We do this to Ourselves...

Recently read an essay which attempts to warn the readers of the impending onslaught of government propaganda and consumer marketing that will barrage us into returning to the old way of life, and make us forget about any benefits we may have begun to observe about a slower paced, less environmentally impacting existence. 

Although I generally agree with the prophecies portrayed, I felt the piece lacked the culpability we have in the co-dependent relationship that is us vs them, and decided to post a follow up comment, which ended up becoming an essay in-it-of-itself, so I figured I might as well capture it here:

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The problem is herd mentality. We The People are one giant flock of birds that have been sitting on the wire for a month now, and when the signal to fly comes, when the storm blows over and the clear skies of normalcy beckon, the moment we see that initial wave of family and friends take to the skies in a mad rush to exorcise all this nervous energy, it’s going to be next to impossible to resist the urge to join in. We do this to ourselves, and we do so willingly because the one thing we as individuals in a population fear above all else, is being left behind, becoming irrelevant. 

The great myth is that Marketing is some kind of leash that leads us down paths we never wanted to take. The reality is that we’ve always been *looking* for those paths, Marketing just tries to convince you that Coke is better than Pepsi. How often have you heard the phrase “We realize that you have a lot of choices when it comes to _______, so we thank you for choosing us!”

Yes. The gas-lighting will be real. What’s realer is trying to ignore our own internal processes. 

Don’t believe me? Let’s talk masks. Right now, n95 masks and other respirators share one thing in common — they’re basic and unattractive. They were designed to perform a medical function. So the “mask market” pre-covid, was about as influential in our lives as the table saw market, or the mop bucket market.

All of that is about to change, and it starts the moment you encounter Sandra with her triple-knit lavender mask or Tom with his Tactical, 3d printed mask shell that makes him look like a spec-op agent out of The Division. 

By this time next year, we’ll be flashing Supreme and Adidas branded masks with Bluetooth Voice Clarity Enhancing technology, and featuring Hepa brand filters that block 78.9% more virus particles than those “basic” n59 respirators. 

You DO want to block 78.9% more virus particles, don’t you? Of course you do.

And that’s my point — we do this to ourselves. WE create new market vacuums in space and time that never existed before, and that is the fertile field those “evil” corporations seek to harvest in our mind-shares. Without our own neurosis-driven need to have a 1 up on everyone around us, the corporations simply have no ACE-2 receptors to exploit in us, as it were. 

I get it. Holding up a mirror is an extremely uncomfortable thing to do. I avoid it, too, especially when there are convenient scapegoats around. But self-examination is the only true salvation from all this. The only way to beat the game is to stop playing it, even if it means a departure from the people around you who need to keep playing it to escape themselves. 

You just gotta fortify your mind and try to — hold on, sorry I gotta run, everyone’s flying off and I don’t want to get held up in traffic.