Last week I had the pleasure of hearing Michael Serazio read from his new book, Your Ad Here: The Cool Sell of Guerilla Marketing, where he addressed the tactics often used by corporations in late capitalism to sell their products across the nation. I cannot claim this as territory that I'm familiar with, butI loved the possibilities of transferring this work to youth and the informational reading they should be able to do as consumers in a time of college and career readiness. In this vain, Michael Serazio has detailed critical consumerism to the nth degree. His intellect, scholarship, savvy data sources and keen knowledge blew me away.
Michael is my office neighbor and sits most days two doors down from my administrative assistant. I see him almost daily and am always impressed with his funky style, student-centered office hours, and constant online activity. I've joked that Dr. Serazio looks like a high school student but his youthfulness is deceiving. This guy knows what he's doing and brings immense wisdom to our campus.
I bought the book and am looking forward to reading it thoroughly after this semester unwinds a bit and I have some R & R time (reading and reading).
What I brought away from his talk, however, is how creepy commercialism is when one considers the brain tactics, studies, strategies and purpose that corporations invest to selling goods to our country. As a cheap skate and, well, cheap skate, I can't say that advertisements hood me much. Still, I'm fascinated with them as an art form and ever since reading Susan Bordon's work, Unbearable Weight, I've been interested in the pop cultural side of commercialism and its effects on the human body. I also enjoyed reading Augustus Burrough's humorous (yet tragic) memoir in Running With Scissors.
Perhaps all of us are actually marketers and on a quest to sell our wares to others. Do note, however, my tactics are far from Guerrilla-like.
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