I would love to hear your thoughts about restock-style beauty videos and personification. I feel like it’s not only personifying the products shown, but sexualizing them. The person filming always has immaculately done nails and used them to “undress” the product by removing packaging, then taps, caresses, rubs, and strokes the product. The focus is solely on the somatic senses the person filming is giving to the product.
I think it ties into the whole “gen z doesn’t have sex”. Instead a sexual outlet is engaging with products in this fetishized, sexual way. Especially since the person filming is in POV of the viewer, doesn’t show more than hands, and usually doesn’t speak, allowed for it to feel more like a 1:1 tryst with the product, not a video.
Sorry if this isn’t an original idea and I need to credit someone!
This is so interesting (and scary lol). Like commodifying the (female) body isn't enough...we need to imbue the objects we consume with the personhood we deny the actual living person?
I was thinking recently that there’s something sort of sweet about the human desire to personify things and care for them (like how putting a pair of googly eyes on something makes it endearing) but of course the things we care about are also just as easily weaponized against us (beauty and women, as your writing so often incisively points out). And of course marketing is its own sort of weapon- a parasitic one.
shelfies reminds me of rich masters in ancient rome getting their wine jars and mixing bowls painted with their favourite stories…except cream bottles say nothing about no one
Of course, almost nothing is new, personification is a huge thing throughout history lol. This is just a quick note about some recent instances in beauty specifically
Agreed. I was at a car show so my mind wandered there first. I’m not a car person *at all* so it was eye opening to see all the (loving?) beautification: custom rims, tires, paint jobs, vanity plates… Industrialized beauty culture does seep everywhere.
I would love to hear your thoughts about restock-style beauty videos and personification. I feel like it’s not only personifying the products shown, but sexualizing them. The person filming always has immaculately done nails and used them to “undress” the product by removing packaging, then taps, caresses, rubs, and strokes the product. The focus is solely on the somatic senses the person filming is giving to the product.
I think it ties into the whole “gen z doesn’t have sex”. Instead a sexual outlet is engaging with products in this fetishized, sexual way. Especially since the person filming is in POV of the viewer, doesn’t show more than hands, and usually doesn’t speak, allowed for it to feel more like a 1:1 tryst with the product, not a video.
Sorry if this isn’t an original idea and I need to credit someone!
This is so interesting (and scary lol). Like commodifying the (female) body isn't enough...we need to imbue the objects we consume with the personhood we deny the actual living person?
I’m getting old. 😁extra milk sounds horrible
I was thinking recently that there’s something sort of sweet about the human desire to personify things and care for them (like how putting a pair of googly eyes on something makes it endearing) but of course the things we care about are also just as easily weaponized against us (beauty and women, as your writing so often incisively points out). And of course marketing is its own sort of weapon- a parasitic one.
I wonder if it feels “safer” to personify objects rather than personifying… persons
shelfies reminds me of rich masters in ancient rome getting their wine jars and mixing bowls painted with their favourite stories…except cream bottles say nothing about no one
I think strains of this may have started earlier, why else would people name and personify their boats or cars?
Of course, almost nothing is new, personification is a huge thing throughout history lol. This is just a quick note about some recent instances in beauty specifically
Agreed. I was at a car show so my mind wandered there first. I’m not a car person *at all* so it was eye opening to see all the (loving?) beautification: custom rims, tires, paint jobs, vanity plates… Industrialized beauty culture does seep everywhere.
All of this. 😳