Hello, Consumer

A few years ago I randomly started getting Consumer Reports in the mail

If you’re not familiar, it’s a magazine-slash-media-platform completely dedicated to reviewing products. They’ll periodically focus on a certain category of products, say, home workout equipment, or trendy cooking tools. In general, though, they’ll review the performance of the product in order to tell you if it’s worth your money.

Overall, this is actually a very helpful thing to do. Getting products that function well and last long, even if they aren’t the flashiest, is simply good stewardship. Most people could probably benefit from thinking more critically before making purchases.

But I also have to admit, something about the magazine made me uneasy.

See, I’m used to magazine titles generally telling you who the magazine is for. Scientific American is for Americans who love science, or at least have a working relationship with it. Conde Naste’s Traveller is for, well, travelers. People Magazine… hey, I guess they played their hand to get the widest possible readership.

And generally, subscribing to something meant identifying with whatever that title was.

But, Consumer Reports? I wasn’t sure about that. I didn’t feel jazzed about seeing ‘consumer’ as a part of my core identity. In my eulogy, would I be fine having someone say Philippe was a traveler? Sure. Philippe was a person? I mean, that wouldn’t be terribly creative, but it’s at least accurate. Philippe was a consumer?

That would almost make me feel like I did something wrong.

Perhaps it isn’t this way for everybody, but for me, the word consumer doesn’t have the best connotation. It feels like someone who pisses off the Lorax. The Spirit of Consumption keeps ruining Christmas. And maybe it’s because I live in fire-prone California, that I hear the word consume as a threat.

I actually think there’s more to having a consumer mentality than just excess.

I mean, a large part of it is excess. There’s probably a reason why the mental image I have for the phrase “consumer mentality” is of somebody sitting at the end of a sushi conveyor belt with their mouth open, just waiting to be fed with no effort.

But along with the gluttony comes a sense of entitlement. An expectation that things should be done satisfactory to their tastes.

I’ve worked in nonprofits adjacent to churches to have a sense for what this is like in a church setting. Picture your stereotypical megachurch. Flashy band. High production value. A sharp, charismatic pastor.

It’s become more about putting on a show than building a community. The word pastor is actually supposed to be more synonymous with shepherd than speaker. Leading from a stage is only a small part of a role meant to care for the soul.

But many churches have come to place such an emphasis on production value, many finding ways to justify that excessive focus. And so in instances where the production gets disrupted, many forget that it was never the point all along. And to be fair, when the production gets surpassed by another one in town, many of the audience members go elsewhere to get their fix, threatening the viability of the church long term.

We’d be mistaken if we thought this was just a church thing. It’s everywhere. Jobs. Relationships. Cities. We examine if these things are serving us and move on if they’re not.

There’s another way to do things. One that doesn’t just look for what you can get out of something, but what you can give to it. One that asks how your contributions can fit in.

There’s gotta be other ways to take stuff in than excessive consumption, right?

Sure are.

So often when I see a good film or see a good performance, I get a sense of I-kinda-wish-I-made-that envy. It doesn’t matter how ridiculous the wish might be. I’ll be listening to Tyler the Creator like, ah, why didn’t I think of using that analogy to talk about coming to terms with getting older! I’ll temporarily forget that I have neither the musical skill nor reach that Tyler has. It’s much better for the world that the muses sent that bit of inspiration his way instead of mine.

But I’ll then wonder what I liked from his music that I can incorporate into my artwork. My writing. My performances. Vulnerability. Calling out a fear using sensory details. Got it.

My way to engage with things I like is through incorporation.

How can I pull apart some components and make it fit the bigger picture?

But not everybody is like that.

I think of how my kids’ naturally find their own way of playing with new toys. One is more precious about the packaging than the others. One tends to prefer order. The other inserts snippets of real life conversation into action figure roleplay all the time.

I think, similarly, we each have our own ways of engaging stuff.

Some people like to pull apart at different elements to figure out how it works.

Some people are curators, wanting to elevate the value of things through selectivity.

Some people are customizers, taking generic objects and making them personal.

Some people play hard, recognizing that things are ultimately temporary but that they can be enjoyed fully right now.

Ultimately no one way of doing things is the correct way, but knowing that we have so many different options makes consumerism look pretty boring as a default setting.

What if we gave reviews for everything?

This was an idea I had circa 2011. At the time, Foursquare was pretty heavily used. So was Yelp. As a college student, I was pretty familiar with RateMyProfessor. What if somebody just consolidated all of these review places into one massive review system.

Looking back, it wasn’t a good idea.

The concept of reviews seems courteous enough. Leave my opinion to help other people make informed decisions in the future. The only thing is that this became kindling to what was already a rampant consumer culture. Consumer culture persistently but quietly asks what am I getting out of this? Review culture says the quiet part out loud.

It’s one thing when a mom and pop business takes a few losses when a negative review comes in after a bad day. It’s another when an artist starts to question their self worth when a vulnerable work gets panned. In the words of Ratatouille villain Anton Ego, “we risk very little, yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and their selves to our judgment. We thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read.”

As this worsens you see people negatively score an upcoming movie because they changed the race or gender of fictional characters. The movie studios pull back on promoting the film or make creative changes, and now the consequences are more real.

In a Black Mirror episode, people are given 1-5 stars based on the interactions that other people have with them, and it doesn’t lead anywhere good.

If you ever stumble across a mean comment on a public social media account, 95% of the time, the comment comes from a private account. Someone not willing to eat what they dish out. Someone who probably sees the world as a more vicious place and acts accordingly.

I don’t think we should totally bail on seeing ourselves as consumers.

Maybe that seems like a surprising conclusion to wind up in after I’ve just explored all the issues with a consumerist mindset. But hear me out.

I think to some extent, we actually are consumers. We must, at the very least, consume food, shelter, and all the other necessities to our survival. And in all likelihood, we go well beyond that because it enriches our lives.

I don’t think we’ll benefit from being in denial about this reality. By accepting that we are consumers, we’ll actually be able to make decisions about how we consume more carefully.

The problem was never in being consumers or even seeing ourselves as consumers, the problem is in letting that be the main way we see ourselves. Letting it be our main way of interacting with makers and materials.

Consumers are, ultimately, passive actors. Yes, their reviews may be harsh and scathing, but they’re often that way because that’s the only modicum of power they experience. If you’re a consumer, you’re at the mercy of the other people making stuff for you without the ability to engage your own creativity. Imagine a food critic who doesn’t know how to make a grilled cheese. Imagine a food critic who would starve if not for the cooking ability of others, even the 1-stars.

Consumerism will quickly make you lose sight of your own agency. You know, that thing you’re born with that makes an impact on the world. When you get caught up participating in a world where people are constantly judging and assigning value, it makes it all the more tempting to hide your magic.

Here’s my recommendation: let your consumerism be outpaced by your cultivatorism- a sweet little word I made up to describe approaching things with a desire to make them better. At times that may call for feedback. Like a garden, you’ll take what you need, but disrupt nothing more than is necessary.