything.

Klein has her points but I couldn’t stomach her treatment of Friedman or her conspiracy-ish undertones. In other words I don’t like how she demonizes the opposition and draws so much insight from so little. For me her books read like a Hollywood script.

Anyways so if free trade, comparative advantage and all that jazz is just another name for colonialism then what type of steps are necessary for a country to throw off the chains of colonialism and once that does happen what type of trade is acceptable?

@Incredulous

Ok let’s frame things a different way. If buying local is simply “common sense economics, measures promoted to preserve legitimate small business, not to mention health and well being,” then why are sanctions regarded as a war tactic? You see what I did there? I’m not so much saying they’re the same thing as much as I ASKING for someone to define the difference between the two.

What makes the cobbler a legitimate small business practicing common sense economics for the betterment of the community and when does it stop being so? For instance if the cobbler makes his shoes from materials outside of his local community is he now a impairment or does the common sense economic argument rest on where you manufacture the product? Is it both and does the ability to choose from locally produced goods to foreign produced goods have any effect on this theory?
If you’re going to throw loosely defined or open ended ideas out I’m going to turn them on their head. That’s kind of what I do.

Her treatment of Friedman is dead on.

Friedman was a psychotic whose ideals justified fascism and genocide.

I didn't need to read Naomi Klein's book to know that. I just had to study history.

The IMF and World Bank are incredibly powerful organizations that have tremendous amounts of leverage over the global south, which they use to implement Friedman's economic theories, which invariably always end up with widespread poverty, and centralized authority, allowing for neo-colonialist expansion by "western" corporations. Your characterization of the IMF and World Bank are ... inaccurate at best.

Brands are stand-ins for the people who actually make things.

They are a stand in for the alienation from labor.

If you've done any research into the history of marketing and public relations, you'll see that they've evolved from that point into being stand ins for friends and family. This is not accidental. This is exactly the sort of relationship that they have wanted to cultivate. They attempt to be a stand-in friend, and the only way can relate to them is by buying things.

Nobody is questioning whether or not it is effective. What's being questioned is whether or not we want to continue living in a false reality, and false culture that has been created for us.

For instance-- "Leggo my _____!"
"M-I-C, K-E-Y, M-O ______ ?
"_______ the beef?"

I don't even need to complete these phrases. These are just a few forms of America's forms of cultural currency, which at one point might have been the opening bars of a symphony, the most fameous work of art from a regional artist, or a poem by a national laureate. The old forms of social currency had meaning and experiences attached to them. They were created by other people as art.

These new forms of cultural currency were not created as art. They were created only to sell things. They were created to create consumers, who understand these cultural currencies so well, that they are unaware they exist. A people who do not create their own meaning, but have their meaning created for them.

They have become stand-ins for our entire culture, our entire lives. They raise us. They parent us. They watch us die. They will outlive every single one of us. They will not mourn our passing. Our only relationship to them is that of consumption.

You should really check out the book "Life Inc"

It's not that corporations are insidious or that they play us.

It's that they are ubiquitous. They seek to create your entire reality from cradle to grave. They are always there, whispering in your ear, telling you how to feel. They have created a reality on top of reality, and it's true that most people know brand icons better than the people in their neighborhood.

http://radar.net/entry/image/?id=3919710&width=480&height=480

It's an ad for the Japanese "Big Tasty"

Thanks!

Normally i dig this sort of stuff, but it just seemed a bit over drammatic. Now this maybe eath shattering to little kids that believe they should have a kids meal because of what tv says. But once you grow up you learn this is just a sales gimmick. If anyone still believes this i'm afraid they haven't lived at all.

What specifically did I say that you're finding objectionable?

What does Fufufufufuf mean?

The #1 expression of amusement in..--

For future reference, fufufufu is the Japanese manga sound effect for evil/sinister laughing or sinister. Cookies of Metal tends to do it a lot.

Ahhh, ya found me...!!~