Saturday, November 9, 2013

Liar liar pants for hire!: the mirrors in H&M + other consumer conundrums

The most frustrating facet of shopping in the consumer utopia that is H&M (besides the annoying incredibly loud extremely close music*), is the lying mirrors in the dressing room. The really large mirrors they have outside the changing stalls are tilted so you look skinner/taller/better in their clothes than you really are/do. Agh cursed free enterprise!!
But the logic behind tilting the mirrors makes sense. If you look at your reflection in a changing room mirror and like what you see, odds are you're going to buy whatever garment you tried on. So naturally, H&M tilts the mirrors so that you'll like your reflection.

It's interesting to me how everything in a store is calculated to encourage people to buy more. Mirrors, I don't think, are the only factor stores manipulate to encourage purchases. From the lighting, music, smell, temperature -- everything contributes to the ambiance of the store. Think about Hollister and Abercrombie & Fitch. The loud music and smelly cologne smells all contributes to their branding (I guess in a positive way, because why else would they do it).

That's what's kind of freaky to me about malls. When you're in a mall, you're bombarded from all directions with advertisements and incentives to shop. There's no relief from the commercialism because you're inside a commercial enterprise!! I think that the atmosphere malls themselves create -- the mindset of consumerism -- is what makes the stores inside the malls so successful. Sometimes I wonder if I would buy certain things if H&M was on the town green next to a church or something. (Okay, I probably would, but still, the theory).

What do you guys think? Is it okay that H&M tilts their mirrors? Is it okay for stores to manipulate various factors to encourage purchases? What do you think about malls?  
*ahh I made a funny! Well not really, more like a really bad pun? Allusion to a book I didn't like?

Monday, November 4, 2013

Mind Explosion! (not really) (not at all actually) (what am I talking about)

Sometimes (more than sometimes) I feel like I over-think everything, get over-anxious, yada yada, the whole anxious person shebang. But sometimes (more than sometimes) I feel like I completely under-think the whole purpose of my existence in the world and take absolutely nothing seriously (i.e. why I'm not studying for my Precalculus test right now). So I feel like writing is a good way for me to decipher my thoughts. And hopefully writing can get me to see through the muddle of my mind so I can see the world clearer, because a deep fear of mine is that what I'm seeing isn't really what's there, or more radically, doesn't even exist. According to one of my intellectual friends, this is called selimsism or something sophisticated like that. (Well I completely butchered that word).

But more practically, I really really really need to work on my writing skills. So therefore, blogging incredibly informally on the Internet will help me improve them! (See my logic there?)