Insatiable consumerism creates a boom of meaningless products
By Rashmi Joshi
Feb. 5, 2009 9:47 p.m.
It is a backward robe. And it probably shouldn’t exist as a separate consumer product. And it probably wouldn’t sell anywhere except the United States. As a matter of fact, it’s the only thing selling here, as the company is one of the few with its numbers in the black right now.
If you don’t know what I’m talking about by now, you clearly do not watch enough mediocre daytime TV commercials. The Snuggie (as seen on TV) costs $19.95 with a separate $16 shipping and handling fee. It is supposed to achieve energy miracles by cutting down on heating costs while also stopping global warming. If you’re wondering why the country’s trade balance hasn’t come out of the red since Nixon, it’s because of things like the Snuggie and how more often than not they are made in places like China.
Andrew Bacevich, professor of international relations at Boston University, wrote in his book, “The Limits of Power” that the United States is running a national Ponzi scheme. Consumer goods (like the Snuggie) are manufactured in some productive little corner of the world, shipped to us on credit while we sit back hoping never to pay for them because we never have enough income sitting in our coffers to cover our costs.
Contrary to any concept of rationality, Snuggies are selling like hot cakes. While so many other long-standing American businesses are gasping their last breaths or begging for bailouts, the estimable Snuggie corporation is posting profits. It is like we are addicted to consuming and we don’t even care what we buy. An oversized fleece blanket/robe/cape is now apparently a cultural phenomenon in this home of the brave. Apparently we didn’t get enough of Harry Potter or Star Wars and now need to feverishly invest in something that makes us look like cult members of some wizard-Jedi hybrid organization.
“I’m telling you, my son wants one,” Joe Kernan, host of television talk show “Squawk Box,” said on his show. “They’ve sold four million of them. People can’t get them quickly enough. I mean the guy who thought of those Snuggies is rich, very rich.”
In addition to four million very strange people, Snuggies have claimed 250 groups on Facebook, with members numbering in the thousands. The CEO of the corporation that thought of this fleece miracle, Scott Bollen, really believes in his product.
“Every once in a while, a product transcends advertising to become part of pop culture,” he said in an article on newbusters.org.
A part of me wants to conduct furious research on who is buying this caperrific product and ask them why, but another part (the one that’s been influenced by the Howard Schultzes of America that raised Starbucks empires from the dust) wants to think up an equally useless but apparently culturally stimulating product and make millions. Even if I started in the recession, the gung-ho gotta-have-it American spirit, the one that made former President Bush tell us to go shopping after Sept. 11, would have my back.
I asked some students what they thought of the Snuggie.
“Isn’t it just a backwards robe?” asked Kevin Kita, a fourth-year biology student.
Jade Sane, a third-year psychobiology student, had a more enthusiastic response.
“I think it’s brilliant. I want one,” Sane said. “I wouldn’t buy it for myself, but it would be a great gift.”
There is a whole sordid range of products made for the As-Seen-On-TV crowd that have never failed to amaze me. For example, why would anyone really ever need a Tiddy Bear? For those of you who are wondering, it is a device that stops the seat belt in your car from slicing through your flesh when you buckle it in.
I don’t mean to single out products in this column just because they seem ridiculous (Well, maybe I do a little.) nor do I want to compose a blanket statement about consumerism. It just seems like the country ““ as well as we, its citizens ““ completely refuse to live within our means and are addicted to the act of purchasing. Put the two qualities together, and you get a recession with a big helping of corporate fraud. Not to mention four million Americans swathed in billowing folds of crimson fleece. Not good.
One of Oscar Wilde’s ever-so-edgy little sayings is: “Anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination.”
America must be on one of its wildest flights of fancy ever. It would certainly explain the capes.
If you are brave enough to have ever worn a Snuggie in public, then e-mail Joshi at [email protected]. Send general comments to [email protected].
