Corporate Culture?

[FNH]

I heard the other day that we live in a Corporate Culture.  That is, a Culture decided on by Corporates. 

We buy the music that the big companies let us hear.  We watch the films that the big companies let us see.  We wear the clothes that the big corporates allow us to have in the shops.  We read the books big companies allow to be printed.

I thought is had some merit.  Boy/Girl Bands being a a terrible example.

Assuming we've been living in the corporate culture since the 80's, are we now emerging thanks solely to the internet?  Are we finally able to break free of their hold because of the community on the net.  Are we able to decide for ourselves that a music track is worth buying and make it a hit without corporate interference? 

Should we thank podcasters for giving us back our culture?

[Chodon]

What makes you think we are emerging from it?  Girl/boy mands are still everywhere.  Fashion is just as big a deal now as it was then.  If anything I think it might be worse now.  Corporations have an even bigger hold on people.  Is this even a bad thing?

Are you talking about people like you and I or society in general?

[FNH]

I think culture is about ideas.  Ideas of about what we like, expressions of ideas as art and other such intangible things.

I'm thinking that the net by allowing people to network and express ideas with a wide audience is allowing culture to develop naturally.

Before the nets widespread takeup (80's and early 90's) we were only allowed to express ourselves through the community of cultural icons fed to us.  Pepsi. Coke.  Nike.  Blue Jeans.   These were fed to us and our vision was in some way reduced to the few colors we were allowed to see.

Now if the explosion of the net you can watch movies, read texts, design fashion, create music and share these with a world wide audiance without the interference of a corporate money making machine getting in the way.  An idea expressed as a You Tube video can become a world wide hit a cultural icon without having to come through the corporate money making filter.  Before the net a home video would have stayed at home.

As you can probably tell, I'm warming to this idea.

[Tango Alpha Delta]

Culture is always such a fluid thing, I think it's hard to pin down what's really happening.  The Internet has simply allowed memes to travel faster, and that has made traditional ways of measuring trends and counter-culture somewhat obsolete.  Like you said, with YouTube, stuff can spread virally.  What used to take years and a sturdy fan base to "hit it big" can now happen overnight... with the right mind-worm.

I was "coming of age" in the early '90's, and even though I wasn't all that with it as a kid (some things never do change) I saw the way the music industry turned underground into a mass-production venture; R.E.M. was way underground for years, but they had fans all over, publishing their fan-zines and keeping up interest.  Then they got "discovered" and suddenly, everyone who wanted to be seen as hip and "alternative" was latching on to them.  Suddently, all of the new bands had to have jangly guitars, sexually ambiguous singers, and an effete detachment from "the Scene."  The independent labels in Seattle saw how R.E.M.'s fans had been the key to building them up into a top-selling act, so they started pumping money into 'zines, and developing the "underground scene".  And much of what they came up with was just as boring and uninspired as the hair-metal, white soul, or disco crap that had come before it.

Now, it's a pattern you see everywhere.  We can't find a decent spaghetti sauce, because every time a new brand comes along that actually uses real ingredients and doesn't add sugar or preservatives, they get bought up by a Kraft subsidiary.  Then, Kraft (or whoever) "improves" the product, "streamlines" marketing, and turns the formerly good sauce into more of their bland pap.  All in the name of "mass appeal".   Coca-cola bought up three successive juice companies that I really liked, and turned their products into colored sugar-water.

Of course, you can't blame people for wanting to sell out and make it big.  But that just means that you end up pressing your own juice; or making your own sauce; or forming your own band... or starting your own science fiction podcast.  Which may eventually get bought up by Time/Warner/Kraft/Halliburton/BAE... is that bad?   

[qwints]

I think that the mass-marketed non-conformity of the nineties was a recent zenith for commercial control of culture, but as long as there is a profit to be made from dictating trends, companies will try to control what we wear, what we listen to and even how we talk. What the internet has done is allow the vast expansion of non-commercial expression. Such non-commercial has a long pedigree, but never before has it been able to reach such a vast audience.

[Chodon]

The only issue is that the most expression on the internet still has corporate backing.  The internet is all about making coin.  The cash is king, but at least with the interwebs we have a bigger choice about how to spend our money, and it gives more people opportunities to make money. 
Corporate culture is not dead by any means though.  There are entire marketing courses about marketing on the internet, data acquisition from web browsing habits, and finding ways to throw virtual sand in people's eyes so they will buy one product over another.  Corporate culture is out there.  It's just being sneakier because it's no longer "cool".

[qwints]

There's a big and important difference between content created by commercial forces for commercial purposes and people making money from hosting amateur content. Consider the difference between that fake PS3 blog and youtube for example. There is more genuine original creative content available to the public that at any time in history and some of it is great. And while commercial content still exists, it has a much smaller market share than you might think.

[DDog]

There's a big and important difference between content created by commercial forces for commercial purposes and people making money from hosting amateur content. Consider the difference between that fake PS3 blog and youtube for example. There is more genuine original creative content available to the public that at any time in history and some of it is great. And while commercial content still exists, it has a much smaller market share than you might think.

It should be clear that some people can make a living by posting their original content on the internet, but by no means everyone; anymore than many people can make a living painting art on the sidewalk or self-publishing their novel. And the people whose original content was a website to host others' original content are making their money mostly from corporations who buy advertising space in their subsection of the internet. The few people who make good money on the internet not derived from corporate ad revenue serve the same function as the miraculously successful rags-to-riches entrepreneurs of earlier decades: to make the American Dream seem like it is realistically achievable, therefore worth chasing, therefore worth buying into the culture as a whole, therefore continuing to make money for politicians and multi-national conglomerates as well as teachers, construction workers, software engineers, and internet fads.

Your options for getting your salary paid are pretty much corporate, government, non-profit, free-lance, or unemployment, and it's all a giant feedback system. You're working in one or more of those five areas and you're probably paying for work done by between two and four of them. The individual is a commercial force.

[wakela]

Rant alert.

A lot of mass culture, big corporation bashing going on here. 
People on this thread have been taking for granted the idea that making money is somehow wrong. 
After Katrina:
-Home Depots were the first stores to open in New Orleans.  They stayed open 24 hours, and they started selling bottled water and canned food.  Did they do this to make money?  Of course.  Why not?  I hope they raked in millions.  Maybe the next time there is a disaster their competitors will have incentive to provide for those who need it.

-Wal-mart went the charity route.  They used their well-developed logistics to deliver millions in aid.  They got a lot "free" advertising for this, and why shouldn't they?

-I went to an Outback Steakhouse that flew in waiters from other states so that they could stay open.  I'm sure the manager saw this as an opportunity to make money being one of the few restaurants open.  Local people responded with lining up around the block every day, because they were GRATEFUL. 

Toyota didn't develop the Prius to save the planet, they did it to make money.  And because they did they rest of the auto industry is falling over themselves to make more hybrids.

When I hear people complaining about Popular Culture, I hear people complaining about Stuff I Don't Like.  I'm sorry you guys don't like boy bands and Kraft foods.  But a lot of people do, and what's wrong with that?  And if a lot of people like something shouldn't that be where society focuses most of its energy? Big Corporations do not "feed" you anything unless you give them money and ask them to do so.  If you don't like Coke or Pepsi, don't drink them.  But don't condemn all of corporate culture, because for every McDonald's or Nike that you don't like there is some corporate product that you do like (computers? bookstores? inoculations?), and there is a guy wearing Nikes who thinks you are a mindless sheep.

A guy at a party was trying to convince me of the evils of big companies, and he had the nerve to be smoking a cigarette while doing so.

[Chodon]

Wakela, I agree with you 100%.  May the best man win.  Usually whatever is good for corporations is good for individuals (the Prius and WalMart are some good examples).  I work for a fortune 500 company, and I know how they work.  My company has a huge commitment to helping the local community so they can get their name out there.  They are a big sponsor of the United Way (my 200 employee facility gave over $7,000, which the company matched) and they give me paid time off to volunteer for JA.  Plus, for being a volunteer I get to go to a black tie dinner every year with the local executives.  It's a hell of a deal for everyone involved. 

My big concern isn't with the companies though, it's with the people.  Most people aren't intelligent enough to know when something is just marketing and when they are really getting a good product, and companies tend to feed on that.  Corporations are good at tying right into your root desires and convincing you that their product will fill those desires.  It's true.  And the worst part is people fall for it! 

Shampoo is a perfect example of brilliant and sick marketing.  We'll start with the most shallow: Herbal Essences commercials (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9U2DQbtaRg&feature=related).  Do you really think that shampoo is going to give you an orgasm?  Then why do people buy it?  But it should be obvious that shampoo will not, in fact, give you an orgasm.  The more subtle secret that shampoo companies don't want you to know is THEY ARE ALL THE SAME!  I know, one bottle says "for oily hair" and the other says "for dry hair", but it's what marketing gurus call "niche marketing".  People think the company is better catering to their needs, so they buy that product.  Seriously, who hasn't sat there thinking, "wow, do I have oily, dry, or normal hair?"  It's all the same product in different bottles.

I think marketing is brilliant, but I can appreciate it for what it is: bullshit.  I think most people actually buy this garbage, and when they see the light and realize they have been fed bullshit all their lives they get offended.

[qwints]

With all due respect, I don't believe that the essence of this thread is calling corporations evil. The point of the op is that pop culture was, for quite some time, created entirely by commercial forces. The morality or efficiency of corporate culture is a separate subject. My argument is that our ability to express ourselves to others has been vastly expanded by the internet and that commercial forces are no longer the sole gatekeeper to our collective experience. Viral videos, companies like cafe press and podcasts like escape pod all serve to massively distribute people's expression to the masses. And that is a very good thing.

When I spoke of commercialized non-conformity, I was talking about all the ads from the eighties and nineties which implied that one could be rebellious by buying something. (e.g. Hot Topic) The internet has broken the stranglehold that big business formerly held on culture. It is a very bad thing when corporate executives get to decide what the public gets to experience. Sure lots of people will stick to mainstream media, but now, more than ever, people can experience the whole spectrum of human expression. And corporate interests, as DDog quite rightly pointed out, are making lots of money off of amateur culture, but the point is they're not deciding what gets made.

On a side note, let's remember that big corporations are often forces for evil and that corporate capitalism has a bloody history. It may be the most efficient economic system, but it sure as hell isn't the most equitable.

[wakela]

I think marketing is brilliant, but I can appreciate it for what it is: bullshit.  I think most people actually buy this garbage, and when they see the light and realize they have been fed bullshit all their lives they get offended.

You're right.  It is bullshit.  But I think people know a shampoo won't give them an orgasm.  I think one man's bullshit is another man's not-bullshit-thing.  My wife gets the expensive shampoo, but she also has a lot more hair than I do.  I know intelligent, reasonable people who don't like to read books.  They think I've bought into some kind of reading bullshit.  Just look at those big Barnes and Noble stores, making all those sheep think that books will make them smart or something.   I'm a beer guy and I actually feel like a pretentious tool when I spend a few bucks more to get some obscure brand that I like.  So I know people must think I've bought into some kind of craft beer elitist bullshit, but hey, I like the stuff.

When I spoke of commercialized non-conformity, I was talking about all the ads from the eighties and nineties which implied that one could be rebellious by buying something. (e.g. Hot Topic) The internet has broken the stranglehold that big business formerly held on culture. It is a very bad thing when corporate executives get to decide what the public gets to experience. Sure lots of people will stick to mainstream media, but now, more than ever, people can experience the whole spectrum of human expression. And corporate interests, as DDog quite rightly pointed out, are making lots of money off of amateur culture, but the point is they're not deciding what gets made.

I agree completely.  I always thought it was funny that my hipster friends were so into Mtv.  And Apple.  Though instead of "corporate executives get to decide what the public gets to experience" I would say "corporate executives try to guess what the public wants to experience."  But the end result was the same, wasn't it.  And now the corporations are feeling it with decreased music sales and movie attendance. 

On a side note, let's remember that big corporations are often forces for evil and that corporate capitalism has a bloody history. It may be the most efficient economic system, but it sure as hell isn't the most equitable.

Which is the most equitable?  <--non rhetorical question.
I'm not going to say that capitalism doesn't have blood on its hands, and doesn't continue to bloody them, but I would argue that historically it has done (and is doing) more good than harm.  The negative aspects tend to get more attention. 

[Chodon]

I think you and I are arguing the same point, wakela: it doesn't make sense to be pissed at corporations.  They're trying to make money, just like the rest of us, and they do a lot of good while they're making money.  All they are doing is trying to fill the needs of consumers. 

A marketing professor of mine told me a little marketing secret that I'm going to share with all of you: the key to being successful as a business is to find what the customers want and then give it to them.  That's it.  Everyone wins in that situation.  The customer gets what they want and the business makes money.  I don't care what anyone says, no corporation is powerful enough to change what people want.  The trick of marketing finding what people really want.  There are a few unchanging things people want: sex, acceptance, sex, popularity, sex, individuality.  That's where things like the shampoo commercial come into play.  They're telling you, "If you buy this shampoo it will fill your need for sex."  Is that bad?  I don't think so.  Especially for $3.99 a bottle.

Corporations are like people.  There are good ones and bad ones.  The key is to be an educated consumer and get past the bullshit to understand what you're really buying, if it really will fill a need of yours, and if you want to support the kind of business they are.

[qwints]

I don't care what anyone says, no corporation is powerful enough to change what people want. 

1. De Beers
2. Coca Cola
3. Cigarettes

Not to mention the fashion industry and the automobile industry. Not that the changing of people's tastes is necessarily a bad thing, but since at least the beginning of the twentieth century the business world has shaped its consumers. I suppose you could argue that no one company ever controls its consumers (though Apple does come to mind), but there is no way you can argue that people's wants have not been changed by marketing.

I want to make it clear that I rarely see anything sinister in this. I'm inclined to follow Veblen and say that conspicuous consumption is just a part of human nature. If people didn't try to keep up with the Jones's by buying bigger TV's they might do it by having more elaborate wigs. BUT, in our current system, big companies have a lot of influence on how we spend our discretionary income (which is another way of saying they change the things we want.)

Which is the most equitable?  <--non rhetorical question.

I would argue that the modern welfare state, as represented by the Scandinavian countries, is probably the most equitable. I'm really not that radical when it comes to economics, I would basically like to see free enterprise with a strong social safety net.

[Chodon]

1. De Beers

Men have always retrieved shiny things so their women could adorn themselves and look better than the neighbors.  Why do men do this?  So women will have sex with them.  It's like that family guy episode: "Diamonds.  She'll pretty much have to."  DeBeers simply supplies the diamonds for us and we pay money.  They didn't make people want diamonds.

2. Coca Cola

This could go a couple ways.  Coca Cola was originally a health tonic.  Who doesn't want to be healthy?  Also, most people like a sweet, fizzy, cold drink.  Coca cola gives people that for a small price.  Plus their marketing folks add in all the pop culture crap so people think it will not only taste good, but it will make you cool.  The last one is BS, but people don't seem to care or notice.

3. Cigarettes

This one is purely image.  As previously stated, people want to look cool.  I used to smoke, and I started because I (stupidly) thought it made me look cool.  I'm sure to some people it did.  I was a big fan of the filterless lucky strikes for this reason (no sense being half-assed about killing myself, right?  No filters?  That's so cool!).  People are going to do all sorts of stupid things to gain the approval of their peers.  Tobacco companies are just filling that need in people to look cool.

No marketing campaign has ever been successful without convincing people it fills a basic need they already have.  Marketers may be good, but no matter how hard they try if they can't tie a product to a basic need it won't sell.

[qwints]

No marketing campaign has ever been successful without convincing people it fills a basic need they already have.  Marketers may be good, but no matter how hard they try if they can't tie a product to a basic need it won't sell.

Fair enough. I'll grant that marketing tends to appeal to basic tastes as opposed to creating them, but there is no denying the diamond engagement rings, wants and cigarettes were all products that people were persuaded to buy. Is this sinister? Not really. I still think that there is important difference between appealing to a basic drive and creating a new product though maybe I'm wrong and it's a distinction without a difference.

[Tango Alpha Delta]

I want to "disclaim" these remarks as rambling and soul-searching rather than arguments... this is an issue I've wrestled with a bit, and haven't really come up with satisfactory answers to.  Basically, I think I agree with what Wakela said; that there is a lot of corporate bashing going on.  And that is part of the culture, perversely enough. 

To point to music, again, look at the whole Punk movement.  The point of it was to eschew "mass appeal", and yet a number of bands came out of it with just that.  Who hasn't at least heard of the Sex Pistols, the Clash, or... (I hesitate to mention them as punk, but) ... Green Day.  As a music consumer, I don't really care about their background or their ambitions -- whether they are "pure" means nothing to me if they are boring or don't have anything to say that I care about.   So, I listen to what I care about, and some of my dollars find their way into Sony's coffers... if they made it possible for me to hear a song like "Minority", shouldn't they reap that much reward?

There are some absurdities that bother me; I refuse to buy any Beatles music as long as Michael Jackson benefits financially from it.  But no one has time to chase down the economic repercussions of every choice they make, and being "self-sufficient" in a meaningful way is simply not an option with a planetary population like ours.  (More to the point, my family and I aren't willing to pay the price of being "self-sufficient"; see The Mosquito Coast if you don't understand why.)

Nihilhism has its appeal, of course, as does anarchy; especially when news about another Enron or another political scandal hits.  I guess Tom Waits' speech in The Fisher King affected me pretty deeply.  But at the end of the day, I know how long I would survive without society there to protect me, feed me, and provide internet connectivity.

And as long as they behave themselves, I have no problem with corporations providing just that.  Is THAT bad?

[FNH]

Corporate bashing?

I wasn't corporate bashing.  Simply they've controled the culture for 20 odd years, and I see the internet as freeing us from their control.  It gives us choice they dont decide upon.  I can now see movies, read books, enjoy audio that no corporate has made has ever decided THEY want to market.  Previously there was only what they chose to offer.

[Tango Alpha Delta]

Corporate bashing?

I wasn't corporate bashing.  Simply they've controled the culture for 20 odd years, and I see the internet as freeing us from their control.  It gives us choice they dont decide upon.  I can now see movies, read books, enjoy audio that no corporate has made has ever decided THEY want to market.  Previously there was only what they chose to offer.

Well, look at it another way... we've always had some kind of patronage system; J.S. Bach had Frederick of Prussia, the Beatles had Parlophone, the Warped Tour had Vans... I guess the question is, how do you propose to get the music, arts, etc. that you want without some kind of patronage system in place?  Think about our "corporate" system in comparison with:
* medieval patronage - find a court, and curry to that court's tastes, musically AND politically
* village bard - elevate the position of a musician or storyteller to something like leader/counselor/judge
* Communist state - the State will tell you who may play, what to play, what to write, and how to write it
* Stalinist state - play until you are out of favor... then if you're lucky, your population will be relocated somewhere hospitable

The corporate business model has its benefits; you can make a steady living at it, and you don't even have to be very creative.

I can see what you're saying... I, too, enjoy finding good stuff that the corporations turned their nose up at.  But at the end of the day, how much chaff do you have to go through that way before you find some wheat?  Maybe that's where social networking like we are doing here, and on sites like last.fm, will take the place of all of that corporate marketing.  Or maybe Amazon will just absorb the new tools into their marketing strategy...

[Tango Alpha Delta]

Speaking of new business models:   Check this new thread.

[wakela]

OK, sorry for the the anti-anti-corporate rant back there. 
With that out of the way I do agree that the internet makes it possible to publish without having to go through an intermediary, and that that is a good thing. 

I can see what you're saying... I, too, enjoy finding good stuff that the corporations turned their nose up at.  But at the end of the day, how much chaff do you have to go through that way before you find some wheat?  Maybe that's where social networking like we are doing here, and on sites like last.fm, will take the place of all of that corporate marketing.  Or maybe Amazon will just absorb the new tools into their marketing strategy...

I think we, as a society, will be turning to gatekeepers or arbiters of taste more and more.  We will pay (with money or attention) people to sort through the chaff and serve us the wheat.  If you don't like what you are being served you can always find someone with tastes more like your own.  This is basically what blogs like Boing Boing do.  Of course, that means that people submit to Boing Boing in hopes of getting linked to, so maybe it's not that different.  But at least a rejection from Boing Boing doesn't mean that something won't be published.