Deep Thoughts #3 – Buy Me a River – Obsessive Consumerism in Fishing and Life

Is this what stops us from caring for the greater good?

Call me a commie, but I am so tired of being marketed to, and as I have little faith in corporations, American, “green”, TU friendly, “official sponsor,” or not, the marketing bothers me even more perhaps than the average consumer.  I have documented my experience with Rapala and my love/hate relationship with Countdown Minnows and their fragile plastic bills.  I have had similar experiences with lemon reels from Daiwa.  I feel like these companies test the durability of their products on consumers (we are the beta testers) and we (and they) have grown so used to the consumer mentality of always wanting new that they act shocked that folks have expectations about how long a product should last.  

What is the life expectancy of the average consumer product these days?  Do more expensive reels, waders, cars last longer and have fewer problems?  That may have been true at one time, but does Orvis want you to buy a $2,000 dollar rod and reel and never buy another one?  Does Simms want your repeat business or are they hedging their bets that you will come to accept that their products will wear out and you’ll be satisfied enough to buy from them again?  Or, more likely, will you the consumer be lured by something better, shinier, newer, even if your $2,000 set has weathered the years of use?  Companies, even those that make quality stuff, have to always tweak and modulate expectations and quality.  Even a company that makes a durable product like a Van Staal surf reel wants you to wonder if the lighter VR model might balance better on your rod than your “old” VS (at least since a major international corporation took over production, one that owns Char-Broil, Lamplight, Zebco, Quantum, Rhino, Lews, Martin, Van Staal, Tiki, Thermos, Grill Lover's, Cajun Line, and Fin-Nor).  A dating web site would be out of business if it was actually as good as it claimed to be at finding you a soul mate, right?  They have to manage your expectations and satisfaction with the site to keep you around long enough to make money or have you come back again after a failed relationship.  It’s a form of control, and it’s un-American to question it. 

A couple things happened recently that made me more conscious of the amount of marketing to which I am personally subjected.  The first was getting into a little online tiff with a guy about liberally availing myself of the 100% Satisfaction claim at LL Bean to return leaking waders and worn out wading boots and so on.  All waders leak, so I do not spend 350 dollars for “American Made” Simms that will still leak in 3 years.  I buy 150 dollar LL Bean’s, and when they leak, I take them back.  I am vocal about endorsing LL Bean’s policy, if not the product.  The product is decent, but unlike, say, the same priced Field and Stream waders I can get at Dick’s, I can take the Bean’s back if I feel they did not live up to my expectations. 

Gov't = Corporations at this point.

The other poster implied that this business model creates incremental increases in the costs of items, and I agree, but I am not satisfied with a product that wears out in 3 years, I am sorry.  And, arguably, corporate America helped create this attitude of self-interest.  Should I think that my returning of products decreases company profits and therefore passes the cost onto my fellow citizens?  Maybe, but it’s more complicated than that.  The model, even one as “honorable” as a 100% Satisfaction one, is set up so I act in my own self-interest.  I am not content with spending roughly 100 dollars a year for the use of something that is supposed to keep me dry, but only does so for a finite time.  If LL Bean has this policy, and I use it when I am not satisfied, it is up to other consumers to do the same and make the company produce better products, not “improve” them with untested add-ons, which is usually the case. The current answer to shitty reels or waders from companies is to relegate the defective stuff to the Bargain Cave at deep discount (but not deep enough not to make a profit) and then come out with new version (the Emerger XII) with surface improvements and the accompanying incremental increase in cost.  I have returned several pairs of waders over the years.  Some have lasted less than a season, some have lasted 3 years, but they were leaking when I returned them, and I was not satisfied with that.  I would argue that too few people return products with which they are unhappy, and corporations don’t always make it as easy as LL Bean.  Rapala has metaphorically stopped returning my calls.  Daiwa wanted me to foot the bill to send and insure a reel to California from Pennsylvania after I already paid an authorized dealer to not fix my reel.  The reel with the faulty anti-reverse only lasted a year in production and was replaced by a more expensive and awesomely arcane-named reel in a different color.  Most people don’t want to bother or are embarrassed to return something.  It gets easier every time you do it, trust me.

Like all of you, I probably get catalogues (and smaller sales catalogues with the same stuff in them) every day in the late winter and early spring from Orvis, Cabela’s, Bass Pro Shops, Tackle Direct, LL Bean, and so on.  The magazine offers follow with ads from the same companies in them sometimes.  The same companies send me emails almost daily, and I don’t take my name off the list, because I hate paying too much for something I may eventually need.  That is a game they have rigged too: buy it now because the shipping is free and it’s on sale and you know you will need it later.  If you haven’t tried this one, I recommend you do (it’s sort of like shopus interruptus): Log into your favorite shop account, load up your basket  with stuff you may need like tippet, leaders, mono, drop shot weights, then don’t seal the deal, just leave it in the shopping cart.  Chances are that you will get an email offering you free shipping or a 20% discount if you resume your courting.  Either way, however, the pop ads will follow you throughout your travels on the internet for a few days after….

At least 3 per week...

The second thing that happened recently that had me thinking was viewing a documentary film featuring Noam Chomsky, a linguist and philosopher who got his start in the liberal leaning 1960’s and who has not changed all that much.  As a Gen X-er, he was sort of a philosophical idol for many of us, and I think the purpose of the film (which coincides with the zeitgeist surrounding Bernie Sanders) is to expose others to his legacy and spark the minds of his political and philosophical heirs.  I am finally comfortable again with the politics of the kids, thank god, because we are swinging back to the thinking of the 90s (and 60s), I think.  Some of my peers have changed their thinking, but I am still a dirty Liberal about many things, I guess.  The more you have, the more you want to protect it, I understand this, but what is it that we actually have as we enter middle age?  Stuff, isolated neighborhoods, debt, depression and anxiety?  Too many of my peers and I have Big Pharma to thank for our “happiness,” which is more like “just being able to deal.”

The film, Requiem for the American Dream, was organized around the 10 ways that financial inequality is maintained in America.  You can sort figure out what he’s getting at by the titles of the principles, but I have added my own comments because it’s my blog, yo: 

1. Reduce Democracy – Even the Founding Fathers didn’t want true democracy because the poor would vote to take away the property and control of the rich.  Americans have always thought that wealth makes you better or is a reward for being better.  Ancient Greece promoted social welfare to even the score, so the poor were happier and more cared for (less likely to revolt), but James Madison felt much differently.

2. Shape Ideology. – Public schools (and most privates) are in business to indoctrinate not create students who question and think on their own.

3. Redesign the Economy – Financial institutions that arguably create nothing of value make up 40% of our economy, while manufacturing accounts for less than 20%. 

4. Shift the Burden – tax the middle class and make them pay for bank bailouts and everything else.  Tax rates in the U.S. skew towards the middle and are wage-focused not focused on capital gains and investments, where the wealthy’s wealth comes from.

5. Attack Solidarity - Chomsky says, you have to drive the normal emotion of caring about others (and the greater good) out of people's heads so they think it’s normal to always act in their own self-interest when it comes to politics and social welfare. 

6. Run the Regulators – Laws are written by corporations, who fund the studies, and have oversight.  Nobel-laureates with dissenting views were kept out of the conversations about how to fix the banks after the crash in lieu of industry big wigs, for example. 

7. Engineer Elections – Corporations are people (my ass). 

8. Keep the Rabble in Line – Scott Walker, anyone?  How many think teachers’ unions are evil, that teachers are rich for working 10 months per year? 

9. Manufacture Consent – This is the most salient to my discussion above.  The point is that advertisers make obsessive consumers, fishermen who need a new reel every year (or “need” a new reel).  If people are caught up in superficial consumption then they can be kept in their places more easily.  Chomsky says, informative advertisements would result in rational decision making, but advertisements promote irrational choices and bury the details. This goes for election campaigns too.  What did Hope and Change mean?  How will Trump make America Great Again?  Where are the details of the policies?  Obama couldn’t push through universal healthcare; can anyone believe that Trump can build a wall?  Really?

10. Marginalize the Population – The government does not act in the best interest of the people unless corporations are people (they are not).

I would argue that corporations run our country, and we are made to believe freedom and capitalism are synonymous.  After 911, we were told to go out spend to prove to the evil-doers that they didn’t change the American way of life.  Perhaps I am acting selfishly when I return an item with which I am unsatisfied, and perhaps that loss is built into the profit structure of the companies, but if we all returned crappy products, perhaps the cost would still go up, but the quality would be better.  There is no motivation to improve anything when most of us will grow tired of a rod and reel before it proves to be junk.  Like mine, I bet your garage or basement if full of worthless reels and toys and tools.  Improvements are not often used to make things better but instead to make higher profits.  Men didn’t like little Toyota pickups (especially men with small penises—I drive a Subaru Forester, so you can assume I’ve been blessed) even though they got good gas mileage.  Then the materials used to make the trucks got lighter, which was a great chance to make those little “rice burner” trucks even more fuel efficient, but what happened instead?  Toyotas and Nissans got larger like their American counterparts and gas mileage stayed roughly the same, decent.   

I have “needed” a new fly line since the early spring, but I have resisted dropping 90 dollars when I don’t have the money to drop 90 dollars.  Instead, I put my 5 wt spool on my reel and am throwing 5 wt line on my 4 wt rod.  It’s not perfect, but the 5 wt line is in better shape and floating higher.  I am teaching a class this summer, and I can wait until I actually have the money to purchase the new line.  I also gave LL Bean a break for a while and bought a pair of Orvis wading boots.  However, Orvis also has a generous return policy….  Sorry if their waders keep getting more expensive.

It is hard to resist those glossy catalogues and daily marketing emails, but I am really trying.  I have to keep reminding myself that I would rather have money for gas and tolls for my fishing adventures.  I would rather have money for a dinner out or a vacation with the family or tickets to a show at Union Transfer.  While it lasts, the stuff I have is good quality, bought after digging through what Chomsky would call the “irrational advertising” for the information to make a good decision.  As often as they reinforce the herd mentality at times and allow advertisers to masquerade as average members, these blogs and forums are sometimes good for that, for ferreting out what is true about a product below the noise.  Aren’t companies losing money to the after-market sale of quality items, things like old Penn reels and used Van Staals, or is it just the sharpies who search for the good stuff?   Perceived quality and quality: there is a dance they have to do to make things good enough, but not so good they will be the last reel you ever need.  If we put as much R&D money into things that matter as we do things that don’t, a lot of society’s ills would have been solved a long time ago.

But what if the pond is rigged?

Questioning the decisions and policies of corporations is not un-American, any more than questioning your own government.  Jefferson, I believe, said dissent is the highest form of patriotism.  Chomsky points out that no other democracies in the world bandy that un-American concept around.  Instead, “un-Soviet” was tossed around under Stalin.  And the social changes that we all enjoy always start on the fringe.  In 20 years, who will care about gay marriage except those outside the societal norms?  Doomsayers point to the demagogue Trump as a sign that we are ready for Hitler part two, but I say there are just as many Bernie supporters, most of them young and who will be running the world soon, and we are ready for another 60s.  I am too old to think someone like that can make a difference in office, but his ideas can make a difference in the long run.  Corporations are not America and stuff can’t be what it’s all about.  I am making an effort to buy what I need not what I “need.”  Wish me luck!  It will not be easy, and I will falter.  I have had my eye on a 11 foot Euro-nymphing rod…