Good day, Thursday. Hope all of my fellow tribe members are enjoying some apples and honey and reflecting on the year to come. I have to start cooking soon (yes, cooking) but had a thought last night that I felt was worth sharing- and that is: we have all gone crazy and cuckoo for everything "real and authentic"- and I wonder whether or not we have lost our ability to dream.
If you, like me, have spent a career in advertising, you would know that everyone, everywhere is talking about authenticity, transparency, and things needing to feel "real". You can't make an ad these days that does not have that in the brief, or most of them anyway. Sure the biggest brands have gotten hip to the fact that in order to make real connections with consumers, they need to speak their language, not try to fool them with bullshit, and show things the "way they are". But I keep going back to the fact that all of this realness is a construct- in other words, it ain't real. And all of our social media status updates fall into that category too- they are our own edited and carefully curated views of "real" life, and we are all completely intolerant of anything that does not feel authentic in this age of organic everything, Wall Street villainry, lies, deceit, and dirty pool.
But maybe you're feeling like I do, and you're craving a little element of fantasy. In the good old days, people would go to movies to escape, to feel something, to share in a fantasy that was very clearly not their own lives. Yea documentaries fit the bill when we needed something real, but what on Earth is wrong with indulging a little fantasy from time to time? And although I'm not a super fan of Lady Gaga's, I love how she indulges that fantasy side, that side that feels otherworldly and escapist. We need that right now, don't we? After all, what's '"real" nowadays is frankly pretty terrible. I was working on a project of late that required me to look ahead to 2012, and I gotta say- it's pretty freaking terrifying out there, regardless of whether you're a end of days type. And think about Obama's campaign and what made him so successful with voters- he talked about "hope", a platform that allo
wed our minds to wander to a better time, to fantasize of what life would be like without GW in the White House. Did he deliver? Not exactly, but I love that he rallied people around belief and hope for a better future.
My sister and I have often talked about how you may never know what's really happening in peopl'es lives, how they can seem so perfect but are often so messed up. She is a person that absolutely despised the era of the 50s, even though she did not live through it nor did I. She thinks it was all a bunch of crap and a sham- the smiling housewife, the spanking new appliances, the post war era of America. Maybe it was, but it was also a time of hope, of change, and a country post a major world war, who were living what we now know as the ill fated American dream. I for one do not live anywhere near Pleasantville in my mind, but I'm not opposed to a little idyllic disbelief right now. It's too damn "real" out there, and I need a break.
I suppose that's why I love fashion so much- true I am an advocate of wearable clothes, but watching a brilliant runway show or looking at ads in magazines takes me somewhere else sometimes, and I am a girl with a vivid imagination who prefers to be carried away than to be constantly in "real life". And I still have dreams- the most brilliant people that affect culture are those that dream, that take us somewhere else with their brilliance, and that get swept up in what could be, and not what is. I'll leave the reality for the rest of the folks that feel rudderless without it- because we need them too, after all. And there is great beauty in the real as well, I'm not dismissing a stripped down ideal that is pure and simple. Just don't forget to be "unreal" from time to time- it keeps you inspired and fresh and more equipped to deal with "real life", whatever that may be for you, me, or them. Cause that's what's up this fantasy of a Thursday in the MIA. XO