She began the talk by bringing up the subject of the large gap of wealth between the rich and poor in Britain today, and how corporations and politicians use illusions in which the "reality of massive social and economic inequality appear to be reversed". Glaser explains that there are tricks being employed in politics and marketing that sublimally influence us in ways that we're not entirely aware of. Examples given involved spin marketing and public relation stunts, from McDonald's fake interview with a thatcherite dream farmer, to David Cameron blagging the details to buying and consuming a pasty. Each and every example she gave, I seemed to step back and take into account that she insinuates that everything demonstrates some sort of (her favourite word) perniciousness.
You and I can tell full well that these "lies" are being employed. It's one thing to be concious of it and still play along, but I found it hard to take anything she said without questioning where the harder evidence was. However, moving on from critiquing her delivery of the talk, she moved on to explaining the "age of authenticity". I remember well a talk delivered by Jesse Schell, a professor of game design at Carnegie Mellon University, where he also touched upon the issue of the desire for authenticity (view the video from 12:19, he references the book "Authenticity" by James M. Gilmore). Schell, like Glaser today, explains how right now, we as consumers crave products that are real, that are authentic; examples given include organic food, hand-made crafts, genuine retro fashion goods etc. Unlike Schell, Glaser only seemed to bring our attention to the observation, but Schell references Gilmore's book in that it is due to our desire to get away from the "bubble of fake bullshit" and to reconnect with nature, as it hasn't always been like this.
Glaser, after explaining the "age of authenticty", makes the claim that this authenticity that we are attracted to is superficially taken by corporations and turned into an "empty brand". We see this in the way Starbucks have ripped the idylic independent itallian cafes that could be found around Shoreditch, the sports jackets you may find in Primark, or Jamie Oliver's preserve jars that are designed to look like they're half a century old. She criticises how we are being tricked.
The real deal is being mimicked and resold to us as the genuine product, but it's empty! Oh so empty! (She claims, and I'm willing to accept this point).
In a sense, I see this working in the iPhone app Instagram, or the way Lomo cameras have recently risen in popularity - this idea of taking photos that instantly have a false sense of history simply due to the imagery that they conjure up through the photo filters provided by the app, and the rustic nature of the photos produced by cheaply made cameras.
Springboarding from this talk of our desire for authenticity, she moves through several methods she claims is being employed by corporations and even admits the amount of conspiracy theories it could induce, from Astroturfing, to accusing companies of using social media to paint a more friendly approachable character when they're far from it (she claims!). But again, it's hard to simply agree when I'm not given much evidence other than clips from adverts.
This "short" writing up of one of today's talk is dragging on a bit, so I'll cut to the chase with some highlights I want to discuss:
In particular, I found that much of what she said did make sense, and I find myself wanting to fully agree with some of the points she made, but as I mentioned before, it's hard to fully accept the accusations she has made without feeling like I'm missing some hard evidence.
I found myself especially conflicted when she affirmed that the use of humility by public figure heads is indeed a dirty trick of some sort. She seemed to give the opinion that as of late, people who have publically apologised use this humiliation as a get-out-of-jail-free-card. Looking at the videos, I'm sure we'd all like to convince ourselves that they're not being sincere at all, but it would seem very unjust to expect that anyone who has tried to make a public apology has done so insincerely all the time. It particularly didn't help that Glaser came from what seemed to be a very political angle and obviously tried to force an opinion on people present in the lecture theatre.
The most important aspect I took away from the talk today was that she highlighted the subliminal means employed to subdue the amount of criticism that would surface (against corporations/politicians), and I don't mean flashing a single frame for a fast food company logo, or product placement found in music videos. The subliminal messages that she brought up seem, in my opinion, far more dangerous and sophisticated than I had expected it to be.
In politics, take the example of Boris Johnson's public image. He's far from what one would expect to be a straight laced, serious character with whom we could trust to make paramount decisions for our living. He comes across as a lovable school boy stuck in a middle aged man's body, or that riddiculous scruffy dog demeanour he seems to have. AND THAT HAIR! Stunts like his zip-lining detracts away from the fact he is in a privellaged position of great power, making decisions that don't necessarily benefit those in need the most (citation needed, gah!). It is the idea that these tactics employed are designed to make us relate to the politicians in a false way - we'd like to think it doesn't work, and many of us guard ourselves against it, but it dismays me that some people don't think the same way (I've known individuals who have voted for Boris Johnson BECAUSE OF HIS HAIR!).
Even a waiter in a restaurant who asks you if "everything is all right"? is portrayed by Glaser as another dirty trick to silence you from making any complaint, because "this very nice waiter has just asked me if everything is all right, how considerate, how could I possibly make a complaint now?"
What got my attention the most, though, was the idea of The Cult of the Amateur. Placing the everyday man on a pedestal. Celebrating the ordinary. This, she claims, is the destruction of our culture. I believe I semi-quoted that, it's a bit of an exaggeration, but after her explanation I can see what she means.
Through the rise of internet use, and the empowerement of the underdog (through more accessible means to produce content - think adobe, think cheaper equipment, think online upstart crowd funding and crowd sourcing), our culture is now beginning to expect rich cultural content for free (she claims!). So through tumblr we enjoy art by many people, through youtube we enjoy video entertainment, through soundcloud we listen to remixes and original music, through indie game developers they simply upload their creations to share - all for free. Does this necessarily cause us to begin to expect cultural content to be free?
On the one hand, it seems plausible as I see myself pulling away from the tv and making less of an effort to go out to the cinema, hardly ever listening to the radio, but on the other hand, when I find a product I truely love, I will part with cash. There have been instances when the product isn't even finished, but I support the creative goals an independent games studio is striving for and forward my money. I do value cultural content, and though as a student I appreciate avenues of free quality content, I also value content that is paid for in order to support those who have worked so hard to bring it to fruition.
There is a vicious cycle of being made to believe something through it's imagery and visual communication, to then supporting it because of another reason, but then not being able voice your opinion or criticisms in order to end the cycle. [this needs editing]
Discussion in a group seminar afterwards brought out some interesting questions with which we condensed into three:
- How can we end this pernicious cycle?
- Does the underdog have more power and influence than they realise?
- How do we make these manipulations more transparent?
Ok, I'm going to end this draft and call it a night. I'll explain these three questions in more detail tomorrow when my brain's had time to process everything from today, my goodness it's been a lot. I may return to this when I've thought a bit more on it, if anyone reading this can help me out, I'd very much appreciate your feedback and opinions, stir up that debate some, yeah.
Okay, Liyi out.
IN SUMMARY:
Her argument isn’t completely politically based, what she is arguing about is to be careful about the language and portrayal that recent politics in britain has had, leaning towards Capitalism. Capitalism underwent an identity change which has put it in a more positive standing and is harder to criticise than the old-school traditional business image it once had - through subliminal means.
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