"Consume"

American Newspeak Word Collisions by Wayne Grytting

When the makers of Teen Talk Barbie had finally mastered the technology of cramming tape-recorded sentences into the foot-high doll, they were faced with the daunting challenge of deciding what the famous icon’s first words would be. Mattel came up with the following: "I love shopping," "Meet me at the mall," and "Math is hard." This is as good as it gets in America.

Even among experts, there’s a lot of debate over how to gauge advances in shallowness. The quality I give the most points for is general obliviousness. While many people repress the knowledge that we are turning the planet into a parking lot, more are just clueless. These are people who consider Hollywood Tonight deep. These are people who were genuinely surprised to learn that some people in the Third World dislike us (undoubtedly because of our "freedom"). They don’t live in a world where people go hungry, but in a happy virtual reality bounded by MTV, Baywatch, and weekly trips to the cathedral æ the shopping mall. These are our legacy to the world.

Tourist Meccas

It’s quiz time. Guess what our most popular spot for tourists is: the Liberty Bell, the Grand Canyon, Graceland, Walt Disney World, or the Alamo? All wrong. By far, the largest bio-mass of tourists has been going to discount shopping malls. The Travel Industry of America reported that shopping is far and away the most popular activity for travelers. In Philadelphia, for instance, the 215-store Franklin Mills Mall drew an estimated six million tourists, four times as many as the Liberty Bell. America’s most popular mall was the 400-store Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota, which drew twelve million tourists, "more than Walt Disney World, the Grand Canyon and Graceland combined." The Wall Street Journal proudly declared, "Now, shopping is the vacation." Signaling this change was a Vermont travel brochure that promised
"The Best Hiking in Vermont." In place of rugged mountain trails, it displayed a collection of shopping malls.

Quality Time with Nature

American consumers are offered a way to get back to nature without ever having to leave the safety of their favorite shopping malls. The Ogden Corporation, taking advantage of their vast experience catering airplane food, opened eight American Wilderness exhibits as part of what they call "shoppertainment." For a mere $10, customers can view 60 different animal species in six different wilderness settings, traveling through desert, forest, mountain, valley, and seashore ecosystems. To enhance the experience, artificial trees and plants were added as well as hidden canisters that emitted natural fragrances. After a brief tour, customers are returned to their natural habitat, the mall, where they can shop at the Naturally Untamed Boutique or eat in the Wilderness Grill. The experience, says Ogden V-P Jonathan Stern, is ideal for "people who prefer nature in small doses." (Isn’t that the best way?) Stern adds that people are so accustomed to hurrying today, the average visit to the Grand Canyon is only 22 minutes long, coincidentally the same length as the average TV show minus commercials. Time for another channel, I guess.

Airhead Protection Dept.

The New Jersey Supreme Court ruled that shopping malls must allow access to citizens who want to engage in peaceful leafletting. Lost in the clamor for free speech was any concern for those who could be harmed by unbridled speech in our citadels of consumption. Raising this issue was Nancy Sterling, spokesperson for the Wells Park Group. She declared, "Our bottom line is customers deserve an intrusion-free shopping environment." Going even further was Mark Shoifet, spokesperson for the International Council of Shopping Centers, who warned the Court’s ruling would "place an undue burden on the malls of New Jersey, their tenants and especially on their customers." This marked the first time in history the reading of leaflets and the prospect of having to think about the issues raised have been recognized for the "undue burden" they place on shoppers. Hopefully, activists will have felt duly chastised.

Barbie’s Bad Day

Have you ever had one of those days when everything you do just seems to turn out wrong? Well, that’s the kind of year Mattel Toys has been having with Barbie, the doll they say gives "the message to young girls that they can be anything they want to be." Mattel tried to counter Barbie’s stodgy, white, middle-class image by introducing diversity into her world. They even allowed "diverse" workers in China to assemble Barbie and her friends for $1.20 a day. But that only led to people boycotting Barbie. So Mattel developed a wheelchair-bound friend for Barbie and everybody applauded. Christened "Share a Smile Becky," she was intended by Mattel to help change people’s attitudes toward the handicapped. That should have kept the critics happy, but it did not. No, it seems there was a small glitch. Barbie’s world, it was discovered, was not wheelchair accessible. Becky’s wheelchair couldn’t fit through the doors of Barbie’s Dream House or her Malibu House, so Becky couldn’t party with Ken. How true to life our toys are today.

The Tightening Circle

One of the most telling details about American attitudes toward civic life transpired when Dial Soap announced they were dumping their classic advertising slogan, "Aren’t you glad you use Dial." The jingle’s demise, I suggest, may provide anthropologists of the future with major insights into postmodern culture. In the words of The Wall Street Journal, the slogan "wasn’t relevant any longer because of what is going on inside of soap users’ heads." (Don’t laugh, at least they report something going on.) Dial’s ad agency argued that people today are not primarily worried about offending others with body odor, but mainly want protection from the germs of the outside world. In the words of DDB Needham ad executive Joe Belmonte, "It used to be ‘I’m trying to make myself presentable to you.’ Now it’s more about ‘I’ve got to wash you off of me’."
In a similar vein was a report on a change in the way fences are built. It used to be that the "good side" of the planks faced one’s neighbors and the framing was on the inside. This custom has now been reversed in most "better" neighborhoods. I guess you could call it "keeping up with the Jones’ narcissism."