Who are we without our stuff? For those of us who are U.S. residents, we are citizens of consumption, mavens of materiality. We are American consumers more often than we are American voters. Americans are brand-identified. Our patterns of consumption define us, and project who we are. Some of us like to project success, and others of us like to project social responsibility with what we have purchased. We are PCs or Macs; Blackberries, Palms or iPhones; Nike or New Balance; fair trade or free trade. We are Toyota, Volkswagen or Ford car owners; we are supporting breast cancer research as we buy pink or AIDS research as we buy red. We know how cool we are based on whether we choose Google Chrome, Firefox, Safari, or Explorer to surf the web. We stick to one preferred airline, with Southwest customers proud to feel the "luv" or fly JetBlue with its DirectTV at every seat and fancy T5 at JFK.
Read full transcript...One of my all-time favorite films is called "Places in the Heart." You may not remember this 1984 film, but you may remember a well-known incident associated with it.
In 1985, "Places in the Heart" star Sally Field won her second Academy Award for her role in this film. In her now-famous acceptance speech for her Oscar, Field said, "I can't deny the fact that you like me, right now, you like me!" This line, of course, has been slightly misquoted as it has become well known as "You like me, you really like me!"
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