How much thinking do you do on a daily basis?  And how much reacting do you do?

According to Russel Bishop’s article on The Huffington Post our brains are often on autopilot as we react to circumstances around us and we do little actual thinking.  His premise is that this is a bad thing – that “mindless and emotional” responses are somehow inferior to the active processes of observation, assessment, and course correction.

You don’t have look beyond the title of this blog to realize that I’m an advocate of thinking.  I believe there is value in exploring new topics and our beliefs and opinions about them.  However, I’m also an advocate of efficiency and economy of thought.  It seems to me that  this “mindless” reaction saves us a lot of time and effort.  I think that most of our reactions may be mindless in the moment, but only because we are relying on prior earnest legitimate thoughts.

When I drive to work each morning I don’t think about my route because I’ve already thought it through.  When I hear a political pundit say something I know nearly instantly what my response is.  This isn’t because I’m too lazy to truly consider my position, but because I’ve already done so and am leveraging prior mental work.  And when I react in a crisis I believe that my instinctive response is much more valuable in its timeliness than an exhaustive contemplation of the situation would have been in its thoroughness.*

As we make our way throughout a week or a month or a year we encounter many of the same situations over and over.  We see the same people, go to the same places, and confront the same problems.  There is no reason to approach each instance as though it were the first; that would be an incredible waste of time and energy.

So while I will continue to wave the flag of Ten Dollar Thoughts, I’m also here to say that there are plenty of times when thinking is overrated, and when our mindless and cursory reactions serve us just fine.

*To this end, I found the author’s example of first responders to be completely off-point.

I get a lot of pop culture second hand.  For whatever reason most of “reality”-inspired entertainment doesn’t do much for me.  So it is via water cooler talk and magazines that I have, over the years, learned about who got voted off the island, which American Idol contestant was known for his crazy hair, and the fact that “real” housewives exist in various cities.

In this vein, I have never seen an episode of “The Hills.”  My understanding of it is that it is somewhat scripted, but still a reality show.  I see its stars pictured in red carpet photos, but don’t really know who they are or what they do.  I learned from a recent article though, that the answer to that is, “not much.”  Apparently I was missing very little.  Nevertheless, I wrapped up reading this article from The Daily Beast feeling sorry for two of them.

Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt, I learned, were victims of both the reality television industry and their own stupidity.  If you have ever watched even one episode of their show then you know more about their exploits than I do.  But after reading The Daily Beast’s piece I can’t help but think that perhaps the couple’s current situation (out of work, unemployable, living off their parents, and with a mountain of debt) isn’t entirely their fault.

Today’s cult of celebrity has created the opportunity to become famous for nothing.  This is especially true of people who are young, dramatic, and attractive.  We tune in to see what antics they’ll put on each week.  We sit on our couches in pajama pants and cheer or jeer them, and they laugh all the way to the bank while we fast forward through commercials for Herbal Essences and Lean Cuisine.  The problem, though, is that we are a fickle lot.  The characters (for that is what these people are to us) that entertain us for a season or two become dull thereafter.  (What else do you expect when their fame is not tied to anything of substance.)  And yet they are led to believe – per Pratt and Montag’s 20/20 hindsight – that what they have is sustainable.

If the most glamorous and volatile of the human race were those people in their 30s or 40s perhaps the reality television industry never would have gotten off the ground.  By then we have more street smarts about us, more life experience, and more to lose.  For many (most?) of us, fame and fortune just aren’t big enough carrots to justify the sacrifice of one’s privacy and dignity.  Lucky, though, for the fast-talking Hollywood producers of the world, newly minted adults in their early twenties are much more captivating, and also much more gullible.

Montag and Pratt tell a sad tale.  They tell of cranking the publicity machine nonstop for several years, each year being required to generate more drama than the year before in order to keep us captivated.  Like any drug addict, the public needs more and more of a good thing until no amount can sate us.  At that point, instead of mortgaging our futures for one last hit we go cold turkey.  We walk away and say to Reality Star X, “Sorry, but you’re just not doing it for me anymore.  I’m on to the next Kardashian now.”  And the sad irony of it, at least in the case of these two starlets, is that it was their future we mortgaged, not our own.

It is at this point that I have to stop and point out that Montag and Pratt walked into this life with their eyes open.  Lots of people their age would have had more sense than to make the decisions they made.  They would have made some lasting investments in themselves (education and/or connections).  They would have saved a dollar or two.  And they wouldn’t have built a life of lies in order to keep a flighty audience engaged.  But I go back to the fact that they were young, largely stupid, and sold a very appealing bill of goods.

So I wonder about the larger cost of reality television.  I believe that the ultimate responsibility lies with the person who decides to walk in front of the camera and put his or her life on display.  No one forced these people to make this choice.  And if the end result is a life in shambles, well, it isn’t like the reality television landscape isn’t littered with warning tales.  Nevertheless, it makes me sad.  It makes me sad that we are a society that finds someone else’s personal implosion adequate fodder for our own entertainment; that we created this market in the first place.  And it also makes me sad that so many people are willing to sacrifice themselves for us, to lie down on the altar of a prime time air slot without regard for the damage that may ultimately be done.  Yes the stars are the most culpable.  But we are enablers of their bad decisions.  And I wonder why that doesn’t weigh more heavily on us.

Earlier this week Jamie Oliver posted an open letter to the United Nations Secretary General regarding the global health risks associated with obesity and obesity-related illnesses.  After reading his letter, something about it didn’t sit right with me.  It’s not that I didn’t agree with his position.  I’ve stated quite plainly on this blog that I believe that education is a key and missing component of our nation’s obesity epidemic.  Rather than the content, it was the delivery mechanism that gave me pause.

The open letter.  Somehow it strikes me as passive aggressive.  It takes a dialogue that was presumably between two parties and makes it public, the sole intention of which can only ever be to bring public opinion into the fold.  If I have wronged you and I apologize in an open letter, then it seems I care more about redeeming my good name in the public eye than I do about expressing genuine contrition.  If I want to persuade you of something (as was the case in the Jamie Oliver letter) and I do it in an open letter, then I am likely trying to subject you to a much greater pressure than I can exert on my own, rather than to merely make you aware of my concerns.  Something about the open letter reeks of ulterior motives.

And yet, I suspect it is an effective means of communication.  Nevertheless, I wonder if there are situations where such a public vehicle undermines the message it carries.  (There must be.)  It would have required much more effort and finagling to get a letter like Mr. Oliver’s into the hands of the UN Secretary General exclusively.  By comparison publishing such a letter on a website is a slapdash affair.  Were I the UN Secretary General I think I might be inclined to take Mr. Oliver’s position more seriously had he gone to more effort and used more discretion in getting it to me privately.

I don’t question Jamie Oliver’s motives.  I think he truly cares about the long-term benefits of a healthy diet and the cultural supports required to sustain one.  But as I look at his tactics I see the influence of modern technology.  Lately we seem to believe that the widest net we can cast is the most effective one.  We deploy Facebook and Twitter and websites.  We seem to believe that merely by exposing our message to the largest number of people possible we will make the most progress.  But I can’t help but fear that the signal to noise ratio is getting smaller and smaller.  Had Jamie Oliver managed to secure a private 15-minute meeting with the UN Secretary General would it have done more to further his cause than to post an open letter and expect public pressure to do the heavy lifting for him?

So much communication these days is scatter shot.  We throw things at the wall, watch them stick, and assume that our job is done.  But not every message is best communicated on a  billboard.  Sometimes (likely more often than we think) a message comes through stronger and clearer when communicated with specific focus to a small number of people who have the means and interest to act on it.  The thing about this approach, though, is that it is much harder.  Twenty years ago it was easier to reach a couple of key people than millions of people with cursory interest.  Today the inverse is true.  We have so many types of information competing for our attention that it’s difficult for anything to cut through the din.  And that is why I think that far too often we overlook the impact of face-to-face communication.  We forget how compelling it is to hear another person’s perspective directly from his mouth.  It is easy to deliver a strong message from behind the shield of a computer screen.  It is much harder to deliver that message in person, without edit and proofreading capabilities, and with the risk of rejection on the table.  Live and in-person communication is frequently not easy, but that doesn’t mean that it isn’t also frequently the best choice.

There is all sorts of conflict in this world.  And there are all sorts of philosophies about how to resolve that conflict.  We debate.  We fight.  We go to war.  We stage sit-ins.  We write op-eds.  We kill.  The human race has tried everything we can think of to either bridge or eliminate the gaps we find between our beliefs and those of people who disagree with us.  But I wonder how often we try to understand and really take to heart the experiences and beliefs of the person standing opposite us.

I think the answer is: not often enough.

Story Swap International agrees with me.  Last night while perusing headlines I came across this post by Reza Aslan.  In it he explains that , “as the Palestinian Authority heads to New York this week to confront the Israeli government at the United Nations with a declaration of statehood, back in Israel a group of Jewish and Arab kids are laying the foundations for a more hopeful future through the art of storytelling.”

Story Swap was born out of the Aspen Writers Workshop in 2007 and has been used in various environments worldwide to help resolve conflict.  It calls upon us merely to listen – to hear the whole story of someone on the other side of a divide – and to consider their point of view.  It does not ask us to solve a problem.  It does not ask us to bless or sanction or approve.  It does not ask us to forgive.  It asks only that we listen to another person’s story.  And, perhaps amazingly (or perhaps not), we find that when we’ve heard another person’s story we respond to them differently.

These kids in the Middle East will hear each other out.  They will open their ears and their minds and perhaps even their hearts.  And as they watch the Montagues and Capulets of their lives continue to battle each other they may be some of the first to view their counterparts with empathy instead of enmity.

I can’t speak for you, but I suspect that my life will never know the kind of cultural conflict that generations of Israelis and Palestinians have known for generations.  It is nearly beyond my comprehension.  And yet I know that I could better exemplify tolerance and acceptance on a daily basis.  Despite my best efforts, I sometimes fail.  I evaluate.  I compare.  I judge.  I recognize that some of this is human.  How else can I understand and fortify my own values and beliefs without recognizing how the world around me stacks up against the various lines I have drawn?  Nevertheless, I fail.

How much more accepting might I be if I stopped to listen to the story of someone I might otherwise judge?  If teenagers in the Middle East can set aside their prejudices and cultural barriers to listen to each other’s stories, why couldn’t I do the same?  Better yet, why couldn’t I just assume a position of tolerance without having to hear the story?  Ideally wouldn’t that be my default position?  Or is our tolerance and accepted enhanced in untold ways by hearing the story?  While a default position of tolerance is certainly an admirable approach to take, I wonder if our empathy is truer, more heartfelt, and longer lasting when we understand what our tolerance might actually mean to that person.

Perhaps this approach is naive.  But it seems to me that the world has enough cynicism.  Perhaps a little bit of innocent hope accompanied by open minds and hearts would carry us further than various peace summits and political treaties ever have.

I really should get out the door on time in the morning.  When I’m not running late I catch more of NPR’s Morning Edition than just the business news.  And – you’ll be shocked to learn this – they cover some really interesting topics.  On Monday I had an earlier-than-usual meeting and left at what should be considered “on time” but actually registers as “early” for me.  As I drove I listened to this story about “Dignity Therapy” for dying people, and I’ve been thinking about it ever since.

The long and short of it is that impending death – not surprisingly - changes our outlook on things, particularly our own lives.  A psychiatrist named Harvey Chochinov who counsels the dying took particular note of this and wanted to explore what about death caused such a shift in our vantage points.  According to the NPR piece, “[w]hat he found was that what people found most assaulting and annihilating was this idea that who they were would completely cease to exist after their death.  And so Chochinov decided to do something about it.”

The solution was to work with his clients to document their lives.  This documentation provided his clients the assurance that something about themselves will live on beyond their deaths.  For some of his clients they were assuaged by the mere knowledge that their stories would continue.  Others – those whose lives were troubled – told their stories to serve as a warning to younger friends or family members.

NPR’s recount of Chochinov’s work mentions that, “[t]he stories we tell about ourselves at the end of our lives are often very different than the stories that we tell about ourselves at other points.”  We remember things differently when faced with death, and this quite normal.  What fascinates me about this is not that we do it in the first place, but that whether or not we look back over our lives with accuracy has no bearing on how therapeutic the retrospective exercise is.

Apparently when it comes to evaluating the whole of our lives we may reframe many parts of them.  We may choose to remember only the good or only the bad, and this is okay.  When we look back over an entire life we have the benefit of seeing how a particular event played out, and what light best to cast it in for others.  Much like an author crafting a story, dying people can see the whole picture, understand how each of the moving parts interacts, and emphasize or downplay various events based on their ultimate significance to the larger narrative.  This isn’t something we can do with such events as they play out in real time.

I think someday (hopefully not for a very long while) I will find peace in such retrospection.  But I wonder if it isn’t a good thing not to have such context in the present moment.  We live our lives as though nearly everything is important.  Even in situations where we can see that something good or bad going on really doesn’t carry significant weight in the long run, we don’t stop experiencing it because of that.  I’m inclined to think it is beneficial to our lives that each moment is lived on roughly equal footing – that is, with comparable significance ascribed to it in the present tense.  Otherwise we might be inclined to behave lazily toward moments we know to hold no long-term meaning, or to overly stress about those we know will live with us for a long time.

The most comforting thing about these little rewrites that we make in the face of death, though, is that we can ultimately render any moment in any light we choose.  The successes can be painted with humility, the failures with grace.  Our hindsight is nearly always nearly perfect.  It is a balm to me to know that even my foibles will be salvaged in some way when I look back on them.  And in the meantime I don’t have to concern myself with which moments may or may not be “major” in the long run, but just live my life as best I can in the present moment, and count on seeing the larger portrait of my life only after it is complete.

Much has been made in recent years of the costs of factory farming.  The antibiotics.  The sewage.  The animals who die of illness before they can be slaughtered.  Because of these things it is now reasonably easy to find grass fed beef, free range eggs, pastured hens, and so on.  But there is another cost of factory farming that I hadn’t really contemplated until I read this article from The Atlantic on the psychology of factory farming.

Author James McWilliams posits that large scale animal husbandry divorces humans from the unique welfare of individual animals; that commoditizing them eliminates the unhappy business of seeing an animal you carefully raised be slaughtered because the rancher no longer has any kind of relationship with each animal whose demise might cause him guilt or remorse.  McWilliams comments that in the bluntest terms, factory farming allows the rancher “to kill thousands of animals a year and remain a happy person.”

As I pondered the implications of that statement I surprised myself.  I thought that, upon reflection, I would reach the conclusion that the bond between animal and rancher should exist for its own sake; that animals have a right to such a relationship.  Interestingly, though (at least to me…) that’s not where I landed.  I think the psychology of factory farming is dangerous not because the animals are deprived of any relationship.  I find it more important that they are deprived of the byproducts of such a relationship.

When we have a relationship with an animal we treat it accordingly.  We ensure that it is healthy.  We ensure that it isn’t overly stressed.  We ensure that its life is reasonably comfortable.  These qualities translate differently for steers than for lap dogs, naturally.  But they still exist in some measure in both situations.  When our level of concern for an animal relates to its ability to produce a profit, and not to our personal relationship to it we treat it much differently.  We don’t worry about its levels of stress or comfort.  We worry about its health only to the extent that such health affects profit margins.  We allow ourselves to get away with behavior which under any other circumstances we would find abusive.

I believe that in the long run we only hurt ourselves with this approach to animal husbandry.  We poison our land with petroleum-based fertilizers, herbicides, and pesticides that grow the grain that feeds the animals.  We increase the strength and drug resistance of various bacteria by pumping animal feed full of antibiotics.  We increase the saturated fat content and decrease the omega-3 and omega-6 content of the meat we consume.  And, by supporting an industry that produces meat so cheaply we ultimately consume more meat and animal fat than is healthy.  We lose on every count.

Don’t mistake me, though.  It’s not only about the human fallout for me.  I don’t view livestock as pets, but I still believe that animals deserve some base level of care that is not met by factory farming.  Further still, as humans I believe it is innate to us to develop relationships – with each other, with pets, with working animals, and with food animals.  In the case of food animals our ability and desire to bond with those animals in some sense protects us from ourselves.

With factory farming we have managed to turn a blind eye to one of our basic human predilections and many people think that it’s a win-win situation because hamburger meat costs $1.49/pound.  But the fact remains, we pay the price somewhere, even if it isn’t at the grocery store checkout line.

Many thanks to loyal reader Rebecca at It’s Kili Time for recommending this article to me.  I love getting blog fodder from readers!

Sometimes we women just don’t do ourselves any favors.

That was the thought that coursed through my mind as I read this article entitled “Do Women Choose Beauty Over Health?”  According to the United States Surgeon General Dr. Regina Benjamin, women are inclined to forego exercise on any given day because they don’t want their hair to get sweaty or to have to wash it.

Really?  We need the Surgeon General to tell us that fitness is more important than good hair?  Unfortunately the answer is Yes.

I suppose when you get into the heart of the issue it’s a little more understandable than it sounds on its face.  Dr. Benjamin explained that lots of women (especially African American women such as herself) spend a great deal of time and money achieving a certain hairstyle.  The thought of going to that time and expense again is a big disincentive to exercise.  She also commented that this is particularly true when we are looking for reasons not to work out in the first place.

What breaks my heart about this phenomenon is that it points to how little we actually count health in our estimation of beauty.  When we see a beautiful woman with glowing skin, white teeth, and shiny hair we immediately want to know about her daily personal care routine and what products she uses.  We don’t wonder about whether whole grains and lots of produce are key components of her diet.  We don’t readily consider what she does to keep her stress levels low and get enough sleep.  We don’t ask if exercise is a regular part of her life.  And yet when we get down to it the things that we find most attractive in ourselves and others are typically the byproducts of a healthy lifestyle.

This outlook holds true on the new website YouBeauty which works to inspire women to live healthy lifestyles through the incentives of improved appearances.  However, in spite of its basic premise the site’s CEO commented that the best way to get women to do anything healthy is to tell them it will make them more beautiful – eat broccoli, work up a good sweat, you name it.

I’ve addressed the issue of vanity in a couple of different posts recently (here and here), and I’m not quite sure why it’s resonating with me so much right now.  I suspect it has a lot to do with the fact that at 31 weeks pregnant I’ve had to sacrifice much of my vanity and focus much more heavily on my health.  My baby needs me to be healthy, not beautiful.  What interests me about this is that it’s not at all uncommon for pregnant women to find renewed energy for a healthy lifestyle.  When we are growing another life we take great care of ourselves.  We eat balanced diets.  We are willing to gain weight.  We go organic.  We drink more water and rest more.  We give up caffeine.  These changes and sacrifices are not insignificant.  We do all of these things for our babies, yet we are disinclined to do them for ourselves.

This makes me sad because it means that what effort we go to is always for someone else.  Whether it’s a husband or a job interview or a 20th high school reunion, the fact remains that we are certainly willing to jump through all sorts of hoops for our looks.  But by and large those hoops don’t benefit us.  In a perfect world we would all eat nine servings of fruits and vegetables each day, sleep eight hours each night, exercise for an hour five days a week, and drink 64 ounces of water daily.  We would do these things for ourselves – to live longer, healthier, and happier lives.

I’m not here to say that superficial indulgences aren’t perfectly acceptable from time to time.  (This is the part where I confess that the zippered makeup case in my purse contains at least 20 different seasonally updated shades of lipstick, gloss, and liner at any given time…)  But those indulgences should be the frosting, not the foundation.

Ladies, healthy is beautiful.  If we’re going to go through contortions for our appearances, let’s at least go about it in ways that benefit our health.  I’ll go to the gym if you will.  Deal?

Could you go an entire year without looking in a mirror?  Would you want to?  And further still, do you think it would benefit you in any way to do so?

I ask this question because UCLA grad student Kjerstin Gruys is going to do just that.  One year without looking at her own reflection even once.  (Not even on her wedding day.)  The Stylelist.com article on the topic comments that, “Feeling the already constant pressure to look perfect intensified by wedding planning, Gruys’ self-described “struggle with poor body image” made her wonder if a year without mirrors could lead to greater self-acceptance and appreciation for her body.”

Coming on the heels of my recent post about the benefits of vanity, I wonder how this topic will sit with you.  I posited in my earlier post that there are benefits to having a modicum of vanity; that having an interest in our appearance can (when applied in moderation) help drive us to make healthy decisions.  It was a position that was roundly shot down by many of my commenters.  So let’s consider a different perspective.  The premise is this: we are too focused on our looks.  We worry too much about how we appear to other people, and that obsession, for some people, devolves into full-throttle psychological disorders.  By wholly eliminating our access to our own visage, we will minimize our concern with appearances and realize the greater significance of other aspects of our lives.

I don’t altogether disagree with that position.  I am sure that there are better things for me to worry about throughout the day than whether or not the bottom eyeliner on my left eye has smudged yet or not.  (It smudges every day, but only the left eye.  So strange!)  If such trivialities were removed from my life for an entire year, I can see how I might become less concerned with appearances overall.

What I think will actually be more interesting, though, is for Gruys to note and document what changes she observes in other people’s behavior toward her during this year.  She still intends to wear makeup and has learned to apply it by feel.  Presumably she will still wear matching clothes and style her hair as well.  But with less attention paid to all of these endeavors, will she find that she is taken less seriously?  Will people in public treat her differently?  Will she find that, on the whole, all the time she previously spend focusing on her appearance was wasted?

On another note, I’m a little confused about the sheer mechanics of this exercise.  Within the confines of your own home it would be easy enough to remove or avoid  mirrors.  But what about in public?  Every ladies’ restroom I’ve ever entered has a mirror hanging over the sink.  How will she wash her hands without, even if inadvertently, catching a glimpse of herself?  What about seeing your own reflection in the window of your car as you unlock it?  What do you say to your stylist after having your haircut?  “Thanks, but I can’t tell you whether or not I’m happy with what you just did”?  The practical application of this experiment seems a bit unrealistic to me.

And this brings up the most important point.  This experiment is just that, an experiment.  It is a gimmick to test a hypothesis (and to score a book deal).  For those purposes I can understand going to some length to contrive a life without mirrors.  But if life without mirrors isn’t reality, wouldn’t the more worthwhile exercise be to consider these same questions of vanity and obsession within the natural environment of our lives?  I’m sure the point here is to take the idea to its logical extreme in order to test a theory.  I doubt that Gruys will end the year with a decision to swear of mirrors for good.  But I think the lasting value of her experiment will be to determine how she allows the personal or societal pressure to focus on her looks to influence the way she lives her life.  I hope I am reminded of her story when the book (to be cleverly titled “Mirror, Mirror, Off the Wall”) comes out, as I will be curious to her perspective in hindsight.

My favorite page

I suppose I think it’s a shame.  I’ve been mulling it over for several days now, trying to decide what, exactly, was my stance on the decision of the House of Representatives to end its 200-year-old page program.

I was never a page, so I don’t have any personal nostalgia attached to the news.  Nevertheless, I feel a bit sad about it.  I read that, “After nearly 200 years, the House page program that allowed high school students to serve as messengers and learn about Congress is ending, rendered obsolete by the Internet and email in cost-cutting times,” and it took the wind out of my sails a bit.

Apparently the program costs around $5 million per year to run.  And apparently with so much communication delivered electronically now (including the news that the program would be ending), the House just didn’t feel it could justify the cost.  I get that.  This is not a time to be wasting money solely in a nod to tradition.   But why not find something else for these eager and civic-minded kids to do?

I’ve read one after another article in recent years about how today’s teens and college aged kids are narcissistic and utterly self-absorbed.  If that’s really true, doesn’t something like the page program seem like a perfect antidote?  Wouldn’t it be wonderful for these kids to continue to have the chance to get away from home for a summer, become a part of something much bigger and much older than themselves, and learn a lot about how our legislative branch works?  So what if they aren’t needed as errand boys and girls anymore.  That doesn’t mean there’s nothing for them to do.  I wish that, rather than chuck the thing altogether, someone had come up with another use for the pages.  I’m not a Washington insider, so I haven’t the foggiest idea what needs are unmet, but I can’t imagine that there’s nothing in Washington that a group of smart, motivated kids couldn’t tackle.

It’s not that I’m advocating keeping the page program out of some sense of hanging onto the past.  Perhaps there is a token of that – it’s always sad to see something that once thrived wither and die on the vine – but more than anything I think it’s a lost opportunity.  It’s a lost opportunity not only for the kids who won’t get to serve, but also for our country which is giving up on an opportunity to inspire young people.  (Despite the fact that this summer likely wouldn’t have been a very inspiring one on Capitol Hill…)

Congress has proven many times over recently that creative thinking isn’t their forte, so perhaps it’s asking too much to suggest that they come up with a better use for the pages.  But I have a hard time believing that all the value that changed hands through the page program (in both directions) over the past 200 years can be wholly captured by e-mail.

If you are anything like me, you try to keep any aspect of MTV’s “Jersey Shore” at an arm’s length.  If you do get into close proximity to anything “Jersey Shore” related you try to make sure that you have your irony hat affixed firmly to your head.  I know that the antics of the show’s cast fall squarely into the guilty pleasure zone of a lot of Americans, but they just don’t do it for me.

Nevertheless, I was tickled to read this article about one of the show’s main characters, “The Situation.”  As most people under the age of 40 know, Michael “The Situation” Sorrentino is a big fan of his abs.  As such, he is also a fan of lifting his shirt to show them off, frequently revealing the waistband of his Abercrombie and Fitch boxer shorts.  What can I say?  He’s a class act. 

Abercrombie goes to extraordinary lengths to maintain a particular brand image – an image based in no small part on the six-pack abs of its models.  Yet the company finds itself nervous about the erosion of that brand image due to their increasing connection to “The Situation.”  So, in a move that is as funny as it is probably hopeless, they have offered (quite publicly) to pay “The Situation” to stop wearing their clothes. 

I laughed when I first read this news.  As a marketing professional I know well the finely tuned dance that brand cultivation can be.  It’s easier to manage in the B-to-B world than it is in consumer markets, so I can only imagine what stress-induced gymnastics this “Situation” situation has caused the marketing folks over at Abercrombie.  Offering to pay someone to quit wearing your brand is unconventional, and likely would not have been particularly successful if done in private.  By making this offer publicly Abercrombie has signaled that “The Situation” doesn’t represent them.  They don’t even need him to take them up on their offer.  That is the genius of their move.

However, once I got past the initial chuckles, something about it didn’t sit right with me.  The thing is this: Abercrombie and Fitch has intentionally and publicly insulted someone.  They have effectively said, “We think you’re tacky and we don’t want you near our brand.”  Granted “The Situation” is a grown man capitalizing on the media fascination with his show and is cultivating a brand in much the same way that Abercrombie is.  But this still feels a little bit below the belt, and I think the reason for that is that it feels disingenuous of Abercrombie. 

Abercrombie’s models are highly likely to be wearing not a single stitch of Abercrombie’s clothing in many of the retailer’s seasonal catalogs.  It markets itself on a particular image – an image of toned bodies and lives of leisure.  If he were better looking in the face “The Situation” actually has exactly the type of physique that Abercrombie might put in the center of a black and white beach scene photo spread.  Whether or not they want to admit it, Jersey Shore types are their target market.  (This isn’t Brooks Brothers we’re talking about here…)  So to turn around and claim superiority hits a false note.

It’s not that I really feel badly for “The Situation.”  These days he’s laughing all the way to the bank.  But I find myself tsk-tsking at Abercrombie and Fitch.  They make a mint off of tanned and toned teens aspiring to have abs just like Mike Sorrentino’s, yet they’re willing to throw him under the bus to try to claim the high road.  And it is that move – while strategically clever – that ironically places them squarely on the low road, at least in my mind.