My New Love: WeHeartIt

I blogged previously about visual consumption and my love affair with Tumblr (www.tumblr.com). Well, this summer I have a new love – WeHeartIt (weheartit.com). I love the wide variety of images that Tumblr brings directly to my laptop and it has been fun ‘curating’ my own Tumblr feed around various themes. But although Tumblr provides an ‘archive’ feature, it doesn’t really let me sort and store images the way I want to. Enter WeHeartIt.

I am definitely *not* the typical WeHeartIt community member – I might be female but it’s been quite a while since I could put a check mark beside the 17 to 25 years age bracket. I’m not into nail art or One Direction. But I do love having the capability that WeHeartIt offers to sort and store images in ‘collections’ of my own making. And it is really amazing how supportive the community is – in less than 2 months I have almost 1200 followers who regularly ‘heart’ the images I post to my ‘canvas’ (WeHeartIt talk for my ‘news feed’).

Clicking back through some of my image collections has reminded me of how powerful images can be. Although they are visual in nature, and thus only really perceived via one human sense, they can trigger scent memory. Can you smell the cinnamon and raisins in the apple crisp?

How about the scent of leaves that have fallen in autumn? As I'm writing this, 483 people have already hearted this image - there are lots of autumn lovers out there!

Images can also make us recall feeling warm or cold. Check out the difference between the images below:

They are both just photographic images of doors, but the first one makes me feel cold, while the second one makes me think of warm, sunny days. I find it strange that the 'cold' image has been hearted 32 times, while the warm image has only been hearted twice. Obviously there is a lot more going on when people view images than just the sense of 'feeling good' - an important reminder for all marketers.

Concordia University Anthropology professor David Howes (2005, p. 286), building on the insights of Oliver Wendell Holmes, argues that the photographic reproduction of items in our everyday world is a act of ‘active appropriation’ and further, that the photographic image can actually become more powerful and influential than the object itself. I think the popularity of sites like Tumblr, Pinterest and WeHeartIt is proof of Dr. Howes’s argument. And from a consumer behaviour perspective, these are also sites of productive consumption. As I browse images posted by others, I can 'heart' or favorite them and make them part of my own canvas, collect them according to themes that mean something to me all the while making them available for consumption and enjoyment by others.

Sources:

Howes, David. 2005. "Hyperesthesia, or, The Sensual Logic of Late Capitalism,." In Empire of the Senses: The Sensual Culture Reader, ed. David Howes, 281-303. Oxford and New York: Berg.

A curated life?

It's Saturday morning. The weekend, and so I've decided that despite the number of emails eagerly awaiting my attention I'm going to take a couple of hours just for me. Usually, I'd spend this morning reading the Saturday newspapers in front of the fireplace with a good, strong cup of coffee. But today I'm indulging in my latest obsession instead, curating my Tumblr blog.

Source: @EGBUDIWE

Tumblr is a god send for creative but decidedly non-artistic people like me. So much content to choose from, no need to be able to create it yourself. Just search and ye shall find. Oh, you'll find lots of stuff not suitable for family viewing as well. But in among the pornographic sites are many, many sites dedicated to beautiful images. For a visual junkie, it's a feast, perhaps even an overdose. Time becomes immaterial, to do lists vanish, all that matters is the next amazing image. Fashion, food, places I have visited and others on my 'someday' list, wine, books, music, art, romantic images of couples in love, all the things that constitute a 'good' life. You can find them on Tumblr.

At some point, actually quite early in the visual consumption feast, a desire to save the images for re-consumption later occurs. And so a blog is born. Naming is an issue; not due to lack of imagination, but because someone else got there first, so compromises have to be made. The software isn't exactly user friendly, but through persistence I trick it into doing what I want. And what is it I want? I want not only to horde images I find beautiful, memorable or thought-provoking. I want to display, to organize, to curate them into a whole. I want the mood to shift subtly, the colours to blend and merge, a narrative to emerge. Having satisfied that desire, I try inserting images which mark a sudden shift in direction through colour or subject matter - pointers to the viewer that things are about to change.

And in doing so, I realize that I am anticipating a viewer other than myself.

Source: http://vestidoslindosatelier.tumblr.com/

I am engaging in an act of consumption and production not only for my own pleasure but also for the pleasure of some unnamed other. When I think of that other, I imagine it being my closest girlfriend, who I anticipate would love the same images as I do. She may not have the same Sam Elliott fixation or love of Charles Bukowski's poetry that I do, but she would laugh gently and tell me it's "part of my charm." Beyond that, it gets kind of scary. There's a sense that you can broadcast to the world and yet remain anonymous, should you choose to do so, when you set up your Tumblr account. It's like you're curating an exhibition that will never open its doors to the public. It remains hidden, to be found only by chance or accident.

Why scary? Because curated sites like Tumblr, or the photo albums on your Facebook page, are projective devices. They allow us to say something without using words, to tell others what things really matter to us. Our subjective response to the world around us is on display for others to read and interpret.

This is one of the great changes social media has brought about. No longer are our photo albums, scrapbooks and journals intensely private things. They are now on display, and along with them our thoughts, passions and our curatorial skills. Likes, hearts, reblogs, reposts and even the odd comment tell us how well we are doing. Curating is no longer the prerogative of the highly educated and skilled; anyone can curate. And anyone can comment on the skills of the curator.

This is the argument David Balzar makes in his new book, "Curationism: How curating took over the art world and everything else." (Follow this link for an excerpt).  It's also the topic of Alexandra Molotkow's column in today's Globe and Mail. Both authors raise thought-provoking questions about the nature of consumption in everyday life. Are you 'curating' when you decide what to wear out into the world today? Do you simply place books on a shelf or stuff your clothes into whatever available space there is, or do you curate a display that says something about you and about your relationship to these objects?

Have we all become curators?

To Create is to Destroy?

I was standing in line at a Chapters store a week or so ago, waiting to pay for this month's haul of magazines, when I noticed a book sitting on the cash counter. Just one book. I couldn't tell if someone had left it behind, rejected it, or if it was the last book in a stack strategically positioned (by a marketer, no doubt!) to act as a trigger for an impulse purchase.

Going with the last explanation, I sneaked a few peeks at its cover, but resisted the impulse to purchase it. I'm not about to get manipulated by such an obvious tactic! Or am I? Over the next few days I found myself thinking more and more about what the book might have been about. Was fate or serendipity or synchronicity trying to tell me something? I can usually come up with multiple excuses for the 'need' to return to a book store.

So what book was it? Well here is an image of the cover. Or, should I say covers. When I returned to the store, the book was no longer sitting on the cash counter, I had to ask the manager for help in finding it. As it turns out, he's used to this request. The book, by Keri Smith, has been a hot seller among teenage girls for some time. My first decision was which cover to purchase - talk about having too many choices! (I went with the one that looks like a brown paper bag.) As we discussed the book, the manager offered his opinion that the reason for its popularity is that it allows young women the chance to express their creativity. Do we need a book to tell us how to be creative?

Apparently, Keri Smith thinks so. She's a Canadian conceptual artist and writer (check out her website) who, according to her bio, focuses her work/research on creating “Open works”, pieces that are completed by the reader/user. The title for this week's post is the subtitle of the book Wreck This Journal. The whole idea seems to be that by following Smith's suggestions, you can colour outside the lines and unleash your own creativity. The instructions even tell you to experiment and work against your own better judgment. So, can we create by destroying?

I gave it a try, I really did. But I got stuck early on by a page that said simply, "Crack the Spine." Yikes! No way I could do that. Just *not*gonna*happen*! But other people seem to have wholeheartedly embraced the concept. A quick Google search provided these images:

Is this destructive? I can imagine a librarian, hair severely pulled back from her face into a bun, glasses perched on the end of her nose, telling me that stepping on any book is a disgraceful practice, to say nothing about poking holes or doodling in it! But aren't the pages more interesting now?

Can We Take the Idea of Creative Destruction Further?

Thinking about this book reminded me of a recent purchase made by the National Gallery of Canada (just imagine the associative network that linked those two thoughts in my brain!) Majestic is a sculpture by Canadian artist Michel de Broin,which is now installed on the grounds of the National Gallery. It was constructed from salvaged street lamps damaged when Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans. In this case, the destructive activity was carried out by nature, while the artist supplied the creativity. The result, which I've heard described variously as 'beautiful' and 'just about what you'd expect from salvage', may not be to the liking of all art lovers, gallery-goers or onlookers. But it is certainly a lot more 'productive' than dumping the posts in a landfill or perhaps melting them down as scrap iron. Even if it doesn't comply with your personal definition of 'beauty' it stimulates thought and discussion about salvaging what we can from disaster and the possibilities for re-birth.

Elite artists aren't the only people who can do this. The average scrapbooker does it all the time. Using things drawn from everyday life - a movie ticket, concert program, bit of lace or a photograph - scrapbookers create a new 'whole'. They tell a story that is meaningful to them and possibly to future generations. If you think scrapbooking isn't much for consumer researchers to be concerned with, I'd invite you to tour a Michael's store some time soon. I think you'll be as shocked as I was at the variety of scrapbooking supplies, tools and accessories being offered for sale. This is a big time business!

For consumer researchers, the idea of consumption as being something more than just destroying the 'use value' of something is part of the changes we observe in postmodern society. Accordingly to Firat and Venkatesh (1995, p. 245), under modernity, only "production was creation, because it added something of value to human lives." Consumption destroyed the value that was created through production. These authors go on to argue that today, in postmodern times, there is no distinction between production and consumption "they are one and the same, occurring simultaneously" (p. 254). Each act of consumption is also an act of production. Just as the scrapbooker 'consumes' materials produced by the market, and may even 'destroy' value in the sense of tearing, cutting or writing over photographs and ephemera, in order to 'produce' something that is more than the sum of its parts, so too do we in our everyday lives destroy in order to create.

So, is creation really just the flip side of destruction? What do you think?

Sources:
Firat, A. Fuat and Alladi Venkatesh (1995), "Liberatory Postmodernism and the Reenchantment of Consumption," Journal of Consumer Research, 22 (Dec.), 239-267.

Web Sources:
www.gallery.ca/en/see/collections/artwork.php?mkey=215449
www.kerismith.com 

For further reading:

Baumeister, Roy F. (2002), “Yielding to Temptation: Self‐Control Failure, Impulsive Purchasing, and Consumer Behavior,” Journal of Consumer Research, 28 (March), 670-676.

Rook, Dennis (1987), "The Buying Impulse," Journal of Consumer Research, 14 (2): 189-199.