In Snow White, the Brothers Grimm fairytale, the evil step-mother Queen daily turns to a mirror and asks, “Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who is the fairest in all the land?” And daily, until Snow White reaches adulthood, the mirror replies, “You oh Queen, are the fairest of them all.” It seems interesting to me to think about the mirror in this story as an analogy for the television that these days similarly hangs on the walls of almost every home in the developed world. We interact with our televisions in almost the same way. We are particularly invited in the case of advertising to relate to the protagonists shown on the screen. And we do. We peer.

Whereas the mirror in Snow White reflected the truth to the evil Queen, the televisions in our lives, reflect lies pretending to be the truth. The ridiculousness of television advertising is a reflection shared by everyone who appreciates a fine espresso. And every Moleskin owner can recall their own inane examples. In my case, I cringe at ads that show people feeding liver pâté to dogs, while millions around the world starve. During the Christmas holidays, I close my eyes when confronted by the seasonal Lexus ad, showing someone receiving a brand new Lexus SUV, with a big red-bow on top. Joy to the World and all that. And yet, there was a time, at a much younger age, when I thought how amazing it would be to present my parents with just such a gift on a pristine snowy white Christmas morn. And I will also admit that I have in the past slipped into breathlessness when first exposed to a new Apple ad, (this one in particular gets my goat). Oh the efficiency and intelligence of the design! The clarity of the graphic user interface! It is as if it was made for me, by people who think like me, and if I purchased it, I would be even more, like me.

Then last night, staring at the television, I took a step back, an extra ontological level if you will, and asked the question – what reflection of me is being shown in these endless ads? I concluded it was a me that was always in need of something, a me that was in some way inadequate.

ThePithyTweeter: “Humans are always in need, always incomplete, always hungry!” 2 seconds ago

Yes, but that confuses two things that are not the same. Yes, the human condition seems perpetually unsatisfied. But that is a different type of lack (it may also be a difference of degree, between being incomplete and inadequate). The in-completion that haunts humanity is a lack of something non-material, born of a desire for fulfillment, love, meaning, peace, hope, connection, transcendence beyond pain and death. I’m guessing these desires can never be fully satisfied, certainly not by the material world. And so it is a slight-of-hand by marketers to suggest that if I buy, say the latest Apple computer, Jonathan Ive’s sense of fulfilment will be mine. I will escape my own angst, my own seemingly endless Arthurian trek. The faultless iPhoto-sample face photo will become my face, and I will be the fairest in the land, or at least one of the fairest, or at least not one of the ugliest. Needless to say, even when I buy the product, it never quite works out that way. I turn off the face-recognition feature in iPhoto so I don’t have to see my actual face every time I open the application.

So far nothing particularly new – ads seduce us and materialist consumption leaves us spiritually unfulfilled. Big deal. The economist Victor Lebow said as much in 1955; “[o]ur enormously productive economy demands that we make consumption our way of life, that we convert the buying and use of goods into rituals, that we seek our spiritual satisfaction and our ego satisfaction in consumption.” But economics itself teaches us that there are two costs to every decision, the cost of doing it (which we agree at this point was not worth it) and the cost of not having done something else. I’m interested in thinking about the latter – “the opportunity cost of television advertising to the human soul.”

ThePithyTweeter: “What a pretentious twat.” 2 seconds ago

The German film director Werner Herzog has spoken and written extensively about a related topic – the dangers of inadequate images. Rather than summarizing his thesis, here is a quote from his book, Herzog on Herzog:

I would like to add to Herzog’s reflection, or at least amplify a particular thread within it, to say that because television advertising falsely argues that it is a reflection of how we actually are, the Herzogian inadequacy of its imagery, becomes the inadequacy of it’s reflection of us. And to the extent to which we internalize this inadequate portrait, by being exposed to it thousands of times a day, we begin to think of ourselves as that reflection, rather than who we actually are. Thus I am not me, I am an individual of a particular socio-economic bracket who has yet to buy a Lexus SUV, secure the affections “forever” of my partner with a triple diamond band, retire to a vineyard, etc., etc. And so I begin to work with the reflection, instead of myself. What strategy can I develop to maximize the utility of this chisel-jawed Apollo? I sit on my bicycle and imagine, a la the law of attraction, that I in fact already have my new SUV, that I already am, the man in the mirror.

In the original Brothers Grimm tale, the evil Queen eats the center of an apple, and offers Snow White the poisoned surface. Snow White eats the skin, and falls into a seemingly endless sleep. The seven dwarfs are unable to wake her, and so heart-broken, and assuming she is dead, they place Snow White in a glass coffin in the forest. Like our true selves, Snow White remains suspended, undead in a forgotten womb, far away from the action, until one day a Prince . . .

I wonder what could be the equivalent to the Prince in our story? What will wake us from our consumerist conformist coma? What will wake us to discover our multi-faceted, rough-around-the-edges, quirky, unfashionable, unique true selves? Could the crippling financial crisis be our Prince? Like many people I’m much more conscious about my purchases these days. In fact I consume very little other than the necessities. And the drop in my consumption has not had the drop in happiness I thought it would. I worry about the future like everyone does right now. But it’s not a worry about whether or not I’ll be able to buy my parents a Lexus SUV, it’s just a hope that I will be able to continue to think, to have conversations with friends, to learn more, to be able to communicate with you like this. The impact of the crisis has been to awaken me to how little I actually need. The ads on television now seem not my reflection, but merely the shrill screams of hawkers in a bazaar – nothing more than background noise. My television is no longer a mirror. I think I’m free of it.

ThePithyTweeter: “Yeah for you.” 2 seconds ago