Consumer Culture Vulture

A niche and frequently persecuted sub-culture turned into a global pop-cultural phenomenon, if you are not already watching RuPaul’s Drag Race (season 11 currently airing on VH1) then you should be. Not only are you in for a feast of the uniqueness, charisma, nerve and talent which the show expects of its competitors, but you are receiving a marketing masterclass.   A reality television programme first aired in 2009, Drag Race has moved from a cult to an increasingly mainstream following. In 2016, 2017 and 2018 RuPaul won the Emmy Award for ‘Outstanding host of a variety, nonfiction or reality programme’. Spin-off shows are available through traditional and new media channels. Associated live shows and conventions tour the globe. The premise of Drag Race is to be crowned ‘America’s next drag superstar’ by the eponymous RuPaul. Each week this seasoned drag artiste and a panel of critics, judge contestants’ skills at particular challenges, celebrity impersonation for examp...

I use the word 'viral' very loosely here OK. I'm no Kardashian about to break the internet, but I got a nice email earlier this week letting me know that my recent article on high street retail decline had been picked up by Reddit users. It had over 500 comments! I was excited so I took a look. Here's how it felt to be the subject of the thread. 1. Kind of cool. Oscar Wilde style it is better to be talked about than not. I've used Reddit on and off for years so it's nice to be the source of conversation for a change.  2. Then underwhelming. Like so many experiences once you've actually had the experience it's kind of 'meh'. People are talking about my work. Is nice I guess but its really not all that.  3. Um, really? A lot of the comments are saying how this is a typical viewpoint of a baby boomer. I'm 32. I'm a millennial. Is my thumbnail picture really that bad?  4. No wait a second... I didn't ignore that mille...

N.B. This is the original of an article I wrote for The Conversation. The edited and updated version is available here . I preferred the title of my original!   Christmas trading figures have revealed an all too familiar bloodbath on the British high street. Mid-market giants M&S and Debenhams saw sales fall. But specialist retailer Halfords and discounter B&M Bargains also struggled. Even that most Christmassy of stores, John Lewis , saw profits fall markedly as it discounted to keep up with competitors. The current state of the British high street is a horror story. Debenhams, founded in 1778 , has seen its share price drop more than 90% over the last year. HMV went into administration for the second time in six years shortly before Christmas. An estimated 93,000 UK retail jobs were lost in 2018 and it looks like 2019 may be even worse.    Familiar underlying causes have been blamed. Economic stagnation, unfair online competition and glob...

The current focus of the political religious and right with gender identity is driven by deep seated personal inadequacy. Existentialist philosophy offers an excoriating analysis of why this obsession arises.     In his brilliant 1944 critique of nationalist racism, ‘ the Anti-Semite and the Jew ’, Jean Paul Sartre sought to understand why so many of his countrymen collaborated with Fascism. Revisiting this essay by the French philosopher, alongside his wider writing on existentialism, helps to contextualise and interpret current transphobia. Sartre realised that anti-Semitism is different from, say, anti-black racism, in that a Jew can potentially ‘pass’ as non-Jewish. Jewishness, unlike blackness, is permissible when and because it can be hidden. This leads to a dichotomous situation. On the one hand ‘good’ Jews are those who supress their identity publically. This is as opposed to those ‘bad’ ones who do not blend in with normative demands. Jews are p...