愛國者 Patriote Patriot Πατριώτης Patriota 愛国者 애국자 Патриот

So I made this cool animation thing but apparently it isn't working, so this is what you have for now:

http://lifeistechnicolor.deviantart.com/art/Patriotism-122833335

It's the picture, minus animation. I'll put it in the post once I get home.



You all remember what our wonderfully former president did after 9/11, don't you?

He told us all keep shopping.

You remember what they've been telling us the whole recession, right?

"Keep shopping.

It's our patriotic duty."


When I started making this, I was planning on putting American flags along with logos to show this whole idea. I put the flags all right, and then I started looking for logos we'd all recognize. It didn't take too long before I started to notice a trend. Almost all the logos I was looking at were red or blue.

This shopping as patriotism thing? It isn't just an idea, you guys. Companies are playing off it. They've been playing off it since way before terrorists hit New York and the economy went in the toilet. It isn't just coincidence that the logo for almost every major company I looked at incorporated red, white, and blue.

So what does that say? That consumerism is American. That to be a consumer is patriotic, and everybody wants to be patriotic, right? Yes. You do. Of course you do. So Ford and Pepsi and Walmart and CNN and AIG and Burger King design themselves as red and white and blue and so if you buy them, you're not just supporting their executives' vacations to Honolulu. You're supporting America. Of course you are.

But what scares me is that I never noticed it before. It wasn't until I put five or ten of them beside each other that I noticed it, and I'm a pretty thoughtful consumer, as that goes. This is the stuff that all of our "feeds" have. Stuff you see every day of your life. But you don't realize these patterns. Which scares me a little. What else is there?

It'd be easy to become a conspiracy theorist.

So maybe it isn't terrible that companies are playing off our patriotism. They play off everything else. Sex, money, greed, cute. It's all marketed. But to advertise with patriotism is like saying that buying things is a duty. That it's your responsibility to consume. And I think there's something wrong with that. Because in Feed? That's what America has become. Consuming. Nothing but. So if it's already our patriotic duty to buy things, how much farther is it until we become as addicted to consuming as the Feed people?

There's another part of my picture, which is the figure made out of things. That basically represents what my "personal feed" would be. Let's go over it.

The Hello Kitty represents a couple of things - how I'm a sucker for cute and how I'm a sucker for Japan. Which is basically what Hello Kitty is the epitome of.

The computer is a computer. I'm sort of addicted to the computer. I would've stuck a TV on there too, but there wasn't any room. Let's say it represents that, too.

The arms are a pencil and pen - drawing and writing. They would have to be part of my feed, because that's basically my life. With writing also comes reading - yes. Such a nerd.

One of the legs is a sock - that's how I like clothes.

The other leg is a LEG LAMP. Because I just like quirky weird things. And it looks sexy, and everybody likes sex.

What does this say about me? That I like stuff a lot of other people do, which is no surprise. What does this say about my individuality? Hey, we're all unique, just like everyone else. You can be plenty individual even if you buy the same things everyone else does. You just have to keep thinking things no one else is. As soon as you stop that, then you're in trouble. That's when you turn into Marty and Link and Calista.

Let's summarize: Consuming is not necessarily a bad thing. It's just when you stop thinking about it that's bad. As soon as you stop noticing how much you're consuming, you might as well be in Feed-land. Just keep paying attention. Keep writing things down. Don't just buy something because George W. told you to and don't ignore how you're being advertised at. Be patriotic. Buy a flag, but only if it's made in America. In short, watch yourself, see yourself. Pay attention to what you're doing instead of just doing it.



Sorry it turned out kind of long. I had a lot I wanted to say.