Well you know what? I already know that. I'm not walking around with dirt under my nails (except when I've just come in from the garden), but I'm not a "girly girl" either, well, not every day anyway (and when the hell did that term come into common usage anyway? It really grates on my nerves). I never thought I had to choose between"eco" or "glam." In fact, that there was a choice never entered my mind. We have to be green. Sooner or later, we're all going to have to wake up and realize that our old ways just aren't sustainable.
I told my husband that I didn't think of myself as glam or granola and he said "that's right, you're no different than someone else that might buy the book." Exactly! Not everyone is an extreme one way or the other. Most are in the middle. A lot of people will buy this book with that "you can be green glam" message, not because they are "glam" or "eco" or "eco-glam" but because they aspire to be eco-glam. I keep forgetting a lot of marketing is aspirational. We don't always buy things because of who we are; often we buy them because of who we want to be. Which is exactly why I had second thoughts on buying the book: reverse aspiration. The "angle" was turning me off, but not necessarily the information in the book. I was torn between buying the book and, in effect, rewarding the author and publisher for a message I disagreed with ("you can be oh-so-glamorous and eco-friendly") or not buying the book and denying myself access to some useful information (in effect, cutting my nose off to spite my face). In the end, I bought it. I will review it here on this blog and also on the Barnes and Noble site (which has a review that takes issue with it's point of view as well).
There's also a quote from her book that says "you deserve the best." Really? Every reader deserves the best? No wonder our planet is in such sorry shape. Selfishness is okay. The common good is not enough. Heaven forbid if we sacrifice anything for something as small as, oh, the future of the entire planet! That said, I'm thinking she's doing more good than not (especially as I continue to poke around her Web site).
Speaking of marketing, this is a great post on Gawker http://gawker.com/tag/books-about-sheep/?i=394762&t=you-just-a-bunch-of-brands. Rob Walker writes the "Consumed" column for the New York Times Magazine; his book Buying In looks like it just shed more light on how we just keep buying into images of our own making. The fact that both Walker and David Brooks (of the New York Times) spend so much time (and press) thinking, and obsessing, about marketing says a lot about our world, country, and economy.
One last thing: If all the things you buy are green, but you still buy a lot of stuff, you're really not being green. In short: Overconsumption is not green.
Okay, rant over. I usually try to make this blog rant free and save them for my family and coworkers :-)
No comments:
Post a Comment