Anais Kim
I Buy, Therefore I Am: How Existentialist Philosophies Have Influenced the Modern Marketplace
Anais Kim
Introduction
Is Nike secretly against team sports? Is Toy Story an adult movie? Will a pit stop at Krispy Kreme truly make you happier? While these questions are seemingly nonsensical and unrelated, they are all connected through my exploration of how commercial industries are influenced by existentialist philosophies.
Today’s leading brands’ marketing strategies are deeply intertwined with existentialist philosophies. Their slogans, narratives, and mascots often mirror the themes and characteristics espoused by existentialist thinkers such as Jean-Paul Sartre, Arthur Schopenhauer, and Bertrand Russell, as well as affect theorists like Lauren Berlant and Sara Ahmed. Beginning with Nike’s iconic slogan “Just Do It,” which echoes Sartre’s condemnation of
quietism in “Existentialism is a Humanism,” I delve into the parallels between brand messaging and philosophical discourse.
Moving on to Disney’s brand philosophy, I explore the recurrent theme of death in its early films and the existential dread present in its more recent productions. By examining Walt Disney’s background alongside various philosophical perspectives on mortality and life’s meaning, I illuminate the connections to existentialist philosophers and theorists like Lauren Berlant, author of “Cruel Optimism.” Finally, I analyze the marketing strategies of Burger King and other fast-food chains, uncovering their associations with Sara Ahmed’s concept of “Happy Objects.”
Throughout this exploration, I critique the philosophical underpinnings and marketing objectives of these brands, which include hyper-individualism and detrimentally delusional optimism.
Part I: Nike’s Call to Action
Introduction to Nike’s motto, “Just Do It”
Let us begin with Nike’s renowned slogan, “Just Do It,” designed to inspire consumers to chase their dreams, overcome obstacles, and exert themselves to their fullest potential.1 This call to action serves as a strategic advertising tactic, a theme I will later link to Jean-Paul Sartre’s discourse on Existentialism as a life of choice and action, alongside Lauren Berlant’s notion of “Cruel Optimism.”
Phil Knight, co-founder of Nike, hired advertising agency Wieden+Kennedy to craft their slogan in 1988. Wieden+Kennedy “understood that Nike needed more than just another catchy tagline; they needed a powerful rallying cry that encapsulated the spirit of the brand and resonated with athletes of all levels.” With this in mind, Weiden+Kennedy drew inspiration from the 1 https://chadrwyatt.medium.com/the-power-of-three-words-nikes-just-do-itand-the-evolution-of-marketing-innovation-5d2103ee3220
notorious last words of Gary Gilmore, who was executed in 1977: “Let’s do it.” Despite initial apprehensions that “Just Do It” may be received by audiences as “too aggressive or alienating,” Nike boldly introduced the slogan in a 1988 commercial featuring Walt Stack, an 80-year-old who routinely ran 17 miles every morning. The slogan struck a chord with consumers, lauded for its ability to “resonate with people from all walks of life” and “encapsulate the indomitable human spirit” by emphasizing that “success and greatness are not achieved by overthinking or hesitating but by taking first steps and persevering.” Due to this positive feedback, Nike embraced “Just Do It” as the integral piece of their marketing campaigns.
Subsequently, Nike has broadened its marketing endeavors to position itself as a company synonymous with action and excellence. Americus Reed, a professor specializing in identity and marketing at the University of Pennsylvania, explains that individuals create their identities by selecting brands that reflect
their values.2 For example, while Under Armour champions the underdog, Nike epitomizes performance. Consumers gravitate towards brands embodying values they aspire to, seeking alignment with their own self-expression.
Nike harnesses its slogan “Just Do It” as the driving impetus across all its campaigns. For example, the 2016 Nike Unlimited Campaign spotlighted athlete ambassadors embodying their ethos: a call to action.3 Featuring athletes such as Simone Biles and Kyle Maynard, the campaign underscored the determination requisite for triumph, using phrases such as “Unlimited Will,” “Unlimited Future,” “Unlimited You,” “Unlimited Courage," "Unlimited Together" and "Unlimited
2 https://video-alexanderstreet-com.ezproxy.bu.edu/watch/how-apple-and-nikehave-branded-yourbrain?utm_campaign=Video&utm_medium=MARC&utm_source=aspresolver 3 https://www.proquest.com/docview/1813891558?parentSessionId=gBTnnBqNc mXNXiQa%2FartJHHVmWatnkk0C6Sq%2FTkLjjc%3D&pqorigsite=primo&accountid=9676&sourcetype=Wire%20Feeds
Youth." In a segment of the campaign, Maynard delivers the following message:
“If you're doing something first, you don't have that path laid out for you so you just have to go and figure it out. You learn how to use your mind. You learn: How do I not fall apart when I have something bad happen to me? How do I get through and overcome bigger challenges? How do I adapt? The lessons that you learn in your sport can transcend into every area of your life, in your relationships and in just any dream that you have.”
These motivational expressions distinctly reflect the company’s endeavor to appeal to consumers’ existentialist inclination towards choice and action. Nike, with “Just Do It” as their guiding principle, concentrates its campaigns on athletes and movements that align with their overarching vision.
Finding the common thread with Jean-Paul Sartre’s discourse on existentialism
Nike’s brand philosophy is reflective of Jean-Paul Sartre’s discourse on Existentialism. In Sartre’s Existentialism is a Humanism, he claims, Quietism is the attitude of people who say, ‘let others do what I cannot do.’ The doctrine I am presenting before you is precisely the opposite of this, since it declares that there is no reality except in action. It goes further, indeed, and adds, ‘Man is nothing else but what he purposes, he exists only in so far as he realizes himself, he is therefore nothing else but the sum of his actions, nothing else but what his life is.’ Hence we can well understand why some people are horrified by our teaching.4
4 Existentialism is a Humanism
Sartre’s existentialist philosophy, in the simplest terms, centers around the idea that all individuals, despite outside factors and influences, ultimately determine their own paths in life. This philosophy is reflected in various consumer-oriented enterprises and personal expressions, exemplified by Mortal Kombat’s tagline “Choose Your Destiny,” Bon Jovi and Talk Talk’s respective songs both titled “It’s My Life,” and, of course, Nike’s slogan “Just Do It.” Sartre and Nike’s philosophies converge in their assertion about existence: individuals must take complete responsibility for their lives.5
A newfound critique of Nike through Jean-Paul Sartre and Lauren Berlant
Establishing this connection, I will critique Nike’s brand philosophy utilizing a critique of Sartre’s existentialist
5 https://www.webpages.uidaho.edu/engl_258/Lecture%20Notes/choice%20and% 20action.htm
philosophies. Following the publication of Sartre’s “Being and Nothingness,”he faced criticisms for allegedly crafting “an individualistic bourgeois philosophy without paying any attention to the most urgent social and collective issues.”6 In his endeavor to formulate an existentialist ethical framework, Sartre developed the concept of “bad faith.” This phenomenon entails a human habit in which individuals live inauthentically, concealing their freedom of will and choice to evade and obscure the weight of their crushing responsibilities. Sartre’s most famous example is that of the waiter:7
We need not watch long before we can explain it: he is playing at being a waiter in a cafe.[...] This obligation is not different from that which is
6 https://go-galecom.ezproxy.bu.edu/ps/i.do?p=AONE&u=mlin_b_bumml&id=GALE%7CA707 129126&v=2.1&it=r&ugroup=outsideeee&aty=ip
7
https://edisciplinas.usp.br/pluginfile.php/6564640/mod_resource/content/2/Bein g%20and%20Nothingness.pdf
imposed on all tradesmen. Their condition is wholly one of ceremony. The public demands of them that they realize it as a ceremony; there is the dance of the grocer, of the tailor, of the auctioneer, by which they endeavor to persuade their clientele that they are nothing but a grocer, an auctioneer, a tailor. A grocer who dreams is offensive to the buyer, because such a grocer is not wholly a grocer. Society demands that he limit himself to his function as a grocer, just as the soldier at attention makes himself into a soldier-thing with a direct regard which does not see at all, which is no longer meant to see, since it is the rule and not the interest of the moment which determines the point he must fix his eyes on.
Through his discussion of bad faith, Sartre lays the groundwork for discussing ethical existentialist theory. When individuals in a society suppress personal responsibilities under the guise of social expectations, ethical diversion becomes challenging. This limits peoples’ actions and perpetuates inauthenticity as they conform to social norms , falsely perceiving it as “freedom.” Sartre delves deeper into ethical existentialist theory in “Being and Nothingness,” posing a series of unanswered questions: Is it possible for freedom to take itself for a value as the source of all value, or must it necessarily be defined in relation to a transcendent value which haunts it? And in case it could will itself as its own possible and its determining value, what would this mean? [...] This freedom chooses then not to recover itself but to flee itself, not to coincide with itself but to be always at a distance from itself.
What are we to understand by this being which wills to hold itself in awe, to be at a distance from itself? Is it a question of bad faith or of another fundamental attitude? And can one live this new aspect of being? [...] All these questions, which refer us to a pure and not an accessory reflection, can find their reply only on the ethical plane.
Nike has faced similar criticisms of its brand philosophy, which, I argue, promotes individualism to a harmful degree. The company’s campaigns, which often revolve around individual athletes, keenly reflect prevailing popular culture. Their marketing strategies revolve around their ability to maintain an evolving campaign framework. This adaptability ultimately underpins Nike’s success in the consumer world: they capitalize by promoting their own message of action and determination alongside today’s society’s various calls to action.
In September 2018, Nike made the controversial decision to release the advertisement “Dream Crazy,” starring Colin Kaepernick.8 Expanding their slogan to “Believe in something. Even if it means sacrificing everything. Just do it,” Nike made a loud statement aligning their campaign with the nationwide campaign for racial justice. Similarly, during the #MeToo movement, Nike’ adapted their slogan to “If they think your dreams are crazy, show them what crazy dreams can do. Just do it.”9
Such campaigns often draw criticism for “promoting an ideology that radically individualizes social issues and the solutions to those issues.” Jochen Hoffmann, a Professor of Culture and Learning at Aalborg University in Denmark, calls this
8 https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2019/sep/16/nikes-dream-crazy-advertstarring-colin-kaepernick-wins-emmy
9 https://journals-humankineticscom.ezproxy.bu.edu/view/journals/ssj/12/4/article-p347.xml
“neoliberal optimism.”10 Kaepernick’s advertisement video epitomizes this notion with its promotion of limitless competition: “Don’t try to be the fastest runner in your school. Or the fastest in the world. Be the fastest ever.” This campaign embodies “hyperindividualism,” a concept which is sharply critiqued by critical theorists Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer, who describe it as a practice in which “greediness is transformed into a positive value” and “insatiability in sports redefines the land of opportunity as a voracious consumer society.”
Nike’s promotion of neoliberal optimism and hyperindividualism yields two significant problematic outcomes. Firstly, social movements are de-emphasized as collective efforts and instead portrayed as individual battles. Hoffmann observes that oppressive structures are depicted as conquerable if one possesses sufficient willpower to “Just Do It.” Secondly, these narratives
10
https://vbn.aau.dk/ws/portalfiles/portal/447499820/Second_Revised_Manuscript _CPA.pdf
propagate the harmful idea that failure to succeed is not due to oppressive societal structures, but to “personal shortcomings.” As the Colin Kaepernick campaign suggests, people aren’t “dreaming crazy enough.” In the inaugural ad, Kaepernick labels these people as “non-believers,” implying that success is reserved for those with crazy dreams, while failure is attributed to a lack of belief. In an extreme example given by Hoffmann, “if the crazy dreamer is the guy who became an ironman after beating a brain tumor, then the Other will be all people who fail to beat the tumor and die from cancer. They weren’t dreaming crazy enough.”
Part II: Disney’s Death and Existential Dread
Disney’s shift from death to existential dread
“The mission of The Walt Disney Company is to entertain, inform and inspire people around the globe through the power of unparalleled storytelling, reflecting the iconic brands, creative
minds and innovative technologies that make ours the world’s premier entertainment company.”11
Disney’s mission to inspire people has survived on its ability to assess and reflect America’s values. Since the inception of The Walt Disney Company, Walt Disney’s objective has been “[to articulate] a range of celebrated American doctrines in a form that any child could understand.” Disney’s fairy tales explore various social and political structures in human worlds, animal worlds, and utopian worlds, while exploring various relevant social contexts. Consequently, analysts regard Disney’s fairy tale worlds as historical documents.12 Disney films and stories have depicted evolving themes, representations, and cultural traditions over the 19th and 20th centuries. By analyzing these films in their respective temporal contexts, I can discern the dominant perceptions of American society, mentality, and worldview. 11 https://thewaltdisneycompany.com/about/ 12 https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/bu/reader.action?docID=4503385
Specifically, I want to examine Disney’s evolving portrayal of death, and later, existential dread. While Disney’s earlier works do not contain the concept of existential dread, it emerges alongside the American fixation on the concept in the 20th century. However, death has been a recurring theme in Disney’s earliest works, providing valuable insight into the evolving strategies employed to engage consumers.
In early Disney films, death holds a central role in the narrative. It often acts as a catalyst for the main plot, such as the Evil Queen’s desire to kill Snow White or Cinderella’s mother’s death leading to the introduction of her stepmother and stepsisters.
In other cases, death influences significant plot points, such as when Maleficent’s lethal curse prompts the three fairy godmothers to safeguard Sleeping Beauty. Additionally, there are instances where death symbolizes a crucial step towards maturity or acts as a threshold occurrence before a major coming of age. For example, Bambi’s mother's death forces him to grow and fend for himself
and Pinocchio’s sacrifice leads to his transformation into a real human boy. Throughout these early Disney films, death is a clearly stated fact of life; it is universally acknowledged and understood, rather than a concept subject to acceptance or denial.
Disney’s use of death carries social weight and capital, first because it allows us to make sense of death and therefore fear it less, and second because the notion of death is closely tied to the desire to overcome death. These two notions are prevalent in American society through religious American culture; thus Disney’s reflection of them is tactical and consumer-based. The aforementioned use of death in Bambi and Pinocchio exemplifies the classic use of death as a rite of passage for the main character. The rite of passage does not only represent internal character development – it also represents the transition from an alternate, unhealthy, or broken family to a loving, authentic, and transcendent nuclear family. This nuclear family is an essential model to American society, rooted in domestic religious
institutions and ideology since the 1940s. The narrative reinforces the belief that love and familial bonds can triumph over evil and death. Take the death-defying kiss in Sleeping Beauty or Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, where the powers of love and absolute good inspire audiences to embrace the nuclear family and ensure social order is upheld. In early Disney universes, morality is depicted in stark terms, as there is no moral gradation between absolute good and absolute evil. While death is portrayed as an evil force, it can ultimately be conquered and transformed into a positive outcome through love and friendship. Consequently, most early DIsney films conclude with a beloved happy ending, portraying a future filled with hope, joy, and love, even in the face of mortality and alongside the acceptance of death.
The transition from early to late Disney is marked by the transition from death as a black and white absolute to the unsettling yet popular concept of existential dread. We begin to see moral gradation and ambiguity as death and the acceptance of it
becomes a subjective notion. Toy Story most clearly exemplifies this evolution. The toys in the film lack a defined life expectancy nor a perception of an afterlife. Instead, their end goal and life’s meaning is to provide happiness and love for their child – an ideology resonant with various philosophical perspectives. This outlook echoes Aristotle’s early philosophy, which equated happiness with the meaning of life. German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer was among the first philosophers to question the meaning of life.13 Schopenhauer wrote, Since a man does not alter, and his moral character remains absolutely the same all through his life; since he must play out the part which he has received, without the least deviation from the character; since neither experience, nor philosophy,
13 https://iep.utm.edu/mean-ear/#SH2b
nor religion can effect any improvement in him, the question arises, What is the meaning of life at all?14
Shopenhauer’s view of the meaning of life is similar to Sartre’s bad faith in their descriptions of the socially accepted roles that individuals must play. It gets at the idea that the toys in Toy Story are simply playing their part by fulfilling their roles and obligations. Their sole purpose is to serve their owner, whose happiness becomes their ultimate priority, thus limiting their worldview.
Additionally, by relating Toy Story to British mathematician and philosopher Bertrand Russell, we can get at another interpretation:
All our affections are at the mercy of death, which may strike down those whom we love at any moment. It is therefore necessary that our lives
14 Schopenhauer, A. The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer: The Wisdom of Life. T. B. Saunders (tr.). 1860. rpr. in The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer, 2004.
should not have that narrow intensity which puts the whole meaning and purpose of our life at the mercy of accident. For all these reasons the man who pursues happiness wisely will aim at the possession of a number of subsidiary interests in addition to those central ones upon which his life is built.15
Several correlations emerge here. While Russell encourages individuals to pursue happiness, the toys in Toy Story seek the happiness of their child. Despite the subjective versus objective nature of their pursuits, their ultimate goal remains the same. Furthermore, Russell’s theories offer a framework for contrasting human perceptions of the movie with the perceptions the toys supposedly have of the situation they are in. The precarious action sequences in the movie remind watchers of action movies where characters could actually die, prompting viewers to root for the toys’ survival despite the toys lacking a
15 Russell, B. The Conquest of Happiness. London: Liveright, 1930.
tangible perception of death as well as the ability to die. Another aspect to consider is the toys’ awareness that they will eventually be discarded and stored indefinitely in an attic trash bag. In our terms, they become useless and meaningless. This is a horrifying notion for viewers. We translate the toys’ fates to a listless, lonely, and eternal “life.” It raises the question, “What would eternity be like for a conscious being with no hope of a hereafter, no purpose, no contact?”16 In this way, the toys in Toy Story have a divine purpose: they live to provide with no personal gain nor foreseeable end.
Finally, Toy Story concludes with a depiction of eternal damnation. This religious additive brings us back to Disney’s earlier works, which correlate death with the domestic religious family. Through these efforts, Disney makes the transition from death to existential dread. The shift mirrors evolving societal
16 https://go-galecom.ezproxy.bu.edu/ps/i.do?p=AONE&u=mlin_b_bumml&id=GALE%7CA232 952272&v=2.1&it=r&ugroup=outsideeee&aty=ip
preoccupations, popular opinion, and societal inquiry regarding mortality: what is it (its nature), what happens after it (the afterlife), how do we make the most of life (life’s significance), does it matter, how can we prevent or slow down death, and, most importantly, how does it impact our perception of our unique individual existence? Ultimately, Disney has masterfully surfed the waves of societal interest to capitalize off of our existential dread in films which, as its mission states, “inform and inspire people [...] through the power of unparalleled storytelling.”
Why and how existential dread is a ploy
In a 2012 TedTalk, Andrew Stanton, one of the writers of Toy Story, explained his tips for writing stories that will inspire audiences.17 Stanton explained that a well-written character that consumers will relate to and root for needs an “itch”: an “outer 17 https://ajrengel-75816.medium.com/pixars-andrew-stanton-clues-to-a-greatstory9c4f5b78de29#:~:text=Someone%20can%2achieve%20a%20goal,what%27s%2 0best%20for%20his%20owner.
vision and an inner motive that propels their actions.” This itch, or vision, differs from a goal in that while a person can achieve a goal, an itch is “something you can claw away at and never fully scratch.” In Toy Story, the toys’ itches are to do whatever is best for their owner, an impossible task in that “what’s best” is everchanging. Further, Stanton clarifies that characters are “unaware of their itch.” They are guided by an “unconscious force [...] Pursuing it causes questionable choices, and often leads to trouble.” Another standout tip that Stanton offers comes from playwright William Archer: “Drama is anticipation mingled with uncertainty.” This manifests in stories as the anticipation that consumers feel from scene to scene, to the uncertainty they feel about what will happen next to a character and how the story will end. Not only do watchers eagerly consume this as they become attached to characters, but they are attracted to this narrative because it is how they view their personal lives. This, I argue, is ultimately why
Disney has been so successful with its films which deal with existential dread.
Lauren Berlant’s “Cruel Optimism”
Next, I would like to introduce Lauren Berlant’s concept of “cruel optimism” to extrapolate the harms of Disney’s marketing tactics. Cruel optimism is an attachment to a dream or desire that is unrealistic and unattainable, and therefore damaging to one’s perception of reality.18 In particular, Berlant explores the concept of “The Promise of the Object,” in which she explains that people will latch onto some task, person, or career, believing that once they have attained X, their task, Y, will automatically be fulfilled. This “Y” is often happiness, contentedness, or general “success”; one’s definition of an end goal. A harmful component of cruel optimism is that we often recognize the risks or impossibilities involved with such attachments. Even though we recognize our 18 https://divinecuration.github.io/assets/pdf/berlant-cruel-optimism.pdf
tasks as harmful, obsessive, or unhealthy, we continue to invest time and energy into these aspirations because they are our only sources of hope and meaning. Cases of cruel optimism often manifest into imagined scenarios or wishful thinking.
Stanton explains that his “itch” is an essential part of his toolbox for a successful Disney film. While the use of existential dread or the awareness of existence in general is an effective marketing strategy for Disney movies, these narratives encourage false realities. Just as death was used in the earliest Disney films to appeal to parents of young children as a way of understanding the concept, existential dread is now used to appeal to a wider audience. However, there is a harm to the encouragement of this concept in popular American culture. The toys in Toy Story are victims of cruel optimism. For example, throughout Toy Story 2, Woody worries that Andy will grow up and no longer need him. His whole life (or “life”) is thrown into tumult when Andy does not seem to find any use in his toys anymore. In the end, Woody is
reintegrated into Andy’s life as Andy realizes that he still wants his toys. However, this does not solve Woody’s original existential crisis; it simply delays the moment when he will need to ascertain his meaning for himself. Consumers who see themselves reflected in these kinds of Disney characters will be the next willful victims of cruel optimism.
Part III: Fast Food Chains
Highlighting marketing strategies
Fast food restaurants also take advantage of our existential questions to appeal to consumers by utilizing manipulative linguistic techniques in their slogans and advertising campaigns.19 There are a vast number of techniques used, some of which I will highlight.
Some brands appeal to their audiences’ life values, such as health, home, family, and happiness. Krispy Kreme Doughnuts, for 19 https://eejpl.vnu.edu.ua/index.php/eejpl/article/view/61/47
example, has the slogan “Happy All Around,” which pushes the narrative that consumers who visit their restaurant can further promote their values and even “feel happier” by associating themselves with the brand.
Brands also attempt to make consumers feel power in their consumerism. Burger King’s slogan was “Have it your way” until it was updated in October of 2022 to “You rule.” Slogans such as these directly praise consumers or shift the purchasing process by adopting techniques such as product customization, which indirectly allows consumers to feel power.20 These marketing strategies are meant to allow consumers to feel “socially dominant,” a strategy which ideally encourages consumers to shop in environments where they feel better about themselves.
Companies also often anthropomorphize their brands by imbuing them with humanlike physical characteristics and 20 https://www-sciencedirectcom.ezproxy.bu.edu/science/article/pii/S0148296320303842
behaviors. Brands do this with their inanimate object mascots as well as their slogans – take the Pixar lamp, the M&M figures, and the slogan, “Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.”
Finally, generalization is a technique that “allows us to separate some parts of the unique model so that it leads to the creation of the whole category.” Brands who use this technique utilize modal operators of necessity and possibility. For example, Subway’s “The Way A Sandwich Should Be” uses “should” as a necessity modal operator to create the impression that consumers have no choice but to accept the offer given by the advertisement.
On the other hand, McDonald’s “Nobody can do it like McDonald’s can” and Chuck E. Cheese’s “Where a kid can be a kid” both use possibility modal operators to appeal to consumers’ fascination with what “can” be.
Sara Ahmed’s
“The
Promise of Happiness”
Sara Ahmed’s “The Promise of Happiness” delves into the common mantra we hold: that we “should do what makes us happy.” Ahmed begins by explaining that “Happiness involves affect (to be happy is to be affected by something), intentionality (to be happy is to be happy about something), and evaluation or judgment (to be happy about something makes something good)”21 An important aspect of happiness is that it is due to “hap”; it “happens” to us. Good things that happen in our lives bring us happiness, and we retroactively attach happy feelings to those people, places, experiences, or things that have made us happy in the past, making them into “happy objects.” Ahmed points out the dangers of such a glorification of happiness. We see happiness as a goal that can be achieved through certain things we attach happiness to. While this seems natural, the issue is the promising nature of happiness. If something disrupts this promise, we attach
21 https://affectsphere.wordpress.com/2016/05/12/the-promise-of-happiness/
too much negative feeling to it. For example, Ahmed talks about the “feminist killjoy”: the unhappy housewife who disrupts the nuclear family by speaking out against patriarchal norms.
In connection to fast food brands’ problematic anthropomorphization, we can see that when fast food brands promise that we can gain happiness or some sort of fulfillment by visiting their restaurants, they are creating unrealistic standards for “happiness.” It is an effective approach because people enjoy eating food they find to be tasty, but it can be harmful to our perceptions of “happiness” to attach it to such “happy objects” which do not truly make us happy or bring us happiness. Just like cruel optimism, Ahmed’s happy objects phenomenon is seemingly natural and harmless, but truly intentional and detrimental.
Conclusion
By examining the intricate connections between existentialism, consumerism, and the modern marketplace, we can see that brands such as Nike and Disney, along with fast food chains, have crafted marketing strategies which are effective yet harmful to consumers in various ways. Nike promotes individualism in a way that increases competitiveness and detracts from collective social movements. Disney encourages a harmfully delusional pursuit of purpose to an audience of all ages. Fast food companies mislead consumers into thinking happiness can be obtained through “happy objects.” All of these detrimental effects contribute to a world where consumerism is tainted, not just by its intrinsic dog-eats-dog instinct and frivolous nature, but by its promotion of these affect theories.
Bibliography
Wyatt, Chad. “The Power of Three Words: Nike’s ‘just Do It’ and the Evolution of Marketing Innovation.” Medium, June 2, 2023. https://chadrwyatt.medium.com/the-power-of-threewords-nikes-just-do-it-and-the-evolution-of-marketinginnovation-5d2103ee3220.
Chandler Tutle, Rob Chapman-Smith, & Brandon Stewart (Producers), & Oakley, D. (Director). (2021). “How Apple and Nike have branded your brain.” [Video/DVD] Big Think. Retrieved from https://video.alexanderstreet.com/watch/how-apple-andnike-have-branded-your-brain
"Nike Launches Final Film for its 'just do it - Nike Unlimited Campaign'." 2016.Wireless News, Aug 25. https://ezproxy.bu.edu/login?qurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww .proquest.com%2Fwire-feeds%2Fnike-launches-final-filmjust-do-unlimited%2Fdocview%2F1813891558%2Fse2%3Faccountid%3D9676.
Kaufman, W. (2005, February). Existentialism is a Humanism. Meridian Publishing Company. https://www.webpages.uidaho.edu/engl_258/Lecture%20N otes/Exist%20is%20a%20humanism.htm
“Sartre: Existentialism As Choice and Action.” (n.d.). University of Idaho. Retrieved December 20, 2024, from https://www.webpages.uidaho.edu/engl_258/Lecture%20N otes/choice%20and%20action.htm
Russo, Maria. "From Jean-Paul Sartre to Critical Existentialism: Notes for an Existentialist Ethical Theory." Sartre Studies International: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Existentialism and Contemporary Culture, vol. 28, no. 1, June 2022, pp. 49+. Gale Academic OneFile, Accessed 1 Jan. 2024.
https://go-galecom.ezproxy.bu.edu/ps/i.do?p=AONE&u=mlin_b_bumml &id=GALE%7CA707129126&v=2.1&it=r&ugroup=outsid eeee&aty=ip.
Sartre, J.-P. (1992). Being and Nothingness. Simon and Schuster. (Original work published 1943)
Sport, G., & Reed, B. (2019, September 16). Nike’s “Dream Crazy” advert starring Colin Kaepernick wins Emmy. The Guardian.https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2019/sep/16/ nikes-dream-crazy-advert-starring-colin-kaepernick-winsemmy
Cole, C. L., & Hribar, A. (1995). Celebrity Feminism: Nike Style Post-Fordism, Transcendence, and Consumer Power. Sociology of Sport Journal, 12(4), 347-369. Retrieved Jan 19, 2024, from https://doiorg.ezproxy.bu.edu/10.1123/ssj.12.4.347
Disney - Leadership, history, corporate social responsibility. (2015, October 22). The Walt Disney Company. https://thewaltdisneycompany.com/about/
Brode, D., & Brode, S. T. (Eds.). (2016). Debating disney : Pedagogical perspectives on commercial cinema. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Incorporated.ProQuest Ebook Central, https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/bu/detail.action?docI D=4503385.
O’Brien, W. (n.d.). Meaning of life, the: Early continental and analytic perspectives (J. Kirby, Ed.). Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved January 19, 2024, from https://iep.utm.edu/mean-ear/#SH2b Schopenhauer, A. The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer: The Wisdom of Life. T. B. Saunders (tr.). 1860. rpr. in The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer, 2004.
Russell, B. The Conquest of Happiness. London: Liveright, 1930. Anderson, J. (2010, July 19). “OF ETERNITY AND BEYOND: The surprising existential dread of 'Toy Story 3'.” America, 203(2), 20+. https://link-galecom.ezproxy.bu.edu/apps/doc/A232952272/AONE?u=mlin _b_bumml&sid=bookmark-AONE&xid=f7a9f098
Dobzhanska-Knight, N., & Voitko, K. (n.d.). “View of linguistic manipulative techniques in advertising slogans of fast food restaurants.” Lesya Ukrainka Eastern European National University, Ukraine. Retrieved December 16, 2023, from https://eejpl.vnu.edu.ua/index.php/eejpl/article/view/61/47
Khenfer, J., Shepherd, S., & Trendel, O. “Customer empowerment in the face of perceived Incompetence: Effect on preference for anthropomorphized brands.” Journal of Business Research, Volume 118, 2020, Pages 1-11, ISSN 01482963, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2020.06.010.
Khenfer, J., Shepherd, S., Trendel, O., “Customer empowerment in the face of perceived Incompetence: Effect on preference for anthropomorphized brands.” Journal of BUsiness Research, Elsevier. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S014829 6320303842
Neiman, P. G. (2017). Camus on Authenticity in Political Violence. European Journal of Philosophy, 25(4), 1569–1587. https://doi.org/10.1111/ejop.12241
Den Dulk, A. (2023). “My Whole Life I’ve Been a Fraud”: Resisting Excessive Critique and Reaffirming Authenticity as Communal in David Foster Wallace’s “Good Old Neon” and Albert Camus’s IThe Fall/I. Humanities (Basel), 12(1). https://doi.org/10.3390/h12010020
Rudd, A. (1996). In Search of Authenticity: From Kierkegaard to Camus. Cogito (Bristol, England), 10(1), 79–81. https://doi.org/10.5840/cogito199610148
Gray, M. E. (2008). Narcissism, abjection and the reader(e) of simone de beauvoir’s les belles images. Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature, 32(1). https://doi.org/10.4148/2334-4415.1666