The rise of profilicity and the future of society

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This thread is based on a post I made about the recent massacres in the United States. A sort of sequel to my meme critique thread which got a surprising amount of attention.

Over the past decade I have found a lot of my social interactions to feel strange and stilted. Like the other person isn't really... there. There is no connection or any interest in connecting. In the past year or two there has been growing attention given to the concept of profilicity. To understand profilicity you must understand human identity formation. There are (to date) three forms of identity formation that have existed across human societies. They are as follows:

1. Sincerity
Sincerity is the most common form of identity having existed throughout most of human history. In sincere societies your identity is given to you by a village or tribe which assigns a role to you (often based on family ties) which you must then carry out. The more sincerely you carry it out (that is to say effort you put in and how much pride you take in your work) the better you are seen by a community. This is how humans have operated for most of our existence.

2. Authenticity
This is one that I imagine virtually everyone here will be familiar with. Authenticity rose with industrialisation which gave a person more choice in terms of consumption and activities as commodities and information became more widespread. Thus breaking down sincerity. Authenticity was defined more by how one was different from the people around them. Think back to any pre-school entertainment from say.... the 90s. Programmes like Barney the dinosaur liked to talk about how kids were "special and unique". A phrase that I would later go on to be mocked to no end. During this time period we saw various teenage subcultures like the goths, punks, grunge, and emo. The idea was to have the most diversified interests and to bond with people over said interests. This would result in social status and networking.

3. Profilicity
Today however we have fallen into a new form of identity formation called profilcity (although I sometimes like to call it relatability). This is a form that has arisen very recently but has already had a massive impact. It is heavily tied to social media and can be best described as follows. Imagine an artist paints a picture of the ocean. He then posts this piece of art to instagram. A person views this image and then proceeds fetch himself a glass of water. When the water is a clear fluid rather than blue he feels as if something is wrong as the water is not matching the artist's rendition as this person believes that renditions are a more accurate reflection of reality than well... reality itself. That is profilitic thinking in a nutshell. A focus on the hyperreal over the real.

In profilitic society people become obsessed with online identity groups. Politics, LGBT, memes, the works. This is a trend that I think was best exemplified on old tumblr. Many of the identities we see today can be traced back to this website. Agender, pansexual, a bunch of mental illnesses, etc. The people there grew very attached to their labels very quickly. Kins were among the more infamous and bizzare of them with some claiming to feel like an animal. However what does, say, a fox feel like? No one really knows as no human can experience the mind of a fox. And yet in spite of this you had a whole community of teenagers bonding over claiming to feel like a fox. "Fox" isn't even an emotional state. A fox has no single emotional state as a fox can feel a number of different feelings depending on the situation (as can all mammals). So this leaves the question of what exactly these people were bonding over. If "fox" has no consistent qualities then what is it besides a word? The answer to this question is quite straight forward. It is nothing more than a word. A word that has been given qualities by a "community" that has no real bond.

Over the past decade I noticed something of a shift in the emphasis of a lot of entertainment. Whereas in the past (as mentioned above) it was about being "special and unique" it has since shifted to "everyone is included". That is quite a drastic shift. Instead of all being different, everyone becomes included under a single umbrella. Advertisers love this as it allows people to literally identify with their products. But it's not loved for just that reason. I take the example of the Lego company. Lego requires no introduction, most of us will be familiar with that company and its' products in one way or another. Here we will compare two designs of their website:

25405240384_57c21e1e7e_c.jpg


This is the design that I remember most fondly. It was colourful and rather engaging. It features various Lego characters and themes arranged in such a way as to get a child's attention. It is a fairly straight forward advertisement. Now let us look at the modern design:

LEGO-Website-Update.jpg


Well it's a lot more simplisitc for one. But even then things get more interesting if one is to look at the shop page. Of course I don't collect Lego but the front page of the shop interested me. As I scroll down the page I noticed there are banners for various sets that are currently in production. Of these however there was one very strange difference from the Lego of my childhood. It depicts humans. Not the minifigures, not the sets, but the humans (usually adults) constructing the sets. The focus is on humans and their reaction to these sets. This is profilicity in action. These products are not advertised as products with amusement value but rather as lifestyle. In Lego's more recent advertising campaigns there is a notable increase in use of humans. Simply compare the advertisements from the 2000s and the ones from the last few years and see the contrast. I have also since learned that the company now runs an app titled "Lego Life". No matter what way you look at it products are now being advertised as a state of existence rather than as just products. Hell, a lot of companies nowadays use the phrase "experience" to describe whatever they are selling. There was also a notable up tick in replacing the term "customer service" with "costumer care squad". Companies seem hellbent on promoting their products within the realm of hyperreality. "Owning this product means you are happy and awesome". Of course advertising has always done this to some extent but the idea is that consuming a product will create a sense of happiness and satisfaction. Now consuming a product is like having a family, a friend. An identity.

Ultimately though these identities are hollowed out means of dopamine. There is no connection to be had over them as they are simply words or products presented in a hyperrealistic manner so as to gaslight consumers into thinking that they should feel a certain way. It's why a lot of people now identify with memes. Because memes are (in many cases) a mere means of dopamine. People change their identities based on whatever brings dopamine in a given moment. I am reminded of the scene from Wall-E in which humans are presented with an advertisement telling them to change their colour to red because it is "the new blue" (or something to that effect). That is quite literally what we are seeing here. "This gender equals euphoria", "this product equals happiness", "this meme means you are popular". It is people bonding over dopamine instead of any kind of common action or ideal.

Because of this we now live in a society of people who cannot shift away from scripts prescribed by the internet. To shift away from them violates the identity. We can see this in pronoun bills in which an individual must have their pronouns recognised. You are legally required to re-enforce the thoughts in other people's heads. It becomes fundamentally anti-social as it negates one's self in relation to others. In effect we must now all validate the nonsense in other people's heads and may someday face legal penalties for not doing so. Life becomes your oyster and in the process you become nothing but a means to dopamine.

Feel free to ponder where this may go and if you think it's even real or not.
 

Jessica3cho雪血⊜青意

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You wrote a particular phrase that stood out to me more so than the rest. "These products are not advertised as products with amusement value but rather as lifestyle."

Its interesting to see you say this, as that has always been the goal of corporate marketing. You mention the 90's (offhandedly and, of course, most of this can be applied to ppst-industrialization) and how this period's "identity formation" (noted as 'Authenticity') was "defined more by how one was different from the people around them". Unfortunately, if you were raised pre-zoomer era, you would know this to be untrue.

Smoking was a lifestyle. Playing tennis was a lifestyle. Drinking Pabst and shooting guns were a lifestyle. These were all hobbies people enjoyed, that corporations took advantage of and marketed as "unique personalities". Of course, a corporation does not have the means to produce completely unique items for every individual, so each Pabst Drinker is handed the same Pabst as everyone else, each Tennis player is handed the same racket as everyone else, and so on. "Unique Individuals" was a marketing ploy and it has been since the consumer has had extra time and expendable cash. There's no better way to rope someone in than making them feel like they'll stand out with this product. At least, that's what pop-psychology of the 90's told us.

And it typically worked. My favorite example might be HotTopic. A one stop shop for corporate sellouts. It was toted as a place for the unique, the edgy, the one-of-a-kinds. If you shopped at HotTopic, you were different. Or were you? That guy over there has the same Tripp pants as you. That girl has the same earrings as you. Everyone walking out of the store was buying the exact same products as you. You were no different than anyone else who shopped at HotTopic.

Here's a bit of insight into this, too. Real goths, real punks, real delinquents... we laughed at anyone who shopped at HotTopic. What a bunch of nimrods! Buying into the corporarisation of culture! A bunch of wannabe no ones. No real goth would catch themselves dead in Tripp. No delinquent was piercing their lip with steralizer from HotTopic. It was fake garbage trash.

Just like every other corporate ad in the post-industrial era. Its just a different coat of paint. Same framing, same drywall, same plumbing, but they think they can sell it to you because the paint of the day is "inclusion" instead of "uniquity".

90% of the population are sheep (yes, I pulled the percentage out of my ass). They always have been. Tribes did not have 30 leaders. They had 29, maybe 28 followers and 1 or 2 leaders (mileage may vary). Most people are average. They grow up, do what their parents say, buy the products they see ads for, die, and never once question whether they truly were themselves or if they just played another cog in society.

This is not bad, though, this is functionality. Machines have many, many moving parts, and most parts in a machine are replaceable. This is how a society functions. The true individuals aren't online buying corporate products. They're off making music. They're off farming. Building, writing, creating, solving. They aren't beleaguered by the sheep, they have goals and they strive for them.

Things are not fundamentally different from how they were 50 years ago, they are only cosmetically different.
 
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Deleted member 3578

Ahhhh, I see you recognize the hyperfusion of consumer culture and self-identify as well. Though I am also over here like, getting a giggle out of using Lego as an example. Not a bad one. Though, early Lego advertising definitely feature children, and possibly adults, as well. But you still right about the lifestyle marketing. But lifestyle marketing has been around a looooooooong time. The state of the now is more that social media moves things along quicker- which is probably less that great for the individual, and collective, psyche.

Also, it ain't all degeneracy. Trans here, and yeah there be a lot of cringe among the queers. But mostly it's just that - woefully basic and cringe. I would personally find a world where you'd be fined or legally punished for something as minor as misgendering regrettable. That's spineless. I just want common respect and to not be legislated into nonexistence. Something I mostly get since I'm not a breathing meme.
 

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I would also suggest, artifice can sometimes enrich life. Life in plastic. It's fantastic!
 

Outer Heaven

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I think that this phenomenon peaked and will slowly fade from here. The quality of the bread and circus is degrading to the point that theyre no longer good enough to distract people from things falling apart. No TV show or movie has been big enough to capture the culture like they used to. For the most part people dont look up to celebrities in the same way as they did before. Even video games havent been as big with one or 2 exceptions. Theres a perpetual feeling of anxiety people everywhere have nowadays regardless of how brainwashed they are. Even your average NPC is worried about inflation and job security. All of this is to say that mass media isnt as good of a sedative as it once was and people are feeling the world constrict around them.
 
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Deleted member 3373

You wrote a particular phrase that stood out to me more so than the rest. "These products are not advertised as products with amusement value but rather as lifestyle."

Its interesting to see you say this, as that has always been the goal of corporate marketing. You mention the 90's (offhandedly and, of course, most of this can be applied to ppst-industrialization) and how this period's "identity formation" (noted as 'Authenticity') was "defined more by how one was different from the people around them". Unfortunately, if you were raised pre-zoomer era, you would know this to be untrue.

Smoking was a lifestyle. Playing tennis was a lifestyle. Drinking Pabst and shooting guns were a lifestyle. These were all hobbies people enjoyed, that corporations took advantage of and marketed as "unique personalities". Of course, a corporation does not have the means to produce completely unique items for every individual, so each Pabst Drinker is handed the same Pabst as everyone else, each Tennis player is handed the same racket as everyone else, and so on. "Unique Individuals" was a marketing ploy and it has been since the consumer has had extra time and expendable cash. There's no better way to rope someone in than making them feel like they'll stand out with this product. At least, that's what pop-psychology of the 90's told us.

And it typically worked. My favorite example might be HotTopic. A one stop shop for corporate sellouts. It was toted as a place for the unique, the edgy, the one-of-a-kinds. If you shopped at HotTopic, you were different. Or were you? That guy over there has the same Tripp pants as you. That girl has the same earrings as you. Everyone walking out of the store was buying the exact same products as you. You were no different than anyone else who shopped at HotTopic.

Here's a bit of insight into this, too. Real goths, real punks, real delinquents... we laughed at anyone who shopped at HotTopic. What a bunch of nimrods! Buying into the corporarisation of culture! A bunch of wannabe no ones. No real goth would catch themselves dead in Tripp. No delinquent was piercing their lip with steralizer from HotTopic. It was fake garbage trash.

Just like every other corporate ad in the post-industrial era. Its just a different coat of paint. Same framing, same drywall, same plumbing, but they think they can sell it to you because the paint of the day is "inclusion" instead of "uniquity".

90% of the population are sheep (yes, I pulled the percentage out of my ass). They always have been. Tribes did not have 30 leaders. They had 29, maybe 28 followers and 1 or 2 leaders (mileage may vary). Most people are average. They grow up, do what their parents say, buy the products they see ads for, die, and never once question whether they truly were themselves or if they just played another cog in society.

This is not bad, though, this is functionality. Machines have many, many moving parts, and most parts in a machine are replaceable. This is how a society functions. The true individuals aren't online buying corporate products. They're off making music. They're off farming. Building, writing, creating, solving. They aren't beleaguered by the sheep, they have goals and they strive for them.

Things are not fundamentally different from how they were 50 years ago, they are only cosmetically different.
I distinctly remember people laughing at Emos and hot topic back in the early 2000s and it did feature one major difference. Emo was not a state of being. It had some kind of commonality behind it (music and clothing). A shared action. Modern profilicity on the other hand does not feature this and is mostly bonding over online hyperreal images. You bond over an image or word and not an action. Authenticity may have been a marketing tool but it was fundamentally different in so far as people's interactions was based on something more than an image.

I think that this phenomenon peaked and will slowly fade from here. The quality of the bread and circus is degrading to the point that theyre no longer good enough to distract people from things falling apart. No TV show or movie has been big enough to capture the culture like they used to. For the most part people dont look up to celebrities in the same way as they did before. Even video games havent been as big with one or 2 exceptions. Theres a perpetual feeling of anxiety people everywhere have nowadays regardless of how brainwashed they are. Even your average NPC is worried about inflation and job security. All of this is to say that mass media isnt as good of a sedative as it once was and people are feeling the world constrict around them.
I certainly hope you're correct. The thing that gets me though is that the first-world economy has been in the toilet since 2008 with very little growth outside of the tech sector and virtually no one was willing to acknowledge this. Perhaps because the dopamine from social media was just too much. Maybe we have possibly reached peak dopamine?
 

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The way I see it, as mental illness continues to go unchecked in the United States, and as the working class becomes more and more downtrodden and overworked, and everyone gets more and more angry at being demonised or constantly told they are a problem, told they are racist etc, we are naturally going to see people lashing out - they were already doing this through protesting and other non-violent means, but now they are starting to pick up guns.

More gun control won't fix this either because if they can't get their hands on a gun they will use something else - a bomb, a knife, poison, etc.

We need to fix the underlying problems within society or it will fracture. People will start to give up, and when they give up they get desperate. Desperate people do crazy/stupid thing.

Lots of people like to boil mass shootings in the US down to "a crazy guy with a gun", because they don't want to acknowledge the underlying problems. This isn't just a random person who's brain isn't working properly. There are underlying issues at play which drive people to the breaking point.

Expect things to get significantly worse and these to happen a lot more often as the economy slowly goes into a depression over the next few years and the working class get even more crushed under boot.

--

BUT to get back on topic, I once saw a very concise description on another forum about how the nature of friendship has changed from being location/community-based to interest-based. It used to be largely location based - everyone in a town knew everyone. Services were limited so you had to be on good terms with everyone (you don't want to alienate or piss off the baker or you won't get any bread). As a result, bad behaviour or disagreements were usually settled pretty quickly. People would say things like "oh that's typical Johnny!" and move on. The town troublemaker or the town idiot was well known, but usually in a more pitiful way - instead of hating them most people would try to correct the behaviour and work with the person to try and fix it for the benefit of the community. People knew they were stuck together and so they would work to make sure everyone was on at least somewhat good terms, even if they fundamentally disagreed on core values, politics, religion etc. Even in the worst case where people became enemies, the nature of forced interaction encouraged healing over time, as people would naturally begin to resolve issues as they spent more time together. This is my theory as to why School friendships tend to be so strong and last for so long, and also why once the community aspect is gone after graduation, people drift apart over time.

Now, in the Meetup, online dating and hobby community world, friendships have changed to be interest based, which SOUNDS like a good idea - after all, people with common interests are more likely to get along, right? While this can provide a good grounds on which to build a friendship, the problem is that it creates much shallower friendships because people are not as reliant on each other. While sharing an interest with someone can be good fun, there are usually more people who you could share it with - especially when you consider that some hobbies (like gaming) could often be done across the entire world with the internet, so your list of potential friends is effectively infinite. This gives them very low value. When people disagree on something, it is therefore quicker and easier to simply jetisson the friendship and find someone else, especially if the only thing keeping you together was the common interest. This gets even worse when you introduce the modern echo chambers and absolute morality of social media, because it encourages extremist views that are non-negotiable and absolute. At that point, jettisoning someone isn't just convenient - it's virtuous - and you don't really lose anything because there are many more people lined up and ready to go. It also makes disputes basically impossible to resolve. There's no forced interaction and so there's no natural means to arbitrate conflict, and if someone doesn't want to see/talk to you because of some disagreement (or they blocked you), there's literally nothing you can do to fix things. This turns relationships into one dimensional transactional agreements where people basically only spend time with each other to make the experience more enjoyable for both people, and don't really have an emotional connection. This is also why so many friendships seem to fade away over time nowadays, if someone has to stop doing an activity due to whatever circumstances (like finding a new job), it naturally changes the status of the friendship or could undermine it entirely. As soon as someone moves on, by choice or by force, there's no basis for friendship and so it dissolves as quickly as it started.
 
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Deleted member 3373

BUT to get back on topic, I once saw a very concise description on another forum about how the nature of friendship has changed from being location/community-based to interest-based. It used to be largely location based - everyone in a town knew everyone. Services were limited so you had to be on good terms with everyone (you don't want to alienate or piss off the baker or you won't get any bread). As a result, bad behaviour or disagreements were usually settled pretty quickly. People would say things like "oh that's typical Johnny!" and move on. The town troublemaker or the town idiot was well known, but usually in a more pitiful way - instead of hating them most people would try to correct the behaviour and work with the person to try and fix it for the benefit of the community. People knew they were stuck together and so they would work to make sure everyone was on at least somewhat good terms, even if they fundamentally disagreed on core values, politics, religion etc. Even in the worst case where people became enemies, the nature of forced interaction encouraged healing over time, as people would naturally begin to resolve issues as they spent more time together. This is my theory as to why School friendships tend to be so strong and last for so long, and also why once the community aspect is gone after graduation, people drift apart over time.
This is something I've been thinking about. This is why a lot of weird and anti-social behaviour (especially among men) goes unchecked and continues to be a problem. In a situation more akin to a village I imagine such behaviour would likely have been fixed over time by community intervention. Problems like Autism may have been less because there were people to correct those behaviours. Just more reason to abandon the globe in favour of the local.
 

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This is something I've been thinking about. This is why a lot of weird and anti-social behaviour (especially among men) goes unchecked and continues to be a problem. In a situation more akin to a village I imagine such behaviour would likely have been fixed over time by community intervention. Problems like Autism may have been less because there were people to correct those behaviours. Just more reason to abandon the globe in favour of the local.
Good news - globalism is completely falling apart right now, so maybe we can go back to being more community-minded.
 

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In the last year we have seen a global pandemic resulting in closed borders, a supply chain crisis resulting in breakdowns all over the world, trade slowly grinding to a halt, and the US dollar starting to fail internationally as Russia starts selling oil for Rubles, for instance. There's probably even more happening that I haven't mentioned. All of it is putting a huge strain on international relations and I don't see it being fixed anytime soon.

Just read any international news article. The world is falling apart at the seams.
 

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In the last year we have seen a global pandemic resulting in closed borders, a supply chain crisis resulting in breakdowns all over the world, trade slowly grinding to a halt, and the US dollar starting to fail internationally as Russia starts selling oil for Rubles, for instance. There's probably even more happening that I haven't mentioned. All of it is putting a huge strain on international relations and I don't see it being fixed anytime soon.

Just read any international news article. The world is falling apart at the seams.
So turns out this aged like milk, everything is essentially "back to normal"

Even the chip shortage doesn't really matter much anymore.

Guess the elites were making too much money to actually allow globalism to collapse.

This is the issue with the "They want us all eating the bugs and living in pods essentially as slaves" conspiracy theory. The elites need to keep people spending money on frivolities, because that sort of economic growth is what makes their portfolios increase in value.
 
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This is the issue with the "They want us all eating the bugs and living in pods essentially as slaves" conspiracy theory. The elites need to keep people spending money on frivolities, because that sort of economic growth is what makes their portfolios increase in value.
Why do you call it a conspiracy theory? They are open about eating bugs and changing urban development. People will keep spending on frivolities, but the trick is that those frivolities will be cheaper since they will be rented. Essentials will be increasingly rented as well, including housing and transportation
 
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This thread is based on a post I made about the recent massacres in the United States. A sort of sequel to my meme critique thread which got a surprising amount of attention.

Over the past decade I have found a lot of my social interactions to feel strange and stilted. Like the other person isn't really... there. There is no connection or any interest in connecting. In the past year or two there has been growing attention given to the concept of profilicity. To understand profilicity you must understand human identity formation. There are (to date) three forms of identity formation that have existed across human societies. They are as follows:

1. Sincerity
Sincerity is the most common form of identity having existed throughout most of human history. In sincere societies your identity is given to you by a village or tribe which assigns a role to you (often based on family ties) which you must then carry out. The more sincerely you carry it out (that is to say effort you put in and how much pride you take in your work) the better you are seen by a community. This is how humans have operated for most of our existence.

2. Authenticity
This is one that I imagine virtually everyone here will be familiar with. Authenticity rose with industrialisation which gave a person more choice in terms of consumption and activities as commodities and information became more widespread. Thus breaking down sincerity. Authenticity was defined more by how one was different from the people around them. Think back to any pre-school entertainment from say.... the 90s. Programmes like Barney the dinosaur liked to talk about how kids were "special and unique". A phrase that I would later go on to be mocked to no end. During this time period we saw various teenage subcultures like the goths, punks, grunge, and emo. The idea was to have the most diversified interests and to bond with people over said interests. This would result in social status and networking.

3. Profilicity
Today however we have fallen into a new form of identity formation called profilcity (although I sometimes like to call it relatability). This is a form that has arisen very recently but has already had a massive impact. It is heavily tied to social media and can be best described as follows. Imagine an artist paints a picture of the ocean. He then posts this piece of art to instagram. A person views this image and then proceeds fetch himself a glass of water. When the water is a clear fluid rather than blue he feels as if something is wrong as the water is not matching the artist's rendition as this person believes that renditions are a more accurate reflection of reality than well... reality itself. That is profilitic thinking in a nutshell. A focus on the hyperreal over the real.

In profilitic society people become obsessed with online identity groups. Politics, LGBT, memes, the works. This is a trend that I think was best exemplified on old tumblr. Many of the identities we see today can be traced back to this website. Agender, pansexual, a bunch of mental illnesses, etc. The people there grew very attached to their labels very quickly. Kins were among the more infamous and bizzare of them with some claiming to feel like an animal. However what does, say, a fox feel like? No one really knows as no human can experience the mind of a fox. And yet in spite of this you had a whole community of teenagers bonding over claiming to feel like a fox. "Fox" isn't even an emotional state. A fox has no single emotional state as a fox can feel a number of different feelings depending on the situation (as can all mammals). So this leaves the question of what exactly these people were bonding over. If "fox" has no consistent qualities then what is it besides a word? The answer to this question is quite straight forward. It is nothing more than a word. A word that has been given qualities by a "community" that has no real bond.

Over the past decade I noticed something of a shift in the emphasis of a lot of entertainment. Whereas in the past (as mentioned above) it was about being "special and unique" it has since shifted to "everyone is included". That is quite a drastic shift. Instead of all being different, everyone becomes included under a single umbrella. Advertisers love this as it allows people to literally identify with their products. But it's not loved for just that reason. I take the example of the Lego company. Lego requires no introduction, most of us will be familiar with that company and its' products in one way or another. Here we will compare two designs of their website:

25405240384_57c21e1e7e_c.jpg


This is the design that I remember most fondly. It was colourful and rather engaging. It features various Lego characters and themes arranged in such a way as to get a child's attention. It is a fairly straight forward advertisement. Now let us look at the modern design:

LEGO-Website-Update.jpg


Well it's a lot more simplisitc for one. But even then things get more interesting if one is to look at the shop page. Of course I don't collect Lego but the front page of the shop interested me. As I scroll down the page I noticed there are banners for various sets that are currently in production. Of these however there was one very strange difference from the Lego of my childhood. It depicts humans. Not the minifigures, not the sets, but the humans (usually adults) constructing the sets. The focus is on humans and their reaction to these sets. This is profilicity in action. These products are not advertised as products with amusement value but rather as lifestyle. In Lego's more recent advertising campaigns there is a notable increase in use of humans. Simply compare the advertisements from the 2000s and the ones from the last few years and see the contrast. I have also since learned that the company now runs an app titled "Lego Life". No matter what way you look at it products are now being advertised as a state of existence rather than as just products. Hell, a lot of companies nowadays use the phrase "experience" to describe whatever they are selling. There was also a notable up tick in replacing the term "customer service" with "costumer care squad". Companies seem hellbent on promoting their products within the realm of hyperreality. "Owning this product means you are happy and awesome". Of course advertising has always done this to some extent but the idea is that consuming a product will create a sense of happiness and satisfaction. Now consuming a product is like having a family, a friend. An identity.

Ultimately though these identities are hollowed out means of dopamine. There is no connection to be had over them as they are simply words or products presented in a hyperrealistic manner so as to gaslight consumers into thinking that they should feel a certain way. It's why a lot of people now identify with memes. Because memes are (in many cases) a mere means of dopamine. People change their identities based on whatever brings dopamine in a given moment. I am reminded of the scene from Wall-E in which humans are presented with an advertisement telling them to change their colour to red because it is "the new blue" (or something to that effect). That is quite literally what we are seeing here. "This gender equals euphoria", "this product equals happiness", "this meme means you are popular". It is people bonding over dopamine instead of any kind of common action or ideal.

Because of this we now live in a society of people who cannot shift away from scripts prescribed by the internet. To shift away from them violates the identity. We can see this in pronoun bills in which an individual must have their pronouns recognised. You are legally required to re-enforce the thoughts in other people's heads. It becomes fundamentally anti-social as it negates one's self in relation to others. In effect we must now all validate the nonsense in other people's heads and may someday face legal penalties for not doing so. Life becomes your oyster and in the process you become nothing but a means to dopamine.

Feel free to ponder where this may go and if you think it's even real or not.
Well said. Authenticity, in particular, seems to be turning into a lost art. More often than not these days, people's public behavior is inauthentic. Private behavior is a different question.
 
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