Entry 17:

Yo Doug,

You are right. What an article!

Yeah, what are needs? Well, there are not many: eat, sleep, reproduce. Everything else is desire.

Ours is a world of wants, not needs. For better or for worse.

Here's how I ended Adcult:

The idea that advertising creates artificial desires rests on a wistful ignorance of history and human nature, on the hazy feeling that there existed some halcyon era of noble savages with purely natural needs. Once fed and sheltered, our needs have always been cultural, not natural. Until there is some other system to codify and satisfy those needs and yearnings, advertising, and the culture it carries with it, will continue not just to thrive but to triumph.

I'm not sure I understand what you're asking for. Oh, I think I got it. You are referring to that squib I referenced by Jim Fowles on "Advertising's 15 Basic Appeals" from yesterday where I repeated his list. And the list was all phrased in terms of "need" for this and that. Doug, I just picked up the word "needs" from his article. But they are not needs; they're appeals.

And they are appeals, incidentally, very close to what is found in high culture. I wonder if you did an inventory of the novel, for instance, if you wouldn't find it pretty close. I think humans have about 20 Ur-stories they like to tell, and they tell them over and over. They used to be in the province of myth, then literature, and now they are part of commercialism--the lingua franca of stuff. Religion grabs them, too.

While I'm pondering this Skullbonia question (and playing golf), do me a favor: tell me what you mean by "consumption and branding is all about politics." I've never gotten any traction with politics as a word or a meaning-making format. In fact, no kidding, when I hear the word, I reach for the remote. It means what?

How would you explain Skullbonia with politics? To me it has to do with adolescent male aggro rituals.

'Til tomorrow,
Jim