I'm watching the Tour de France this year mainly through clips posted on YouTube. The live coverage streams through the Peacock service, but it's loaded with commercials, and I typically don't have time to sit in front of the TV for hours to watch the race unfold every day. Anyway, the Tour is a huge marketing blitz for bike manufacturers and a significant amount of the coverage and cycling "journalism" is basically advertising for bike junk.
The cycling hobby is a great example of how pervasive advertising is. I think most people who live in the developed countries of the world exist in a world that's mainly shaped by corporate marketing campaigns.
In recent years, bike makers started to push the concept that fat tires on road bikes are "faster" than the skinny tires road racers used for decades.The lore about the fat tire benefits oozed into the cycling world's consciousness in the past few years. Some of it is pushed by engineers and "scientific" studies of their benefits. Some of the lore might even be true. The main reason its been pushed so hard, though, is it induces people to buy new expensive bikes. Older road bikes were built with narrower openings in the frame and fork, so the fat tires don't fit.
A cyclist who wants that supposed extra boost of fat tire speed won't be able to get it on their old road bike, so they will have to pony up $$$ for a new one that provides ample room for super fat tires. The people who race, or who go after Strava (online virtual competition) segments want every possible advantage. Also, the performance obsessed cyclist will see that the world class racers of the Tour de France are riding fat tires now, so they will pay up to ride a bike that allows for the extra 5 mm of tire material.
It's hard to believe that much of the "fat tire" lore is manufactured to sell bikes. People can't imagine the academic studies about different tire sizes are promoted mainly to sell bikes. They can't imagine all the social media discussion is mainly to sell bikes. they can't imagine all the pro cycling teams make decisions about which bike components they use to promote their sponsors stuff rather than to go as fast as possible.
The thing that's even harder to comprehend is most of the things people think about the world are just old corporate marketing campaigns. Hoardes of people do things all the time that are directly opposed to their personal interest because it benefits some POS corporate douchebag.
I saw a guy hosing down some weeds in some stone hardscaping with Round-Up a couple of days ago. Glyphosate was banned around the world, then finally Bayer/Monsanto pulled it from the direct-to-consumer market a couple of years ago, I think, after they were sued thousands of times by people who got cancer from it. That story didn't ever get into the public consciousness, though.
Obviously, there's a big industry dedicated to killing weeds in lawns and landscaping. How did people decide that they should have a grass-only lawn, or if they have some landscaping like flower beds, that it should be only flowers and mulch and everything else should be eradicated? When they walk through a meadow in a park, they might be pleased by the wildflowers and buzzing and abundant life, but at home they will somehow feel their yard needs to be one species of grass that's kept a specific length all summer. It's actually pretty weird.
What would people be like if their minds weren't basically a corporate product? Would they mow their lawns? Would they spend $1000+ per month to drive a new truck? Would they be happier? It's pretty hard to say.
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