Attention: The Leading Cause in Increased Consumerism

As time progresses, products, places and people do, too. New cars are produced, places of attraction are revamped to draw more tourism, and people alter their perceptions, likes, and style in order to keep up with the times. Through the mess of it all, society has gotten lost, and lost their thirst for what was once real.

A song taught to many children at a very young age preaches to “make new friends, but keep the old, one is silver, while the other is gold” (Lynch). This concept works for people, but I believe it should be applied to places, products, and the total functionality of our economy and society, as well.

“The world of real places and the stuff in them seems to be evaporating” (Lanham 2).  As more and more things are produced, and more and more places are adulterated by artificial attractions, all of the old things that once were are vanishing. We are making new, but forgetting the old. 

Richard Lanham is a notable scholar who studies the history of rhetoric, and publishes books regarding the topic. His newest book, The Economics of Attention, adventures through “a new economy, an economy not of goods, but of information, an economy not of production, but of synthesis, an economy not of consumption, but of comprehension” (Kreuter).

Further more, in his book, Lanham explains that society has been going through a shift, and in this shift consumerism has hit an all time high, and that societies new way of going about life in regards to materialism is a bit tainted.

People are not as attracted to actual products or places themselves, anymore, but instead, and attracted to the label that comes with products and places. Montana has some of the prettiest sights our world has to offer, and Vegas has some of the ugliest. However, because going to Vegas suggests money, partying, and luxury, it sees more attention.

Same goes for products. Levi jeans are ten times more durable than more high end branded jeans, like True Religions or Citizens. Yet, people continuously buy the latter because of the extra sparkle, or back pocket design.

In turn, producers of products or attractions who are more qualitative, or legitimate, still attempt to change what they have to offer in order to remain in the game of this consumerism catastrophe. Overall, consumerism is depleting the realness of our world.

Lanham states that “actual physical location threatens to evaporate everywhere we look… Surgeons can cut you open from a thousand miles away. Facsimile Las Vegas delivers Rome and New York on the same daily walk” (Lanham 2).

Products like iPads, and programs like Skype, lessen the urgency to actually go out and visit someone, or visit a store. They make it all possible from the comfort of our couch. These items have attracted attention because of the connotations that come with them.

Companies keep on competing for how much attention they can get their products to receive, and that is why Lanham feels our world could be identified by an economy of attention. If something can catch one’s eye, and attain their attention, it will allow that product to circulate, or draw that person in for a visit.

This new style of life, of having all that there is to have and in the most expensive form has not only altered the physical aspects of our world, but communicative and intellectual as well.

“…human expression, oral and literate– ‘rhetoric’… has traditionally been defined as the art of persuasion,” but now it seems as if it might as well be called the economics of attention (Lanham 21). One of the overarching themes of Lanham’s article is that this, too, will soon lose its importance and position in society. By “this” I mean argument, topics of discussion, and issues that matter.

Nate Krueter, a blogger from the University of Texas at Austin depicts this issue as follows:

“In an economy of information that is greased by the currency of attention, arguments may become in many cases less important than, or at least only as important as, the style that draws us to engage with a particular argument. Style will determine which arguments we pause to consider.”

In my opinion, Krueter is suggesting that humanity will begin to lose sight of what matters, what is essential to our survival, and what is real.

People will continue to seek more and more information, because they think they need it in order to stay current. The truth, however, is on the contrary. According to Lanham, we are overwhelmed by the amount of information we have. In fact, we have so much that we can hardly decipher one thing from another.

It all comes down to how people want to be perceived in the public sphere, one of judgment and twisted ideologies of how life should be. That is what ultimately drives our society and economy. People are worried about becoming outdated, but what they are forgetting is that things that are important, and products and places that originally stimulated our economy by providing durability, quality, and aesthetics, are timeless.

This all reminds me of the movie 13 Going On 30, starring Jennifer Garner who plays Jenna. In the film Jenna skips ahead 20 years on the night of her 13th birthday. When she wakes up, she is in a state of confusion, but goes onward with her day and soon realizes that she has transported to her future life, and is now 30. After a few weeks, she is exposed to what her life will become, and all of the corruption that fills it, too.

In the end, after reconnecting with her middle school crush, and realizing the the people she has surrounded herself with are toxic, she realizes that she had what she wanted all along, even at the age of 13.

Like Jenna does in 13 Going on 30, society needs to be reminded of what we actually came from in order to truly appreciate what we have now. Things have been so overproduced and revamped that almost everything in our world has lost any sense of authenticity. I think that is the main issue that Lanham is getting at.

The fact that the definition of something as classic as rhetoric can now be defined by something else accustomed to our society’s consumer habits and patterns is absurd. The sincerity, genuineness, and realness of humanity needs to be restored.