Tag: Consumerism

On idols and charity

u2quote

Thanks to a friend, I’m reading a biography about U2 now and getting inspired by how much I agree with this band. I think this quote from The Edge really sums up my feelings about being in awe by famous people or having idols in general, that we are all equally confused about lives and we have to listen to ourselves to decide on the life we want.

My personal journey with U2 began really superficially, I have a U2 iPod because I liked the colour combination. Then I started hearing U2 songs and I got captivated by its messages of brotherhood, patriotism and passion. It certainly helped that Bono is the poster boy of idealism, helping the fight against poverty and aids in the Third World.

But true to the spirit of the quote, Bono gets confused sometimes too. His campaign to fight HIV and AIDS in Africa, (Red), got a lot of debate amongst my friends recently. One felt it was bad because it only encouraged consumerism, another felt it was the only way to get big corporations to cooperate (after all, what’s in it for them?). In fact, there is a campaign that attempts to correct the failings of (Red), it’s called Buy Less!

There seems to be a trend of selling idealism as a way of life nowadays and (Red) is one instance of this and others include magazines like GOOD and Monocle. It shows that everything can be commodified and I am worried that its original intentions would be diluted.

In a sense, it adds another layer between the donor and the needy. It used to be charitable organisations, now that has enlarged and comes in some form of “social enterprises” — businesses that attempt to have some social good component. People start thinking that they can continue with their normal lives and somebody else will take care of those who need help. Apathy arises when its always somebody else taking care of it, and it seems to complicate matters like how to sustain these people and what values they stand for. Most importantly, there is the death of the personal relationship between the donor and the needy and charity organisations try to simulate that by creating “personalised” greeting cards of gratitude when Christmas comes. It just feels… fake. Jean Baudrillard, a postmodern thinker who theorised that simulation would take over the original, would have felt so vindicated.

The rewards of the long tail

longtailThis semester I had to take a module in media management and one of the biggest things affecting it today is without a doubt the digital age. Unfortunately, I think the class failed terribly to address this development and in the midst of studying for the exam, I found a Economist.com podcast interview with Chris Anderson, editor-in-chief of Wired magazine, the best half-an-hour lesson on the future developments of the media market.

In essence, the changes in the media market can be explained by the long tail (see left), a demand curve for products. Mainstream media’s revenue currently mainly comes from a select group of products or hits such as the music industry earning most of their revenue from a pop star like Britney. In the new media landscape however, as costs and barrier in producing and distributing media decrease, the market can sustain a greater variety in products and creates niche markets such as indie music. Thus, in order to maximise revenue, media companies should go for volume instead of specialisation, offering greater variety to its consumers and thus earn the new media revenue too.

On another note, here are a list of great events coming up (the rewards of a long tail economy?) that I plan to attend for my own reference and so that people can find out about them too. Most of them are related to design and architecture because theSingapore Design Festival 2007 (coincidentally, similar colour scheme with this site!) and ArchiFest 2007 is happening these couple of weeks.

  • Signature Singapore… Old Forms, New Options | 6 Dec, 10am – 8pm |
    This one-day conference shall discuss and explore the notion of “Signature Singapore”. What makes Singapore unique from other world cities? What is Singapore’s signature urbanscape? How best could planners and the development industry contribute to strengthening Signature Singapore?
    <http://www.archifest.sg/web/fringeevents.html>
  • Singapore 1:1 Island | 17th Nov – 31st Mar | URA Centre
    A look at architecture in Singapore from 1965 onwards to tracks its economic and social progress.
    <http://www.ura.gov.sg/spore1_1/>
  • Screening of “Opera Jawa” by Garin Nugroho | 4th Dec, 730pm | National Museum
    As part of the Singapore International Film Festival Fundraiser, which has no main sponsor for the upcoming festival, this particular screening is a musical film inspired by the “The Abduction of Sita”, a classic found in the Ramayana. [Error corrected]
  • The Way of Asian Design | 30th Nov, Fri, 930am – 530pm | NTU ADM
    A 1-day Panel and Seminar on design from the Asian perspective
    < Find out more >
  • Have you ever smell the rain | 20th – 30th Nov | Forth Art Gallery
    A 3rd solo painting exhibition by Tay Bee Aye. In this series of works Tay examines the notion of happiness and belief, questioning whether our senses are being corrupted, on how information are being process and use as a gauge to measure our happiness.
    <http://www.forth.sg/exhibition.htm>