Last week, I watched Buy Now: The Shopping Conspiracy, a NetFlix documentary about the marketing tactics used to manipulate consumers. In the documentary, an Alexa/Siri-like algorithm named Sasha reveals the “secrets” of how to sell more (always more!). Sasha promises a PRESENT if we stay engaged. It’s a perfect setup to drive home the theme: the promise of a future reward is, in itself, a marketing tactic. The documentary juxtaposes the gleeful “unboxing” of fast fashion “hauls” with mountains of clothing suffocating other countries when we (Americans) throw these cheap items “away.” As one of the interviewees in Buy Now says, “away” is not some magical place. “Away” is landfills, container ships, and burn pits. Not only is the concept of “away” nonsense, so is the promise that recycling alone is enough to counteract mountains of garbage. Most plastic packaging is not recyclable – despite what the labels say. It’s a soothing myth. It is, as Sasha reveals, a lie.
The unboxing culture baffles me. I don’t purchase new clothes until the ones I have fall apart. I use cell phones until they no longer charge. Most of my possessions are recycled. Looking around me now, I see mainly empty space, a hand-me-down custom-made sofa that didn’t match someone’s new decor, bookshelves pilfered from dead relatives, a thrift shop nightstand holding the microwave the last tenants left behind, and a beautiful desk my husband built to my exact specifications; of everything in this room, it is the desk that will outlast humanity. As much as I “lack” in things, I am rich in print books. I have hundreds of these and have donated or sold hundreds more over the years. I love my books. I can part with anything else inanimate, but there are some books that I will carry with me until the day I die. They matter that much to me.
Imagine my horror when I saw book unboxing in Buy Now. It seems there are people who get books so they can … make videos of themselves looking at the cover? Someone in Buy Now mentioned that a lot of the books are never read by the unboxer: publishing companies have taken Sasha’s advice to heart and know that showing pretty people adoring pretty things makes viewers want to be part of that pretty, pretty world – the one where “away” is a magical place. The documentary doesn’t mention the astronomical glut of remaindered paper books that go to the dump or burn pits when they do not sell quickly enough at brick-and-mortar stores.
Print on demand services could obsolete remaindering. There is no reason stores cannot run pre-order campaigns and purchase the number of books desired, instead of taking the number of books the publisher pushes on shops to drive down their (publisher’s) cost per unit. A further benefit would be that a greater variety of books could be displayed at any given shop: instead of piles of the same thing, there could be hundreds of different titles. Instead of seeing the same exact books at every shop across the US, there could be a more relevant selection of books for a given locale. Booksellers could form collectives to pool their purchasing power and attain volume pricing for print copies and still prevent the gross overproduction of books. True, readers will have to wait a few days to get the print book. Clever booksellers will ameliorate this inconvenience by selling optional, temporary access to the e-book as an add-on to a physical purchase; distribution channels specific to book rental already exist and are in use by libraries.
There is no technological impediment to implementing a streamlined pre-order and order-on-demand bookseller model. The ethical production and sale of physical books is possible. To understand why this model isn’t adopted, consider who profits from the overproduction of paperback books. You’ll find it’s the same people who are most invested in you believing in the myth of “away.”
Buy Now: The Shopping Conspiracy is streaming on NetFlix. It’s about an hour and a half long. That is about an hour longer than most fast-fashion lasts!
Warning: Consumption of Gothic sci-fi can induce feelings of uneasiness. Other common side effects include ethical discomfort, existential terror, and addiction to complex themes, snappy dialog, and unexpected heroines.
Erzsebet Carmean 