Imlisanen Jamir
It is difficult to not notice a shift in the way businesses and advertisements address their customers. The tag lines read something like ‘You are the most important customer I will serve today.’ This emphasis on "YOU" can be seen from a distance, irritating those who realize that they aren’t truly important to the salespeople or the company. It resembles phrases such as "your call is important to us," which fails to provide enough operators to handle incoming calls, leaving customers stuck in a holding pattern accompanied by elevator music.
Menus now offer ‘your choice;’ but whose choice could it be other than the person making the selection? It seems that the menu merely limits the options to what they decide to include. Similarly, the television claims, ‘We report. You decide.’ But what exactly are we deciding on? Are we truly participating in the decision-making process, or is it an illusion created to make us feel involved?
In today's corporatized world, "YOU" are frequently placed in the driver's seat, and the focus is on catering to individual needs.
Perhaps the scale of global problems and the rise of mass-society populism have necessitated this excessive appeal to the individual's supposed specialness. Advertisements tell us what we can do to stop planetary warming, how the maximum leader is on our side, and how corporations have our needs in mind as they make their decisions.
Politicians claim to want to hear our views, albeit sometimes with a lesser degree of flattery and salesmanship. We are enticed to visit completely standardized food outlets where we can create our own salad and dessert from a pre-selected range of tasteless ingredients.
The pervasive use of "YOU" in marketing and advertisements reflects an attempt to make individuals feel important and catered to. However, we must be discerning and recognize when this emphasis on individuality is genuine or simply a manipulation tactic. It is crucial to maintain a critical perspective and engage with the world beyond our own desires and interests. Only then can we navigate the complexities of contemporary society with a more balanced and informed approach.
So, what happened to ‘Me’? The answer is that it simply evolved into an age focused on another narcissistic pronoun. Which pronoun might that be? I leave it to you to be the judge.
Comments can be sent to imlisanenjamir@gmail.com
