You, know I wrote this essay, a while back, but deleted it, it just did not have the tone and/or register I was looking for, so here we go, again.
There was a time when a friend of mine used to look at the word fear as an acronym for something, I forgot how it starts, but it ends with, 'appearing real', I could never remember what the f and the e, stood for, do you?
Anyway, I am a smoker. I want to at some point cut down, not quit, I never gonna quit, but, why is that then the 'anti-smoking' campaigns are trying to 'scare' me into quiting? How is that going to help? I don't react well to threats, in fact I become an arrogant, stubborn bastard. No man in this entire planet can demand that I submit by force, only reason, which I will substitute with my own (hello, Suave).
Now that 'fear factor' is everywhere, we all know of the 'documented' (Michael More) cases of the American Government using fear to 'argue' for war in Iraq, right, but, come to think of it, that's everywhere.
Beauty. Hey, did you know the entire world spends more money of beauty products than we do on Aid? Anyway, beauty products are marketed in the same way? If you don't get rid of you pimples nobody is going to fuck you (quoted form Marlyn Manson's interview on 'Bowling for Colombine').
Health. If you don't brush your teeth, nobody is going to kiss you? If don't eat your green's you are going to be fat. But if you are fat, you need to the gym so nobody makes fun you, so you can fit in those size something pants or dress. If you do go to gym, you might want to get a six-pack or rock-solid abs so you can look like Janet Jackson, otherwise you will look like shit.
Oh, once you have that, rock-solid stomach, you might wanna wear that with those tight as pants by Gucci, that way you look successful, sexy, powerful, wanted, needed, celebrated, desired, but wait, you do not want to be perceived as being materialistic, so you will rock those pants with t-shirt of Steve Biko from Stone(d) Cheri, to state the fact you are proud of your heritage and you are down to earth?
What are we so afraid of? What will people say? I agree with this in the context of a social agreement to live together, but people will say what they want to say, be it true or imagined, they have recourse to do so (read: constitution).
So, people think you are a looser? Are you a looser? If you are, then why worry? If you are not, why worry, coz you are not, right? Otherwise, it seems as if you are reacting to a perceived idea of what you are, which is based on another perceived idea of what people think of you, which of the two are you able to change, focus on that.
I am not Dr. Phil, but I'll tell you what, anything based on fear is bad, because form my knowledge of biology, fear pushes us to react into two ways, fight or flight. So we either fight what ever is causing the fear, or we run away from it, and just sometimes, our root cause of our fear, is our perception of our who we are in this world.
So, do we run away from who we are, our reality, or do we fight for what we think we are?
I say fight, more blood, more action, what is that saying, 'if it bleeds, it reads/leads'? Yeah, no PG13, we want violence, nudity, sex and most importantly bad foul dirty language.
I suppose we cannot blame the advertising industry for using our basic human condition of fear and the pursuit to survive as an angle to get us to buy those pills with jojobo plant in them.
But using fear to sell a product, isn't that extortion, isn't that what le Mafia terms, 'an offer you cannot refuse'?
Moreso isn't it ironic that all the perceived (my new favourite word) bad products do not use fear to advertise, as in alcohol, cigarettes (hell they can't even advertise), drug dealers don't/can't advertise, not even the fat-filled food maker McDonald's.
I will return to this, later, right now I need coffee and I have to finish that dope ass beat I have in my head.