When the Sizzle Fizzles.
Americans are entertainment junkies. Life and its myriad aspects are commodities we sell to each other packaged in as much glitz and fanfare as possible. "Sell the sizzle, not the steak," the marketing adage reminds us. We are tuned to it at as early an age as possible. Brand awareness begins at age two when your toddler, safely ensconced in her Bugaboo Frog, points a chubby finger at a familiar red-and-yellow logo.
"McDonalds," she cries.
She has associated the Paradigm of Americana with things of great interest to a child: Yummy, Toys, and Fun; peak experiences carefully tailored to foster an early addiction to whatever-makes-the-body-happy. Two years old, and already on the way to an frustrated life of chasing the phantoms of instant gratification and fleeting pleasures, unaware of the impossibility of the Great American Hoax of Marketing, wherein we are subliminally fed the idea that we can sustain peak experiences indefinitely. We are trained to believe that such emotive events can only come from material, external sources.
We want something easy, something that has all the good and none of the bad, like decaffeinated coffee and sugar-free chocolate or fat-free ice cream. and we want it NOW! When we get what we order, we find the coffee bitter, the chocolate chalky, and the ice cream has a funny aftertaste. We want what the marketing says we’re buying, yet it fails to satisfy. Modern marketing is the deformed offspring of Pavlov and Machiavelli. It is all lies.
But we don’t want to hear that.
What we are looking for is inner peace, but we don’t know that, or we refuse to acknowledge our shortcomings. America is supposed to "have it all," so it isn’t possible that there’s anything we need. Even if we did, we don’t know where to look. Most Americans don’t want to hear philosophy from beyond our borders. In our busy little lives we don’t want to hear about such weirdness as meditation - who has time to sit? Besides, zazen takes effort; we want life to be easy.
That’s the sizzle talking, the whispers of the marketing-marinated mind. As a culture, Americans absorb over 200 commercial images and messages per day. It is illogical to assume an immunity, or such a level of exposure has minimal impact on brain functioning and the development of synaptic structures. Scientists are just beginning to study the effects of mass media on sociology, physiology and psychology.
I think the effects are obvious. Wide and seemingly diverse social phenomena can be attributed to an overdose of sizzle: Outstanding debt, Attention Deficit Disorder and behavioral problems, depression and rage, a climbing divorce rate, even workplace stress can be accounted for as direct results of having assimilated the lies and misconceptions of promised benefits through commercialism and a consumer economy.
What they are selling you is not what you buy. The emotional triggers used by marketing firms to entice is nothing short of psychological manipulation. Our society is becoming neurotic as a result. In terms of lasting benefit of people, of our nation, of our culture, the sizzle fizzles.
You want fries with that?