I recently went clothes shopping with my mom and
sister in a quest for a suitable cold-weather wardrobe. While searching for the
perfect pair of jeans, we were intermittently greeted by signs plastered to
walls in designated sections of the store that declared which name brand the
clothing in that particular area belonged to. While I was there, I might have
noticed if brand “A” was having a sale on a certain item, or if a coat in brand
“B’s” territory was of a popular fashion. But one thing that did not occur to
me until much later was that something very important had been missing; the
true producers of the denim I now wear were nowhere to be seen. Sure, the jeans
may be stamped with their “creator’s” imprinted name on the tag or pocket, but
it is highly unlikely that the “creator” actually stitched together a single
pair of their jeans, let alone every item on their shelves. Rather, countless
workers and machines at a factory bearing the “creator’s” name made the clothes,
piecing and sewing together each item and its identical siblings which were
then purchased by me and other consumers who probably never gave thought to the
behind-the-scenes effort it took to produce their clothing.
In
recent years, our society has become ignorant of the skill and work put into
making the products we consume. Before the onslaught of mass-production, it was
commonplace for an individual to know the people who produced the goods they
consumed, because the producers were usually present in both the creation and
sale of their products. As it was found to be more convenient to mass-produce
and sell products to a greater population of consumers, large corporations’
wares appeared in an increasing number of stores. This expanded the number of sales
but eliminated the relationship between an item’s maker and its buyer. The
narrator in the movie Fight Club effectively
sums up the flippant attitude of many a present-day American consumer when he
describes a new purchase he made while furnishing his apartment: “I had it
all. Even the glass dishes with tiny bubbles and imperfections, proof they were
crafted by the honest, simple, hard-working indigenous peoples of... wherever.” When the personal connection relating a producer to a
consumer is severed, the consumer’s recognition of the producer is also lost. If
an individual or business creates a product and sells it in person rather than
sending it to various locations to be sold anonymously, the idea that work and
skill are behind the product are easily apparent to the consumer. However,
although mass-production can be a less costly way to sell a product, it often warps
a consumer’s unconscious perception of where their purchases come from and
leads to a mindset wrapped around the item itself instead of how it was made.
In other words, if the producer of an item does not readily appear to the
consumer as directly related to their product, they will likely be overlooked.
Our culture’s
transformation from being consumers of mostly small-business’ goods to buying
many of our products from larger corporation has also led to a loss of social
individuality, particularly in house wares and clothing. When many styles of a
product are available for purchase, each product will likely be very similar if
not identical to every other of that style, leaving behind the potential for
uniqueness which comes with products that are made one or a few at a time. As
Henry David Thoreau points out in his book Walden:
“The head monkey at Paris puts on a traveler’s cap, and all the monkeys in
America do the same.” The mass-production and popularity of a certain fashion are
precisely what steal its individuality, and the one who wears or uses it isn’t
the owner of a special item so much as they are one of many consumers of the
same product.
To be
fair, the mass-production of some products can make them both more affordable
and attainable. For instance, many basic, commonly-purchased wares would not be
nearly so widespread in availability if they were not manufactured and
distributed in large numbers. Also, the financial efficiency of producing items
in bulk can often help reduce their sale price. However, having taken all of
this into consideration, a consumer may be left wondering if it is worth the
price to pay less; i.e. if mass-production destroys much of the appreciation
for and individuality of a product, will its lowered cost make up for the
item’s lowered intrinsic value? The decision, of course, is solely each
consumer’s, and should reflect how important they personally find the knowledge
of their purchase’s origin and its financial cost to be in relation to each
other.
Though
we were once at the mercy of whatever our local manufacturers produced,
corporations’ use of mass-production has enabled an immense variety of the
types and sub-types of products we have come to expect to be found in numerous
locations, while widening the gap between producer and consumer. Whether we
individually feel it more valuable to purchase a cloned item from an unknown
source or a somewhat rarer (though not as readily available) specimen directly
from the people who physically created it, it is clear that our society has
undergone a dramatic shift in how we usually acquire our products. On a
personal note, no matter from where I obtain my next purchase, it will not be
with the naïve idea that if the product I buy has been manufactured with innumerable
duplicates it remains exclusively “mine”. Nor will I take an item home with the same
complete disregard for its origin that blinded me in the past. And, if I’m very
lucky, I just might be able to shake the hand of its creator.
