Brand Fatigue From Artist Ben Luckinbill

luckinbillGraphic designer and artist Ben Luckinbill, son of Lucie Arnaz and actor Laurence Luckinbill, has posted a devastating critique of the current cultural obsession with brands, metrics, likes and conversion on his blog.

Simply titled “I Am Not a Brand,” the post, also in audio, appears on his blog Ben Luckinblog. It asks the question that doesn’t get asked very often, namely if we really need “any more crap.”

I wonder how many others feel that way?

Writes Luckinbill:

“I’m not an event-driven out-of-box experience for the aspirational ages. I’m not a product to be placed, pushed, soft launched, hard launched, or focus-grouped after a power lunch. I’m more than the sum of my metrics, my likes, my rates of converting, bouncing, clicking-through, or my number of $%^&$ “followers”.

I’m not some multiple hyphenate jingoistic bit of chintz pushed by the Middle Man Class onto the perceived-to-be irrational great unwashed mass who don’t need any more crap in their tiny apartments; let alone another dollar they owe racking up 100% interest on a mountain of debt unlikely to be climbed or collected, only leveraged to buy food and pay the electric, and maybe buy a few Snuggies™ off the TV for when they shut off the heat.”

Notice it’s not a critique of things, just dumb things.

While I don’t hate capitalism or consumerism (they both just are facts of life, in my book), his critique about the way we are running our culture I think makes a point, and the bit about Snuggies and high-usury credit cards is quite devastating.

The subhead to the blog mentions “the fact that we live in the future and it’s insane.”

Ouch.

Yes we do, and yes it is. Follow him on Twitter at https://twitter.com/BenLuckinbill.

Author

  • Garland Pollard

    J. Garland Pollard IV is editor/publisher of BrandlandUSA. Since 2006, the website BrandlandUSA.com has chronicled the history and business of America’s great brands.

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