Happy Hour

Tonight’s drink: Veramonte Merlot.

I finally, FINALLY, caught up on my sleep last night. I left work early, unpacked my crap, tidied up the apartment, changed my sheets, and went directly to bed. At 6 p.m. Sometimes, I just have to hate my job.

The full night’s sleep has given me the wherewithal to finish a post that I had been thinking a lot about last week, but couldn’t quite gather the piquancy and the punch I needed to really make it happen. Just in time for a Friday, though, I have a nice glass of wine, a belly full of vinegar, and my Rockette heels on to bring you this next slice of my melon.

Last weekend, I got an add from a photographer on myspace who is quite obviously, and quite persistently, trying to book sessions during his upcoming trip to San Diego. It’s no secret that the main ingredient to his marketing campaign is to add women to his friends list, which is an age-old practice in consumer tactics. You appeal to someone’s sense of vanity to compel their consumption of your product.

Richard Netemeyer, et al, actually conducted a formal research on this subject, and published Trait Aspects of Vanity: Measurement and Relevance to Consumer Behavior. In this article, they sought to develop insights into vanity that would help those in marketing to most effectively target that powerful notion in selling their product. They came up with two basic definitions of vanity: Physical Vanity and Achievement Vanity. In both cases, the definitions state that vanity is either the excessive concern for, and/or positive (perhaps inflated) view of one’s [appearance/achievement].

The research itself isn’t so much compelling as it is affirming: people who have one or more strains of vanity, as defined above, were more likely to purchase products that promoted their cause. Those who highly regarded their appearance were apt to buy cosmetics and dieting products. Those who felt strongly about their image as an achiever were more inclined toward “conspicuous consumption” or, simply put, excess. You and I and Adam could probably come up with some basic eqautions that lead to this conclusion without the population studies – the more interesting part of this research to me has to do with the information they used to construct them.

In order to put together their sampling surveys for testing vanity, they drew from a number of standard social tools, one of them being the Narcissistic Personality Inventory. This tool would be used by counselors or mental health specialists as an assessment of one’s narcissism. Your answers to this test would determine whether or not your level of narcissism required behavioral counseling, especially if your behavior was acting as an impediment to normal social functioning.

At first glance, the questions on this test seem relatively predictable. “Modesty doesn’t become me” and “If I ruled the world, it would be a much better place” are easily identifiable as narcissistic in nature. But as you continue on, the “narcissistic” answers seem to be reflective of someone with basic self-confidence, such as “I will be a success” or “I am a good leader.”

The more I thought about it, the more I started to realize that some of the “narcissistic” answers sounded familiar. Like, the kinds of things you would hear in kindergarten, or from your family. Who hasn’t had someone tell them that they are as unique as a snowflake? Or that they could be whatever they wanted to be? Even watching Sesame Street, you hear these kinds of affirmations – statements of self-belief that you tell yourself in order to be successful and confident. Affirmations are the remedy of choice for those facing their all-time lows, or simply thinking they aren’t good enough.

Now, if we start life being taught to believe these things, the conspiracy theorist in me instantly thinks that society is shaping us into a bunch of vanity consumers. Suddenly, it makes perfect sense why the Western nations lead the world in consumerism. We’ve been spoon fed these ideas about being special and climbing the ladder, even in our humblest of moments. No wonder I want to buy makeup and eat really expensive ice cream when I get dumped – I feel like I’m pulling myself up by my Prada bootstraps.

The more reasonable side of me says that everyone needs to feel the glow of fabulosity at some point, regardless of how it is defined. It makes for a nice balance of down to earth and cloud nine. Should the Western world be criticized, then, because it makes velvet and gravy accessible to the middle class? If the lowest rung on the U.S. ladder is equivalent to the high of other countries, then where is the cardinal sin? We all need the dark and the light to remain in the gray, no matter how high the standards.

I truly don’t know. Until I decide, I’m going to pour myself another glass of wine, pluck my eyebrows, and anxiously await Jenn’s arrival this weekend.

It feels good to be queen. Even on a budget.