Not filling the void

The Onion is one of the best sites on the internet. For a while at the turn of the decade, it pretty much defined online satire, which was odd, in a way, as it was very traditional in approach, essentially an online weekly newspaper. Except hilarious.

This is a particularly funny story, from 2000, about a wholly useless new consumer product that has not, somehow, managed to "fill the void–a vast, soul-crushing spiritual vacuum Americans of all ages helplessly face on a daily basis, with nowhere to turn and no way to escape".

I thought about this story at the weekend, after I'd spent Saturday afternoon in some of London's finest department stores, hours of my life I will never see again but have taught me something important: I really hate shopping. I used to love it. At school, I would go out at lunchtime to the record shop and never come back empty handed. As a student I would spend my spare time dodging between Brighton's many trainer retailers, often clutching a bag of newly purchased records. Now, though, I download mp3s and only buy new shoes when my old ones have holes. And maybe not even then.

The feeling I got on Saturday was an intense boredom but mainly a disappointment. I kind of wanted to be enjoying myself, buying some jeans (I need some new jeans. I think) or maybe...maybe some mugs. But I liked none of it. The jeans were too dull, too identikit, and the homeware was someone else's aesthetic and I couldn't see why I'd want to fill my flat with it. I have real trouble with the idea that goods, designed by someone else, mass produced by someone else and sold by someone else again should somehow express who I am. For another time, perhaps...

So far, so ranty, and so what. But here's the tenuous link. Shopping is supposed to be one of our comforts. Our lives are busy and stressful and we hate our jobs but! we can go out and buy stuff that's make us feel better when we get it home and, weirdly, the whole process is supposed to be enjoyable in and of itself. Of course it's not, though. Schlepping across rainy streets, dodging crowds, waiting in in queues - all rubbish. I was around Oxford Circus a year or so ago, squeezed up against the crowds, trudging slowly nowhere. There used to be a rather maverick evengelical scouse preacher there, his regular patch, with a megaphone and a frequently repeated catchphrase. He was feeling slightly more discursive that morning. "Turn to the word of Jesus", he said. "You've tried consumerism, and look at you. You're all miserable!". It was impossible to disagree.

So that's the link. Why is everyone so unhappy? Well, at least one of the reasons is that the very things that are supposed to cheer us up simply don't deliver.