This is the sixth discussion in a “book club” series on Born to Buy by Juliet Schor, which focuses on consumerism issues and young children. You can jump back to the first discussion if you’d like. This discussion covers the final portion of the third chapter, starting at the subheading “Pester Power” on page 61.
Trans-Toying
For several pages, Schor discusses the idea that marketers are able to turn basically anything into a toy, making it seem like something fun for a child to play with. Think about it: which would your child rather have, oatmeal that seems like oatmeal or oatmeal that seems like a toy? From page 63:
Trans-toying is most noticeable in the supermarket aisle, where packaged goods companies have gotten ingenious in their attempts to turn what we eat into things kids can play with. Frito-Lay has come up with colored Cheetos, now available in a mystery color version. You have to eat them to see what color your mouth and tongue become. Lucky Charms changes what it does with every box. Quaker Oatmeal contains dinosaur eggs and other hidden treasures. And Ore-Ida has come out with Funky Fries, which are blue, or sugar coated, or cocoa flavored.
This is a pet peeve of mine, one that Born to Buy has just given me a perfect excuse to rant about. If you can’t identify what the food product is and how it’s produced, you shouldn’t be eating it. But even if you lower that standard for yourself, you should never feed this stuff to your kids.
Whenever you put a plate of food in front of your child and in front of yourself, your child is getting more than just energy for the day. They’re getting nutritional building blocks for their growth, a stage in their lives that they’ll never be able to repeat. They’re also getting cues on how they should eat as an adult, because if it’s junk you’re giving them and junk you’re eating, it’s junk that they’ll believe is good. Actions speak louder than words.
Sure, maybe you think carrots are atrocious and you’d rather eat a Mickey D’s double cheeseburger. That’s still no excuse to put chocolate-flavored french fries in front of your kid. Read what’s on the ingredients label before you give it to your child - if you wouldn’t serve a great big plate full of one of the ingredients to your child, why would you give it to them at all?
Michael Pollan sums up a great eating philosophy in just seven words: Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants. By food, he’s referring to actual real food, not high fructose corn syrup or whatever ungodly ingredient is used to make Cheetos stain your tongue blue.
A Misunderstanding of Wealth
On page 64, Schor really nails one particular problem with rampant consumerism in America:
Other research has found that people who watch more television have pronounced biases in their perceptions of how wealthy Americans are, because television disproportionately shows wealthy and upper-middle-classs lifestyles. Heavy viewers think that affluence is the norm, vastly exaggerating the proportion of the population with swimming pools, maids, and other luxuries.
In other words, television paints wealthy and upper-middle-class lifestyles as the norm and heavy watchers believe that it is the norm. The people on television become the Joneses to catch up with.
I read this portion of Born to Buy on a Friday morning, so just to test it out, I went downstairs and flipped through every channel that I thought a teenager might stop on. I saw a show about a $10,000 birthday bash for a four year old girl (Party/Party on Bravo), a “documentary” about Angelina Jolie’s life (True Hollywood Story on E!), a show about models infighting with each other (America’s Next Top Model on MTV), a show about a woman getting a $6,000 makeover (Style Her Famous on style.), a sitcom about a family with a butler living in Bel-Air (Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, on TBS), and two different channels showing music videos, each depicting individuals wearing more gold and diamonds than I’ve ever seen in my life.
Regardless of your feelings on the entertainment value of these programs, they all focus in on a lifestyle that is above the financial capacity of almost everyone in the viewing audience. If you watch such programs over and over again, your sense of “normal” begins to reset.
It makes sense why luxury products will pay for product placement on shows. If you see show after show where people are driving a shiny, expensive car, you’ll begin to see that car as normal. If you see everyone drinking bottled water, you begin to see that as normal. If you see everyone listening to an iPod, you begin to see that as normal.
I’m not claiming people are stupid by any means. Most people can pretty clearly identify what’s going on in an individual situation. The problem is when you see it over and over again - it begins to ever so slowly shape your sense of normal.
The next discussion, coming in two days, will cover the whole fourth chapter, “The Virus Unleashed,” starting on page 69 and ending on page 84.
译文:
天生购物狂：儿童消费力
今天“书吧”系列节目将要对朱丽叶·肖尔的《天生购物狂》进行第六次讨论，这次讨论围绕消费主义问题和儿童展开。如果你愿意，你可以点击跳回到第一次讨论了解一下情况。这次讨论涉及到第3章的最后一部分。从第61页副标题“儿童购买力”开始。
商品玩具化
肖尔花了几页纸的篇幅来论述这样一个观点：厂商几乎能将任何商品变成玩具，让小孩子看来似乎很好玩。你想想看：两种燕麦粉，一种看起来就是燕麦粉，另外一种看起来像一个玩具，孩子会更想买哪一种呢？从书中第63页看：
将商品玩具化后最吸引经过超市过道的顾客的眼球， 所以包装商品公司独具匠心巧妙地将我们所吃的东西变成孩子能玩的东西。菲多利公司已经推出了一款彩色食品饮料，现在顾客可以买到一款神秘色彩的。如果你想知道你的嘴巴和舌头会变成什么颜色，你就必须要尝尝看。魅力幸运星香水用每一个盒子来改变它所显示的香味。燕麦有恐龙蛋和其他神秘的宝藏。另外，已经推出了时髦炸薯条，这种炸薯条要么涂成蓝色，要么涂有一层糖，要么是可可粉口味的。
这是一个让我苦恼的问题，而《天生购物狂》给了我一个绝佳的借口来咆哮发泄。如果你无法分辨某种食品是什么以及这种食品是如何生产的，你就不应该吃它了。但是即使你对自己的要求比较低，你永远都不要给你的孩子吃这种食品。
无论何时你端一盘食物放到自己和孩子的面前，你都要清楚你的孩子获取的不仅仅是每天所需的能量，他们正处于生长期，需要吸收营养来长身体。孩子正处于生长发育的阶段，他们正在为他们的身体发育吸收营养，这个阶段对于他们来说一生只有一次，他们从大人的身上得知他们应该怎样吃东西，因为如果你给孩子吃垃圾食品或者你自己都吃垃圾食品，那么他们就认为垃圾食品是好的。行动胜于雄辩。
当然，也许你认为萝卜很糟糕，你宁愿吃米奇D的双层三明治。即使是这样，你仍然不应该给你的孩子吃巧克力口味的炸薯条。在给他们吃某种食品之前，你应该先看过标签上面写着的配料。如果上面的配料中的任何一种都不应该装满一盘给孩子吃，那你怎么能一次性全部给他们吃呢？
迈克尔·坡勒恩仅用7个字就概括了一条绝妙的饮食法则：进食。勿暴饮。植物。对于食物，他指的是真真正正的食物，而不是富含果糖的玉米糖浆，或者能使你的舌头变色的用来生产的Cheetos食品饮料的任何一种不健康的配料。
对财富的误解
在第64页，肖尔真正的揭露了美国存在一个恶性的消费主义的问题:
其他调查发现，看比较多电视的人，对于美国富人是怎样的，会有一种明显的倾向，因为他们在电视上过多地看到富人和上层阶级的生活方式。电视迷认为富裕是一种常态，因为他们过分夸大了拥有多个游泳池，众多女仆以及其他奢侈品的富人的比例。
换句话说，电视向观众们展示富人和上层阶级的生活方式是一种常态，而电视迷相信那确实是一种常事。电视上的人变得互相攀比起来。
我是在星期五早上读到《天生购物狂》的这部分内容的。为了证明这一点，我就下楼去，打开电视机，浏览每一个电视台，心里面想着哪一个电视台会吸引青少年。我看到由一个电视台在放一个4岁小女孩的$10，000的生日庆典（派对/派对庆典），一个电视台在放安吉丽娜·邹丽的一生的记录片（好莱坞明星的真实故事，E），一个节目中放模特互相争斗（美国的下一站模特，音乐电视），一个节目中放一个女人花$6，000整形（女性风格，风格），一场情景喜剧关于一个家庭有一个住在贝尔航空公司的男管家（贝尔航空公司的新新王子，东京广播公司），2个同时播放音乐录像的电视台，每个台上的人身上都穿金带玉，身上带着的金和宝石比我见过的任何一个带着金和宝石的人的还多。
对于这些电视台的娱乐价值，先不说你有什么想法，他们全都是突出一种生活方式，这种方式是观众们所不能承担的。如果你一而再再而三地看这种节目，你的常态意识就会开始重新设定。
这就合理的解释了为什么奢侈产品愿意为穿插在节目中的产品广告买单。如果你在一个接着一个节目里看到人们都开着闪闪发亮的昂贵的轿车，你就会开始认为这很正常。如果你看到每一个人都喝瓶装水，那你就开始认为这很正常。如果你看到每一个都听ipod, 那你就会开始认为这很正常。
我绝对不是说他们愚蠢。大部分人都清楚自己所处的情况。问题就在于当你一而再再而三地看到这种情况，你也会慢慢受到这种情况的影响。
2天后我们将会讨论第4章的全部内容，从第69页开始到第84页结束的“病毒爆发"。