Brilliant post over at Healthbot – How Ikea pries open your head and shoves an idea inside
It’s really interesting what you can find out when you give advertisements, and commercials, just s little bit of actual thought.
The sub-text of the post raises an eyebrow for me. It is fairly targeted at vilifying IKEA. But, I don’t think IKEA is to blame. They are a big company, making big money with the method, and the tools, most readily available. There is a deeper culprit – Marketing and the stealth methods they use, and behind that is the real enemy – Consumerism.
In a world functioning on a consumerist paradigm we will always have hacks aimed at bypassing our brains to get to our wallets. That is the world we live in, and the one we should watch out for.
I was at a talk given by Masami Teraoka recently for an opening of his at the Palo Alto Art Center. The bulk of his work is a commentary on the intersection between his native culture (Japan) and the one he has lived in for the past four decades (America). His views on the consumerist nature of American society are bold, non-judgmental, revealing and poignant. The bit I enjoyed best was his semi-rant about the American need to always build something to buy to validate an activity. His example was expensive workout equipment; specifically a chin-up bar, “If you want to do that all you need is to go out side and find a strong tree branch. But no, America society must have an expensive, large piece of gym equipment to do that.”
Well, at least I bought out of that little cycle a few years back when I gave up my gym membership and get my anaerobic workouts from body weight exercises and calisthenics.
But, come to think of it, I do have a chin up bar in the door way at home. It was a gift though does that count?
Bear with me. This is going to go the long way around.
