...The privileged would outdo us leather seated and air conditioned proles by granting themselves the use of a private jet And the jet set would move into space tourism. It's like a giant human pyramid with some Arab sheik at the top and his emirate's Bangladeshi workforce at the bottom.
Admittedly that is more to do with the allure of American Apparel's provocative in-house advertising than actual aspirationalism. As admirable as chauvinists would regard the notion of attractive women riding bicycles in their underwear, Queen went there in the 1970s, and the bikini bottom was supposedly edited in (but not "Photoshopped" in, they didn't have that technology yet) due to retailers being a bunch of prudes. Obviously that's why more men cycle than women. Either that or Fear.
This is a previous Charlie Brooker clip on the subject from a while ago:
And of course television adverts are the origin of this. In the old days adverts looked like this:
Yes, we *know* how important dental hygiene is, but satisfaction short-termism (you can drink Coke now) will trump health long-termism, unless one were to re-brand drinks with added sugar as being the most utterly monstrous and socially unacceptable thing imaginable, or at the very least something that was tainted by association with something else that was monstrous and socially unacceptable (did you know that Fanta originated in Nazi Germany?). But realistically that isn't going to happen, we like to do what feels right at the moment (eg drinking shots, or for the true pissheads, going through the whole vodka bottle) without paying too much attention to what might happen in the future in regards to our health.
Back to our theme of aspirationalism and we can see how advertising has progressed from a seemingly scientific exhalation of how the product benefits you, (although we still see examples of that with cosmetics that are far more dubious than most toothpaste adverts, and also have beauty which is aspirational) into some kind of totemic symbol of an ideal life, to which an act of consumerism is the key. See this advert from Dolce & Gabbana implying how you can enter a world of glamour with their fragrance.
Most of the above advert does *not* focus on the advertised product, because it could just have easily been an advert for a different company if it was not for the final shot. Indeed, much aspirational advertising is generic in the sense that a fictitious lifestyle scenario is presented that the upmarket item would seem to make possible, or at least, complete. And you can be just as beautiful as Gisele Bundchen, or at least smell like her.
The idea that an advert shows something to aspire to leads me to this, the "Cycle Hero" advert. This was mentioned by Jim of the Lo Fidelity Cycle Club blog as a way not to market cycling but he unfortunately didn't link to it there, or in the other comments where he mentioned it. Well here it is:
I must admit that it is not as "bad" as he had implied, in the sense that only the first cyclist shown is of the superhero costume wearing variety, and they're not wearing the high viz vests that in cultures less inclined to neglect vulnerable road users is the preserve of airport workers. There are a variety of bicycle types shown and some of the riders aren't even wearing helmets, placing them at great risk from unpruned trees. But while this advert clearly shows normal people (even including ethnic tokenism) that we can supposedly relate to, aspirationalism is clearly absent, despite the attempts of Chanel to cash in on "cycle chic". Arab playboys will be racing their supercars round Knightsbridge while you negotiate TfL's sorry excuse for what will apparently become a world class cycling city, if you consider Cambridge to be a geostationary satellite, Munich to be an asteroid, and Utrecht to be orbiting Pluto. What you need in infrastructure terms is this, but what cycling marketing needs (from a young male's perspective) is this:
Admittedly that is more to do with the allure of American Apparel's provocative in-house advertising than actual aspirationalism. As admirable as chauvinists would regard the notion of attractive women riding bicycles in their underwear, Queen went there in the 1970s, and the bikini bottom was supposedly edited in (but not "Photoshopped" in, they didn't have that technology yet) due to retailers being a bunch of prudes. Obviously that's why more men cycle than women. Either that or Fear.
Clearly cycling needs to be marketed as something that is accessible and fashionable, but also as an activity suitable for children which some of the American Apparel advertising isn't. Fortunately, we have sites such as Amsterdamize that do that for us, showing deliriously whimsical scenes that display an utter contempt for British "road safety" scaremongering. The closest we can get to this is a nostalgic look at some students. The fact that they are at one of the most prestigious universities in the world is in aspirational terms countered by the fact that they didn't even have BBC2, and the research computers the university had at the time were quite possibly less powerful than a touch screen train ticket machine. Therefore the ability of youths to waste their time on Farmville or get all the answers on Wikipedia was non existent.
Perhaps we could now look back to the previous point about short term enjoyment vs long term health effects, and I have come to this conclusion:
1) Many things that are bad for our health are enjoyable over the short term but can kill you slowly over time.
2) Cycling is good for our long term health, but there is the unfortunate perception that one could be hurt in the present.
This is why exhalations to do the right thing in the manner of the toothpaste advert fail in the face of what feels dangerous, and therefore will fail to achieve more cycling, because we *know* cycling is good for us, just as we *know* that smoking is bad for us, but knowledge of boring statistical facts does not alter the way we consider cycling to have poor "subjective safety" any more than the links between smoking and lung cancer deter scientifically literate students similar to those in the previous video from having a fag break. We have got rid of large predatory animals that can kill us but we have motor traffic in its place. Of course there are deaths and injuries due to falling down stairs and falling in water, but our primative perception of fear, ignited by lions, tigers, and HGVs, is not active in those situations. Despite Dettol making us fearful of our own kitchens, these invisible germs are not a threat of the kind Neanderthal man had to deal with.
There are two schools of thought - one is that one must adapt to the danger, the other is that one is kept apart from it or the danger is eradicated altogether. Here's a more comprehensive summary that pretty much says what I'm thinking in regards to cycling, but it also applies to road safety - there are road safety groups that emphasise the need to protect oneself and there are road safety groups that deal with what you're trying to protect yourself against (heavy motor vehicles controlled by amateurish individuals who may or may not be concentrating on other tasks). I believe the latter will lead to a less fearful society, because the former represents the status quo which the establishment is too complicit with, despite the fact that traffic fatalities account for far more deaths than something which attracts far more tabloid attention like bird flu.
Another Charlie Brooker clip, this time on fear:
Sleep well children!
