Popular Consumption: Consumption be done about it?

When people talk about expatriating from America, you find one of the most popular motivations—besides escaping the terrifying rise of Donald Trump—is to get away from the encroaching culture of conspicuous consumption. The disposal goods lifestyle of our WalMart society has trained Americans to buy cheap crap that falls apart quickly and can be easily replaced. Factory farms and the processed food industries have similarly turned junk food into an indispensable staple of the standard American diet.

Well, I regret to inform you that if these are the pitfalls of American society that you aim to avoid, then Germany will not be your best choice of destinations. One of the wealthiest countries in Europe, and the world, Germany trails very close behind the US and sometimes even surpasses it in the realm of mindless consumerism. Visit any city center, where ancient architecture is circumscribed by charming cobblestone pedestrian zones, and you’ll see store front after store front of cheap souvenirs, fast fashion, and overly rich sweets.

Among the low end boutiques and typical sweatshop wares, you also find an occasional high end clothier, some of them even boasting products made responsibly under fair trade conditions. But anything resembling a Bambu Batu I have yet to see, and I doubt I will. Of course, people have suggested many times that I set up shop here doing more or less what I did in San Luis Obispo. Yet nothing I’ve seen in Germany has convinced me that this would be a wise or even viable undertaking.

But I have seen numerous shops selling all manner of merchandise to make me giggle and cringe. The most popular clothing trend I’ve noticed so far is the ubiquitous presence of t-shirts with faux vintage designs featuring mock advertisements for imitation companies with poorly worded slogans in pseudo-English. Banal English phrases that you’d never see on an American t-shirt, like “Meet me at the seaside” or “Live everyday like it’s Sunday”, are as commonplace as they are out-of-place. The nearest beach is at least five hours away. But the more interesting shirts say things like “You can go anywhere we want for our lost diaries”. Beg your pardon?

It’s impossible to stroll through a discount clothing store without finding t-shirts advertising a surf fest or a swim meet in Laguna Beach or Santa Cruz, always including a random year to denote some element of vintage and some inapt catchphrase. Anything to do with California is considered ultra-cool, unless you’re actually a person from California, in which case you’re just a nuisance. L.A. sports logos and made up names of imaginary beaches, ok. But t-shirts promoting Hollister, CA? Something has gone terribly wrong here. But far be it from me to bring any of these blunders to their attention.

Maybe it’s because we sold all of our bathroom appliances and haven’t shaved anything in well over a month, but it seems like there are an inordinate number of TV ads here pushing personal shaving products. Still, I don’t remember ever in America seeing an ad for men’s razors that featured a man shaving his chest smooth like a baby’s behind. The women’s razor’s spokesmodels are equally impressive, with armpits as smooth as Corinthian marble and as pure as the driven snow. Quite a change from my first trip to Germany back in 1990, when women’s armpits were still thick and overgrown like the Black Forest.

One of Germany’s most popular items for consumption continues to be the beer. It’s cheap, it’s everywhere, and by and large it’s delicious. None of this comes as any surprise, of course. What I wasn’t aware of was the wide variety of beer-blended beverages, including Radler (beer with lemonade), and other light libations like beer with cola, beer with strawberry juice, and beer with grapefruit juice. When I thought I saw construction workers and pregnant women drinking beer all morning and afternoon, it turned out to be one of these surprisingly refreshing beverages with a meager two percent alcohol. I had to pass on the cola concoction, but the fruit drinks were unexpectedly delectable, and it’s surprising these have never caught on or been made available back in the States.

Stay tuned for further reflections in our next update. In the meantime, we’ll be down at the grocery store trying to decide between 50 different styles of baked bread and more than 100 varieties of smoked, canned and pickled seafood.

[Post Script: One more item of interest I’ve observed on the topic of marketing and consumption, is a certain billboard that appears all over town. The image is of some loser with a surly smirk on his face and half a cigarette dangling limply from between his index and pointer fingers. Next to him is the message: “You Decide” (in English). In California, this would certainly be part of an anti-smoking campaign, but, as it took me a few weeks to realize, this German billboard (paid for by Marlboro) is actually meant to persuade people here to decide to start smoking.]