The BBC news site today ran a rather interesting column called The No Logo Life. The author, thirty-one year old Neil Boorman, a music promoter slash style magazine editor, has apparently decided to give up on branded living… and to burn all his stuff.
He says:
“I have been topping up my self-esteem and my social status by buying the right branded things, so that I feel good about myself, so that people can know who I am.”
Boorman confesses to have been a brand addict from his childhood and not have stopped acquiring the cool stuff ever since. Now, feeling tricked and actually mistreated by the brands he so adored, he believes he was actually drained of his identity. In the next month or so, he’s going to burn all the stuff he owns and start anew.
“I placed my trust, even some love with these companies, and what have I had in return for my loyalty and my faith? Absolutely nothing. How could they, they’re just brands.”
What he’s doing isn’t so new, of course. There is a long tradition with artists of creating and destroying even some of their irreplaceable possessions. In 2001, Michael Landy set up a performance in London’s Oxford Street where he publicly shredded not only the consumer goods he owned, but all of his private stuff, as well.
In any case, the Boorman article got me thinking and I wonder what it is exactly this guy is trying to do. Sure, as a teenager, I too was subject to the lure of branded clothes and gadgets. In my time, it was things like the Lacoste polo shirts or the Casio digital watches – now regarded as retro collectibles. But today, I can say my life is pretty brand-less.
But then again, I do happen to have a SonyEricsson mobile or a Philips TV, even if I never really made a conscious choice to buy these or to not buy others. It just happened. So I wonder how easy it is going to be for this guy to entirely escape his brand demons. You’d be hard-pressed to find anything in the supermarket even, that didn’t come out of the large multinationals like Unilever or Nestlé. And the generic goods you find at low-price outlets are generally manufactured by those same giants of industry as well.
So what is the guy going for? Maybe he’s going to buy nothing but ecological and fair trade goods? In that case he’ll be branded just the same. Max Havelaar or Oxfam have become market leaders in their field just as well, defining who you are at the supermarket check-out just as much.
I don’t know if brand-less living is at all possible and why should it? I don’t see any problems as long as you don’t become a victim to the urge, just because you feel it helps you make a statement. But real alternative living and ethical consumption need a much more drastic change in your lifestyle.
If Boorman wants to regain his identity, he’s not doing a great job already: becoming a brand of his own on the web now. And if he wants to show who he really thinks he is and be the independent, alternative and free-thinking consumer, he is going to have to make a lot of choices. But unless he’s prepared to walk around in deerskin capes and live off the land, he’s going to need independent, alternative and free-thinking brands nonetheless.
I’m curious to see how he pulls that off and I’d be happy to get his iPod along the way.
29 August 2006 at 7:52 pm
Well, I agree with you, a lot. You can’t reverse the time like that.
What we can become is not brand less, but brand care less.
I don’t care about brands at all. I go for quality, functionality or certain style of things. I choose what suits me the most and don’t care at all what brand it is.
29 August 2006 at 8:55 pm
Interesting… Michel Houellebecq is fascinated by the dominance of branding – he sees it as another way that the consumer society tries to package our dreams and thereby destroys them. I can’t say as I’ve ever noticed a brand in my life. I buy jeans that fit, a watch I like the look of and electronic equipment that’s within my budget. But as you say, the difficulty now is that ideologies are co-opted into brands (like eco warfare). How would Karl Marx have coped if his beloved workers had started churning out Marx Sneakers or Marx Choccie Bars – ho ho, I rather like the thought of that actually!
29 August 2006 at 9:12 pm
Brand careless, sounds good, Mrs L. Looks like most people don’t much care and just go for what they 1) need 2) can afford 3) like. It’s actually a pity this man had to drift this far into his misery to realize that. He may even get unhappier trying to shake his obsession. He should read more Lifecruiser perhaps and get in a good mood.
As far as Marx is concerned, that’s a great idea to churn over. Marx of course wasn’t against production or even consumption, so why not? As long as it wouldn’t further antagonize the classes that is, hehe. Maybe he just didn’t feel sexy enough to become a hidden seducer and left it to Che to become an icon. Just kidding, though it is a good point of view. I get giggles over the idea already.
29 August 2006 at 10:16 pm
The only way he could get away from branding was if he made his own clothes and never bought anything again, instead maybe preferring to bartor. He sounds a little silly, and it is more like a publicity stunt. I think he’s been watching a little too much of ‘The Good Life‘.
29 August 2006 at 10:26 pm
Exactly. It all sounds a bit too self-promotional if you ask me. Don’t forget he’s a life style editor or what was it? It’s like the web 2.0 guru speaking out against the hype.
The Good Life was fab! Richard Briers was great in it and Felicity Kendall was quite cute in her ‘wellies and tight jeans’ (at least to me as a small boy back then) ;-)
30 August 2006 at 8:53 pm
She was hot then, and I’m not afraid to say that she is still actually quite hot today!!
30 August 2006 at 10:09 pm
There, glad you said it. I concur.
2 September 2006 at 3:14 am
[...] No Dependencies/No Logo is exactly that: an eclectic personal diary, with no ties to fan sites, no mindless following of trends and no personal rants about politics or economy. As a professional editor Napfisk tries to address the softer, more fragile aspects of life. [...]