Last week, my eyeglasses broke and I reluctantly scotch taped them back together. I had no other choice; my disposable contact lenses ran out months ago and I didn't have a spare pair. With my new (and less than improved) look, I was worried about being seen in public. Those grade school fears crept into the back of my head; I worried that people were going to label me dweeb.
Eventually I manned up, went out, and realized that no one cared. Even if they did, they didn't treat me any differently. Okay, I'll probably need to get a new pair of glasses before I go to a job interview or take my girlfriend to a fancy night out on the town; but in most situations, such a blemish is going to go unnoticed. Pop culture projects an image of perfection that almost all of us find alluring; in all likelihood, we aspire towards perfection ourselves. But, in reality, we (and everyone else) are already flawed in millions of countless ways. And, often, it's going to go unnoticed to just about everyone else if you display just one more flaw to the world.
Granted, I've garnered a bit of immunity from my childhood. Despite years of pleading, I didn't get my first pair of jeans until the 6th grade -- and they were powder blue Lee jeans. When everyone was just getting over the Reebok Pumps and moving onto Nike Airs, my mother bought me a pair of Spaldings from Bradlees. But these devastating setbacks in my childhood actually did teach me a lesson. Sooner or later, people are going to get to know you and judge you for who you are. You best go out, find the good people, and stick with them.
It's a lesson that often bears repeating. In my third year of teaching, I broke my nose and had to wear a giant shiny metal plate that obscured much of my face. I was worried I was going to be harassed by my students, but after just five to ten minutes, my 8th grade students didn't care either. After two weeks, none of them even noticed when I finally removed the plate.
When I went about hunting for a cheap pair of frames this week, I was grateful to learn that Walmart offered eyeglass frames for $9. My current pair had cost more than $200 and lasted less than two years. I wasn't going to invest 20 times more for a pair of designer glasses -- what difference would it make, when people don't even notice anyway?
These differences in price reveal the unconscious power of branding. Smokers pay $2 more for a pack of Marlboro's, kids pay premium prices for Air Jordan sneakers, and the myopic pay $100 for a pair of Nascar or Randy Jackson glasses at Walmart or $300 for a pair of Gucci or Guess glasses at Cohen's Fashion Optical rather than suffer the unbearable cost of wearing discount frames. But are these fears real or just imagined?
Maybe I'd feel a bit differently if my self-image was predicated more on my looks. It's probably true that devastatingly beautiful men and women are treated different by society, and enjoy privileges that the other 99.99% of us lack. But eventually, even the beautiful get old and wrinkled, so it's probably best not to get caught up in one's own physical perfection.
When I was teaching middle school, the biggest diss was to insult a boy's sneakers. My first year teaching, I had a cocksure student named Ruben. He was smart, popular, and at the top of his class both academically and socially. But when he got into an argument with a girl in the school yard, she mocked his sneakers for being dirty. In the moment, he took the criticism in stride, but later I saw him licking his fingers and rubbing his red and white Air Jordans clean like a wounded animal.
We pay a premium to preempt these attacks on our individual psyches. Corporate branding prays on the insecure members of our society. We invest in brand names to associate ourselves with the powerful affluent members of our society and distance ourselves from the powerless poor. But, in the end, we're just spending money to fool ourselves.
2 comments:
You're basically saying that you don't give a damn about how you look and therefore you are more than satisfied wearing a $9 eyeglass frame. Then you suggest that everyone else should do the same. You might as well stop buying new clothes because you can have used clothes donated to you, and never buy a new car because you can get a 1975 Chevy from a junkyard almost free, etc. Who cares how it looks. Please. Don't force your world view on everyone else. I like to look sharp or at least not sloppy and I want people around me to have a reasonable appearance standard too. And people who are fit and dress in style will look nice even in their 70s.
Brand name frame makers invest tons of money into their designs, and their designs do look better than a $9 frame and have better functionality. People who buy eyeglass frames for brand name and not its design are stupid, but they are a minority. I am not saying that I like every designer frame, but if I walk into a showroom with a couple of hundred designer frames, I will find exactly what I am looking for or discover a design that I really like. You won't always get that with a $9 frame. Considering that a pair of good _plastic_ lenses with high end coatings costs about $200, it is silly not to spend about $100 on a good looking frame. The Walmart price of $100 for a frame you really like is actually damn cheap. I never found anything that I truly liked at Walmart, but NASCAR comes close. I happen to like certain designs by Flexon and Izod, and their price is always in the range 250-300. I don't see those frames at Walmart, but you can find them in private eye care clinics.
Hi Anonymous,
Thanks for your post! It's been a while since anyone has left a thoughtful comment, so it's heartening to find people responding seriously and intelligently to what I have to say.
Still, I disagree wholeheartedly with your claim that "people who buy eyeglass frames for brand name and not its design... are a minority." Name brand companies are in this market precisely BECAUSE people are willing to spend more of their hard earned cash on a brand name they recognize.
Otherwise, how do you explain NASCAR -- the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing -- being in the optical business in the first place? Are NASCAR employees designing these eyeglass frames, or is NASCAR just sticking its logo on a product and collecting a share of the profits instead? To me, the answer is blatant and obvious. Those same eyeglass designs would still be on display, whether NASCAR was involved or not.
I'm sorry, Anonymous, but there's no way most people are simply paying for a product's design... they are spending extra money on an illusion created by advertising, marketing, and (deeply flawed) cultural norms. That's why LeBron gets paid $80 mill for hawking sneakers that costs just dollars and cents to produce. The real stinker is, YOU are considered the idiot if you pay $20 for a pair of discount sneakers instead of the $100+ that pads the pockets of King James, corporate execs, and the company's shareholders (and definitely not the workers who produced the shoe). While that difference in cost may be insignificant to some, it may come at the expense of something actually important for others, like eating healthy or receiving adequate health care.
I'm arguing that companies like NASCAR have no business being in the eyeglass frame industry, because they provide nothing extra for the consumer. Without these companies in the industry, consumers would still be getting the same eyeglass designs -- but at lower prices. There wouldn't be two tiers of "discount" and "designer" frames, and people would have to purchase a product based purely on design, quality, and cost rather than a superfluous brand name.
Imagine people having to purchase a polo shirt for its design, quality, and price rather than the logo sewed on the front. I doubt many people would still be forking over $80 for Ralph Lauren or Lacoste polos, and I believe the same to be true for eyeglass frames.
I'm not arguing that everyone should wear "used clothes" and drive a "1975 Chevy." Like you said, I agree people should "have a reasonable appearance standard." And sometimes, I too like to look "sharp." But I think it's just perverse convince people to pay extra for something that you don't want or need in the first place.
Derrick
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