Pointless But It Does My Head In

[Mr. Tea]

of course. but my point was rather that:

(i) there's a middle ground here between the absurdly rich and the dirt poor, and i would have thought that advertising slightly less expensive stuff that (to my mind) middle income people can afford would in the end reap benefits from the scale of sales you could make

(ii) if you're going to ignore scale and instead advertise very expensive stuff to rich people, then why even bother advertising in the guardian?

(iii) it clearly must work for them, and i've completely misjudged the guardian demographic

Probably they also advertise things that are not outrageously expensive, but you don't notice them so much because you're busy frothing with rage over the 400 quid lamp on the opposite page...selection bias, in other words.

 

[baboon2004]

as with anything that's possible, but in the supplement I was thinking about, what struck me is that virtually nothing was affordable. Obviously there's going to be high-end stuff there, but there didn't seem to be anything reasonably-priced at all.

Maybe I don't buy as much stuff as other people, not sure, or underestimating the extent to which people are willing to get into debt.

 

[Slothrop]

I think it's at least partly lifestyle porn. It's like watching Jamie Oliver or Nigella or Rick Stein or whoever cooking stuff on the telly but not really having any intention of going out and 'sourcing'[1] the ingredients or doing the recipes.

[1] apropos of the thread title, does anyone ever just 'buy' stuff any more?

 

[baboon2004]

yeah, maybe so. i just don't get it in general (whereas with food it's different, although with the exception of Heston Blumenthal I like watching shows where I can approximate what has been made)

food and drink and some audio stuff aside, my consumerism is pretty low these days.

 

[Mr. Tea]

...and 'sourcing'[1] the ingredients or doing the recipes.

[1] apropos of the thread title, does anyone ever just 'buy' stuff any more?

Ha, my man Meades has picked up on this. It's part of an established cant: one doesn't pour, one drizzles, etc. etc.

 

[Ransbeeck]

They advertise the expensive items to give themselves an air of 'class', which makes people buy their average priced items.

Middle class people love telling their friends "Yeah, we bought it at X, but it was pretty affordable!".

 

[baboon2004]

This is true. The brand is all.

it's kind of similar to a humblebrag, come to think of it.

 

[Slothrop]

Back to your scheduled programming, there's a woman at work who has the opening of Freestyler by the Bomfunk MCs as her ringtone. I'm not quite sure whether this is because she considers it to be a timeless classic that's still fresh more than a decade on or just because she hasn't changed phone since the late nineties. It does my head in, anyway.

 

[Mr. Tea]

This is true. The brand is all.

it's kind of similar to a humblebrag, come to think of it.

I don't get the obsession with brands, whether it's a 'humblebrag' angle or a straight-up label-whore angle. However I do get a kick out of buying something decent for not much money.

 

[Mr. Tea]

Middle class people love telling their friends "Yeah, we bought it at X, but it was pretty affordable!".

Interesting. Does this make it the preserve of upper-class people (your actual filthy rich) and working-class people to boast about how much something cost? That makes a funny kind of sense, actually.

 

[baboon2004]

(post before last)Sure, me too, but brands allow the price of average things to be jacked up, as they confer a mark of supposed quality (which may or may not exist) as well as any label-whore status points. I think everyone suffers from buying brands they know to a large extent, beyond those they genuinely think are better. it's inner programming that I find myself fighting against all the time.

Freestyler is a classic! Well, it's their best song, at least.

 

[Slothrop]

Interesting. Does this make it the preserve of upper-class people (your actual filthy rich) and working-class people to boast about how much something cost? That makes a funny kind of sense, actually.

Sure, if we're ditching any kind of critical thought in favour of cabbie style generalizations, why not?

 

[Mr. Tea]

Sure, if we're ditching any kind of critical thought in favour of cabbie style generalizations, why not?

Well making similar generalizations about those dastardly middle class types is Dissensus's meat and drink, so yeah, why not indeed?

 

[Slothrop]

Well making similar generalizations about those dastardly middle class types is Dissensus's meat and drink

That's kind of what I meant, really...

I mean, we're only about one step away from "did you ever notice how men always leave the toilet seat up..."

 

[Slothrop]

Also:
people - particularly in an office environment - whose default voice level is basically shouting. I'm near two of them at the moment and it basically destroys any chance of serious concentration if either of them gets going...

Update: oh, they just decided to have a conversation with someone on the other side of the room by actually shouting (across a room full of people who are trying to work) rather than just going over there and talking to them...

 

[Mr. Tea]

That's kind of what I meant, really...

I mean, we're only about one step away from "did you ever notice how men always leave the toilet seat up..."

I guess, but it's impossible to have any kind of discussion about, well, almost anything to do with 'people' full stop without generalizing to some extent.

 

[baboon2004]

Indeed, everyone's been generalising throughout this thread for just that reason, and everyone does it in their everyday social lives in order to make sense of anything. Crucial thing I guess is to be tentative and flexible in making these generalisations, and to be very careful in linking behaviours to groups defined by 'race', culture, gender etc etc.

New one: companies in their PR spinning about how they always listen to their customers, or some such shit, as if what they are doing is listening rather than cynically maximising their profit potential by convincing their customers they listen to them and have any interest other than making money. Paddy Power doing it today over the Niklas Bendtner affair. You make money off addiction and human frailty (in the main), ffs, stop pretending to be your 'customers' ' friend. Ugh.

 

[Leo]

windows xp message board spam.

 

[Mr. Tea]

windows xp message board spam.

Really? I thought that was the most interesting thing that's happened here in weeks.

 

[Lichen]

Those bloody lanterns people set light to and float off to the "oohs and aahhs" of the assembled.
I live in Somerset so you get a lot of that sort of thing. Hopefully the rain will soak the swarms of them that 'revelers' at the Sunrise Festival will no doubt be launching this weekend.