CULTURE

The Love and Lingo of Consumerism

How can we survive living in a world of consumer engineering?

We live in a world of objects. Objects that erupt so convulsively, spraying product unstoppably in every direction that tells many different narratives. We live in a world where our relationship with our possessions are no longer straightforward. We live in a world where consumers are willing to stand in line for hours for a handphone with wild romanticism and joy of what the product will bring, only to have it replaced in two years time. Serial seduction, consumer engineering, consumerist trance, whatever the terms experts have given, the problem today is, we are doing it to people, especially to the ones we love.

I once worked at a department where everyone used Apple products. From handphone to laptop to devices like the iPad, it was as if Steve Jobs was still alive as its CEO. And then there was me with my Hewlett Packard (HP). Instead of being a gust of fresh air, I was like an Error 404. At meetings, they’d snicker, sneer and make fun of my laptop describing it as slow, not up to trend, while repeatedly asking me why don’t I “upgrade” to an iMac or be an Apple consumer?

These youngsters in my department were earning way below me and it was obvious they spend most of their earnings to look flashy and to fit in. After a few weeks of snickering and calling me an old timer — to which I just kept quiet — I finally spoke up and educated them about why my laptop was HP — “It’s my choice. Operative word, My. Not promoters, friends, Tim Cook or Steve Jobs, or advertisers.”

Now don’t get me wrong, I love these kids. They were working for me. I’m also not saying HP is far superior. But they’ve been misguided and herded blindly into consumer engineering. They’ve been raised to think they know what’s trending not realizing they’ve fallen into pseudo consumer power, because the world said so, and because in the department, they were the majority.

I’m Gen X. It takes a lot to budge a dinosaur like me when it comes to taste and consumerism.

Earnest Elmo Calkins coined the term ‘Consumer Engineering’ in the 1930s to persuade people to consume their way out from the Great Depression. He published a book in 1932 — ‘Consumer Engineering: A New Technique for Prosperity’ suggesting that goods fall into two classes: those which we use (such as vehicles), and those we use up (like toothpaste and biscuits). He adds, “Consumer engineering must see to it that we use up the kind of goods we now merely use.” Apple is among the brands that has made it happen. Experts now say, “This has given the relentless cycle of consumption a fashionable gloss, endorsed by hipsters in black jeans and black t-shirts rather than corporate suits.”

My HP laptop, I told my young team, was not cheap when it came out. HP often uses more costly components and materials compared to its competitors. My 14-inch Pavilion laptop has an OLED eye-safe display with Bang & Olufsen (B&O) sound system — two aspects that matter to me. They may not appreciate it, as their ‘look and feel’ priority may differ. And I most certainly didn’t purchase mine just because Bill and Susan have one.

On a bigger scale, the department, however, represents the world we live in. From peer pressure, perceived luxury, or as Deyan Sudjic wrote in his insightful book ‘The Language of Things’, the ‘ecstatic consumerist trance’.

Nothing can be truer than what he said in relation to the context above: Many folks (like my Apple-obsessed young team members) make a purchase “based on a set of seductions and manipulations that was taking place entirely in their head rather than in physical space.”

Sadly, we do it to people just as much as we do it to products.

“You don’t give a three-year-old a full apple. He will take three bites and throw away the apple. You cut the fruit into bite sizes. This teaches the child to take in realistic and appropriate amount at a time. You’re teaching the child not to waste and the value of every bite.” This was the advice given by Grandma Dina from one of my favorite YouTube Jewish channels ‘Living Lchaim’.

Grandma Dina rose to fame for sharing her money-saving wisdom affectionately termed as ‘Ko$her Money’. It started as a random interview on the street and her advice went viral. Viewers requested more tips and I soon became one of her fans.

Among her gold advice is to not spoil your child with many toys. Her take on its psychological observation is marvelous. “It becomes overwhelming as the child is unable to focus and gets easily distracted when toys are scattered all over the floor,” she explains as a grandma who raised two generations.

You’re spoiling the child, who develops a short attention span and does not appreciate quality time. “When children were raised in the olden days, they’re given colored blocks which they would play for hours. It strengthens their imagination and they learn to make do with very little. But from here they learn the meaning of value which doesn’t necessarily mean it has to be expensive or fancy,” says Grandma Dina.

We may not realize it but we grow up as adults with these fundamentals. We do the same with relationships.

Instead of focusing on depth, investing time on quality and iterations on the many ways we can better and enjoy a person, a friendship, or a moment in time, we focus on options, on variety, on the possible ways we can opt out and start all over again.

Rather than sit, listen, watch and observe to make the best of a thing, we tell ourselves, “If we have many other people to choose from, why stick around to figure this one out?” The issue isn’t just about variety but also our creation of value.

Granted, this isn’t to encourage staying in a toxic relationship. All forms of human bonding aren’t straightforward. This seems to be the case with all our relationships even with our possessions. But based on the context, is it any wonder we get easily overwhelmed and blame modern romance for being demanding and confusing, because consumer engineering has taught us to impulse buy/decide, consume and change. Also in the manual it says, Why fix it when it can be replaced?

Sudjic shares an interesting experience with his own Apple products. When Apple was rising the popularity charts, he was at Heathrow airport when he saw two Apple laptop models and needed to buy one. The question is which one?

The first was all white, the other the matt black option. He describes: “The black version looked sleek, technocratic and composed. The purist white one seemed equally alluring when I bought an earlier model, but the black MacBook now seemed so quiet, so dignified and chaste by comparison.”

From a psychological standpoint, Black has been used over the years by many other design-conscious manufacturers to suggest seriousness, but at the time it was a new color for Apple from its predecessor — the all-white, semi-transparent, citrus-tinted jelly mold.

Research shows that at the time, black was not only the color of weapons, it was used for scientific instruments that rely on precision rather than fashion to appeal to customers. It was a new kind of seduction. But above all, consistency is key and this is what Sudjic discovered Apple lacked with the model he wanted.

While the machine is black, its cables are white. So is the transformer, a virtually intrusive rectangular box. In short Apple couldn’t manage to do something as obvious as match the laptop and the cables, casting doubt on the integrity of the whole conception.

Sudjic also commented on the magnetic latch connecting the machine to its power cable. “It certainly stops you from inadvertently bringing the machine crashing to the floor. If you trip over the cable, it comes away with no more than the slightest pressure. But it also means that the power cord and transformer from the previous model are now utterly redundant.”

This is not to trash Apple in any way but Sudjic’s career is built on observing, analyzing and discussing products. Sudjic, a British writer and broadcaster, specializes in the fields of design and architecture. He was formerly the director of the Design Museum in London.

The flashy youngsters at my former department would not see these flaws. They would see it in other brands. They’re biased to a fault, also a product of consumer engineering. Brand loyalty? More like blind loyalty.

The way products are consumed has left us seeing them in our lives as toys. Sudjic puts it eloquently: “Consolations for the unremitting pressures of acquiring the means to buy them and which infantilize us in our pursuit of them.”

Just like the possessions in our lives when it reaches product maturity, what’s left is to invent a new category.

That’s what we do with people and relationships. We will always be on the lookout for something more exciting with better features than the previous designs.

The change also needs to fulfill a certain degree of upgrade, accomplishment and affordability. Like how our televisions sets went from 28 inches to 60 inches, domestic ovens turn into ranges, and refrigerators become the size of wardrobes.

This has a lot to do with visual culture analysis. John Berger wrote at length about this in his book ‘Ways of Seeing’. Here, Berger made a distinction between real objects and what he saw as the manipulations of capitalism that makes us want to consume them. A halfway between Karl Marx and Walter Benjamin, Berger observes:

“Capitalism survives by forcing the majority, whom it exploits, to define their own interests as narrowly as possible. This was once achieved by extensive deprivation. Today in the developed countries it is being achieved by imposing a false standard of what is, and what is not desirable.”

The opposite of consumer engineering is to become a conscious consumer.

I guess the best way towards being a conscious consumer is to know what you want, and to liken it to seeking a partner when you’re ready for one: know what features you’re looking for, repair not replace when it needs fixing, allow its sentimental value to increase over time. Make it a product of use, not a product to use up.

The dinosaur consumer that I am cannot agree more.