Posting some old thoughts (2024-9-7)
The recent (at least this year per my perception) advertising blitz of these whole body deodorants appears to me as a sign of peak capitalism, or perhaps just a very stark example of the craven nature of sales.
I will start with the natural question: How many places on the human body smell all that much to begin with? Per my recollection, the apocrine sweat glands, in the underarm area and the pubic area. I think perhaps behind the ears and perhaps somewhere else, but they are limited.
To quote Wikipedia: “In humans, apocrine sweat glands are found only in certain locations of the body: the axillae(armpits), areola and nipples of the breast, ear canal, eyelids, wings of the nostril, perineal region, and some parts of the external genitalia.”
–https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apocrine_sweat_gland accessed 2024-9-7
I can not say I find any areas sans the armpits to have too terrible a smell. Apparently, even in this modern era of an American sensibility that trends towards intense fragrance, such things have not been a problem up until the present. But I am to be led to believe, by the existence of ads letting me know, that one should be concerned with such smells.
I am not convinced.
Now I must, to be fair, admit to enjoying fragrance myself. But the difference must be that I have no feeling of being without if I smell of nothing.
Or perhaps I can not tell anymore.
Returning to the issue, it is sensible to analogize the current advertising blitz, in online ads and TV commercials, to that which brought us deodorant at all. I think it is well known that such consumer desires and even social expectations were in part if not in whole driven by commercial concerns from the turn of the century on.
I extend no benefit of the doubt that such commercial concerns are at work presently trying to induce demand.
I think it is indicative of the constant growth mindset. Having perhaps saturated the current market for deodorant with brands and scents and varieties that provide plenty of ‘individuation’ through consumption. It has reached the conclusion. There is perhaps no more room in that market for growth, only a steady state of consumption. This is apparently not enough for them.
They need a new product. Not a replacement, of course, but a reason to consume more, or add another product.
It is important to discuss such a view or such a possibility so as to hopefully convince others and head these advertisers and companies off in their commercial ambitions.
I think it offends so much since it is once more turning the human body (and some things I happen to appreciate about it, like the real smells) into something homogeneous.
Inducing shame in someone to sell must be thought of as unacceptable. It should be named as what it is, craven exploitation of human weakness.
As another aside, I refuse to be homogenized or to be what some would say I ought to be. This offends that sensibility in me.