A fuzzy blue parrot passed by me. Andi clapped saying, “Good for you. You cute parrot that kids love. Start them off early. That’s right,” she is still clapping . I look down to realize he had a Corona shirt on to promote the brand. To whom? I wonder. Children trying to decide what beer they want?
Disturbingly enough the bird flew closer on his prey while my group ate at one of the two food courts. A small girl reached her hand out from her stroller towards his wing. I could not see how this helped Corona sell their drinks until another small toddler ran to the parrot as another Corona representative not in costume gave the parents information as they took the parrot and girls picture just like at Disney. How freakishly cunning marketers can be!
After a few days in the wilderness and nature it was an abrupt flip to enter Minneapolis for the Mall of America. Jackson Turner wrote, “And now, four centuries from the discovery of America, at the end of a hundred years of life under the Constitution, the frontier has gone, and with its going has closed the first period of American history.” What is the future?
If the future is all we have because the past does not include the frontier, and we are merely a consumer driven market, what does that say about our society? I hope we will not produce a society that manipulates children in order to reach their parents’ wallets, and possibly place an idea in their heads to buy alcohol.
Minneapolis just made me wish for the frontier once again with less push and pull to buy and more nature.
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Interesting ideas here, Emily. It's hard to imagine what Turner would have had to say about frontiers of consumerism and about the mall of America. Great description/opening, too!
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