Portraits of our Economic Meltdown #6 - What the Hell Dell?

Folks, I am beat. Worn out. I have been trudging through the annals of human history all night, hoping against hope that I could find a case of a more idiotic example of consumer insanity than the new Dell Adamo. I nearly used the granddaddy of all three letter cyber-swears today for the first time ever, WT*. Distraught as I am, I will remain a good Christian and will refuse to use foul acronyms.

Seriously. I am really sorry. I know this is super negative. But I almost gave up today. Let it be known that on the 10th of March in the year 2009, I -- the 100 Thing Challenge guy -- nearly threw up my hands into the air and gave up the fight for sanity in our certifiable consumer culture.

Instead, I will battle on. But now I march forth as one who goes to war without hope, like Gandalf and Aragorn and Merry and all the company of warriors with them rode to Mordor's gate without hope, yet faced the Mouth of Sauron even in their despair. Today I saw our despair. It is the advertising campaign for the new Dell Adamo computer.

Look, for some odd reason people like Dell computers. That's fine. I like Apple computers. Who cares? Honestly, who cares? Sure, it is a known fact that Apple makes better computers than Dell, and it is provable in a thousand ways that Mac OS is better than Windows. That is hardly the point here. I can see how some people would be more comfortable using a PC; even that some people would consider a PC to be a better computer than a Mac. I can imagine that, even though I cannot myself agree. It is just a computer. A computer.

But please. For the sake of good taste. For the love of humanity. For what hope is left on earth -- our environmentally abused, war ravished, impoverished world. In deference to the millions of people unemployed, screwed over by the greedy mismanagement of an insatiable economy that is now in "free fall" despite Citi's phony profit report today. Please. Is it possible Dell that you can treat consumers like intelligent human beings who care about life and family -- anything other than unbridled narcissism? Please Dell, can you please treat women with more dignity than to suggest that they would truly dress up in designer prom gowns and caress your Adamo as if they were in the pay of Max Mosley?

Hold on. Wait just one minute. I just thought of something. Maybe I have been duped. Maybe the Dell Adamo love story is sophisticated advertising irony, and I have lived in the suburbs for too long and therefore don't get it. Please, someone tell me that I do not get it.

Please. Please. Please...

Comments

[Stephanie]

But Dave, don't you WANT to fall in love with an inanimate object that will make you feel good for the first few days until you realize that you are making payments for your computer? Don't you want to feel posh and the envy of all your friends? In all honesty, it looks like Dell is trying to tap the last niche market that may be available for the computing world... a luxury market. Dell is desperate.

A word of caution to anyone out there, once you get on Dell's marketing list, GOOD LUCK getting off of it! I have contacted them AT LEAST 4 times!!! I switched to Apple and I just didn't want the environmental impact associated with getting all their junk mail at my house. Apparently Dell doesn't care.

I give you a thumbs up on this rant. It needed to happen.

[Somebody]

Yes, you've been duped... into the service of advertising. Of course, the whole purpose of a custom-built teaser campaign is to build up hype (in the blogosphere, tweetosphere, wherever), and you're spreading it. (I wouldn't know the whole thing existed were it not for you.) But not to worry, we are not doomed to be mindless slaves to advertising. ;-)

*

Yet I'll have to repeat what I've said earlier. People crave for (perceived) quality, glamour, etc. etc. We desire something "special", something to call our own. This isn't wholly negative. We all need something that makes us us. (In my opinion this is the essence of being human, but see more on the identity question below.) It doesn't have to be stuff though.

Materially, the (real) quality of "stuff" isn't a primary problem. The quantity of "consumption" (literal) is. (I've no data on Dell, but e.g. Apple's new computers apparently consume less and produce less waste, per unit, and there are also other examples of using resources sparingly. This is actually a good thing, but what it doesn't mean is that we all should rush in and get new computers ASAP.)

Emotionally, philosophically, we have to take responsibility. It is us who will decide whether we will hang our identity on craving for "more, more, more", yet never attaining it, or whether we can say "enough".

*

I'm saying that I think I understand your reaction, even despair. I know, we all have days like that. But I'll risk saying that you just might have blown it (ever so slightly) out of proportion. And I know, that, too, happens. :-)

At any rate it's a good rant, and for that I thank you.

*

What I'm most of all saying is that there is hope. Only we can decide whether we allow consumerism to define us, or whether we choose to define our consumption.

So you are right, "it is just a computer". Nothing more, nothing less. Just like most stuff in the world is just stuff. And regardless of how Dell chooses to advertise it, only we can (and must, I'm afraid) decide what to make of it, with it, without it, irony or not. In the end it is us, not Dell, who need to treat ourselves as intelligent human beings, not as mindless consumers.

*

"I do not bid you despair" - for "it is not our part to master all the tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the succour of those years wherein we are set, uprooting the evil in the fields that we know, so that those who live after may have clean earth to till."

[Su]

Rampage away... unfortunately, such advertising is not limited to Dell.

[barriss]

sometimes it IS good to just use a 3-l-a and just move on...