PopMatters column

This blog is meant to work in conjunction with the column I just started writing for PopMatters about consumerism. I don't know how often I'll post to it, but it seems like a thing columnists ought to do. Presumably I'll come across things in my daily life as a serious contemplater of consumerism and feel a burning need to annotate them as soon as possible for whatever audience I have hubristically posited foy myself. I can't say I have ever had this experience before, but perhaps it is only a matter of time, now that I've broken the seal on this thing.

It seems like a place to log future column ideas as they occur to me, so I will know where to find them. For instance, there's the war on logic mounted by TV ads. I don't watch much TV outside of sports events, but the ads I see during them freak me out. I am convinced that advertisers have collectively stumbled upon a strategy that invovles breaking down the viewers use of logic by inserting as many non sequiturs as possible, figuring that once the viewer loses the power to reason, he'll be more susceptible to the irrational lures designed to get him to buy Ford trucks or light beer. The point must be convince you that illogicality is delightfully whimsical, much more fun than dreary old reasonability. And by purchasing whatever item the ad is pushing, you are able to bypass reason and head straight for that fun world of whimsey yourself. All and all, another example of America's characteristic and pervasive anti-intellectualism.