Weirdly enough, my 'shopping trip' started after a Herculean workout nearing three years ago; so after a wipe down, I went to my workstation and removed my bank details from several online stores and cancelled my online banking capabilities.
I envisaged being on a mind-numbing number of databases, my hallucinatory shopping trip involved cartoon clouds with my personal details raining down like no tomorrow; well, if it's in the public domain, you're not protected by a URL padlock... Granted, I wasn't having a break-down, I was liberating myself from the cartoon storage cloud, the problem with clouds is that they invite anything in which can fly. For the dark web this is rich pickings, surely. Prior to this act of online disconnection, I'd got rather too eager at knowing why was I drawn to see what Amazon was suggesting for my next purchase? For the record, I'd never met Amazon, or had an one-night stand with Amazon and conversed clandestinely with the vender - thus, I gauged that the 'all-knowing' powerful consumer engine was tampering with my internal analytical process and purchase decision making. Once I totally disconnected, I sat in silence staring at my monitor, expecting a computerized avatar to appear and inform me: "you've severed connectivity to the new technological world... the men in white coats will be with you in three minutes." Psychologically, I did feel separated from the digital-human, almost not whole, if that was possible. What now? I recall making an extra hot coffee... I sat down at the workstation perplexed still expecting a phone call from the digi-world enforcer, instead I got a random 'PPI' call - within hours I was planning to go shopping for real - as I locked the front door I knew this was the initial step of my dependency.
Obviously, I still use bio-directional media and reside on the internet in a few formats per se... so, I'm not completely disconnected, however, I don't trust the digi-world enough to have a life-long mortgage with her. I say this knowing the major pitfalls of online security. Only recently, 'Yahoo' has casually announced a cyber hack in 2014... two years after the event. There's a disparaging amount of trust behind these flawed consumer systems, odd really because our activity suggests we trust the multi-billion-pound corporation's archaic security more than our spouse or actual people. A numerous of times I've been competing against Wikipedia purely because someone has an educative deficiency, who just cannot configure anything out for themselves - if Wikipedia say's so it must be correct! Avid online consumers are gradually losing the ability to possess internal thought patterns... synapses are getting rusty, our memory depleting alarmingly. At this juncture education will be an incessant download to handheld device, forget writing, it'll be all about tapping at speed; mastering social network platforms, entering the realm of download targets.
The subject of remaking the original in regards to the shopping experience generally gets the silence treatment. I sometimes feel as if I'm broadcasting actual breaking news to those who're unable to define between 'online' and 'offline' consumerism. Shopping is just shopping regardless of methods. Soon, whenever we find ourselves venturing into a real shop we'll be pressing 'imaginative buttons' on the heads of shop staff for assistance, or for product information informing us of the number of items we have in our baskets and to have the option to pop to the check-out at anytime. You may be aware I am worryingly walking among you, and enjoy reality, so having an email confirmation (s) of purchase bought etc, doesn't have the same ooommf than interacting in real-time with real shopping staff nor does it beat the customer satisfaction of walking out of a shopping mall with a tangible object. Although, I suspect the consumer and techno-geeks exploring the 'headset shoppers of the future' which undoubtedly enables consumers to cajole online and offline in tandem, thanks to 'beam-me-up-scotty' know-how; the consumer technology ingenuity will inevitably tip the balance - shop like a headcase!' Who knows, I maybe the only one who is walking the shopping malls looking relatively normal. The old fashion word of clothes will be replaced with the term: skin. Next, I'll witness 'X Factor' contestants a vision of foil skin camp robots, cavorting on stage doing a 'Beyonce' with Walsh saying: "you look like a pop star, you sound like a pop star... with the foil skins... you're cooking."
Starting with Sartre
My local tailors during a business lull have managed to contact me if suits go out of season, I may've already informed them, I'm an advocate for the diligent craft of tailors. Too many business folk give a poor example by wearing ill-fitting suits, Nothing worse than spying an ancient Savoy being put to labour like a beach donkey. One of the down points by purchasing suits online are that the online tailor cannot physically get the tape measure out and give you an approximate suite reading; as far... no touchscreen app can provide this service by simply gliding ones' device over the surface of the torso, inside leg, waist, neck and come up with an accurate reading; let alone cater for underarm leverage and so forth - no app is sensitive to material stroke surface volume (s). I also tend to whiff garments prior to purchasing, well, we don't want any nasty surprises. Ye-s, this is consumer habit but if you were honest this isn't an unusual trait; you can also smell quality; online consumerism doesn't allow for this purchasing power and human interactivity; - smell, sells! Admittedly, clothes are a different beast to a disc or a piece of technology; clothing is altogether incredibly personal; they signify an identity - purchasing a genre of reading material signals a contemplative interest, this is a far cry from finding an identity. Sartre's essay: 'L'Être et le Néant' (1943) strips consciousness to the core - consciousness purely is denoted by tangible objects, according to Sartre's ontology; although. the twenty-first century online shopping disproves Sartre's prose, which begs the question, how did all this commence? I suspect online consumerism is warping reality.
You may recognise the concept of online shopping is 'true' consumer progression, especially for those who're housebound, or have restricted time or mobility - notably here, the opportunities outweigh the pitfalls. However, I am probably one of Sartre's rebels, in the prose of Sartre I am in this instance a 'rebel' - for Sartre's rebels wants the world order and system to remain the same, why I prefer to walk the shopping mall, it's tailor made for me; alas, full of reflective surfaces and coffee shops. Why I am destined to be left behind popping into shops only to be told to go online to do what I wanted to do for real. I can envisage shopping staff would pose as movable mannequinns pointing to URLs, which applies to your 'customary' request; inadvertently, my high street shopping experience is ruined by a hand gesture and a china doll smile - humanity getting sucked into a blackhole of cyberspace controlled by the codec of invisible cogs... lost forever... replaced by an email, referencing... 'your purchase confirmation.' Not forgetting, choosing your drone method of delivery... a fast-track drone or slow groan drone; that's transporting the weight of a calf. I currently have shopping emails still unopened, collecting interactive dust and cobwebs; they're left duly of the view, why read what you already know. But there are extremes, voids of hidden information; technology theorists now openly expose the cyber chasm named: the 'digital wilderness.' Whereby no group can individually map out all the consumer affiliations to the virtual world; proof of how integrated we all are with this pixel dimension; online shopping is solely a pixel of the bigger picture.
As you can configure, I am not at ease with mankind's side-show with virtuality of the premise, it's not just a side-show. Probably why I share the opinion of Brodsky that if we delve deeper into the validity of cyberspace, the further we move away from our core position of humanity. An eerie prospective, indeed... - albeit, I do have hope we're fall from the grace of 'facebook' and embark on actually conversing with each other, one to one, to start with; once we find out a 'Monster Munch' crisp is really pulling all our strings. There's something habitually unsavoury residing beneath 'hyperreality' especially if you find the engine is infinitely sending you clothing suggestions via email; call it a 'Gok Wan gone wrong,' who or what could cope with such an interactive intrusion? Surely not mankind. Nevertheless, I'm reassured our agitated need to reinvent lifestyles and enter into differing realms of consciousness may be our saving grace - 'all that is fluid sets into stone.' Add the chance of a bit of remuneration and before we know it we've morphed into something else entirely, hopefully keeping our humanity in the meantime - fingers and toes crossed. This is the ephemerality of consumerism; by default we're in pursuit of the next 'grand plan,' next new market. Consumerism is impermanent of the notion it's 'expanding' and 'changing' as per usual yesterday's fad will become a byproduct of a certain epoch, just like the train, telephone, bowler hat and Dali moustache.
Savoy Ahoy
My lack of online consumerism may make the chiefs of review platforms murmur in disharmony, but on a positive note, there's a world of consumerism still out there on the high street - waiting for a suited consumer.
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