Consumed is Rob Walker's New York Times Magazine column about consumer behavior, consumer culture, products, marketing, design, and all things consumed.
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 Murketing
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In The New York Times Magazine: “Hoarders”
19 December 2009, 4:57 am |
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In The New York Times Magazine: Blu Dot’s Real Good Chair promotion
5 December 2009, 9:24 am |
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Bad taste?
4 December 2009, 4:54 pm |
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Performance art and soap operas
4 December 2009, 10:50 am |
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The Product Is You, No. 17
3 December 2009, 6:53 pm |
Notes
Favorite Pages
Consumed The Awl is publishing an '00s wrapup and asked for thoughts. Here's my bit.
www.theawl.com
Just the other night I was watching Anderson Cooper's variety show on CNN, and right before a commercial break, Mr. Cooper showed about seven seconds of
Consumed Dan Ariely posts about a study finding that spending on a gift for others brings more happy than spending on yourself.
www.predictablyirrational.com
When we make decisions we think we're in control, making rational choices. But are we? Dan Ariely unmasks the subtle but powerful tricks our minds play on us.
Rebecca Wolkenstein read your 'hoarder's' piece. my sister has a weird job - she works for the public trustee and part of her job is to go to dead peoples houses to search for their last will and testament. she has come across more than her fair share of hoarders and from all her stories, the most simple and reasonable explanation I can f...ind for this phenomenon is loneliness which seems to turn into mental illness over time. But loneliness is definitely in these rooms.
Consumed Tomorrow's column is about the TV show "Hoarders." "There's something kind of Joycean about watching a hoader," a producer suggests. Interesting the show has caught on now, at a time when the whole culture seems to be struggling with its relationship to objects and things.
www.nytimes.com
A TV reality series suggests the thin line between our national consumer frenzy and psychopathology.
Consumed A Bill McKibben essay argues that what has made us independent and self-sufficient individuals has also made us alienated from community. "Research has shown that when we live on car-filled streets, our number of close friends drops by half." I'd like to know more about that research. Interesting read.
www.orionmagazine.org
We're going to need a lot more than the occasional cup of sugar from our neighbors if the predicted future comes to pass.
Consumed Jesse Thorn of The Sound of Young America, and Adam Lisagor, have a new project called Put This On, "a web series about dressing like a grownup." A recent facet has been asking "men we like what one item they'd like as a gift." Kurt Andersen, Marc Maron, etc. Oddly, they asked me as well.
putthison.com
Kurt Andersen is the host of Public Radio International’s Studio 360, a wonderful weekly look at culture and the arts. He’s also an accomplished journalist (having written for publications ...
Consumed The story of the shopping cart.
contexts.org
Sociological Images encourages people to exercise and develop their sociological imaginations with discussions of compelling visuals that span the breadth of sociological inquiry.
Consumed This video of 9-year-olds recapping the highlights of the 2000s from their point of view has gotten a lot of play, but it does have some interesting moments if you haven't seen.
vimeo.com
Consumed No Consumed column today, btw. But the Magazine's Ideas issue is pretty amazing. Recommended. Meanwhile also there was this pretty interesting story about middleman companies designed to help people get onto reality TV shows. Poignant, really.
www.nytimes.com
As the reality genre has thrived, so has the cottage industry of online talent scouts that serve it.
Consumed This is worth reading, particularly the final section.
www.eff.org
Five months after it first announced coming privacy changes this past summer, Facebook is finally rolling out a new set of revamped privacy settings for its 350 million users. The social networking site has rightly been criticized for its confusing p...
Consumed Not sure why I find this amusing but here is The White Shoe Blog. It is a blog about white shoes.
twsb.net
Welcome to TWSB (The White Shoe Blog). Everyday a new shoe will be posted and discussed. Why? Because I love white shoes. Within each post I will post pictures and describe a bit about the shoes design and what I like about it.
Consumed P&G unveils "Swash," a line of "on the go" laundry products, to be sold, for some reason, only online. It's "targetted to Gen Yers," and product names include "Smooth It Out," and "Fresh It Up." This article says the latter comes in two scents, "At Large," and "Posse." Silly?
cincinnati.bizjournals.com
P&G releases online-only product
Consumed Just received this bit of linkbait. Now linking. [Thx a.w.]
www.pastemagazine.com
From 2000's Emo to 2009's Meta-Nerd, we revisit the last decade of hipster-dom.
Consumed Ad Age's Jack Neff says a "new-product surge" is coming in 2010.
adage.com
Package-goods marketers are promising bigger, better and more plentiful innovation and new products in 2010 than 2009.
Consumed Several weeks back I did a column (http://bit.ly/3mUyHr) on sites like Gilt and RueLaLa, which take the sample sale concept online. Today NYT has a front page story with more on this web-retail sector.
www.nytimes.com
More sample sales are moving online as new private-sale sites have become a thriving corner of online commerce.
