Culture Indistry: Bottled water

HISTORY: The first bottled water was sold in the US by Jackson's Spa in Boston in 1767. The water had supposed therapeutic benefits. In the 1850s bottled water was a status symbol, it was seen as clean and stylish (Elite culture). During this time it was also widely purchased due to fears of typhoid and cholera in municipal water supplies. It hit its big break into the mass culture in the1970s after the development of the PET plastic bottle. The 2000s saw a war between tap and bottled water, and more recently, environmental concerns have led to the creation of much lighter plastic bottles.

There are many aspects that invoke the idea of standardization and pseudo-individualization.  Bottled water is everywhere. You go to any event and you can't get a cup of water or find a bubbler anywhere. In most cases you can't bring your own, so you have only 1 option if you choose to drink water: buy a bottle. We also see bottled water in TV, movies, advertisements, music videos, print ads. Many restaurants now ask you if you want water from the tap or bottled.

Pseudo-individualization comes from thousands of water brands available worldwide. Check out this site that lists the world's bottled waters. I was astounded at the numbers. There are numerous types: spring, purified, artesian, well, glacial, deep sea, rain, and iceberg....BUT it's all just WATER. This artifact is a prime example of commodity fetishism. A bottle of Poland Springs costs 1/4 of Voss, and as such it's perceived as better. While there are subtle differences in mineral content and acidity, there is no reliable data proving one is necessarily better than another.

This example contributes to distracting us from authentically changing the world and reinforces our connection with popular culture by just existing. Plastic is becoming a global problem. There is far more in existence than will ever disintegrate or be recycled. Advances in public water systems and filtration systems worldwide have reduced the need for bottled water and yet as Americans, we are addicted to it. It's not much more difficult to use a reusable water bottle and fill it as you go, but we don't. Purchased water bottles carry a warning on the back to not refill them, contributing further to the problem. Much of the world is addicted to convenience and we don't make lasting, meaningful changes unless forced to do so.



Sources:
https://myownwater.com/blog/history-of-bottled-water

Old Song, New Riffs

Music has existed since the dawn of recorded history, but the music industry didn't become lucrative until people could own music. Vinyl records gained popularity around the 1950s/1960s and required listeners to purchase expensive turntable and speaker equipment. The LP era lasted until the rise of cassettes in the 1990s, which boasted portability and affordability. All a person needed was a Walkman, headphones, and, if they were lucky, a cassette player installed in their car. Next came sleek CDs in the 2000s, and yet another equipment upgrade-- trade that Walkman for a portable CD player, but hang onto those headphones! Later in the 2000s came the dawn of the digital era. Music fans shelled out $200+ for iPods and paid around 99 cents per song (or found free downloads on shadier parts of the web) on iTunes, but the transition meant no physical harm could come of the music. Today, subscription-based streaming reigns supreme. US listeners can choose from three major options: Spotify (free with an annoying commercial every six songs, or $9.99/month), TIDAL ($9.99/month for the basic option, or $19.99 for hi-fi), or Apple Music ($9.99/month or $14.99 for a family subscription).

These platform changes reflect technological advances over the last 60-70 years, but all offer the same thing: music. With each generation comes a new means of listening, and new music is released only on the newest platform. Older music usually makes its way to the new platform as well, rendering the older one obsolete. In this way, people can listen to whatever type of music they want-- as long as its with the technological trends. For example, The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band was released in 1967 and has, at some point, been available on every aforementioned platform. Listeners are distracted from real-world change every Friday, when new albums are released, and then talk about it with other music aficionados for the week- until the following Friday. This creates a cyclical style of consumption that keeps people coming back for more. Whether you've been around since the 80s and seen the evolution with your own eyes, or whether you listened to your first song on Spotify, you've got to buy in to keep up. Or you could just listen to the radio.

Beats by Dr Dre Headphones

This week, I am going to discuss a specific brand of popular headphones called, Beats by Dr Dre. Walking into a gym setting you can find many people rocking these fashionable headphones. Beats headphones are supposed to be the best of the best and supposedly keep all other sound out. My brother has two pairs of these so I obviously had to give them a try, and personally I really enjoyed how the music sounded coming out of these, and also how I couldn’t hear a thing from the outside world while wearing them. The headphones are somewhere between $200-500 and they also have a Pro edition that sells for $1200! Beats headphones have become a $1 billion dollar business because of the high demand of customers needing to get their hands on these culture industry products. 

Constantly, new colors, new editions, and new sizes are being produced with higher costs and a better make. They have products like the studio beats, studio wireless, mixr, and solo.  With all these different makes consumers have many options. Headphones themselves are a culture industry with many different brands of headphones with better technology than the rest being released everyday. You have popular brands Apple, Sony, Bose, and Panasonic all competing for you to buy their “better than the other brands” headphones. I do not believe that headphones distract us from a real world change in the sense that these headphones are actually allowing many people to escape their problems and go into a state of relaxation or coping with something and listening to what makes them happy. Not only that but headphones allow a sense of privacy. Beats by Dr Dre create a self-perpetuating reinvestment in popular culture because of the cord that comes with them constantly having to be replaced, and through their marketing strategies targeting kids to want the next best thing that they have came out with.

Module 7 Example: Fitness Trackers

Prompt

Find and discuss examples of the Culture Industry within popular culture. Remember to discuss how the example does most, if not all of the following things:

Provides an abundance of itself in slightly different forms (standardization)

1. Continually produces new version of itself (Pseudo-individualization).
2. Distracts us from real world change. 
3. Socially cements people to their popular culture.
4. Creates a self-perpetuating reinvestment in the popular culture.

In your post, you should do the following

1. Introduce and describe the example that fits in with the Culture Industry concept. Describe what it is and how it exists. (1 paragraph)
2. Identify the aspects of its that invoke the ideas of standardization and pseudo-individualization. (1 paragraph)
3. Explain how this example’s forms of standardization and pseudo-individualization contributes to distracting us from authentically changing the world and reinforces our connection with popular culture. (1 paragraph)

Avoid the following (since they have already been mentioned within the videos:

• Cereal
• Apple iProducts
• Apps
• Video games
• Cars
• Smart phones
• TVs
• Mac vs. PC
• Disposable razors
• Coffee

Relevant Tags:  Frankfurt School, critical studies, culture industry, [your example]

Example:  Fitness Trackers

My own fitness tracker, The Basis

This week, I am talking about fitness trackers.  Many of us have seen or use these items.  They are part of what we call "wearable tech"--devices that we wear that often provide feedback about our physical states.  These products are usually somewhere between $100-200 and fit right into the culture industry.  In this case, they fit into the pop culture phenomenon known as fitness.  

Some may not think that fitness is popular culture, but if we think about it, we find it fits.  After all, fitness is considered a lifestyle choice and if modern life was properly designed to meet our needs, "fitness" wouldn't be needed because we would have it built into lives without a need of gyms, clubs, classes, etc.  Instead, many of us work in employment that gives us little to no consistent physical exercise or encourages directly or indirectly bad eating habits.  Therefore, in our "free time" for entertainment and relaxing, we must inject fitness into it.  Fitness itself is a culture industry certain with different types of gyms (pseudo-individualization: L.A. Fitness, Work-Out-World, Planet Fitness--all three almost right next to each other on Route 1 in Danvers/Peabody), distracting us often from real-world change (creating a life/work environment that perpetuates healthy lifestyle choices), and creates a self-perpetuating reinvestment in popular culture (gym memberships, the push to make work-out clothes fashionable, the insistence on the right gear). 

But for me, I find that wearable tech is my own example since it's been many years since I've gone to a gym.  I own a Basis, which is a fitness tracker.  Some of you may have a Fitbit, Jawbone, Garmin tracker, or some other example.  They all largely do similar things:  track steps, heartbeat, sleep, and other body activity.  And they all come out with new versions (pseudo-individualization--some, like Fitbit, are on their 5-6 generation and have only been around for 8 or so years).  In some ways, they distract us from real-world change in the sense that we can often use fitness trackers as a means of not having to think about or consider why our culture as a whole doesn't make the world more health/fitness focused.  For instance, we privilege the car over walking or biking.  Many towns and cities will have many miles of road with no sidewalks and certainly no bike-lanes, but endless miles of roads.  Instead of focusing our efforts on making places and spaces more walkable or healthy, we chose to spend time and money on devices to make sure we get in enough steps.  Fitness trackers also connect us further with popular culture in that they are often seen on the body and thus become points for discussion or finding others with similar devices.  Such conversations reinforce our investment (and later investment) in our devices.  

Of course, fitness trackers also have a built-in reinvestment in them for several reasons.  The first is that many of them keep all of our data that we generate.  If I've had a Fitbit for two years, then all of my data is accessible on the Fitbit website.  To move away from FitBit or give up the device means I lose access to new data or even the old data that I've generated.  The second way they self-perpetuate reinvestment is that like the iPod and iPhone, they are closed products and therefore, there is no way to replace the ever-dwindling rechargeable battery unless you replace it with another device and of course, by the time that happens, a newer and slightly more pricier version of your fitness tracker is available.  In this way, fitness trackers are a great representation of the Franklin School's critique of the culture industry.