The infantilization worked, and certainly not just on the people who grew up with it. My profession has me dealing with patients from all walks of life, and the majority of people I work with everyday are painfully dumb. Whether they’re 18 or 80, I’m impressed that half of the people I meet managed to make it so far in life without falling out of their car.
They fall for every ad, they believe clickbait articles on facebook, they can’t figure out how to check in on a tablet, with directions on the screen, that works identically to the phone they live through. They don’t know anything going on in the world, or even the town around them, but they certainly know that new Burger at McDonalds, and they’re the only ones that really KNOW what’s going on with the country’s politics. They know seven tiktok dances, but can’t name the continents. They take 15 medications, can’t name them, and don’t even know what they’re for, just that the doctor said they need them. They know the backstory of every minor character in every marvel movie, but couldn’t make it through a novel if their life depended on it.
I regularly see people with uncontrolled diabetes that can’t even tell me which type they have.
It worked. We’re all consumers too dumb to know what we’re consuming or why we wanted it in the first place .
“In my head, yesteryear was a time when the average American had access to and wore mass-produced yet well-made pieces from J. Crew and Lord & Taylor (not Uniqlo and Shein)”
Do people not like Uniqlo??? I’ve gotten a good amount of clothes from there and it has always been good quality for me. Tbh I don’t even know where else to look that isn’t crazy pricy or super cheap quality.
Seriously, the two low/mid range Japanese clothing companies in my country (Uniqlo & Muji) both make very good garments, especially for the price.
The bit that is harder to interpret is whether my assumption of Muji and Uniqlo being good quality is true (even when compared to clothing of yesteryear), or if it’s relative to most other clothes on the market being cheaply made trash.
Or do the nice high quality garments of previous generations survive (much like some tools, appliances, furniture), whilst the cheap crap existed, broke and just ended up in the landfill, creating the perception of things used to be made to a higher quality?
Most Uniqlo stuff is trash whereas the J Crew stuff was pretty decent quality until the early 2000s
Unpopular opinion: This is pretty much a “back in ma day” rant and I couldn’t care less about brands.
That’s a good read
Basically a moralizing rant over what the author thinks advertising should be like - probably tinged by “the good old days”, like massive_beraeavement said.
The thesis of infantilization of society is more interesting, however.
In the end we are all just widdle bitty babies
Welcome to AirSpace: “How Silicon Valley helps spread the same sterile aesthetic across the world”
