The Century Of The Self (Documentary)

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seiux

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anyone see this? I watched the first of (i believe) 4 parts. so far it's pretty mind-blowing -- it centers around Edward Barnays -- he pretty much invented american consumerism. he literally created the concept in the american consumer that products don't need to be bought based on logic, or needs -- but that products can be bought to make you feel better about yourself. it goes into more detail about the collaboration of big corporations to actually create this mass desire for "stuff" which was neat to see as well.

anyway, it's pretty damn good and I would recommend it for anyone who wants to learn more about controlling masses of people/the history of propaganda in our society. figured there might be some of you on this forum :) it's on google videos:

The Century Of Self Part 1 (of 4) Happiness Machines
 
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You should read even just the first chapter of Propaganda by Bernays. It's a conspiracy theorist's wet dream. It's written in 1928, but reads like it could have been written yesterday.
 
Yeah I saw they mentioned a bunch of his books -- will definitely have to check them out. Honestly I was blown away, I kept having to pause it to kind of let everything sink in. Also, this dude Edward Bernays was a fucking genius. You live in a time where the only reason why people buy shit is because they need it, and you're the first person to think "Hey, maybe people should buy shit because we make them want it".

It's kind of weird to think about now, because we accept and take American consumerism for granted -- it's something that's always existed for us.

Also the parts on communist Germany were pretty wild as well.

Anyway -- going to watch part 2 tonight, will let you guys know what I think.


btw i saw that there was another documentary thread -- but i felt like this one deserved it's own as it was more marketing specific. sorry if i blew it.
 
The first time I watched the century of the self documentary it was almost unreal. This is a must watch documentary for everybody here, it is so cool.
 
It also comes down to PSA ads our own government was running after WWII - that saving was selfish and the American thing to do was spend because it made the economy go and everyone get richer.

It worked great for a little while since Americans were saving way to much right after WWII, all economies have "ideal savings rates" to grow best, usually around 13-18%.

Now we need PSAs that say the opposite.
 
or maybe PSA's that we actually listen to. these guys all actually still had the trust of the population.

another thing that i thought was fucking genius was the whole making cigarettes socially acceptable for women to smoke in public thing.

pretty much they staged this parade of 'debutons' (i think that's another word for "wealthy looking white women"), and gave a tip to the press that these women were suffragettes, and were going to be doing something to signify their independence (or something along those lines).

when the parade started, they all were cued to pull out cigarettes at once and smoke them together -- and the press pretty much blew up the story the next day.

it became a thing like...if you don't support women smoking cigarettes, then you don't support women's rights, and BOOM, cigarettes are socially acceptable for women and their sales skyrocket.


also it's funny that you mentioned manufacturing consent...that's next on the list :)
 
Very good documentary, I'm half way through. I've noted some random quotes, that made me thinking:
"it's not that the people are in charge. it's the people's desires that are in charge"
"trigger those needs and desires"
"tap into deepest desires and fears and use to your own purposes"
 
the other thing that got me thinking from this was the concept that democracy is really a camouflaged tyranny.

so like for example, in your average "tyrannical government" (like nero in rome) the government/some dude just bosses you around and there's nothing you can do about it. it's pretty blunt what's going on but it's control by force, pretty much.

with democracy, it's also tyrannical, but instead of controlling the masses by force, you've conned them all into thinking they have a say in government, into thinking that their opinions really matter in the grand scheme of things and that they have power. when in reality, there's kind of a "man behind the curtain" thing going on and people are just as controlled as they would be by force, but actually willing followers. pretty ridiculous if you think about it.

something to tie into that concept of that is this:

Amusing Ourselves to Death by Stuart McMillen - cartoon Recombinant Records

i'm sure a lot of you guys have seen this comic, but 1984 is pretty much about the traditional "tyrannical" rule by force and a brave new world is pretty much what's happening right now in our society.

anywho, pretty interesting stuff
 
I watched this about 3 years ago and it still rates as one of the best documentary series I have ever seen.

If you liked this you need to check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decadence_(SBS_TV) . It is a 6 part series first shown on Australian TV but I am pretty sure its out there to download from the usual places...

It has a fairly strong anti-consumerism theme but nonetheless is really thought-provoking no matter what your political/economic leanings are.
 
think this is a must watch and "scientific advertising" is a must read, written by Claude C Hopkins the father or direct mail, very fun read also no dry technical language in that one
 
I also saw this in that other thread and decided to check it out.
Ended up watching all parts in the course of about 36 hours. If I didn't have shit to do I probably could have watched them all in a row no problem.

This documentary touches on almost every topic I'm interested in, although the first two parts are far more interesting than the final 2.
 
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