Everything, from logos to ads, plays an important role in getting you, the consumer, to buy what you are taught is necessary. We become hypnotized by the different wants of life.
Photo derived from http://crappypictures.com/shopping-at-target/
The society of the spectacle is under the influence of some metaphorical drug that when taken puts you under the disillusionment of thinking that buying materialistic things can fulfill that “missing” happiness. This is a society that is convinced that it is not happy, which is why I found many of what DeBord was saying to lead back to finding happiness, or fulfilling some burning desire, which goes hand in hand with the wanting of glamour or “comfort.” I put quotes around comfort because the Google definition of the word is “a state of physical ease and freedom from pain or constraint (1).” Outside of the spectacle, this should mean living with “just enough,” where needs are actual needs, not desires that are disguised as necessities. However, inside the spectacle, commodities and necessities are interchangeable.
This is an example of something that we actually need. Although there are different companies that compete for consumers, the point of this meme, through our conversations on commodity, helps us see just how bruised our perception of reality is.
Photo derived from http://jokideo.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Funny-toilet-paper-meme.jpg
The spectacle opens your eyes to glitz and glamour. Think of the spectacle as an actual pair of prescribed glasses that you try on (that belong to your 2/20 visioned sister) but don’t really need because your vision, God bless you, is 20/20. Remember, these are “spectacle” glasses. When you put them on, you see rainbows, unicorns, money, cars, mansions, people vacationing, happiness etc. You see a fantasy. You want to keep the glasses on because this is great. This world is so glamorous. You begin to desire it. It’s a “different” world, but guess what? It’s fake. Let’s step out of the spectacle now. You are looking through lenses that are less powerful than your actual vision. What’s going to happen when you take them off? Your vision won’t be damaged. Things will seem a little blurry for a few seconds, but then your vision will be restored. Despite what some of our mothers told us, our vision won’t go bad if you wear someone else’s glasses. It’s one of the many myths that we were taught are realities. I am about to sound a little crazier and compare these same glasses to the commodity as spectacle. To you (person with 20/20 vision), the glasses are a commodity. You don’t need these glasses. That fantasy life is the spectacle, but because you want to live in that world, you start to think you need the glasses, and that is ultimately what ads do to us. They take us to a world that we have been convinced we need to live in to survive.
Debord said it best:
“Replacing [a] necessity with a necessity for boundless economic development can only mean replacing the satisfaction of primary human needs with an incessant fabrication of pseudo-needs, all of which ultimately come down to the single pseudo-need of maintaining the reign of the autonomous economy (Debord, Quote 51).”
Examples of comfort outside vs. inside of the spectacle:
Outside: “I really need a car because it saves me so much time, and there are no buses that are close to my house, so I will buy a fair priced car with good mileage.”
Inside: “I want that car. (Insert celebrity here) was driving it. It looks so nice. I need it.”
Works Cited
1. "Google." Google. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Sept. 2016. Definition of "Comfort"2. Debord, Guy. "The Society of the Spectacle." Chapter 2: The Commodity as Spectacle.
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