A Tale of Two City Magazines
I recently received two locally-published magazines in the mail addressed to the resident of my address—or possibly someone named Resident, a cruelty that would give credence to my position that parent-given names should require the approval of city council or at least the parent’s pastor. In any case, the two magazines tell complementary stories about what it means to be a resident of this fair city. Let me note that I live in one of the fastest growing and most affluent cities in the country. Its median family income has shot up in the past decade from under eighty grand to over six figures. Billboards in neighboring cities advertize our schools to housing developments that fall into our independent school district. We have more restaurants than I could ever possibly sample even if I made something approaching the median income. Concrete parking lots seem to span miles. We have everything imaginable, it seems: consignment shops, designer clothing stores, malls, a store devoted entirely to soccer, another that sells only yogurt, mega churches, and a thirty-foot marble statue of me. Okay, I’m still fixing to make that last dream a reality. My efforts to change the redundant city motto, “Progress in motion,” have kept me busy and made me powerful enemies, so the progress towards my statue hasn’t been in much motion.
The first magazine I received is our unofficial city magazine, a publication that seeks to capture the style of the city. This particular issue has stories about the city’s past and current economic development. We could easily have become another bedroom community, but an early push to make shopping available in the city, while difficult at times, paid off over the years. Our city has a fascinating history of dreams, hopes, risks, benefits, and immense growth. We have successfully become a city marked by mass consumption.
Economic prosperity can be a great thing; in no way do I mean to pooh-pooh it in itself. I live in a fabulous place to raise a family: we have plenty to do, top-notch schools, a relatively safe environment. All we’re really missing is a massive statue of yours truly, but that’ll come in time. That said, the consumerism of this place does seem to be a foundational and fundamental aspect of who we are as residents. To be a character in our city’s story would seem to mean being a consumer.
The second magazine, a publication about living in these parts, features a cover story about becoming a new person through plastic surgery. Another prominent article shows us the 10 shoes every woman really needs. The managing editor writes about how great skin is a foundation for beauty and how we need to feel pretty in order to be pretty. There doesn’t seem to be much difference between the articles and the barrage of advertisements for spas, ultra-white teeth, style floors, home theaters, hospitals, laser body sculpting, white teeth, weight loss, sports orthopedics, more white teeth, stores that proudly sell city apparel, galas, resorts, crawfish, tummy tucks, and divorce lawyers.
I can’t say that my story coheres much with the narrated identity of my city illustrated by these magazines, though I’m not so above or below it all to conclude that the consumerism of this city could never define me. I’m not looking for a plastic surgeon right now, but if I actually had expendable income, I’d be happily browsing and buying from the stores devoted to videogames, computers, and books. So while I cannot very well participate in this city’s story of consumption, I cannot claim at heart to be an antagonist in the tale. I’m in the background, waiting for the plot to push me into the foreground, waiting to be made a center-stage champion of consumerism, waiting for the city to award me with a statue. Of course, were I to embrace consumerism wholeheartedly, I would only be waiting to be, at the end of my days, miserable. A deeper drama underlies our fears of economic collapse: we may get everything we want and find, in time, only misery. At least people will know where to look for divorce lawyers.
Comments are closed.
And the healthy functioning of our whole economic system, as we hear again and again as a truism that no one questions, as an “economic reality” we cannot avoid as individuals or a society, depends upon “economic growth,” the production of ever greater amounts of goods and services such as you describe featured in that second magazine.
Assuming that we need economic growth greater than increases in population, it seems we must constantly strive to gorge ourselves on more and more stuff, or the economy goes bad and much of the populace suffers. Is there an economist or other expert out there who will explain to me why this nightmare scenario is not the case?
Kyle, it sounds like the life of the “hungry ghost” in which love had been lost very early and substitutes are always being created to fill the emptiness that can never be satisfied. The foundation of capitalism is built on that infinite craving of emptiness.
Lazer body sculpting does sound good to me and teeth whitening would be dazzling. I need shoulder padding, six-packing, calf enhancement, nose reduction, chin enhancement, cheek bone peaks, eyelid shrinkage, body hair removal, liposuction, lip inflaton and anything else that can make me look like a naturally walking breathing manbot. Oh, I forgot glute enhancement and lift.
I want to fit in.
Ronald – Thanks for the mental image. Now I know how to picture you when I read one of your comments. :)
Ryan, does that mean the before or after:)