Super work on the questions Sari and Lucy, I particularly like the ones that zoom in on Happiness as an 'agenda':
- Can you think of something you buy to alleviate discomfort?
- Does it work?
- Do you feel a pressure to be happy?
- Are you happy enough?
As we're looking at Happiness, a huge umbrella term, I think we should clarify where we think the pressure to be happy is coming from - namely advertising.
Therefore our questions and overall vision for the project should reflect the tandem between pervasive, explicit advertising of happiness and it's failure to produce a real happiness.
Asking people how advertising makes them feel is crucial, we're not just asking people about unhappiness or discomfort but about the methods and tactics that they encounter everyday. Focusing on advertising will help to narrow the line of questioning and analysis of the answers we receive from interviews.
What do you guys think?
YES.
ReplyDeleteYes to that advert. Well no, but yes!
I think you're right Josh, I think the advertising element is crucial and finding out what people think about it should be on the agenda.
Although advertising has clearly been using happiness as a means of seeing things for a long time, the happiness industry that we see today is a more modern phenomena with the pressure that goes alongside it feeling more prevalent.
Society seems to learn the tricks of advertising slower than the industry comes up with new ones. Mindfulness and happiness seeking was something I was into a few years ago, now it makes me feel uneasy and manipulated. A decade before that I was buying fake tan and straighteners to try and be who I thought I should be.
What's coming next?
To play devils advocate:
ReplyDeleteIs advertising not an extension of capitalist means to make money? If people lack ethics, they will use any means to make money. The lack of morality in advertising is a symptom of capitalism and its inherent need to make money.
I see your point there Joe, and I think also we have to remember how subjective morality is
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