Exercise #2: Letter to the Author
Dear Thomas Frank,
My name is Thomas Berumen; I am currently 18 years old and a student at California State University, Northridge, majoring in electrical engineering. It was a delight to read your essay “Commodify Your Dissent”. Avoiding advertisements is almost impossible today. The thing is, a lot of things on television just caught my eye and seemed amazing and cool. I did not stop to question why a company would choose to use those particular colors for the background or the background song. All I knew was I liked that rock and roll song and those shades of red. People should be aware and question the things that they are exposed to. I think it is interesting that companies are soliciting us products by making us feel unique and continually subliminally convincing us that we are not satisfied.
What was the proof that caught your example that was the breaking point for you to right this? At first reading your essay I understood your thesis but I was unmoved. It was not until I turned on my television and flip through the channels to see commercials of them marketing the counter culture idea. The U.S. is run by capitalism but, I do not understand what made the companies try to market products using the counterculture idea. I agree with you that companies have changed their look on how badly they want others to be moved by them. While flipping through the channels I noticed that the mascot for the company appeared friendly and outgoing cool and unique. Of course they would not want him or her to be scary or unfriendly but, they have decided to choose characters close to home that are familiar so we can relate to them. Take for example Time Warner’s use of the Road Runner; a popular cartoon since the 50’s. Then there is another important example, the type I did not noticed until reading your essay. Chester the cheetah, mascot for the chip company Hot Cheetos or the definition of what I consider cool. With his black glasses and the way he walks, he draws attention by being the cool cat. This example was the major connection I had to your thesis.
This is not a problem today but it is good to be aware of what is going around in society. It would be interesting if you revisited your thesis and use examples from today to illustrate the idea of the companies are using this or probably a similar idea. In the back of my mind I wonder as to how effective using counter culture to solicit the products is. It could be possible that is only the beginning to a much bigger plan as to how they are going to sell the products by making the consumer believe they are being apart from the crowd. Eventually everyone will have the same products and being unique will be the same thing as conforming.
Sincerely,
Thomas Berumen