yellowdaisy4, 2/15/09

It’s strange how we are constantly bombarded by advertisements and salespeople telling us we must have what’s brand new and usually without questioning we believe them. Even though it seems we need to have what’s new because it sounds not only appealing but necessary to live, usually what we already have was working just fine. It’s weird how advertisements play off “the cult of the new” to make you feel like there was something wrong with the old stuff you have and that you now need the newest version of whatever it is. I can connect to this feeling because I continuously want a new cell phone. I got the phone I have now a little over a year ago when it was the newest one out. Now that I see images on TV and ads showing the iphone, my phone is no longer good enough because it’s not the newest. It still works fine and as similar features as the iphone does but because it’s an older version I want a different one. It’s interesting how I didn’t even realize this process regarding “the cult of the new” was affecting my decisions until Habermas pointed it out.
I also found the ad that was shown in class that depicted a sign that said “new improved on sale”. This is amusing because how can you really improve pepper spray and if you already have some and it’s working then why does it even matter if there is a newer version. This seems so obvious because it’s depicting pepper spray but phone companies for example are doing the same thing in manipulating people to believe newer is better even if nothing really changes that much.
Additionally, I found the American Idol example from class to be another interesting depiction of this. Besides the popularity of the show itself, the contestants put out the American Idol CDs. What this is is just basically new younger singers singing classic songs that have already been put out by other artists in the past. Advertisers and producers just make what has already been done and old seem new by projecting that image of new young talent giving it a new twist. It’s strange how people buy in to that and purchase the CDs of the same songs they might already have because they were made to believe it’s somehow new and different.