The Ghilblisation of Human Aesthetics –- consumer culture and its popular punch! | Swaswati Borkataki

A long due read – One Dimensional Man by Herbert Marcuse, aroused my interest in Consumerism; mostly a detailed read of the ‘advanced industrial society’ and its varied aspects, and more so about the ‘technological society’, and its key element, technology, which according to Marcuse, “restructures labor and leisure, influencing life from the organization of labor to modes of thought.”

Again, recent developments in the world around, particularly the newfound obsession of people with the phenomenon named Studio Ghibli, most naturally would lead a thinking mind to analyze and research the varied aspects of consumer culture. An interesting documentary on ‘Consumer Society’ – implying a change in the very nature of consumption – where consumption is now based not merely on needs but wants, a whole lot of which practically have no usage in human sustenance and survival. Words like ‘marketing’ and commercialization have become the keywords of understanding the consumer society.

Consumerism as a concept would include everything from consuming food items to fashion products, accessories, books, art and aesthetics, travel and adventure – it is surreally vague in scope and definition because of its imposing dimensions.

Consumerism is now not so much about merely acquiring goods, but also acquiring the status attached to those goods and services – a sort of a mini cultural capital, which can also be linked with a huge load of FOMO – Fear of Missing Out – which can be the apt explanation of the current ‘Ghiblisation’ of people – where everyone you once seemed to know as humans have magically transformed themselves into Ghibli avatars – and the idea of the ‘One Dimensional’ human in all its overt and covert connotations leads one to think, if one needs to perform some sort of atonement if one consciously averts staying out of the ‘mainstream’ – or more prudently, limelight – which again has assumed bizzare characteristics with the social media snowball, which hypnotizes people into readily transforming into ‘sheep’, in fear of ‘ghettoization’ – here, we find two processes at play – a readiness to subject oneself to conformity, on one hand and on the other, the fear of being ‘ghettoized’ and pushed into a blackhole of non-conformity – this is only natural, as in this world of rapidly changing norms of social etiquettes and behavior, anyone would naturally be influenced by what is going on around – humans are social beings after all, or are they? Since being ‘social’ again has acquired completely different characteristics than what used to be – a social person two generations back would probably shudder at the definition of being social now, and if she/he is alive and healthy, would in all probability struggle to ‘conform’ to the ‘mandate of the majority’. I have on multiple occasions been accused of being reclusive because of my limited interaction or rather non-usage of social media platforms. The Ghibli Avatars have now descended my already ‘anxious’ and surreally imaginative mind into a transcendental state where I am surrounded by a world of tech monsters and studio Ghibli avatars who speak robotic and feel robotic – they try to touch and feel, they try to love – they try to perform mundane tasks as sneezing or coughing but everything goes up as bubbles – maybe this thought was remotely inspired by the movie ‘Poor Things’ – which I believe is thoroughly imaginative and pricks and tickles with the element of ‘madness’ in all its subtlety and expression through the medium of science fiction – here, madness exuding characteristics that are self-explanatory, liberating and freedom inducing, but only if people would get out of the Ghibli mode!

Culture, as is suggested in the aforementioned documentary on consumerism, often plays a vital part in the consumption of goods, acceptance of services, and adoption of techniques and technological phenomena like the ‘Ghibli’ human – closely competing with the Australopithecus or the Neanderthal human.

But the Ghibli mode would end, and very soon. Such obsessions last for very short periods of time – I am sure most people have forgotten the procedure of making the covid times sensation – the Dalgona coffee. The detachment happens as soon as the ‘trend’ reaches an optimum level and slowly starts dissipating, never to return again, certainly not in the near future, and the cycle continues. Humans living in the consumer society need something to ‘trend’ – something to aspire for, and once that is achieved, they move on to a new obsession – a new sensation that is created from amongst the same elements of the consumer world. But one significant characteristic of phenomena as these is that no one remembers the inventor of the ‘trend’ – whoever remembers the person who first made dalgona coffee or the first reel – similarly the first Ghibli maker will soon sink into the defunct clouds of oblivion – never to be remembered again. Till then, we probably need to count those sheep!

(Author: Swaswati Borkataki, Independent Researcher and writer)