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Vincent's Blog of Opinionated Ramblings
Vincent's Blog of Opinionated Ramblings
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Brand Vigilanteism - Good vibrations in a tight situation.
Translations available in: English (original) | French | Spanish | Italian | German | Portuguese | Swedish | Russian | Dutch | Arabic

Freaks everywhere I thought, walking down the corridors of a Sandton city, in full swing after its Friday evening youth spending-orgy. Freaks, badly dressed, poorly made, half witted and wreaking of a generations hard working money inappropriately spent. So moral fibre is getting a media player, I’ve just decided it whilst typing this, we need one, must have one, won’t be the same without one.

Yes, freaks, that’s what I was talking about. Why are they freaks you ask, what have you and I got that they don’t? Personality maybe, but probably not, no they’ve become formulaic, a culmination of a market researchers focus group and a night of recommendations created whilst under the influence of his / her own arrogance. They’ve become brand extensions, not simply consumers but living embodiments of the brands which they will once scrutinized purport only to wear. Some of you reading this will have a torn loin cloth on, paired up with a 70’s Led Zeppelin shirt, this doesn’t make you different you’ve clothed yourself in a fad, we’ve become the resurrection – generation and you are it’s billboard.

Inescapable, probably, but completely explicit and hence understandable this dilemma is. We’ve got to use a little Diesel profanity, Levi’s edge and maybe a little bit of a frayed innuendo from Savannah to beat this. I needn’t even preface that line with an explanation you know exactly what I mean, and if you don’t what does the word Castle Lager bring to mind? The woman behind me just uttered, “Sushi, babe” this world is too far fucked for me to even care anymore, but I’ll attempt to school you.

So lesson one, self-awareness. That’s right, you’re in the twelve step programme, locked into my hypnotic gaze. You’ve got to understand that you’re in control, you’re the one who barters your hard working hours for that latest yellow and pink scarf, or that second hand black leather jacket or in fact your waterfall fringe. Yes if you’re wearing black pep all – star knock offs I’m lumping you into this archetype too. You’ve become lost in the synapse between your space, and the time in which you live, and you’ve become a coat-stand for someone’s brand or a collectives anti-brand cult and generally I’m involved with making that happen, it’s what I do. You really cannot escape it!

No matter where I’ve been young kids covet not others wealth but wealth’s ability to purchase elite brands. Its not that brands set up an achievable set of goals that one ought to work toward, like Nike’s fitness drive for instance, but rather brands aim at your heart, the outcome of which is their pursuit of your loyalty. Wait what, holy crap, great idea, they’re pitching ideas at you most often expecting you to reject them, like I would a car guard (on principle of course, they do not own cars and are thus not fit to guide me in and out of my parking) and most if not all of the time your wealth is their biggest barrier. If we lived in utopia and there were no poor people, I assure you, this earth would be brandless. Brands are out to make you inferior for not purchasing them, if you’re feeling entirely content with your current status and want for nothing more you’d never be open to marketing companies cross-hairs, there’d simply be no point in creating a subversive or alternatively an aspirational brand. You’re reaction should thus be to buy for purely aesthetic purposes, everything is going to change in a few weeks time anyway, why not buy that which will make you happy rather than purchase that which I order you to purchase. So self-awareness then enables you to move onto step two. We’ve ascertained that it is in fact you who ultimately decides upon the fate of a brand and thus we can move onto you becoming the ultimate brand-vigilante.

Brand – Vigilanteism is where you’re headed, it’s not really something you can buy into, nor is it something that you can mix and match with your current lifestyle. It’s an awakening, which allows you to peer into the formless world of arbitrary value and ascribe only those products / ideas which you feel are aesthetically tolerable as having real value to you. You see it’s a subtle shift, from emotional association to a brand’s personality, a manifest of your buying into its marketing and a shift to consumerism driven by aesthetic functionality and its appeal to your mind’s

April 5, 2008 | 1:04 AM Comments  0 comments



Taking down the corporates - Organically.
Translations available in: English (original) | French | Spanish | Italian | German | Portuguese | Swedish | Russian | Dutch | Arabic

Summary : Corporations cannot be blamed for the crimes against humanity they commit on a daily basis; it's what we wanted them to do. After all don't we all want to be the best we can be?

I've put Mando Diao back on, "bombs all over the street, bombs all over the subway" a lyric which seems to have got caught beneath the shoe traipsing up and down the corridors of my mind. I think it must be in line with my current thoughts; I want to plant them [bombs] everywhere, blistering the earth on which advertorial propaganda is displayed. Billboard-blitzkrieg here kom ek.

Talita passed me her politricks text book this evening, both of us are a little tired so I was asked to lend my meat-processing-mind to the task; hopefully turning the chunky literature into something pink and cylindrical. The text was on Marxism, the state and his two less than subtle theories of state - oppression. In brief; the first his less subtle theory suggests that the state is a mirror of the tensions between the classes and the second ironically according to this book called his "subtle theory" was defined as being a 'Napoleanic State' which as you should imagine is an oppressive dictatorial state, whose power to represent always come up a little short..

Well as I was reading this text book I was drawing parallels with NoLogo, no coincidence that on the cover it has written a brief blurb about the book being the Das Kapital for the anti-corporationists. However, this is where I do what I usually do, run perpendicular to my parallel whilst still trying to take what I can from it...

Ok for starters Marx out of context always appears a little simplistic (Neo - Marxists have altered his theories to incorporate a pluralistic perspective) , back in the context of a changing Germany, the likelihood of a few Wars and the additional fact that he was of Jewish decent made his a sticky situation. He wrote about that which he experienced; oppression, a militant advancement toward further industrialization / automation and a labour force which he suggested had become alienated from the 'species - being'. Oooh so last tuesday. But not really.

Reading NoLogo reminded me instantly of the manner in which the specialization of labour and a system in which capital-residue sticks to lineages and perpetuates wealth and thus creates tension between those have access to the means of production and those who do not. You see corporates aren't the automated beasts they're made out to be, there's flesh and blood in them thar steel-trusses, and they are lead in most cases by the benefactors of this unjust distribution of wealth. To prove a small point, slowly, after the industrial revolution the speed at which labour became specialized accelerated and created positions in society which were given a higher arbitrary value than others, street sweepers became inherently less valuable than say Doctors and again Doctor's slightly less valuable than say CEO's of trans-national corporations. Makes sense right? tYou get what you deserve!

No not really, imagine if the entire meritocratic system which decided who was worth what was a little lop-sided Bourdieu wrote on it extensively, and suggested that within society there exists 'cultural - capital' and it is inherited, which is essentially a nice way of saying that wealthy kids will inherit more wealth and the poor will inherit poverty. It's almost simple enough to sell, except it drills deeper. The meritocratic system which gives the impression that with the right amount of effort everyone could succeed is implicated in the perpetuation of the poverty cycle, simplistically the rich can afford to send their kids to a great school, university and ensure that they are fed and clothed along the way. The poor cannot guarantee this and are subject to the same meritocratic system as the poor. Which would mean that the rich have it a little easier and the poor need to work a little harder. The point being, corporations and the way in which they conduct business much like Marx's understanding of the state reflect the tension between the classes, between the haves an the have nots.

The corporations represent the wealthy bourgeoisie, there because of privilege and the workers in factories represent the poverty stricken proletariat there because the system in which they work has ensured that they ought to be there, because they are system-failures.

So me thinks, are corporates to blame? Or is this what we've created, what we strive for in the rat race, the manifest of our desire to be the best we can be, within the system in which we've courtesy of globalization all been embedded within. At school we drown our children's dreams in conformity, we insist that they achieve, we stress that failure is intolerable and would possibly result in destitution and life-long misery. How can we expect this system to produce anything less than over-achievers and aren't our CEO's exactly that?

Is this what we created? Is this what our hands designed?Have we come too far?

April 4, 2008 | 3:28 AM Comments  0 comments

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