It’s fair to say that being sold to is, for the most part,
annoying. Modern sales and advertising is akin to that of a
pestering child, constantly following us around and trying to
get us to do things for it. As annoying as this child might be,
however, its character appears to be necessary in our modern
consumer-driven world. Business owners need ways of
communicating their goods and services to consumers, and
consumers need ways of learning about and deciding what goods
and services to purchase. Arguably, the problem is not
necessarily that we are being sold to, but what we are often
being sold, and perhaps how. More specifically, the tendency for
businesses and advertising to sell us things that we don’t truly
want or need paired with their ability to often convince us to
that we do. Rewind several hundred years to the late 17th
century. Consumerism, as we know it, takes form in various countries of Europe. During
and following this time, a shifting in economic behaviors would begin to unfold where individuals
would no longer buy and sell items strictly around immediate needs like food, simple clothing
items, tools, bowls and cups, and so on, but rather, goods that were focused around the
desire for luxury or additional, less necessary comforts. Things like Tabaco, tea,
fashionable clothing, fancy wigs, crafted furniture, high-end
silverware, and so on. Fast-forward to the 19th century. As a result
of increasing consumer markets, advertising is developed more formally and utilized as
a major economic force. Generally, during this time, advertising would provide consumers
with basic information about a product or service in order to attend to the consumer’s
better judgments of rational decision-making. Fast-forward another 100 years or so to the
20th century. Specifically in America, advertising would begin to study and use methods of human
psychology. With this, advertising would no longer be driven by the features or information
of a product, but more by the feelings, narratives, and ideals that could be created and associated
with a product. In other words, a soda advertisement would no longer sell soda, but the ideal of
happiness. An alcohol ad wouldn’t sell alcohol but the ideal of charisma or fun. A car ad
wouldn’t sell a car, but the ideal of social status, and so on. Ever since, this strategy
has remained mostly the standard for all of modern marketing.
Renowned American linguist, philosopher, and cognitive
scientist Noam Chomsky has been a longtime researcher and critic
of the role and affects of media and advertising. One
specifically notable idea, and the one that we will primarily be
focusing on here, is his view that in the modern world, rather
than assisting in higher, more complex needs, most businesses
and advertising work to create and perpetuate useless and
frivolous needs. For Chomsky, commerce focuses almost exclusively
on the trivial and superficial. Things like vanity,
pleasure, indulgence, self-distraction, and so on. However,
in this, more genuine and higher level human needs like
good mental and physical health, creative expression, a sense
of community, and opportunity for self-realization are neglected.
For a better understanding of this concept, it is helpful
to reference the distinguished Russian psychologist by the
name of Abraham Maslow and his research and theory on the nature
of human needs. Maslow beautifully summarized his theory on the spectrum
of human needs with a simple visual diagram of a pyramid,
popularly known as Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Within this
diagram, there are 5 levels. Starting from the bottom at a physiological
level, we require obvious things like food and water.
Moving up to next level, we need safety and security. However,
beyond these two levels, Maslow suggested that we would begin
to enter into higher and more psychological levels of needs.
First, a sense of belongingness and social connection, then
a sense of esteem or respect, and finally, at the top of it all,
a term that Maslow coined as self-actualization. In other terms,
this essentially
describes the fulfillment of one’s self and their full potential
of skills and abilities. This idea, along with the diagram as a whole,
coincides rather succinctly with the suggestions of
Chomsky. Like Maslow, Chomsky suggests that we require things that
attend to the full hierarchy of our needs, the top being a sense
of creative, self- fulfillment. However, the problem for both
Maslow and Chomsky is found in the fact that most businesses and
products neglect the higher levels of human needs and focus far
more on our unconscious base layers. Principally, this
makes perfect sense, as it is far easier and more accessible to
attend to the more unconscious and evocable desires and thus
more profitable. However, easy does not mean helpful or right.
For Noam, Maslow, and many others, the consequence of neglecting
the higher levels of human needs results in a void of happiness,
value, and purpose for all involved.
An optimism supposed by the likes of many great thinkers is
that capitalism can, with proper time and effort, move up into
the higher layers of human needs on a mass scale, sustaining the
value that consumerism has on a society, while not primarily
focusing on the sale of trivial and superficial things.
In a new age of an Internet and attention-based economy, we
perhaps have the access and potential to satisfy this goal
unlike ever before. With worldwide, real-time social
communication, sharing, and perspective, we can understand genuine value and see through
contrived value far more easily. With the Internet, the ability to sell or distribute
directly to the consumer is open to essentially anyone and everyone. In theory, this now means
that the individual can more easily sell, create, and share things that perhaps wouldn’t
otherwise be successful at a corporate or mass retail level, but own the complete process
and margin of a product’s profit and, thus, even at a smaller scale, still make a good
living. When utilized, this also allows creators of products, services, and artistic projects
to maintain creative control, and subsequently provide a more self-honest reflection of value
to consumers. Moreover, Chomsky suggests that engaging in
creative work under one’s own volition is an imperative
and fundamental part of our nature. It is in fact the self-actualization
at the top of Maslow’s pyramid. Which is to say that
after a certain point of satisfying one’s lower needs, the act
of working and creating within the realm of one’s own creative interest,
for one’s self, is in fact one of if not the highest reward
of working. By this account, as opposed to the vast majority of
purchasable products that we often see as the reward of working,
a much greater and higher level reward is somewhat paradoxically
found in the experience of working itself. A carrying out
our full potential through work we deem meaningful and valuable.
Again, as a result of the Internet, this is arguably
available now more than any other time in recent history. There
are very clear signs of this shift towards more meaningful and
higher level direct to consumer business and creative
independence taking place right now. For example, the use of
social media platforms to share education, art, and meaningful
entertainment from individual creators. Apps and websites that
are greatly helpful in dealing with mental health, physical
health, self-education, and skill development that would perhaps
otherwise not be very accessible or lucrative. There are
individuals making and distributing films, shows, literature,
music, and so on, entirely independent and direct to an
audience, with no corporate influence that might otherwise strip
the creative project of all its nuance in order to appeal to the
widest possible audience. The Internet, of course, also has the potential
to be used in the opposite capacity, selling more of
the same to more people through easier and more intrusively
manipulative advertising. There are huge groups of people,
information, and markets around this endeavor of using Internet
platforms and methods to exploit the lower levels of our
desires more easily and more lucratively. Like any cultural phenomenon,
the Internet has the ability to compound the good and the
bad within our nature. However, regardless of who we are,
as individuals either
selling or being sold to, perhaps it is worth considering if we
really need more of the same. Perhaps we don’t need to use the
Internet to sell cheep products in more clever ways. And perhaps
we don’t need to figure out how to exploit social medias to
persist the same cycle of cat and mouse between business and
consumer. Rather, we far more likely need a shifting of focus
towards creating things that are perhaps hard to make, but more
meaningful to sell and buy. There is certainly a difficult amount of self-honesty
and introspection required in figuring out where
the line is truly drawn in terms of what we want in this life
and how much. Furthermore, there is a certain amount respectable
discipline also required in holding ourselves accountable
to it. However, in this pursuit, there is great dignity, meaning,
and character to be found and sustained. There is great
opportunity to make room for our higher selves.
Regardless of how or where we work and make our money, we
should remember the fragility, shortness, and deeply challenging
conditions of this life, and make it our number one priority to,
at the very least, not make it any harder or more convoluted for
ourselves and others. The world doesn’t need us to make the
world any harder than it already is. Rather, the world needs us
pursuing our highest potential, resisting anything that might
try to take us from it, and trying our best to say and do things
that we find meaningful and that might help others do the same.
The Internet is not and does not need to be the single means in
which we strive towards this. For many, it is not accessible or
of interest. However, arguably in all areas of work and
creativity, the same principle applies. The point in regards to
the Internet is simply to illuminate how its recent historical
development provides a potentially more accessible method.
Admittedly, all of the aforementioned is much easier said then done. Given the current conditions
of the world, unfortunately not everyone is given fair opportunity and many face grave
challenges and limitation. Furthermore, even in the best of circumstances, finding success
in anything personally and socially meaningful is extremely difficult. Temptations hover
above us at all times, and those who might find disdain in any of the ideas shared thus
far, of whom will likely continue to exploit consumers’ temptations, will persist in
this world on the same course, for good or for bad, out of intention or unawareness.
Realistically, we can’t expect that the nature of corporations and the powers that
be will change all that much in the near future, nor can we expect that businesses and advertisers
will always operate with the consumer, as a human being, in mind. However, we can recognize
this truth and try to consume with a corresponding skepticism while also working our hardest
to find and share our highest self in spite of it all.
Regardless, all great goals and ideas reside in the realm
of grave challenge, just far enough out of reach to seem
unlikely, but just close enough to be possible. At the risk of overly ambitious optima, perhaps
if properly leveraged by time, culture, and the Internet,
there’s a future where this will be a little bit easier. A
future where the things we are sold are a little more helpful,
the way we are sold them, a little less annoying, and life
in general is a little bit better.