They're out to get us!

I was recently called for jury duty, so I used my impending civil service as an excuse to buy a couple of books. I could, of course, have chosen a half-completed cross-stitch or quilt project to pass the time, but my weakness for new books proved to be stronger than my desire to actually finish a project, and I bought two books, 1776 and Don't Eat This Book: Fast Food and the Supersizing of America. I just finished the latter.

The author of Don't Eat This Book is Morgan Spurlock, the creator and star of the movie Supersize Me, which, as most of you know, was a documentary of his experiment of eating nothing but McDonald's food for a month, detailing the destruction it wreaked on his health. His new book reminds me in a way of The Jungle, which my son and I read together when he was in high school. After reading The Jungle, Matt gave up hot dogs completely and cut down tremendously on his meat consumption. Don't Eat This Book is affecting me in the same way about fast food. I did see Supersize Me a few months ago, and the book just confirms the facts used in the movie.

What impressed me most in this book is his take on the advertising industry. I have touched in this blog at one time or another on how the indisiousness of advertising in our culture can undermine a journey to simplicity. Spurlock brings the case home even more. He explains how the fast food industry as well as the processed food/junk food/cereal industry has taken great pains to market their products effectively, especially to children. Then came the cross-promotion with the toy companies, synergy, which made kids want to eat fast food/junk food even more. He even mentions a marketing study from 1998 called The Nag Factor. It was:

...done to help advertisers and marketers learn how to target kids better, to get them to nag...The press release that went out to advertisers to announce the publication of this study was called - I'm not kidding - "The Fine Art of Whining: Why Nagging Is a Kid's Best Friend." Another industry nickname for it is "pester power."....The different tactics kids use to nag: the whine, the threat, the guilt trip, the suck-up. How marketing and ads can be designed to trigger these different tactics.

I'm 50 years old. If you are around my age, are you thinking what I am thinking? We have been conditioned for decades by these marketing strategists who tell us what we want, what we need, and why we must buy it. How many hours of TV commercials have we sat through in our lives? How many billboards have we seen? How many magazine advertisements? How many ads at the movie theater? On the radio? It would be a very interesting experiment to go through one day and write down how many ads you see or hear. They say that even in movies and TV shows the ads are incorporated into the shows themselves. If you see a character drinking a Coke, the Coca-Cola company paid for their name to be seen on that can.

I used the term insidious because that's exactly what it is. From Dictionary.com:

in·sid·i·ous ( P ) Pronunciation Key (n-sd-s)
adj.

1. Working or spreading harmfully in a subtle or stealthy manner: insidious rumors; an insidious disease.
2. Intended to entrap; treacherous: insidious misinformation.
3. Beguiling but harmful; alluring: insidious pleasures.

Of course, advertising does not end with fast food and junk food. The corporations are constantly telling us that our lives will improve with all of their products. And we so often, like robots, accept the propaganda. This is what we are fighting in the journey to simplicity. We are fighting ideas that have been drummed into our heads from an early age. We are the generation that grew up with television, Ronald McDonald, Froot Loops, and Coke. It is time that I stop listening to their messages of "More! More!" and hear my inner voice pleading, "Less! Less!" There are some segments of our population that still think, "If it wasn't true, they couldn't say it on TV." And the manipulation grows.

The first step in fixing a problem is identifying some of the sources of the problem. Our corporate culture of pervasive advertising is a definite contributor to our society's excessive consumption and captivation with acquisition, regardless of the consequences to our health or peace of mind. May we have the ability to recognize it for what it is - years and years of mind control - and for our sake and for our kids' sakes, summon up enough power to defeat it!

The Fine Art of Staging

Anyone who has had experience trying to sell a house knows about the necessity of staging. This is in theory the art of displaying your house to its best advantage, devoid of personal effects which may detract from the environment you are trying to create. In other words, you try to make your house look as if nobody even lived there. I must say here that 1) this is not an easy task, and 2) we have pretty much become experts at it.

Those TV shows about selling your house follow the same basic line. They start with a house for sale, give you an overview, then bring in an expert who tells them basically that they have a snowball's chance in hell of even giving their house away until they clean up the filfth, buy some new furniture, update the decor, get rid of the clutter, slap on some paint, and bring in some curb appeal. Then the show's carpenters, decorators, contractors, painters, and landscapers get to work on preparing the house not only to sell, but to get what they call "top dollar" and "multiple offers," neither of which have made themselves known in our personal house-selling situation. The show usually ends with the grateful homeowner receiving multiple offers, all way above the asking price, and being put in the enviable position of having to decide exactly how much extra profit they want to accept.

How does one make a house look inviting yet look as if nobody lived in it? Well, it takes practice, practice, and more practice. We have had enough house showings that we could do this in our sleep. I'll bet we have shaved a good half hour off our preparation time since we started showing the house a few months ago. First, we have to put away all personal hygiene products. That means the potential buyer should see no toothpaste, toothbrushes, shampoo, deodorant, hair spray, razors, hair brushes, etc. Second, we have to pretend we have no dog. That means making sure all the doggy toys and snacks and bed are removed from sight. Third, we have to pretend we don't read. That means all newspapers, magazines, paper clutter of any kind must be stacked neatly and relatively hidden. Fourth, we have to pretend we don't do laundry. Yes, we have top-of-the-line washer and dryer, but if we're smart, we pretend we don't use them. This means hiding all the dirty clothes and towels. Fifth, we have to give the impression we are perfectly healthy. This means hiding all the prescription bottles, the Gas-X, the Tylenol, the Benadryl, and especially the laxatives, which apparently don't convey a good impression.

Now why someone interesting in buying our house would care if we were constipated, I just don't know.

There is one part of staging advice, though, where I had to compromise. You are supposed to get rid of all personal pictures. I managed to pack up most of our family photos, but I am leaving the ones on the wall in the hall upstairs. For one thing, it reminds the viewer that this house had a big part in raising a happy, functional, well-adjusted family - and maybe it will whisper something like, "....and you can too!" The second reason for leaving them is the fact that if I took them down I would have a great number of holes in the wall to deal with. I'll leave them up, thank you very much.

Ed, of course, hates the staging aspect. "Where in the heck is my......?" has been his mantra since day one. I just tell him I hid it for staging and he gives me "the look."

Where we and the TV house-selling shows part ways is this: Somehow their group of contractors, painters, decorators, carpenters and landscapers never made it to our door to offer their services. And on TV they work hard at one single, magnificent, perfect staging, have one big open house, get their multiple offers, and are through with it. We, on the other hand, are constantly staging for another showing.

And it does make me wonder, sometimes, if the potential buyers who scout out our house think, "What kind of people are living here? They don't even brush their teeth!"