dimanche, janvier 16, 2005

a Turkish towel?!

okay, so here we go, I sneak into the store with my companion, who is trying to avoid her spouse (who is a consummate shopper and a real jerk)... to pick up a few items for her wardrobe which are in dire need of replacement... (like, me, she rarely ever changes her wardrobe preferring practical to silly. Now, mind you, I don't shop much , if ever,...) so immediately I'm dazzled by the fantastic feathery packaging that a mere pillow comes in... There's some section on home entertaining and home decorating right as you walk in, I suppose. These piles of couch pillows are right on a table of some sort when youw alk in. Of course after I shake the packaging for a bit to ascertain that it is indeed merely the packaging which is covered in these distractingly colorful feathers, I realize that the pillow within is a same run of the mill dull pillow.. I'm obstinately opposed to purchasing things I can make myself.. I figure if I can make it.. and Gd gave me hands and a creative mind to be thusly industrious, well, why should I leave it to some business person and ad exec on Madison ave to stifle my inner self-sufficiency? ... okay, so fine.. . I move on int he store, disgusted that the fluffy and colorful feathers are on the pillow for the same reason they're on a parrot or a male cardinal... to attract my eyes and lure me in...
sigh. (who knew madison avenue advert agencies knew about bird coloration for mating purposes?)

so then we get further embroiled in the store... and I find these towels, which look like normal towels to me, but have this marvelously beautiful tag on them, which has a gorgeously.. (visually luxurious tag) designed background color scheme and proceeds to tell this wondrous story about the wonders of Turkish cotton and how this is all combined to give you an incredible towel.
okay, I don't know when I last bought a towel, usually I bum them off my Mum and bring 'em home. or I get free or cheap ones from various locales or science expos (found me out, I'm not too big into this shopping stuff, eh?) and gargantuan curiosity overcomes me... now that I've read the long detailed tag, describing how centuries of Turkish craftsmanship and the fine materials treated as only the Turks know how (whatever that means) has produced this exquisitely fine soft towel. Okay, I give in and touch the chartreuse colored cloth.

SHOCK!!!
It's not nearly as soft or luxurious as I thought it would be.
Stunned I sit down on the nearest ottoman/settee they're selling.. conveniently located for such a surprise...

It's a lie!!!

Okay, so Wiggin tells me these people are wastes.. these ad people..

meow..
they just burst my bubble about the towel....

Anyway, my dear friend is working and has been working in the production business for a long time.. essentially since I got out of radio, I think. We used to soothe his feelings and tell him that at least his stuff isn't really so useless and he's helpingthe world one ad at a time.. but once I read _The Worldly Philosophers_ well,I wasn't too keen on adverts or on business people.

What about highlighting 'the other" making osmething seem exotic makes aproduct all the more marketable? well, it's how unique that product is, right? This is so unusual and you'd have a luxurious item in your house.. something as simple as a towel though isn't going to attract a lot of attention so it's not like you're going to get heads to turn the way you would by having a Louis XIV harp in your drawing room. So somehow it's the internal pleasure one gets from having special things, I suppose. Anyway, what's to keep me from taking an ordinary distowel and telling you is Turkish cotton. Maybe it's really American cotton, combed in Poland by a Turkish immigrant? What makes it Turkish and what makes Turkish cotton good (besides the hype we can generate just by telling tales about it)?

C'est la monde.

2 Comments:

Blogger Eliyak said...

It's a scary world we live in, something like one of those distopian scifi novels. Practically everything we "know" is actually told to us by third parties with their own agendas, not by our parents or even anyone in our community. It really is pretty scary. I'm going to make a post in this vein on my own blog pretty soon.

lundi, janvier 17, 2005 11:04:00 PM  
Blogger Meowmix Chatul said...

Hey !! SOMEONE actually reads my blog!! cool!
thanks for dropping by.

Um, yeah, It hink that this advertising thing is really disastrous, because I bet there is a whole sector of the population who buys this idea that rukish towels are somehow better, fanicier or something... which may not be true, but someone on Madison avenue can convinve that whole group of people who shop and consume material goods that this is a real issue. It's a terrifying thought.

What It hougt of afterwards though is that, if you really want to control the world, you probably have to have very good marketing skills.. because people rarely think so much on their own about things.. reallyt hey tend to take what they get in little sound bites or off advertisements as truth.

I heard a little Israeli kid parrot to me that chewing gum is beneficial to digestion and health and should be done three times a day. I asked him where he learned that and appaerntly it's a MUST ad ba'aretz.. anyway, I was a bit appalled -whether or not he's right.. it's still freaky to think this ad is his version of "truth,"

Anyway, thanks for reading. :) can't wait to see what you put up. :)

mercredi, janvier 19, 2005 2:10:00 PM  

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