Being a Consumer in America

Now that the Deviants are relocated to suburbia, I have taken notice of the surroundings. More to the point, I notice what people drive and the things they have. Those who drive Cadillac Escalades and similarly souped up SUVs have always confused me. They have, from their start, seemed decadent and unnecessary.

Today I saw this quote and it really grabbed me. Hence, I will be grabbing the book, soon.

American consumers are often not conscious of being motivated by social status and are far more likely to attribute such motives to others than to themselves. We live with high levels of psychological denial about the connection between our buying habits and the social statements they make.

Most Americans would deny that, by their spending, they are seeking status, in the usual meaning of the word—looking to position themselves in a higher economic stratum. They might point out that they don't want everything in sight, that purchases are often highly selective. Indeed, what stands out most about much of the recent spate of spending is its defensive character. Parents worry that their children need computers and degrees from good colleges to avoid being left behind in the global economy. Children, concerned about being left out in the here and now, demand shoes, clothes, and video games. ... Increasingly overworked, adults need stress-busting weekends, microwaves, restaurants meals, and takeout to keep up with their daily lives. But the cost of each of these conveniences add up.

-Juliet B. Schor, The Overspent American: Why We Want What We Don't Need (1999, Harper Paperbacks)

Courtesy of Treehugger.

Guilty Pleasures: Realized Edition

First, let me say that the call is still out there for your delicious guilty pleasures.

That said, as if to help me get back in the swing of things...

Ages ago when Mrs. Deviant and I first found out that we were expecting BFD (then 3B), we knew we would have to get some gear for the kid. Being in NYC, the hub of all things trendy and new, we saw a lot of folks with Bugaboo strollers. The more we observed, the more we gleaned that there was a total attitude that came with those particular strollers. We quickly determined that we weren't having any part of it.

Back in April, I wrote this little bit about an alternative to the Bugaboo that would both satisfy our need to give our child the best and, at the same time, stick it to those Bugaboo parents. For those of you who are too lazy to follow the link, we got ourselves a Micralite stroller w/ newborn carry cot. Since BFD has been with us, it has served extremely well.

Today, the Mrs. and I decided to take the little man out for a stroll through Prospect Park. We hadn't been there in a while and BFD had yet to debut there. So, off we went with the kid in the Micralite. Brooklyn, it has been said of late, is the new Manhattan. Park Slope, for those of you who don't know the neighborhood, is one of the places that allows people to say that with some degree of validity. And, as you might well guess, there are a ton of Bugaboo strollers to be seen.

While walking the slate cobbled sidewalks of the neighborhood, I noticed Bugaboo parents noticing our Micralite. The look on their faces wasn't so much one of curiosity as it was of subtle yet utter disbelief that they had been out-cooled in the stroller department. My shit eating grin was involuntary and irrepressible. My dream had come true, we had stuck it to those stuck up Bugaboo parents. Totally pleasurable and totally materialistically guilty in that pleasure.

As Dyske Suematsu said in that aforementioned post,

I feel I achieved a higher level of superficiality than anyone else has with a stroller... and about the rush I feel when I walk by Bugaboo owners. I act nonchalantly, like I didn't’t even notice them, and say silently in my head, “Suckers!” Now, I wonder what comes next in my parenthood.

Where My Head Is

This pretty much sums it up:

The Battle of Bugaboo vs. Micralite


When you have a child, you are supposed become wiser and more mature. Not true. You will be surprised by how superficial you can be. Perhaps a child enhances everything good and bad in you, like what MSG does to food. If you have recently had a baby, you would know what Bugaboo is. It is an $800 stroller that is all the rage even among parents who are not so rich. If you are a superficial parent like me, and if you live in New York City, you would notice them everywhere. There is always at least one Bugaboo within your sight. Naturally, I considered buying one myself, but I didn’t want to be just another superficial parent; I wanted to go further. I wanted to be super-superficial. So, I imported a stroller from England called Micralite.

Micralite is actually not as expensive as Bugaboo, but you are not supposed to know that. What matters is perception. It looks cooler than Bugaboo especially since most people in the US have never seen it before. If you own a Bugaboo, you’ve done a thorough research of what else is available. After all, you would feel stupid for paying $800 if there were something else just as good or better for less. You know the brand, model name, and price of every stroller on the market. So, if you come across a stroller that looks cool and if you don’t know what it is, you feel threatened. You need to find out what it is and how much it is. That’s what happens when you drive your Micralite. The Bugaboo people stare at it, do a double take, or turn around as if they are checking out a girl’s ass. As my friend described, Micralite is equivalent to Aston Martin, if Bugaboo is Porsche.

In terms of the quality of hardware and craftsmanship, both are equally impressive. I have to admit that, in terms of versatility, Bugaboo is better. You can configure it in a variety of ways depending on the age of your baby and the situation you are in. However, Micralite allows you to fold it quickly and efficiently, making it easy for you to carry it up and down the stairs, which is a handy feature in the city. Many Bugaboo owners end up buying another lighter stroller, especially if they live in a walk-up apartment building.

My interest in stroller started when my wife described what happened at the class she was taking for new mothers. One day, one mother who only had a universal car-seat carrier asked the class for a recommendation on a stroller. The teacher asked who in the class were happy with their strollers, and all the Bugaboo mothers raised their hands proudly, and no one else had the balls to raise theirs.

When I heard this story, I became determined to outdo them. There must be another stroller somewhere that would make them look like suckers, but my search was not fruitful. Nothing else looked as good as Bugaboo. There is in fact another stroller even more expensive than Bugaboo. It’s called Stokke Xplory. However, the design of it is too strange and ostentatious that it looks silly. It’s sort of like Segway. No wonder all the superficial parents resorted to buying Bugaboos.

Intentionally or unintentionally, Bugaboo played into the psychology of new parents perfectly. New parents are unavoidably self-conscious. They want to feel that they are doing the best possible job for their babies. If some product is clearly better than others, it strikes a chord with new parents in three ways. 1. It fulfills their desire to do the best for their baby. 2. It gives them a legitimate reason to be materialistic. 3. It allows them to show off their social status without feeling guilty. The pretense is that they are doing it for the baby.

Sadly, it was looking like I wasn’t going to enjoy any of those wonderfully superficial feelings. I hated the idea of buying a Bugaboo after spending so much time thinking about defeating the Bugaboo owners. My wife and I eventually gave up and decided to buy an ordinary Maclaren. I felt defeated. Then the miracle happened. Some superficial god must have been listening to me. Just as my wife arrived at Buy Buy Baby to buy a Maclaren, a British couple strolled into the store with a shinning silver stroller with big rear wheels and streamlined design that reminded one of Formular 1 cars. I wasn’t there at the time, but my wife and her friend gravitated toward it, and asked them what kind of stroller it was. They told her that it was a British stroller called Micralite, and that they are not available here, but are very common in England. She immediately called me and told me what she had witnessed. We decided to hold off on buying a Maclaren, and did further research into Micralite.

It was perfect. We live in a walk-up building, so Bugaboo would have been too much to deal with. With the way Micralite folds, we would be able to easily carry it up and down the stairs. But, that was just an explanation I gave myself to legitimize the purchase of it; in the end it was all about the looks. It looks cool. The elegant intersecting lines that it creates as it unfolds, and its origami-like geometry of the bright red fabric, are aesthetically superior to Bugaboo. It was sure to threaten Bugaboo owners.

Even though shipping from England was expensive, it still was cheaper than Bugaboo in the end. When it arrived, my wife and I felt as though it was Christmas. I was so satisfied with how it looked that I didn’t care what disadvantages it had. In fact, as soon as someone used the word “but”, I turned my brain off so it sounded like a garble. It is very much equivalent to how Bugaboo owners carry the big, awkward thing up and down the stairs with a smile on their faces. When you go through a lot of trouble getting something, you can’t look at it objectively. Your desire to believe its superiority overrides everything else.

I feel I achieved a higher level of superficiality than anyone else has with a stroller. When I push it on the street, it almost doesn’t matter if there is a baby in it or not. In fact, my baby doesn’t give a crap about what she is sitting in. It’s all about me and the stroller, and about the rush I feel when I walk by Bugaboo owners. I act nonchalantly, like I didn’t even notice them, and say silently in my head, “Suckers!” Now, I wonder what comes next in my parenthood.

By Dyske Suematsu | May-2-05 8:38A

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I do hate the attitude of those Bugaboo parents. Gonna have to stick it to them.